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Fictional Characters and Ontology
I wrote a paper last semester on this, I plan on revising it with some insight.

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Fictional Characters and Ontology

yasseford
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Posted 07/01/09 - 09:21 AM: Subject: Fictional Characters and Ontology	#1
For a good base of context, Gottlob Frege's "On Sense and Reference" and Bertrand Russell's "On Denoting Phrases" are very helpful, as well as W.V. Quine's "On What There Is," and Wittgenstein's picture theory. If anyone needs help finding these articles, I can give you a copy. They are all very short, and Quine's in particular is very entertaining. These are helpful, as I said, for context purposes, but may not be necessary for the discussion at hand. What are fictional characters? Do they exist? For example, does the fictional character Pegasus exist? Most certainly Pegasus is not a flesh and blood horse with wings, so we may say it doesn't exist in reality. So is Pegasus merely an idea or concept? Can anything true or false be said about Pegasus? It seems at a glance that the statement S: "Pegasus is a winged horse, which Bellerophron rode" seems true, but neither Pegasus nor Bellerophron ever existed as flesh and blood creatures. If one would accept statement S to be true, then one must grant identity conditions to Pegasus and Bellerophron, namely, that Pegasus has wings and is a horse, and was rode Bellerophron; and Bellerophron rode Pegasus. W.V. Quine famously states that there is "no entity without identity." I.E., unless one can provide concrete identity conditions for something, then one should not admit that thing to be an entity in one's ontology. As an example, Quine says imagine a man standing in the door way. Now, imagine a fat man in the door way. Now imagine an old man in the door way. Are these all the same men? How many men are in the door way? Is there an infinite number of imaginary men in the door way? Certainly, if one would admit any imaginary door way man into his ontology, he would admit all imaginary door way men into his ontology, of which there are a seemingly infinite amount. This creates in effect an "ontological slum" of unnecessarily numerous entities that do not even have definite identity conditions. With Quine's ontological point in mind, is Pegasus an entity? There are identity conditions associated with Pegasus, but these identity conditions are created by men, and some men may not grant the same identity conditions to Pegasus; suppose that one man imagines Pegasus to be white, while another imagines Pegasus to be gray. There is no empirical method to determine who is correct, even if a Greek myth written in stone claims that Pegasus is white; if there were another stone tablet that claims Pegasus is gray, it is equally as valid. From this point one can see how the idea of Pegasus as an entity falls under the same ontological problems as Quine's door way man. And so, can anything true be said about Pegasus? Or must we revise the statement to say, "In Greek mythology, it is written that 'Pegasus is X'"? It seems counter-intuitive to say that no truths can be said about Pegasus, because when given the statements "Pegasus is a winged horse" and "Pegasus is a ham sandwich," it seems clear that one statement is true and the other is false. I could go into more detail into how Russell and Quine deal with Pegasus by explaining it away, but I don't know if it's entirely necessary, especially if someone is unfamiliar with the aforementioned works. At any rate, I pose these questions to you. This is just something I've been meditating on for a paper I'm considering revising for my senior year of school. Let me know what you guys think.
Yasseford

ciceronianus
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Posted 07/01/09 - 10:15 AM:

I'm a rather simple fellow. I may be too simple. Regardless, I don't intend to be critical of yasseford, or anybody in particular, in what follows.

I haven't been involved in the formal study of philosophy for quite some time. Not so long, perhaps, that I cannot conceive of a paper of this kind being written for purposes of a philosophy course--I can concieve such a thing all too easily. But perhaps long enough (too long?) to wonder why such a subject should be the focus of any thought, let alone the effort of writing an essay or, God forbid, a book.

I venture to say that most of us understand the difference between a fictional entity and a physical entity. One is fictional; the other is not. Most of us don't expect to consult with Sherlock Holmes, or even Spenser, when confronted with a mystery. Similarly, most of us would not expect to find Pegasus grazing in our backyard, or even at the nearest--or any--horse farm. No sane person believes that Harry Potter exists in the same sense as does his/her spouse, or child, for example. Why, then, would we ask ourselves whether he does "exist"? There is a fictional character X. What more is there, usefully, to say?

Why should there be any expectation that a fictional entity would have an "identify" like a physical entity, or could be "identified" like a physical entity? Why wouldn't one simply note that the fictional entity is ascribed certain characteristics by the author of the fiction, and go on with life, rather than speculating whether that fictional character "really" has such characteristics, or in what sense it can be said to have such characteristics?

Why for that matter would Quine wonder whether the fat young man standing in the doorway is the same man as the thin old man? Assuming he does not, why would he even ask others the damn question? Does he fear that others may think they are one and the same?

Does Sherlock Holmes have a nose extending 10 inches from his face? Well, I've never read that he doesn't, so perhaps he does. Then again, one would expect such a nose to be mentioned in descriptions of him, so perhaps he does not have such a nose. Why is this a significant issue?

