Fiction: Impossible! (Axiomathes)

Axiomathes DOI 10.1007/s10516-017-9353-3 ORIGINAL PAPER Fiction: Impossible! Martin Vacek1 Received: 3 March 2017 / Accepted: 25 July 2017 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017 Abstract I argue that modal realism is unable to account for fictional discourse. My starting point is an overview of modal realism. I then present a dilemma for modal realism regarding fictional characters. Finally, I provide responses to both horns of the dilemma, one motivating modal dimensionalism, the other motivating a disjunctive analysis of modality. Keywords Modality
Fiction
Possible world
Impossible world
Advanced modalizing 1 Introduction Modal realism (henceforth MR) is (partly) characterised by the following four commitments: a. b. c. d. possible worlds, understood as infinitely many causally isolated sums of spatiotemporally interrelated individuals, exist (unrestrictedly); no individual exists in more than one such sum; possibility is analysed via a biconditional (P): (P): It is possible that P if and only if there is a possible world, w, such that at w, P; and there are no impossible worlds. & Martin Vacek [email protected] 1 Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 811 09 Bratislava, Slovakia 123 Axiomathes In addition, it is usually taken for granted that any theory of fiction must preserve two intuitive claims: e. f. fictional characters do not exist; and it is (metaphysically) indeterminate whether fictional characters have certain properties. The problem is that there is no tenable way to combine the metaphysical underpinnings of MR and these intuitions about the ontological status of fictional characters. As two simple arguments demonstrate, the four defining features of MR (a–d) are inconsistent with both (e) and (f). Consequently, proponents of MR face a dilemma: either they must accept impossible individuals or abandon their analysis of modality. As I will try to show, both options are available. 2 Two Arguments The first argument runs as follows: (A1) 2. 3. According to MR, possibility is unrestricted existence.1 [c] Fictional individuals do not exist. [e] Therefore, Fictional individuals are not possible. In response to A1, one might deny (1) and, instead of identifying possibility with unrestricted existence, identify it with existence in a world, namely in the actual world. If we proceed along these lines, (2) can be reformulated along the lines of (20 ): (20 ) Fictional entities do not exist in the actual world. (20 ), unlike (2), represents a restricted quantification over the domain of the actual world. This representation is a restricted representation because it leaves out things that exist simpliciter. Since (2’) does not rule out the existence of fictional characters beyond the actual world, the conclusion does not follow from A1’s premises. So far, so good. However, (20 ) generates quite a different and unwelcome consequence for MR. In Kripke’s words: [g]ranted that there is no Sherlock Holmes, one cannot say of any possible person that he would have been Sherlock Holmes, had he existed. Several distinct possible people, and even actual ones such as Darwin or Jack the Ripper, might have performed the exploits of Holmes, but there is none of whom we can say that he would have been Holmes had he performed these exploits. For if so, which one? (Kripke 1980, p. 158) 1 As Lewis writes: ‘I am right, other-worldly things exist simpliciter, though often it is very sensible to ignore them and quantify restrictedly over our worldmates’ (Lewis 1986, p. 3, my italics). 123 Axiomathes In short, the indeterminate nature of fictional characters implies that no actual or merely possible entity is Holmes: ‘if there is a gap between fiction and reality, there is also a gap between fiction and possibility’ (Kroon and Voltolini 2016, Section 1.1). To avoid the admission of incomplete individuals, proponents of MR might fill the Holmes role with a trans-world entity, a sum of all the possibilia across the worlds that fulfil Holmes’s description. No ‘which one?’ problem would then arise, as the question of who would fill the role would be fully determinate. It is the sum, full stop. Unfortunately, this move generates another crucial problem for MR. This is partly because the unrestricted mereological composition according to which any sum of individuals in MR’s pluriverse is an individual, and partly because of possibility introduction. For, when we apply (P) to claims about trans-world individuals, there are things in MR’s ontology that turn out to be impossible. For instance, (i) It is possible that there are talking donkeys is, according to MR, an ordinary modal claim because it fulfils both the left- and the right-hand sides of (P): (ii) It is possible that there are talking donkeys if and only if there is a possible world, w, such that there are talking donkeys at w. Consider, by contrast, the extraordinary modal claim expressed in (iii): (iii) There are at least two individuals in different worlds. Following (P), from (iii) we get: (iv) It is possible that there are at least two individuals in different worlds. Now the (P) schema transforms (iv) into (v): (v) It is possible that there are possible worlds if and only if there is a possible world, w, such that there are possible worlds at w. However, (v) cannot be an appropriate analysis of (iv) since it violates either MR’s ontological base, its account of possibility represented by (P), or possibility introduction. Consequently, we get the second impossibility result as a conclusion of A2: (A2) 1*. Fictional individuals are trans-world individuals. 2*. No possible world has a trans-world individual as its part. 3*. Trans-world individuals are impossible individuals. Therefore, Fictional individuals are impossible individuals. In the next section, I propose two alternative routes for dealing with the abovementioned impossibility results. The first proposal nominates impossible individuals as a way of filling the role of fictional characters. The second proposal presents an 123 Axiomathes alternative to MR’s analysis which, although hybrid in nature, renders the analyses of claims like (iii) and (3*) structurally similar and, more importantly, extensionally adequate. 