Realistic Fictionalism Christopher Jay UCL (Submitted for the degree of PhD, Summer 2011) I, Christopher Jay, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own, except where indicated. __________________________________ (14/09/2011) 2 Abstract Realistic Fictionalism, argues for two main claims: First, that there is no conceptual or logical incoherence in the idea of a fictionalist theory of some discourse which accommodates a form of realism about that discourse (a claim which has been made in passing by various people, but which has never been adequately explored and assessed); and Second, that just such a fictionalist theory promises to be the best theory of our ordinary moral commitments, judgements and deliberation. In Part I, I explore the spirit of fictionalism and argue that thinking of fictionalism as closely tied to an analogy between its target discourse and fiction is liable to be misleading and is not mandatory. It emerges that the fictionalist’s strategy requires just a semantic thesis (representationalism) and a thesis about the sort of ‘acceptance’ appropriate for some practice involving their target discourse (nondoxasticism). I offer a theory of what ‘acceptance’ is, which treats belief as a mode of acceptance and distinguishes the nondoxastic modes of acceptance from belief in a principled and independently plausible way. And I argue that the coherence of realistic fictionalism is preserved by the fact that a person (the realistic fictionalist) can perfectly coherently both believe and nondoxastically accept the same claims. In Part II, I employ the theory of acceptance developed in Part I to propose a fictionalist model of how our ordinary moral commitments often are and generally ought to be. I then give an argument to the conclusion that, in respect of the relation between moral commitment and action guiding at least, it would be better if our moral commitments were to be nondoxastic. I then argue that realistic fictionalism offers a better way of explaining why we ought to have any moral commitments at all than a non-realist fictionalist theory could. 3 Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction: Introduction 9 1. Introduction 9 2. Some Key ‘Isms 14 3. The Character-Centred Fictionalist Model 24 4. The Thesis 31 Part I Chapter One: The Spirit of Fictionalism 34 1. Introduction 34 2. Fiction, Truth and Acceptance 36 3. Different Types of Fictionalism 45 4. Fictionalism and Truth in Fiction 53 5. Conclusion 55 Chapter Two: Fictionalism for Realists 58 1. Introduction 58 2. Fictionalism 60 3. Daly’s Trilemma 68 4. The Crowding Out Objection 70 5. No Crowding Out 72 6. Conclusion 83 Chapter Three: The Varieties of Acceptance 84 1. Introduction 84 2. Acceptance and Belief 86 3. A Theory of Acceptance 91 4. Horwich’s Objection 103 5. Fictionalism and Pragmatic Norms 111 6. Not Just Practicalities 114 7. Conclusion 116 Part II Chapter Four: The Nondoxastic Character of Moral Commitment 120 1. Introduction 120 2. The Character of Moral Commitment 124 3. Evidence 132 4. Excursus: A Literary Illustration 147 5. Conclusion 151 4 Chapter Five: The Good in the Nondoxastic 153 1. Introduction 153 2. Must Nondoxastic Commitments be Flimsy? 155 3. Fictionalisms: Hermeneutic, Revolutionary, and Evaluative 156 4. The Subjective Warrant Argument 162 5. Realistic Fictionalism and the Subjective Warrant Argument(s) 188 6. Conclusion 192 Chapter Six: Vindicating Realism 194 1. Introduction 194 2. Error Theory and the Challenge to Ordinary Commitments 198 3. How a Vindication Can Be the Wrong Sort of Vindication 202 4. The Wrong Sort of Vindication of Morality 208 5. An Adequate Vindication of Morality 214 6. Conclusion 229 Conclusion: Conclusion 231 References 236 5 Acknowledgments The Philosophy department at UCL is a wonderful place to do research, and my time there writing this thesis has been filled with friendliness and lots of stimulating discussion, from which I have learned an immeasurable amount. This thesis would not be even as good as it is now were it not for the people and atmosphere there. The debt I owe to Mark Kalderon’s published work on fictionalism will be obvious from what I have written, but what I really want to thank him for is his support and advice in his capacity as supervisor throughout my writing it. He has been always pragmatic, frequently critical (but always constructively), and the source of a great many ideas and suggestions. And not only has it been exciting working on fictionalism with the person whose book, Moral Fictionalism, awakened me to both the topic and the possibility of a novel position within it worth exploring, it has been a valuable lesson in how to do philosophy to