"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."--C.S. Peirce

"There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it."--Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."--John Dewey

yasseford
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Posted 07/01/09 - 10:44 AM:	#3
To answer your question, I suppose maybe 99% of philosophers don't give a damn about the philosophy of language. Many are more concerned with "deeper truths," etc. But many philosopher's of language believe that before you can discuss these deeper truths, you have to address the nuances of language, because it is through language that we communicate these philosophical ideas. For example, you say: "Why wouldn't one simply note that the fictional entity is ascribed certain characteristics by the author of the fiction, and go on with life, rather than speculating whether that fictional character 'really' has such characteristics, or in what sense it can be said to have such characteristics?" With this statement, you are giving priority of meaning to the "author" of the fiction, which says something about your belief of where the "correct" meaning of "Pegasus" originates. Does this mean that only J.K. Rowling can tell us truths about Harry Potter? I for one believe there is a lot at stake with the word "truth," and to say that a person creates truth seems to contradict the nature of truth. It does not seem possible that one can say "Harry Potter is a wizard," and find any truth value at all in the statement, if we are to take truth seriously. Besides that, this topic happens to interest me, and I guess it doesn't interest you. At any rate, here's another Pegasus riddle: "Pegasus is not." How can this statement possibly be said meaningfully? To mention the term "Pegasus" is to admit that Pegasus is, so to say "Pegasus is not" seems a contradiction. Objection: Pegasus exists as an idea, not as a flesh and blood horse. Response: We can grant that Pegasus is an idea, but when say "Pegasus is not", we are not saying that an idea is not. We are saying that a flesh and blood horse is not. Again, how is this possible?
Yasseford

ciceronianus
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Posted 07/01/09 - 01:12 PM:

yasseford wrote:
For example, you say: "Why wouldn't one simply note that the fictional entity is ascribed certain characteristics by the author of the fiction, and go on with life, rather than speculating whether that fictional character 'really' has such characteristics, or in what sense it can be said to have such characteristics?"

With this statement, you are giving priority of meaning to the "author" of the fiction, which says something about your belief of where the "correct" meaning of "Pegasus" originates. Does this mean that only J.K. Rowling can tell us truths about Harry Potter? I for one believe there is a lot at stake with the word "truth," and to say that a person creates truth seems to contradict the nature of truth. It does not seem possible that one can say "Harry Potter is a wizard," and find any truth value at all in the statement, if we are to take truth seriously.

What do you mean by "truths about Harry Potter"? Accepting Harry Potter is a fictional character, what would be "untrue" about him? Presumably, it would be "untrue" that he is not a fictional character, or not a fictional character created by Rowling, or not a fictional character having the attibutes of the fictional character created by Rowling. What else could be "untrue" about Harry? What would be "true" of Harry, capable of anything amounting to verification or falsification, beyond the fact that he is a fictional character of a certain kind created by Rowling, the subject of various books and movies? What insights do such considerations impart to us in pursuit of "deeper truths"?

yasseford wrote:
Besides that, this topic happens to interest me, and I guess it doesn't interest you.

And that's fine, of course.

yasseford wrote:
At any rate, here's another Pegasus riddle:

"Pegasus is not." How can this statement possibly be said meaningfully? To mention the term "Pegasus" is to admit that Pegasus is, so to say "Pegasus is not" seems a contradiction.

Objection: Pegasus exists as an idea, not as a flesh and blood horse.

Response: We can grant that Pegasus is an idea, but when say "Pegasus is not", we are not saying that an idea is not. We are saying that a flesh and blood horse is not. Again, how is this possible?

Well, when would anyone say anything like "Pegasus is not"? If they were for some reason to say anthing about the existence of Pegasus wouldn't they be more likely to say something like "The Pegasus of mythology is not (or was not) a real horse", or "Pegasus is a mythological figure"? I fear you're creating a mystery, or a problem, where none exists, which would seem to be contrary to the intent of philosophy of language as you describe it.

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Posted 07/01/09 - 01:42 PM:	#5
I'm not creating a mystery. It's the riddle of non-being, and can be applied to any thing. We've all heard the defense of the existence of God by the fact that we possess the concept of God - it is the same idea. These sorts of riddles do the opposite of what you charge, that I create problems. Rather, they function to reveal what are not problems,--in this case the "problem" of non-being. I strongly urge you to read the Quine piece that I referred to earlier. Beyond that, I'm afraid I've run out of ways to convince you of this study's importance.
Yasseford

