The Paradox of Fictional Creatures

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a competent paper that offers a nice characterization of the logical space of the metaphysics of fictional characters, and a promising conceptual analysis of the notion of creation.

My main concern is about the discussion of type artifactualism in the last pages (pp. 12-15) I cannot see why a type that lacks tokens should not exist. Let us consider for example an unrealized architectural project. The building does not exist but the project does exist. The same holds true for fictional characters as types. The author does not offer any compelling evidence against that.

Furthermore, I have a couple of minor concerns. 

1) The claim that artifactualism is a revisionary view (p. 11) is not evident and should be supported by some reasons.

2) The schema referred to at p. 15 cannot be seen in the pdf.

Author Response

Thank you for your time and for your comments: much appreciated. Here are my responses:

• I never said (or never meant to say) that types do not exist because they lack token. I said that the fiction/real distinction applies at the level of types, so that, contrary to what the artefactualist says, it is very probable that there is a difference between a fictional type and a nonfictional type, viz. the first one does not exist, because of an application of principle (B).
      --> I made it clearer: esp. deleted the passages that were misleading. This last paragraph is meant to show that "type theorists" unduely presuppose that if we move at the level of types, there is no more reason to deny the existence of the type. But the example with fictional languages shows that at the level of types, the question of existence does arise. Types do not automatically exist. Some do, other don't. And fictional types are likely to not exist (appealing to B).
• This is a minor point (and I changed "difficulty" to "remark" to emphasise its minor status). I say so (against Thomasson), because of the way I set up the paradox: artefactualism needs to argue both against a principle and an intuition.
      --> I changed the paragraph. Thx, for the suggestion.
• Sorry for this: my editing error.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very clearly written and competent paper, which offers an original variation on anti-creationist ideas on the ontology of fictional characters. I think it should be made available to interested researchers.

 

Typo: The last but one paragraph (p. 15, lines 627-8) announces that "For those of us who like schemas, here is what I have done to the logical space:", but the schema is missing.

Author Response

Thank you for your reading time: much apprecieated. I'm very sorry, that was my editing error. Should be fixed now.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a very well researched paper on intuitions about the non/existence of fictional characters which evinces deep knowledge of the literature. It presents a novel solution to the competing intuitions by articulating them in a form of paradox. While the intuitions clearly diverge and while there is a novel proposal to these divergences the article ultimately fails in its attempt because the form of the paradox is invalid, i.e. framed like this there is no paradox. Here is why:

The author is talking about different meanings of 'created' across A and C. Claiming there is a paradox here is akin to saying:

Mata Hari is a mole
All moles have 4 legs
Mata Hari has four legs

 

Put differently, the writer of this essay has dropped 'Author' from 'author X created Y' in the description of C (page 7) to make the creation-existence link more salient but 'author x created y' and 'x created y' are not the same statements precisely because 'author' serves as a qualifier which already makes us think of creation as fictional creation with its links to non-existence. So in A and B (page 6) the author uses 7 ('author x created y'), but in C the author uses 7* ('x created y'). 

 

Additionally, in one's own solution to the paradox it seems strange to say that Mary Shelley only invented and did not realise Frankenstein. Surely there is a difference between merely inventing something like having an idead of 'a monster which longs to be human' and then writing hundreds of pages about that monster. The latter should count for something more than invention. Why not realisation?

 

There are minor typos/mistakes like missing words or endings. For instance 'When it comes to inventions, sometimes new things a brought into existence, sometimes not'

is mising 'are' instead of 'a'

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your time and comments on this manuscript. Much appreciated. Here are my responses:

• On the equivocation of "created", I am in fact following the literature on this, see "creationsit locutions", and the "fictional creationism debate". So I guess your counter-argument is that this whole literature is on the wrong track, which might very well be the case. That being said, maybe you could see my solution as going in this direction, for end up defending a more fine-grained theory of creation, according to which one should conceptually distinguish between creation and invention.
• I made it more explicit, esp. fn. 17 and added "(author)" in the justification of (C). The fact that authors create is supposed to be an instance of a more general inference pattern where X creates Y, for X either an author or non-authorial creator.

 

• Why did Mary Shelly not realise FM? Well, because (following literature again on this), the candidate for existence here is not the monster which longs to be human, but an abstract artefact which has a place in world literature. FM the abstract artefact is crucially abstract (at the level of a type for the type version of artefactualism). And I argue that its being fictional exmplains why its not realised (principle B trumps principle C). 
      --> made it more explicit in fn. 27.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I'm still having troubles with the overall logical coherene of the essay. Now, the original issue has been addressed (though it still seems to me there is no reason to put 'author' in parenthesis - it should be just kept normally). But a different issue has appeared through introduction of footnote 13. If 'really' is meant in the sene of footnote 13 then (B) linking principle, defined as analytic entailment, is not obvious as footnote 13 makes it clear. In the explanation of that entailnment EVerett is quoted to say “Fictional characters exist in stories, not the real world,”. But that defines 'real' in the sense of how 'ordinary' people use it, something along the lines of 'not how historical peple exist'. This is how I read 'real' to mean in in the first version. But if that is not how it is meant, then clearly fictional characters do exist in some sense, they are a part '“being part of the real world” across the board.' So, again, the whole article is based on a non-existent paradox because now (B) does not follow.

