Transcript
Page 1: Creatures of fiction, objects of myth

Creatures of fiction, objects of myth

JEFFREY GOODMAN

Many who think that there exist contingent abstracta are fictional creation-ists, asserting that Sherlock Holmes, for example is an abstractum dependenton Doyle’s authorial activities. Some prominent fictional creationists, notablyBraun (2005), Kripke (1973) and Salmon (1998, 2002), don’t stop at fic-tional creationism, but further embrace mythical creationism. They hold thatsome objects (‘mythical objects’) that figure in false theories (or ‘myths’) arelikewise abstracta of our production. Paradigm examples here would bephlogiston, the substance once alleged to account for rusting or burning,and Vulcan, the planet proposed by Le Verrier to be the cause of perturb-ations in the orbit of Mercury. I shall here offer an argument for thinking thatone may not reasonably take the route travelled by Braun, Kripke andSalmon. Even if one holds that fictional characters are artefacts, one oughtnot further hold that mythical objects are, too.1

One argument for realism regarding fictional characters has by nowbecome familiar to many, and the same style of reasoning has been takento further establish the existence of mythical objects.2 Sentences such as

C: Sherlock Holmes is a character thought up by Conan Doyle.A: Sherlock Holmes appears in the story ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’.

seem straightforwardly true; unlike ‘Holmes smokes a pipe’, they are not sen-tences concerning what is ascribed to Holmes in the stories. Now, if the theor-etically most attractive way to provide the semantics of sentences like C and A isto take them at face value, as many contend, then Holmes should be consideredan extant object which exemplifies the properties expressed by the predicatesappearing in those sentences. And a line of reasoning that parallels the one justgiven may be given for mythical objects. All we need to do is simply substitute

P: Phlogiston is a hypothetical substance proposed by some 18th Centurychemists to explain rusting and burning.

and

V: Vulcan is a hypothetical planet proposed by Le Verrier to explainperturbations in the orbit of Mercury.

Analysis Vol 74 | Number 1 | January 2014 | pp. 35–40 doi:10.1093/analys/ant090� The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust.All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]

1 I don’t wish to weigh in here on any realism/anti-realism debate regarding abstracta, nordo I wish to weigh in on any debate regarding the semantics of fictional names or mythical

names. It is worth noting here, though, that Braun (2005) and Salmon (2002), both

Vulcan realists, disagree about the semantics of ‘Vulcan’.

2 Many have defended versions of this argument; the locus classicus, however, is VanInwagen (1977).

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for C and A above. But since Holmes is no flesh and blood crime-solver to be

found in 19th Century London, and since no inventory of physical substancesincludes either phlogiston or Vulcan, a successful argument for these entities

plausibly amounts to an argument for abstracta.3

Nonetheless, even if realism regarding abstract fictional characters and

mythical objects is warranted, this does not establish fictional creationism or

mythical creationism. But it is natural to think that Holmes came about be-cause Doyle thought him up, and Vulcan came about because Le Verrier

thought it up. Were there no Doyle or Le Verrier, there would be no

Holmes or Vulcan.4 Of course, the intentions of Doyle and Le Verrier differedin ways that led one to produce a work of fiction and one to produce a scien-

tific theory. Crucially, the former involved intentions to not to lie but also not

to tell the truth, while the latter set of intentions crucially involved a desire todescribe reality. And while both Doyle and Le Verrier wound up telling stories

(in a sense) that were, in toto, false, that was consistent with Doyle’s aims, not

Le Verrier’s. Nonetheless, mythical creationists say that each had intentionsand performed activities that were sufficient to bring about an abstract object;

Le Verrier inadvertently brought about Vulcan given his particular sort of

intentions and activities, while Doyle in some sense aimed to create Holmes.5

3 There is much controversy regarding the success of this style of reasoning. One might

reject the idea that there are no suitable paraphrases that uncover the real (lack of) onto-logical commitments, as do Sainsbury (2010) and Walton (1990). Or one might reject the

idea our activities are capable of bringing about abstracta, as do Yagisawa (2001) and

Brock (2010). This is not the place, however, to defend this sort of argument. For presentpurposes, think of the thesis being defended here as a conditional: If there are compelling

reasons to be fictional creationists, similar reasons that seemingly lead us to accept myth-

ical creationism cannot ultimately be good reasons.

