Abstract
The statement “Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth” seems true in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice (even though it may not actually appear in the text) while the statement “Mr. Darcy is a detective” seems false. One explanation for this intuition is that when we read or talk about fictional stories, we implicitly employ the fictional operator “It is fictional that” or “It is part of the story that.” “It is fictional that Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth” expresses a true proposition while “It is fictional that Mr. Darcy is a detective” does not. Fictive statements can be abbreviated as “In F, P”. Determining what statements are fictionally true in a story requires providing truth conditions for statements of the form “In F, P.” This paper proposes an analysis of truth in fiction and examines the notion of make-believe.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Currie (1990) rightly notes that a sentence can have a truth-value even when it is not asserted.
See Gregory Currie (1986, 1990) and David Lewis (1978). Lewis offers various analyses of fictional truth in terms of possible world semantics, e.g., In F, P if and only if P is true in a possible world W where F is told as known fact and where W is either (a) the closest to the actual world or (b) most closely corresponds to the beliefs of F’s community of origin. For criticism of Lewis’ analysis see Currie (1986, 1990), Byrne (1993), and Phillips (1999). Since our aim is to offer an emendation of Currie’s analysis, rehashing the arguments against Lewis’ analysis is beyond the scope of this paper.
Byrne rejects Lewis’ (1978) account for the same reason.
In this quotation, Currie is talking about the belief system of the fictional author. But we think the quotation can equally be applied to the belief system of the author of non-fiction.
Perhaps, what Phillips has in mind is the objection put forth by Byrne (1993) regarding untold tales, which we briefly discussed in the previous section. However, since he does not cite Byrne, this is only a conjecture.
One might wonder what to make of a story whose premise is that it is authorless. Phillips’ analysis, focusing as it does on the real author, seems to fare better than Currie’s or Byrne’s.
In fact, some of her most dedicated fans were surprised at her press-conference announcement.
Sainsbury (2011), on the other hand, argues that the best candidate for make-believe is acceptance, which amounts to treating something as true without believing that is true (150). But what is being accepted when one accepts a proposition? The most obvious answer is that the proposition is true. But if acceptance involves accepting or treating the proposition as being true, then how is that different from believing it to be true? (We are indebted to an anonymous referee for valuable comments on this issue.)
One apparent difficulty with this theory of pretense is that the author of a fiction seems to both pretend to make assertions and make assertions. Conan Doyle, for example, pretends to assert that Sherlock Holmes lives in 221B Baker Street (since in Doyle’s time addresses in Baker Street did not go as high as 221) and asserts that Baker Street is in London. One response is that Doyle does not make any assertions in the stories of Sherlock Holmes. It is a purely accidental occurrence that certain statements turn out to be both fictionally and literally true. Authors of fiction often borrow from reality. However, their intent is not to describe reality. It would thus be a mistake to think that they are asserting statements that happen to be literally true. Searle’s (1975) response is that some references in the work of fiction will be pretended while others will be real. When the real references are mistaken (if, for example, Holmes and Watson arrive at Baker street taking a route that is geographically impossible) then we can infer that Doyle blundered.
See Searle and Vanderveken (1985), p. 9.
Currie (1990) rejects Searle’s account on the basis that it assumes that the meaning of a sentence fixes its illocutionary act it is used to perform. Currie argues that if the sentence can have the same meaning whether it is asserted (which involves one illocutionary act) or whether it is used to issue a request (which involves another illocutionary act), then the meaning of a sentence does not fix its illocutionary force. While Currie is correct in saying that the meaning of a sentence does not determine its illocutionary force, he is incorrect in attributing this view to Searle. Searle’s view is that the illocutionary force of a sentence determines its meaning. In Searle’s view, the sentence “You will leave now”, to use Currie’s example, is meaningless until it is used either as an assertive or a directive. For an argument against Searle’s view see Kissine (2012). We thank an anonymous referee for valuable comments on this issue.
References
Byrne, A. (1993). Truth in fiction: the story continued. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 71(1), 24–35.
Currie, G. (1986). Fictional truth. Philosophical Studies, 50, 195–212.
Currie, G. (1990). The nature of fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davies, D. (1996). Fictional truth and fictional authors. British Journal of Aesthetics, 36(1), 43–55.
Kissine, M. (2012). Sentences, utterances, and speech acts. In K. Allen & K. Jaszczolt (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of pragmatics (pp. 169–190). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Langland-Hassan, P. (2012). Pretense, imagination, and belief: a single attitude theory. Philosophical Studies, 159, 155–179.
Lewis, D. (1978). Truth in Fiction. American Philosophical Quarterly, 15(1), 37–46.
Livingston, P. (2005). Art and intention: A philosophical study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Phillips, J. F. (1999). Truth and inference in fiction. Philosophical Studies, 94, 273–293.
Sainsbury, R. M. (2011). Fiction and acceptance-relative truth, belief and assertion. In F. Lihoreau (Ed.), Truth in fiction. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Searle, J. R. (1975). The logical status of fictional discourse. New Literary History, 6(2), 319–332.
Searle, J. R., & Vanderveken, D. (1985). Foundations of illocutionary logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank participants at the European Society of Aesthetics and the Ohio Philosophical Association, where earlier versions of this paper were presented, for helpful discussions. We are also grateful to an anonymous referee for valuable comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gatzia, D.E., Sotnak, E. Fictional Truth and Make-Believe. Philosophia 42, 349–361 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-013-9511-9
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-013-9511-9