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Author : Amie L. Thomasson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 204 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0521640806
Amie Thomasson argues that fiction has far-reaching implications for central problems of metaphysics.
Author : Amie Lynn Thomasson,Claudio Majolino,Julie Ruelle
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2011
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1904987982
Les philosophes ont souvent traite de la fiction comme d'un probleme collateral, dont l'interet est limite a la logique et la philosophie du langage. Ce livre affirme en revanche que la fiction joue un role central en metaphysique. En developpant une theorie - artefactuelle - de la fiction il aboutit ainsi a l'esquisse d'un nouveau systeme de categories, - multidimensionnel -. L'on comprend ainsi que les personnages fictionnels sont des artefacts abstraits, des entites tout aussi ordinaires que les lois, les symphonies ou les uvres litteraires: des entites dont l'existence depend, d'un cote, des actes intentionnels humains (les actes createurs d'au moins un auteur et les competences linguistiques et culturelles d'une communaute de lecteurs) et, de l'autre, de l'existence de certaines entites spatio-temporels (des livres, des enregistrements etc.). Les consequences metaphysiques d'une telle theorie sont importantes: l'identification d'un ensemble de categories ontologiques de base, une meilleure comprehension de la difference entre vraie et fausse parcimonie ontologique et la formulation d'une base adequate pour une ontologique du monde quotidien. Philosophers have often treated fiction as a sideshow issue, whose interest is limited to logic and philosophy of language. By contrast, this book maintains that fiction plays a central role in metaphysics. Through an "artifactual" theory of fiction it leads to the sketch of a new "multidimensional" system of categories. Fictional characters are recognized as abstract artifacts, as ordinary as laws or symphonies or works of literature, i.e. entities whose existence depends on intentional human acts on the one hand (the creative acts of at least one author, and the linguistic and cultural competence of a community of readers) and on the other hand on the existence of some spatiotemporal particulars (such as books, records etc.). The metaphysical consequences of this theory are far reaching: the identification of a set of basic ontological categories, a better understanding of the difference between genuine and false ontological parsimony and the formulation of an adequate basis for an ontology of the everyday world.
Author : Alberto Voltolini
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2006-11-22
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781402051470
This book presents a novel theory of fictional entities which integrates the work of previous authors. It puts forward a new metaphysical conception of the nature of these entities, according to which a fictional entity is a compound entity built up from both a make-believe theoretical element and a set-theoretical element. The author advances a new combined semantic and ontological defence of the existence of fictional entities.
Author : Stuart Brock,Anthony Everett
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780198735595
Discusses a range of philosophical questions about fictional characters and fictional objects, with implications for metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.
Author : Dieter Meindl
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0826210791
By synthesizing Kayser's and Bakhtin's views of the grotesque and Heidegger's philosophy of Being, American Fiction and the Metaphysics of the Grotesque seeks to demonstrate that American fiction from Poe to Pynchon has tried to convey the existential dimension: the pre-individual totality or flow of life, which defines itself against the mind and its linguistic capacity. Dieter Meindl shows how the grotesque, through its self-contradictory nature, has been instrumental in expressing this reality-conception, an antirationalist stance in basic agreement with existential thought. The historical validity of this new metaphysics, which grants precedence to Being--the context of cognition--over the cognizant subject, must be upheld in the face of deconstructive animadversions upon any metaphysics of presence. The notion of decentering the subject, Meindl argues, did not originate with deconstruction. The existential grotesque confirms the protomodernist character of classic American fiction. Meindl traces its course through a number of well-known texts by Melville, James, Gilman, Anderson, Faulkner, and O'Connor, among others. To convey life conceived as motion, these writers had to capture--that is, immobilize--it in their art: an essentially distortive and, therefore, grotesque device. Melville's "Bartleby," dealing with a mort vivant, is the seminal text in this mode of indirectness. As opposed to the existential grotesque, which grants access to a preverbal realm, the linguistic grotesque of postmodern fiction works on the assumption that all reality is referable to language in a textual universe. American Fiction and the Metaphysics of the Grotesque will significantly alter our understanding of certain traditions in American literature.
Author : Charles Crittenden
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2019-06-07
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781501733871
Charles Crittenden here offers an original solution to one of the traditional dilemmas of philosophy—whether there can be any thing not existing, since to say that some thing does not exist seems to presuppose its existence. Drawing on the tools of Wittgensteinian philosophy and speech act theory, Crittenden argues that we can and often do make reference to unreal objects such as fictional characters, though they do not exist in any sense at all.
