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Fictional Contexts and Referential Opacity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

L.A. Whitt
L.A. Whitt*
Affiliation:
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275U.S.A.
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Extract

Quantified modal logic and propositional attitudes have long been regarded as sites susceptible to referential opacity — that curious affliction first diagnosed by Quine. In this paper I suggest a way of alleviating the symptoms of referential opacity as they manifest themselves in fictional contexts, contexts in which we are confronted by discourse about fiction(s). Indeed, a case might be made against Quine that it is fictional, rather than quotational, contexts which are the referentially opaque contexts par excellence. For whether we take a Fregean line on the matter and consider the obliquity of fictional terms as due to shift of reference, or a Quinean line and consider their opacity as due to failure of reference, their non-standard (or as Kaplan might put it, non-vulgar) occurrence is clear and avowed. Moreover, as the non-standardness or non-vulgarity of terms in fictional contexts is by design and not due to some mere accident of orthography, they seem in many ways to be both more interesting and potentially more revealing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 327 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1985

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References

1 See Quine, W.V.O. ‘Reference and Modality’ in his From a Logical Point of View (New York: Harper and Row 1961) 139–57.Google Scholar The paper is reprinted together with a good collection of some of the literature it has generated in L., Linsky Reference and Modality (London: Oxford University Press 1971).Google Scholar

2 More details of the Waltonian approach to fictional contexts can be found in his following articles: ‘How Remote are Fictional Worlds from the Real World’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 37 (1978) 11-23; ‘Fearing Fictions,’ Journal of Philosophy, LXXVI, (1978) 5-27; ‘Fiction, Fiction-Making, and Styles of Fictionality,’ Philosophy and Literature, VII, (1983) 78-88. However, it should be noted that the analysis which follows does not turn upon acceptance of Walton's approach to fictional contexts.

3 A discussion of what it is for a sentence to be fictional occurs in Walton's ‘Pictures and Make-Believe,’ Philosophical Review, 82 (1973) 283-319.

4 D., Kaplan ‘Quantifying In’ in Davidson, D. and Hintikka, J. eds., Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W. V. Quine, (Dordrecht Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co. 1969) 178–214.Google Scholar Reprinted in Linsky, 112-44.

5 Ralph and Ortcutt were first introduced to the philosophical community by Quine some time ago. See ‘Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes,’ Journal of Philosophy, 53 (1956) 177-87. Also reprinted in Linsky, 101-11.

6 D. Kaplan, in Linsky, 117.

7 There are important differences between the activities of authors (original supposers) and those of readers (subsequent supposers). A good deal more needs to be said here.

8 D. Kaplan, in Linsky, 131.

9 Consider the following complication. Ralph, knowing that he is reading The Greatest Spy Story Ever Told, does indeed suppose that the F.B.I. is seeking Bernard J, Ortcutt. What happens when he goes on to read that the head of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover, is especially keen on ending the case? On this analysis, we would say that Ralph has been invited by the author to consider the activities of a new character, one J. Edgar Hoover. Thus, Ralph supposes, he does not believe, that Hoover is determined to close the Ortcutt case. ‘Hoover’ will function as a livid name for Ralph in this fictional context. This does not prevent ‘Hoover’ from functioning as a vivid name for Ralph in other contexts, such as when he knows he is reading The New York Times. He may, of course, draw upon information he has about the real J. Edgar Hoover to enrich his reading of the text - provided that it is not overruled by what is said, or by what follows from what is said, in the text. The fictional operator would need to be prefixed to any sentence generated in this fashion.

10 It should be noted that this way of providing for a relational sense of supposition commits us to the existence of characters. Although I will not attempt to provide it here, it seems to me that some insight into the nature of such entities can be gained by approaching them as theoretical entities of literary criticism and by developing for them an analysis along essentially Waltonian lines. One might explore his suggestive remarks about the activity of theorists engaging in a game of make-believe in which the novel serves as a prop. Characters are among the entities with which they populate their theories.