 

Also, I am still a bit sceptical about the analysis of creation along the lines of invention and realisation. I do not think it captures the difference between literary fictional creation and creation of objects like helicopters. And that is why I do not think (7b) is false. Here is my reasoning. Mary Shelley (MS) first had to have an idea of Frankenstein's Monster (FM). And then she had to execute that idea by writing hundreds of pages about FM, drafting, redrafting, etc. In that sense it seems to me it can be said she both invented (Step 1) and realised (Step 2) FM. Counterargument might be that the same steps are involved in whatever Da Vinci did: first, some idea of a helicopter and then, second step, numerous drawings, redrawings of it, etc. But that seems to only suggest that the analysis of 'invention' and 'realisation' making up the whole of 'creation' is not quite applicable to both cases (MS and da Vinci). Because in MS' case step 2 is also everything you need to do to complete your creative project. There is nothing more to do - FM is created.

In Da Vinci's case of helicopter, the case with actual objects, you still need step 3 in which you produce the object physically. Something like - concretisation.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 
Thank you very much for taking the time for this close re-reading, and please excuse the delay of this reply: the end of the summer break is unfortunately a busy time each year. I'm working on that!

In accordance with the scientific editors, I have decided not to make further changes, for I think the paper is clear as it is and not as problematic as you seem to think. I also think I address your previous comments. And I thank you for them again.
That being said, I will try and answer your worries here. I sort of feel that I will not succeed. Maybe it is because you have not merely comments, but fundamental objections to the aim of my paper. And so I guess you should publish these objections and participate in this debate. I suppose you have very steady realist intuitions, for you think my making some room for the antirealist position is borderline comprehensible. I look forward to reading these objections, of course, and I might very well understand them at last: this is part of the publishing game, I suppose.

- About fn13 (and next comment): I added this footnote to address your concerns in particular, and "really" is really supposed to help the sceptics about (and only about) the truth of (9). (9) is precisely the "uncontroversial truth" (this label, taken from Thomasson, is clearly ironical) that realists deny. Though, negative existentials containing a fictional name are also taken to be true by most. "Really" does not add anything new to "exist". Antirealist (like myself) say that fictional characters do not exist: neither the flesh-and-blood nor the individual of paper exist, i.e. neither of them are part of the real world.
It may sound incredible to you, but I repeat the position: in the real world, there is no entity bearing the name "FM"; in the fictional world, by definition, there is the flesh-and-blood individual; and, also by def, there is no individual of paper.
The obvious problem for such a view (rehearsed in the Everett quote), are creationist locutions. And the aim of the paper is to account for them, in line with the antirealist view.

Linking principle (B) is, strictly speaking, not obvious. On this, the whole paradox calls 'intuitive', 'obvious', and 'uncontroversial' 6 claims that virtually nobody agrees about. Your reaction as I understand it is typically realist (as I try to characterise below): you think (B) is very weak, presumably because you think (7) and (A) are strong. 
Apart from the irony, I think my trying to abstract away from theoretical intuitions and putting all the 'obviousnesses' that one can find in the literature into one single 'paradox' so as to open a logical space is helpful. In the end, I pursue my solution to the paradox, and try to argue for it. But of course, I might be simply wrong, and perhaps you can argue for solution gamma (the artefactualist line): you would be in good company. Still, I think even for this position, it would be useful to use my logical space.
Hope I have started to convince you.

- Comment on (7b): Well, I am really sorry that it did not emerge more clearly from the discussion. Mary Shelley had an idea of FM, for sure, and based on this she realised the whole book. Her production (that you describe) is this: she wrote the book entitled "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" and published it in 1818. I never denied that the fictional work exists (i.e. is part of the real world) and is quite abstract; and no antirealist denies this. The claim is that what she realised is not FM, and there is no reason to think that FM is brought into existence as a byproduct of the fictional work. In fact, I think that (B) is a positive reason not to hold that FM is brought into existence as a byproduct of the fictional work. I tried to argue for it when discussing artefactualism.

Again: thank you very much for your close reading!
Hope to read you in the future on this topic. Or to continue this conversation via email. Here is mine: louis.rouille@uliege.be

Best,
Louis Rouillé