xzJoel
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Posted 07/01/09 - 02:07 PM:	#6
C, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the problem of language is one of magic. Various people are heavily committed to the idea that language is somehow related to the world in a way such that any meaningful sentence tells us something about the world. This is the way of the world: Each sentence is either true or false and there is no third option – no sentence (or proposition) violates the law of bivalence or that of the law of the excluded middle. When analyzing a sentence, we have a subject and a predicate. The predicate is the attribute of a subject. In other words, a sentence makes a claim that 1) there is some subject 2) that possesses some attribute and 3) such sentence can be evaluated as true or false based upon what exists in the world. In order to determine the truth value of the sentence, you must look for the subject and determine whether the predicate is a property of the subject or not. If the predicate is an attribute, the sentence is true. If not, the sentence is false. By this logic, if I say, “Pegasus does not exist” there must be some thing, “Pegasus”, that either has the property of existence or does not. If Pegasus has the property of existence, my sentence is false. If Pegasus does not have the property of existence, then my sentence is true. So what then of the truth value “true” to the sentence “Pegasus does not exist.”? Haven’t we just assigned the property of non existence to Pegasus? If Pegasus does not exist, how can it posses a property? How can we look to Pegasus to give us the truth value of our sentence? That is the magic of language. If you hold fast to certain beliefs about language, you can magically create things just by naming them and giving them a property. Now I don’t subscribe to this philosophy of language and I am perfectly happy to say that a sentence has no relationship to the world. But not everyone feels this way. The subject include a good deal of twist and turns, but I think I’ve covered some of the very basic bases. If anyone wants to elaborate, feel free. P.S. I'll throw out some links just because. Logical Positivism - For the proposition that non-verifiable sentences are meaningless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Positivism#Basic_tenets On existence generally. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/ On truth generally. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/ On relationship of semantic type realism and truth. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/#ReaAntRea Edited by xzJoel on 07/01/09 - 02:22 PM
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ciceronianus
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Posted 07/01/09 - 02:23 PM:

yasseford wrote:
I'm not creating a mystery. It's the riddle of non-being, and can be applied to any thing. We've all heard the defense of the existence of God by the fact that we possess the concept of God - it is the same idea. These sorts of riddles do the opposite of what you charge, that I create problems. Rather, they function to reveal what are not problems,--in this case the "problem" of non-being. I strongly urge you to read the Quine piece that I referred to earlier. Beyond that, I'm afraid I've run out of ways to convince you of this study's importance.

Okay.

ciceronianus
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Posted 07/01/09 - 02:38 PM:

xzJoel wrote:
C,

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the problem of language is one of magic.

Various people are heavily committed to the idea that language is somehow related to the world in a way such that any meaningful sentence tells us something about the world. This is the way of the world: Each sentence is either true or false and there is no third option – no sentence (or proposition) violates the law of bivalence or that of the law of the excluded middle.

When analyzing a sentence, we have a subject and a predicate. The predicate is the attribute of a subject. In other words, a sentence makes a claim that 1) there is some subject 2) that possesses some attribute and 3) such sentence can be evaluated as true or false based upon what exists in the world. In order to determine the truth value of the sentence, you must look for the subject and determine whether the predicate is a property of the subject or not. If the predicate is an attribute, the sentence is true. If not, the sentence is false.

By this logic, if I say, "Pegasus does not exist" there must be some thing, "Pegasus", that either has the property of existence or does not. If Pegasus has the property of existence, my sentence is false. If Pegasus does not have the property of existence, then my sentence is true.

I appreciate your comments. It's not a philosophy of language I would accept, either. As I recall, Wittgenstein ditched it in his later work--although I know that it's been maintained that such as Russell and the members of the Vienna Circle never understood the Tractatus, either.

For me, language is vastly more complicated, and the effort to resrict the definition of "meaning" as the logical positivists did is rather simple-minded. It can, I suppose, "tell us" about reality in a sense, but it would seem to be more a part of how we interact with reality, and each other.