work at close quarters with a philosopher whose interests and expertise range so widely and so deeply. I have also had the privilege of discussing drafts of some portions of the written work included here (or related work) with Marcus Giaquinto and with Jonathan Wolff. I want to thank them both for their encouragement and for their comments. Much of my view, and of the way in which I develop it here, is the result of conversations I have had with others (sympathetic or sceptical) in the UCL department and within the University of London philosophy community, in a variety of contexts: I thank Luc Bovens, George Hull, Rory Madden, Mike Martin, Lucy O’Brien, Moises Vaca Paniagua, David Papineau, Ian Rumfitt and Barry Smith; and in particular I thank Craig French for his continuing interest in what I am doing and his eye for detail, and Lee Walters for his insights and for championing my cause. Both have been invaluable intellectual allies. I must also mention a Friday afternoon on which I had conversations with first Maarten Steenhagen and then Amber Corfield-Moore which finally (after several failed attempts to adequately formulate my view of the nondoxastic character of moral commitment) put me in a position to say what my positive view is. I have also benefitted from conversation, outside London, with Ralph Wedgwood. And, for as long as I have been thinking about philosophy, I have been challenged and prompted by Hayder Al-Mohammad, as much on the topics of this thesis as on anything. It is indicative of the spirit of friendly cooperativeness I have so much enjoyed at UCL that the (now annual) summer Work In Progress (WIP) seminars, at which the graduate community discuss each others’ work, are so well attended and useful. In a 2010 WIP we discussed a paper of mine on 6 the themes of this thesis (though of which only a few paragraphs have survived into the final work), and in 2011 the WIP discussed a penultimate draft of Chapter Four. I very much want to thank everyone who attended those discussions, and particularly Tom Avery, Henry Clarke, Amber Corfield-Moore, Craig French, Alex Geddes, Dave Holly, George Hull, Ben Martin, Jonny McIntosh, Ed Nettel, Tim Short, Maarten Steenhagen, Lee Walters and no doubt some others whose contributing I have failed in my duty to recall for their help. Versions of Chapter Two were presented at graduate conferences in Manchester (Open Minds IV) and Leeds (CMM Graduate Metaphysics Conference) in the summer of 2009, and I am grateful to Phil Brown, Phil Letts, David Liggins, Jon Robson (my commentator at Leeds), Jason Turner, Robbie Williams, and several others at those institutions for their questions and feedback. I am certain that I owe debts of gratitude for ideas and discussions which I have not managed to record here. If I have forgotten (because I failed to adequately record) the names of some who have helped me it is because I am slovenly and decadent, and not because I am ungrateful. I have enjoyed the financial support of both the AHRC (who fully funded my doctoral research in 2008-10, having already funded my MPhil) and the Royal Institute of Philosophy (whose Bursary has supported the final year of my research). I am very grateful to those institutions, and to those at UCL who were instrumental in securing their support. My family have always encouraged me, and for that I am enormously grateful. I hope the fact that I have finally managed to complete my education after all this time will be as much a source of pride to them as their support (both financial and moral) has been appreciated by me. It is customary on occasions such as this for the author to say that they could not have written the work without the love and support of their partner. I consider it no great compliment to mine to saddle her with partial responsibility for the existence of this work, but without Amber Corfield- Moore’s love and support its author would be incalculably less happy and less utterly delighted to be alive. I hope that truthful compliment does something approaching adequate justice to the gratitude I owe her, though I know that it does not. 7 And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for. Ishmael, in Moby Dick (Herman Melville) 8 – Introduction – Introduction Where [‘The Myth of the Seven’] speaks of ‘making as if you believe that S’, I would now say ‘being as if you believe that S, but not really believing it except possibly per accidens’ (See Yablo, 2002a). Related to this, mathematical objects may exist for all I know. I do not rule it out that ‘2 + 3 = 5’ is literally true in addition to being metaphorically true, making it a twice-true metaphor along the lines of ‘no man is an island’.