4 These intuitions may, of course, be off the mark, and some other realist theory that entails

that fictional characters are necessarily existing Platonic abstracta, or Meinongian non-existents to be discovered (or ‘stipulated’ or ‘cut from whole cloth’ or what-have-you),

may be correct. See, e.g. Zalta (1983) and Parsons (1980), respectively.

5 Here is what Braun has to say in defence of the analogy between fictional creationism and

mythical creationism:

The activities that occur during mistaken theorizing, such as Le Verrier’s, are importantly

similar to those that occur during storytelling. In both, names are used and predicative

sentences containing them are formulated. Reasoning and other mental processes occur.Texts that are seemingly susceptible to evaluation for truth are produced. Thus, if story-

tellers’ activities create fictional characters, then mistaken theorizers’ activities create ab-

stract objects of a similar sort. So I grant that Le Verrier’s mistaken theorizing creates an

abstract artefact (2005: 615)

And here is Salmon’s line:

Mythical objects are of the same metaphysical/ontological category as fictional

characters . . . Myths and fictions are both made up. The principal difference betweenmythical and fictional objects is that the myth is believed while the fiction is only

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Against this backdrop, here now is the argument contra mythical

creationism.6

(1) If Vulcan is a created abstractum (like Holmes), then Vulcan is created

by Le Verrier in every possible world where Le Verrier performs rele-

vantly similar activities to those he actually performed.(2) There is a possible world where Le Verrier performs relevantly similar

activities to those he actually performed and yet fails to create Vulcan.

Therefore, it’s not true that Vulcan is a created abstractum (like Holmes).7

Here is the support for premise 1. Imagine any possible world that is verymuch like ours, and in particular, imagine those that contain Le Verrier and

Doyle situated in the same sorts of historical and social contexts in which

they were actually situated. And imagine that Doyle performs all of the in-tentional, authorial activities in that world that he performed here, and im-

agine that Le Verrier performs all of the intentional, scientific theorizing in

that world that he performed here. If Doyle’s authorial activities succeed increating Holmes here, then those same activities (in the same historical/social)

context will lead to Holmes’ creation in the alternate world as well. And

given her analogy with fictional creationism, it seems as though the mythicalcreationist must say the same thing regarding the creation of Vulcan in such a

possible world.But now imagine further, that among the relevant set of possible worlds,

there are those that include the following two additional objects: (i) a flesh

and blood, supremely clever crime solver (there) called Holmes, one who isfond of cocaine and pipe-smoking and deerstalker caps, one having a war-

veteran doctor for a friend named Watson and an arch-nemesis named

Moriarty, etc.; and (ii) a planet (there) called Vulcan by Earthlings (there),one that is located between the Sun and Mercury and is responsible for

perturbations in the orbit of the latter (etc.). Call any such world an X world.Now, surely we should think that Holmes – the created abstractum – exists

at every X world (if he exists in the actual world). And no X worlder meetingthe description in (i) above – let us call such an alien individual Shlomes – is

identical to Holmes. After all, if fictional creationism is true, then Holmes is

make-believe. This difference does nothing to obliterate the reality of either fictional or

mythical objects. (2002: 121, n28)

6 In formulating this line of reasoning, I owe a huge debt to Phillips (2001). While his

project is ultimately different from mine – he aims to show that the direct reference the-orist may not plausibly identify the referent of ‘Vulcan’ with a created abstractum – much

of what he says inspired the argument I present here against mythical creationism.