aufbau87
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Posted 07/01/09 - 08:22 PM:	#9
yasseford wrote: For a good base of context, Gottlob Frege's "On Sense and Reference" and Bertrand Russell's "On Denoting Phrases" are very helpful, as well as W.V. Quine's "On What There Is," and Wittgenstein's picture theory. If anyone needs help finding these articles, I can give you a copy. They are all very short, and Quine's in particular is very entertaining. These are helpful, as I said, for context purposes, but may not be necessary for the discussion at hand. What are fictional characters? Do they exist? For example, does the fictional character Pegasus exist? Most certainly Pegasus is not a flesh and blood horse with wings, so we may say it doesn't exist in reality. So is Pegasus merely an idea or concept? Can anything true or false be said about Pegasus? It seems at a glance that the statement S: "Pegasus is a winged horse, which Bellerophron rode" seems true, but neither Pegasus nor Bellerophron ever existed as flesh and blood creatures. If one would accept statement S to be true, then one must grant identity conditions to Pegasus and Bellerophron, namely, that Pegasus has wings and is a horse, and was rode Bellerophron; and Bellerophron rode Pegasus. W.V. Quine famously states that there is "no entity without identity." I.E., unless one can provide concrete identity conditions for something, then one should not admit that thing to be an entity in one's ontology. As an example, Quine says imagine a man standing in the door way. Now, imagine a fat man in the door way. Now imagine an old man in the door way. Are these all the same men? How many men are in the door way? Is there an infinite number of imaginary men in the door way? Certainly, if one would admit any imaginary door way man into his ontology, he would admit all imaginary door way men into his ontology, of which there are a seemingly infinite amount. This creates in effect an "ontological slum" of unnecessarily numerous entities that do not even have definite identity conditions. With Quine's ontological point in mind, is Pegasus an entity? There are identity conditions associated with Pegasus, but these identity conditions are created by men, and some men may not grant the same identity conditions to Pegasus; suppose that one man imagines Pegasus to be white, while another imagines Pegasus to be gray. There is no empirical method to determine who is correct, even if a Greek myth written in stone claims that Pegasus is white; if there were another stone tablet that claims Pegasus is gray, it is equally as valid. From this point one can see how the idea of Pegasus as an entity falls under the same ontological problems as Quine's door way man. And so, can anything true be said about Pegasus? Or must we revise the statement to say, "In Greek mythology, it is written that 'Pegasus is X'"? It seems counter-intuitive to say that no truths can be said about Pegasus, because when given the statements "Pegasus is a winged horse" and "Pegasus is a ham sandwich," it seems clear that one statement is true and the other is false. I could go into more detail into how Russell and Quine deal with Pegasus by explaining it away, but I don't know if it's entirely necessary, especially if someone is unfamiliar with the aforementioned works. At any rate, I pose these questions to you. This is just something I've been meditating on for a paper I'm considering revising for my senior year of school. Let me know what you guys think. I take Quine's solution to be decisive. Remember that for Quine to be is to be the value of a variable; naming is not our wedge into ontological commitments. Furthermore, we CAN say something true of Pegasus in this roundabout fashion: (x)(Px -> (y)(Py->y=x) . Wx), i.e. for all things x, if x pegasizes, then for all things y, if y pegasizes, then y is identical to x, and x is winged. This is essentially Russell's solution, but I think Quine takes it the further step and says we can do without names when discussing our ontological commitments. And the above symbolic statement would be an example of saying something true of Pegasus without committing ourselves to the existence of Pegasus. In essence, we'd be saying "Pegasus is winged" is true in the material mode of speech and the formal mode, but for the latter it would need to be expressed as above. That's how we'd deal with fictional characters. So, I would focus more on Quine's criterion of ontological commitment (to be is to be the value of a variable) and not his thesis concerning identity conditions. The latter is brought in to eliminate talk of "possible objects" or "unactualized objects" - the identity conditions of which are not forthcoming. But his second, and perhaps more significant point, is that we are not committed to them through our bound variables in scientific (in the widest sense) statements. Quine is always trying to make our ontological commitments avoid objects that fail to have definitive identity conditions; but I don't see it as necessary that what we must countenance in scientific discourse must have definitive identity conditions, it may happen that they do not. So, Quine has to form separate arguments to show how talk of propositions and unactualized objects can be eliminated, not just that they have unclear identity conditions. Quine, remember, is always concerned with what is necessary for scientific discourse. And there is nothing, in principle, that prevents talk of entities with unclear identity conditions - they may be, though Quine argues at length to show it's not the case, that scientific discourse MUST admit of propositions or properties or unactualized objects. Edited by aufbau87 on 07/01/09 - 08:30 PM

yasseford
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Posted 07/02/09 - 11:21 AM:	#10
aufbau, I absolutely agree with Quine's solution to the Pegasus riddle, I was just posing it to C in order to demonstrate what I thought to be at least interesting ontological questions related to language. This whole thing about unclear identity conditions is what I was trying to get at. As far as a correspondence theory of truth, this is a tricky thing. No one here (at least I'm not) is insinuating that actual words have magical tethers to real life objects. Rather, words, as signs, represent objects/ideas/etc, ie, signifieds. Now the word "cow" could mean a female bovine to you and an overweight woman to me, and neither is more correct than the other. Rather, when I analyze the statement "The cow grazes," I have in my mind what each sign signifies, and I can examine the world to determine if that statement is true. Where I am interested is in the case of where multiple people share a signified, such as Pegasus the mythical horse, albeit with perhaps slightly nuanced differences. We can probably agree that my white Pegasus is the same as your gray Pegasus, despite the fact that we are at odds on the color. But given the laws of identity, and the fact that this so-called Pegasus can be exaplained away ala Russelian translation, can we rightfully say that we are talking about the same thing? I forget where Quine says this (i'll have to check my notes when I get home and leave an addendum), but in an anti-realist argument he supports involving language, essentially this argument applies to all language.
Yasseford

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