Author : Nathaniel Goldberg,Chris Gavaler
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2020-07-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781000164114
This book addresses how our revisionary practices account for relations between texts and how they are read. It offers an overarching philosophy of revision concerning works of fiction, fact, and faith, revealing unexpected insights about the philosophy of language, the metaphysics of fact and fiction, and the history and philosophy of science and religion. Using the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien as exemplars, the authors introduce a fundamental distinction between the purely physical and the linguistic aspects of texts. They then demonstrate how two competing theories of reference—descriptivism and referentialism—are instead constitutive of a single semantic account needed to explain all kinds of revision. The authors also propose their own metaphysical foundations of fiction and fact. The next part of the book brings the authors’ philosophy of revision into dialogue with Thomas Kuhn’s famous analysis of factual, and specifically scientific, change. It also discusses a complex episode in the history of paleontology, demonstrating how scientific and popular texts can diverge over time. Finally, the authors expand their philosophy of revision to religious texts, arguing that, rather than being distinct, such texts are always read as other kinds, that faith tends to be more important as evidence for religious texts than for others, and that the latter explains why religious communities tend to have remarkable historical longevity. Revising Fiction, Fact, and Faith offers a unique and comprehensive account of the philosophy of revision. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophy of literature, literary theory and criticism, and history and philosophy of science and religion.
Author : Leo Indman
Publisher : Leo Indman
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2017-04-22
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780998828947
Concept Progress is a fusion of science fiction and philosophy. It is a metaphysics that centers on progress being a driving force in human evolution. This recurring viewpoint has previously stirred much debate. However, as we escalate through the 21st century, the evidence is plentiful. Concept Progress offers a fresh perspective into the topic, citing humanity's ongoing accomplishments as a convincing piece of that evidence. In the book, we celebrate ourselves for our achievements, challenge our perceived limits, and conclude that progress will eventually produce the most evolved life form. In so doing, we look back to the beginning of time and circle forward to a time that is farther away than the current age of the universe. While the tone of the book's body resembles that of a philosophical prose, with each chapter, the reader realizes more and more that the narrative is actually one of science fiction. The intent of the book's structure and approach is manifold. First, it is safe to say that any literature that points to the future is already, by definition, a work of fiction—no matter how serious it tries to sound. Imagining future technologies, foreseeing the next stages of human evolution, and exploring the realm of the highest dimension surely makes it a science fiction. Second, the book is a collection of concepts—abstract notions of the mind that reflect our grasp on certain aspects of reality. It is also a play on those concepts, exposing how our progressive understanding of these notions can gradually be transcended. Each chapter starts with a sketch of a particular concept whose humanistic yet quantum mechanical context lets us identify with it and be mystified by it. From the concepts of sound and light to the concepts of consciousness and coexistence, each concept tale depicts a personal expression of our mutual worldview. Third, each one of the ten chapters concludes with a short sci-fi story. These stories project the theme further and subtly point to each other. As we connect the dots from one story to another, the outline reveals a world that makes us wonder whether we are headed toward its future or whether we will bypass it as an alternate universe. In one story, we meet the inventor of mind-reading technology while in another story, we meet an artificial life form that will be made possible by this technology. Yet another story is about the time-traveling mind of an astrophysicist whose life's work has impacts on whole timelines, as revealed by a different story. In the end, it all comes together with the final piece of the puzzle completing not only the short story series, but also the novel as a whole. Each three-part chapter is a triad with a distinct purpose in mind. We begin the journey with our own curiosity. This basic emotion allows us to open the door to that which we are so curiously seeking. Essentially, that covers everything. In questioning the entirety of existence, we commence with the premise that it is the element of life that sends us on a quest for meaning. So we review the trend of life's evolution on Earth from its roots to the present day and follow this trend into the distant future. The process of evolutionary development leads us to a recipe for one's own personal progress, which is comprised of physical, mental, and spiritual ingredients. It soon becomes clear that a species can change only insofar as its individual members embrace this change. And we realize that our choice in the matter has impacts not only on our own future, but also on the future of everyone who shares our timeline. In some ways, Concept Progress is a modern commentary of Charles Darwin's revolutionary theory of evolution. In other ways, it is an encouraging observation of our humble human existence. As we widen the time scale and follow an evolutionary trend from biological, social, and cosmic angles, the concepts of evolution and progress slowly but surely become synonymous.
