FIKCIONALNI ENTITETI KAO ARTEFAKTI: NEKI PROBLEMI TEORIJE EJMI TOMASON
FICTIONAL ENTITIES AS ARTIFACTS: SOME PROBLEMS FOR AMIE THOMASSON’S THEORY

Summary/Abstract: Amie Thomasson has developed a theory of fictional entities, according to which they exist as contingent abstract objects. In her view, fictional characters are cultural artifacts just as the works of fiction they feature in. They are doubly dependent objects: for their becoming they depend on creative intentional acts of their author, and for maintaining their existence they depend on preservation of a copy of any fictional work they appear in. Thomasson claims that her theory has the advantage of vindicating the common beliefs about fictional entities embodied in the study, evaluation and interpretation of literature. However, I argue that, under this theory of fictional entities, no account of reference of fictional singular terms − neither the descriptive, nor the causal, nor Thomasson’s preferred hybrid account − can accommodate all the aspects of our literary practices.

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