7 Of course, there is nothing special about the appeal to Vulcan here (just as there was

nothing special about the choice of Vulcan in the argument for realism above). Thus, if theargument is sound, we have a license to reject mythical creationism in its full generality.

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essentially a created abstractum. Furthermore, given Doyle’s intentions inevery X world to be authoring a fiction, it would be ridiculous to think thatany of Doyle’s X-world stories are about Shlomes (regardless of what anyconfused X-world Earthlings may think). Nor is it reasonable to think thatsomehow Doyle’s activities in X worlds fail to create Holmes because the veryexistence of Shlomes would serve to thwart the creative process. (We may evensuppose that all X-world Doyles are ignorant of Shlomes’ existence.)

But it would likewise be incorrect to think that any X world contains anabstractum there created by Le Verrier that mythical creationists believe toexist here in our world and here call Vulcan. What X worlds do contain is aplanet meeting the description in (ii) above – let us call that alien planetShmulcan. And given Le Verrier’s intentions in every X world to describereality, what we should think is that he indeed hit the mark in those worlds.In the X worlds, Le Verrier’s scientific hypothesis regarding an intra-Mercurial planet is true; he there (merely) succeeds in describing Shmulcan.He is rightly credited there with the discovery of a real (i.e. concrete, spatio-temporal) planet, not the creation of a mythical (abstract) planet. So, premise2 is true.

Now, a mythical creationist may deny premise two on the basis that eventhough X world Le Verriers articulate true scientific theories, true theories aswell as false ones bring about abstracta; X world Le Verriers create Vulcanon their way toward discovering Shmulcan. But this seems to be a desperatesort of fix. Created abstracta are posited by artefactualists inter alia, to solvepuzzles concerning apparently empty names and to provide a straightforwardsemantics for sentences like C, A, P, and V above. But true theories don’tcrucially rely on names that are apparently empty, and an appeal to abstractaas referents for names occurring in true scientific theories, when those the-ories are ostensibly concerned with ordinary concreta, would be utterly offthe mark. Using a reasonable principle of parsimony, then, we should rejectthe idea that true theories create abstracta. Such abstracta are simply notneeded in the case of true theories in the way that some fictional creationistsclaim they are needed in the case of C and A, or in the way that somemythical creationists claim they are needed in the case of P and V.8

8 On this point, Braun says the following:

[D]oes true theorizing also create abstract objects that are similar to fictional characters? I

suspect it does. (I am not sure, because I do not know enough about the supervenience

bases and existence conditions of fictional, mythical, and imaginary objects to say any-

thing definite.) (2005: 627, n34)

For reasons concerning parsimony given above, I suspect it does not.

Phillips (2001) argues that Salmon (1998), at any rate, is forced to accept that truetheorizing creates objects of myth just as false theorizing. But if Phillips is right, then it

follows that Salmon is forced to accept a bloated ontology – one filled with explanatorily

superfluous abstracta. So Salmon would still be left without a good reason to reject prem-ise 2, and further reason to be wary of mythical creationism.

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A more interesting reply would instead deny premise one.9 In our world,where there is no intra-Mercurial planet, Le Verrier creates Vulcan, and in XWorlds where Shmulcan exists, Leverrier fails to create the relevant abstrac-tum, and here’s why. It is more than the author’s intentions and social/historical context that counts in the abstractum-creation process; the mind-independent physical world must have its say as well. Whether or not onesucceeds in creating a mythological object depends on whether the worldobliges by providing the relevant entity (in which case, no creation occurs)or fails to oblige (in which case, creation occurs).

This reply, however, forces a very unhappy decision on the mythical cre-ationist. On the one hand, suppose she maintains that the analogy betweenthe creative process for both fictional characters and mythical objects is ex-tremely tight. If she then further claims that it is the very absence of an intra-Mercurial planet that is facilitating the creation of Vulcan in our world, thenshe should amend her fictional creationism by claiming that it is the veryabsence of a flesh and blood, supremely clever crime solver called Holmeswho is fond of cocaine and pipe-smoking, etc. that is facilitating the creationof Holmes in our world. But no fictional creationist should say that. Theworld providing such an entity matters not at all as to whether Doyle’sactivities succeed in creating Holmes.