Author : R. M. Sainsbury
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2009-09-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781135278335
Are fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes real? What can fiction tell us about the nature of truth and reality? In this excellent introduction to the problem of fictionalism R. M. Sainsbury covers the following key topics: what is fiction? realism about fictional objects, including the arguments that fictional objects are real but non-existent; real but non-factual; real but non-concrete the relationship between fictional characters and non-actual worlds fictional entities as abstract artefacts fiction and intentionality and the problem of irrealism fictionalism about possible worlds moral fictionalism. R. M. Sainsbury makes extensive use of examples from fiction, such as Sherlock Holmes, Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary and examines the work of philosophers who have made significant contributions to the topic, including Meinong, David Lewis, and Bas Van Fraassen. Additional features include chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary of technical terms, making Fiction and Fictionalism ideal for those coming to the issue for the first time.
Author : Brian Wicker
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2014-01-13
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781472510723
Story-telling, since its earliest beginnings, has drawn its power not simply from the intrinsic fascination of a skilful narrative but from the fact that human beings are compelled to make 'fictions' if they are to explain and come to terms with the world they experience. This holds true, as Mr Wicker shows in the course of a profound and wide-ranging enquiry, for the complex and often sophisticated novels and anti-novels of our own day just as much as for such traditional forms as myth and fairy-tale. The world remains 'story-shaped'.
Author : Mark Eli Kalderon
Publisher : Clarendon Press
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2005-07-07
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780191557750
Fictionalism is the view that a serious intellectual inquiry need not aim at truth. It came to prominence in philosophy in 1980, when Hartry Field argued that mathematics does not have to be true to be good, and Bas van Fraassen argued that the aim of science is not truth but empirical adequacy. Both suggested that the acceptance of a mathematical or scientific theory need not involve belief in its content. Thus the distinctive commitment of fictionalism is that acceptance in a given domain of inquiry need not be truth-normed, and that the acceptance of a sentence from the associated region of discourse need not involve belief in its content. In metaphysics fictionalism is now widely regarded as an option worthy of serious consideration. This volume represents a major benchmark in the debate: it brings together an impressive international team of contributors, whose essays (all but one of them appearing here for the first time) represent the state of the art in various areas of metaphysical controversy, relating to language, mathematics, modality, truth, belief, ontology, and morality.
Author : Jaekwon Kim,Ernest Sosa,Gary S. Rosenkrantz
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 680 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2009-04-13
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781405152983
Fully extended and revised, A Companion to Metaphysics 2nd Edition includes a section of detailed review essays from renowned metaphysicians, and the addition of more than 30 new encyclopedic entries, taking the number of entries to over 300. Includes revisions to existing encyclopedic entries Features more than 30 all-new "A to Z" entries Offers a section of in-depth, essays from renowned metaphysicians Provides the most complete and up-to-date reference guide for students and professionals alike
Author : Michael Rodgers,Susan Elizabeth Sweeney
Publisher : Springer
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2016-08-31
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137592217
The first collection to address the vexing issue of Nabokov’s moral stances, this book argues that he designed his novels and stories as open-ended ethical problems for readers to confront. In a dozen new essays, international Nabokov scholars tackle those problems directly while addressing such questions as whether Nabokov was a bad reader, how he defined evil, if he believed in God, and how he constructed fictional works that led readers to become aware of their own moral positions. In order to elucidate his engagement with aesthetics, metaphysics, and ethics, Nabokov and the Question of Morality explores specific concepts in the volume’s four sections: “Responsible Reading,” “Good and Evil,” “Agency and Altruism,” and “The Ethics of Representation.” By bringing together fresh insights from leading Nabokovians and emerging scholars, this book establishes new interdisciplinary contexts for Nabokov studies and generates lively readings of works from his entire career.
Author : Albert William Levi
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 368 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 1962
Category : Imagination
ISBN : STANFORD:36105034827407
Author : Jonathan Newell
Publisher : University of Wales Press
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2020-03-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781786835451
This book offers a new critical perspective on the weird that combines two ways of looking at weird and cosmic horror. On the one hand, critics have considered weird fiction in relation to aesthetics – the emotional effects and literary form of the weird. On the other hand, recent scholarship has also emphasised the potential philosophical underpinnings and implications of weird fiction, especially in relation to burgeoning philosophical movements such as new materialism and speculative realism. This study bridges the gap between these two approaches, considering the weird from its early outgrowth from the Gothic through to Lovecraft’s stories – a ‘weird century’ from 1832–1937. Combining recent speculative philosophy and affect theory, it argues that weird fiction harnesses the affective power of disgust to provoke a re-examination of subjectival boundaries and the complex entanglement of the human and nonhuman.