Archive
Incomplete Fictions
Date: 21 April 2010 Time: 4.00 pm
Venue: Furness C50
Department of Philosophy
Visiting Speaker Seminar and Work-in-Progress Programme
Summer term 2010
Wednesday 21st April
Robbie Williams(Leeds)
Incomplete Fictions
Walton argues that the core normative role of truth in fiction (Fictionality) is as a constraint on imagination: imagination aims at fictionality as truth aims at belief. So, for example, the reason that we should imagine that Holmes lives in Baker Street, when reading the Holmes-stories, is that it is fictional in the Holmes stories that Holmes lives in Baker Street; and the reason we should not imaginethat Holmes is stupid is that it is fictional in the stories that he is not stupid. But how do these normative principles apply in cases of incompleteness: cases where a proposition is neither true in the fiction nor false in the fiction? A variety of different kinds of response seem called for in different cases. I look at whether we can introduce some order into this, and what this tells us about the analogy between fictionality and truth.
Seminars take place in Furness College, room C50 from 4:00 - 5:30pm
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Organising departments and research centres: Philosophy