3 Proposal I In his book Worlds and Individuals: Possible and Otherwise, Takashi Yagisawa draws parallels between space, time and modality and paves the way for a novel version of MR—modal dimensionalism (henceforth MD). MD can be conceived as the sum of the following theses: I. II. III. IV. V. Modal truths are to be analysed in terms of modal indices: possible and impossible worlds. Modal indices, along with spatial and temporal indices, are alethic relativizers, i.e. those items to which matters of truth are relativized. Ordinary individuals are world-bound in virtue of having possible worldstages in possible worlds and impossible world-stages in impossible worlds. There are alternative modal spaces. Impossible individuals exist in alternative modal spaces in virtue of having metaphysically incompatible world-stages.2 Since MD has room for impossible individuals, it can accommodate (e) and (f) by positing incomplete and inconsistent world-stages, respectively. To illustrate, consider an extended object, Charlie. To say that Charlie is not but could be brown means that there is a brown Charlie-stage in a possible world. On the other hand, the impossibility of Charlie’s being a pug and not being a pug entails that there is a Charlie world-stage that both is and is not a pug. It has been shown (Jago 2013), however, that there is a problem with this view. For, provided we accept MD’s metaphysics together with its analysis of (im)possibility, we get a contradiction. To see this, recall that modal stages are objects of quantification and are as real as any other spatial and temporal stages. According to the objection, positing inconsistent modal stages as real erases the difference between F-and-not-F-at-w and F and not-F simpliciter. In response, MD’s proponents make clear that in order to reflect their metaphysics in language, MD pays extra attention to what they call modal tense (Yagisawa 2010, ch. 5). Modal tense, alongside temporal and spatial tense, describes the fundamental structure of modal space as a whole. In particular, there is the actuality tense, a, the possibility tense, p, the impossibility tense, i, and the modal tense ‘at large’, m. Predications of actual things are made with the actuality tense; predications of possible things require the possibility tense; predications of impossible things are to be made with the impossibility tense; and predications of the whole modal space are effected by using the modal tense at large. 2 see also Vacek (2017). 123 Axiomathes Given the above, A1 receives a modified and, more importantly, consistent reading: (A1*) 1. 2. According to DM, metaphysical possibility ism existence in local modal space. Fictional individuals do not existp. [e] Therefore, There arei fictional individuals (although there neither area nor arep fictional individuals). As a version of MR, MD can thus accommodate the consequence that fictional individuals are impossible, meaning that they belong to an alternative modal space. It is thus the very acceptance of impossible individuals that, hand in hand with the impossibility tense, can survive the objection from inconsistency. Moreover, MD provides a unified and systematic treatment of both modal and fictional discourse. MD is a response to A1. Accepting impossible worlds, however, might be too big a pill to swallow. For this reason, I propose another response to the dilemma. I argue that if modal realists are reluctant to extend their ontology, they might modify their analysis of modality. Such a move countenances A1 but blocks the dilemma by responding to A2. 4 Proposal II Proposal II reintroduces the ordinary/extraordinary dichotomy, reflecting the distinction between possibilities that are relativized to unique worlds and possibilities that hold regardless of worlds. This analysis does not take the form of (P) since, instead of treating modal claims uniformly, it takes a disjunctive approach. While claims about world-bound individuals are to be analysed via (P), claims about trans-world individuals receive a different interpretation. There are many different proposals for how to treat extraordinary modal claims: (D) (B1) (B2) (Y) It is possible that P if and only if P (Divers 1999). It is possible that P if and only if P is true at some (non-empty) class of worlds (Bricker 2001). It is possible that P if and only if P is true at some world or some worlds (Bricker 2001). It is possible that P if and only if there is an alternative logical space, L, at which P (Yagisawa 2010). The left-hand sides of (D), (B1), (B2) and (Y) state something about the possibility of there being trans-world individuals, while the right-hand sides provide an analysis in terms of the semantic redundancy of the ‘at w’ operator, classes of worlds, plural quantification, and the plurality of logical spaces, respectively. If, following Kripke, we cannot decide ‘which one’ is a fictional individual, we can simply consider them all and identify fictional individuals with sums of possible 123 Axiomathes individuals. Of course, they are not possible in an ordinary sense. If we take an advanced modalizing approach, they turn out to be possible nonetheless. This analysis highlights the structural similarity between advanced modalizing and fictional discourse. Given that fictional individuals are trans-world individuals, MR provides a unified and systematic treatment of both extraordinary modal claims and claims about fictional characters. The difference is only one of degree: while fictional entities are trans-world in virtue of metaphysical indeterminacy combined with unrestricted summation, non-fictional trans-world individuals are the result of unrestricted summation alone. 5 Conclusion To conclude, given some intuitive assumptions about fictional characters, proponents of MR must admit that such characters are impossible entities. Instead of treating the conclusion as a reductio of the theory, however, this result motivates modified versions. One option is to include impossible worlds along the lines of MD. Another strategy is to treat fictional discourse as a kind of extraordinary modal reasoning and apply a different, but still MR-friendly, analysis. I leave it to the reader to decide which option is preferable. Acknowledgements Thanks to members of the Department of Analytic Philosophy of Slovak Academy of Sciences, and audiences at the University of Olomouc and the Hokkaido University for helpful feedback. This paper was written as a part of VEGA No. 2/0049/16 project: Fictionalism in Philosophy and Science. References Bricker P (2001) Island universes and the analysis of modality. In: Preyer G, Siebelt F (eds) Reality and Humean supervenience: essays on the philosophy of David Lewis. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham Divers J (1999) A genuine realist theory of advanced modalizing. Mind 108(430):217–239 Jago M (2013) Against Yagisawa’s modal realism. Analysis 73(1):10–17 Kripke S (1980) Naming and necessity. Blackwell, Oxford Kroon F, Voltolini A (2016) Fiction, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/fiction/ Lewis D (1986) On the plurality of worlds. Basil Blackwell, Oxford Vacek M (2017) Extended modal dimensionalism. Acta Analytica 32(1):13–28 Yagisawa T (2010) Worlds and individuals, possible and otherwise. Oxford University Press, Oxford 123