Suppose on the other hand that the mythical creationist decides to empha-size the relevant dissimilarities between creation-by-fiction-telling andcreation-by-false-theorizing. That is, suppose she distinguishes between oneform of creation that is dependent solely on authorial intentions and histor-ical/social contexts, and one form that is allegedly dependent on these factorsplus the non-cooperation of the world to provide the relevant entity. Thismove simply serves to shine a spotlight on what is so theoretically unattractiveabout the latter sort of process: it requires that the creation of mythical objectsbe inadvertent. Unlike the situation with Doyle and his aims, Le Verrierwished to be the discoverer of a planet; according to mythical creationism,he wound up creating Vulcan instead. Now, while it’s common to find cases ofinadvertent discovery, it’s at least unusual to find cases of inadvertent cre-ation. Creation normally involves having a goal that one aims to achieve.Perhaps such a goal can be achieved with fictional characters via the produc-tion of fictions. But it is odd to think that there are objects that are producedvia a process of scientific theorizing that utterly divorces their productionfrom the desires of the theorist to not be creative. If there were a view thatwould provide the same theoretical benefits (regarding the semantics of ap-parently empty names, e.g.) as mythical creationism yet avoid this theoreticaloddness, it would clearly be preferable. One such view is Zalta’s (1983) neo-Meinongianism. According to this theory, the relevant abstractum was thereall along (because it exists necessarily), and Le Verrier did in fact discover it.

9 I am indebted to an anonymous referee at Analysis for this point.

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He did not discover a planet as he intended, but at least Zalta’s view has thetheoretical benefit of respecting Le Verrier’s aims to be non-creative.

James Madison UniversityDepartment of Philosophy and Religion

Harrisonburg, VA 22807, [email protected]

References

Braun, D. 2005. Empty names, fictional names, mythical names. Nous 39: 596–631.

Brock, S. 2010. The creationist fiction: the case against creationism about fictional char-acters. The Philosophical Review 19: 337–64.

Kripke, S. 1973. Reference and existence: the John Locke lectures for 1973. Unpublished.

Parsons, T. 1980. Nonexistent Objects. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Phillips, M. 2001. What a solution to the problem of empty names cannot be. Presentedat the 2001 Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association.

URL¼http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/mphil/empty_names.htm.

Sainsbury, M. 2010. Fiction and Fictionalism. London: Routledge.

Salmon, N. 1998. Nonexistence. Nous 32: 277–319.

Salmon, N. 2002. Mythical objects. In Meaning and Truth: Investigations inPhilosophical Semantics, eds. J. K. Campbell, M. O’Rourke and D. Shier, 105–23.New York: Seven Bridges Press.

Van Inwagen, P. 1977. Creatures of fiction. American Philosophical Quarterly 14: 299–308.

Walton, K. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Yagisawa, T. 2001. Against creationism in fiction. Philosophical Perspectives 15: 153–72.

Zalta, E. 1983. Abstract Objects. The Netherlands: Reidel.

The overgeneration argument(s): A succinctrefutation

A.C. PASEAU

1. Introduction

The overgeneration argument attempts to show that accepting second-ordervalidity as a sound1 formal counterpart of logical truth has the unacceptableconsequence that the Continuum Hypothesis (CH) is either a logical truth ora logical falsehood. The argument was presented and vigorously defended inEtchemendy (1990), and it has since been endorsed by many other philoso-phers, in print and in conversation. Patricia Blanchette for example discusses

Analysis Vol 74 | Number 1 | January 2014 | pp. 40–47 doi:10.1093/analys/ant097� The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust.All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]

1 Soundness here is the thesis that if a natural-language sentence’s second-order formaliza-tion is valid then the original sentence is a logical truth.

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