This paper focuses on the performative character of fictional language. While assuming that all speaking is a form of acting, it aims to shed light on the nature of fictional, and particularly literary, speech acts. To this aim, relevant input can be found in (a) the discussion of the ontological status of fictional entities and of their constitution and in (b) the inquiry into the interaction between author and receiver of a fictional work. Based on the critical assessment of different approaches in the debate on speech-act theory and literary fiction, the article first clarifies why the study of the performative character of fictional language cannot be reduced to either the discussion of the status of singular speech acts in the fiction or the inquiry into the pretend or unserious nature of fictional speech acts formulated by an author. While referring to Roman Ingarden’s, Jean-Paul Sartre’s, and Wolfgang Iser’s work, it subsequently argues that such a performative character should be understood as a specific serious affordance—or appeal—to imagine and thus to participate in the constitution of the fictional world.

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Whether, and in what sense, research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychopathology has—in addition to its descriptive and hermeneutic value—explanatory power is somewhat controversial. This paper shows why it is legitimate to recognize such explanatory power. To this end, the paper analyzes two central concerns underlying the debate about explanation in phenomenology: (a) the warning against reductionism, which is implicit in a conception of causal explanation exclusively based on models of natural/physical causation; and (b) the warning against top-down generalizations, which neglect the specificity of the individual. While acknowledging that these two caveats express serious concerns regarding the debate on explanatory models, I show that phenomenology has the resources to respond to them. These can be found in analyses of different types of causation relating to different regions of reality and in the structure of explanatory models based on exemplarity. On the basis of these analyses, I defend a pluralist account vis-à-vis explanatory models.

According to the so-called ‘artifactual theory’ of fiction, fictional objects are to be considered as abstract artifacts. Within this framework, fictional objects are defined on the basis of their complex dependence on literary works, authors, and readership. This theory is explicitly distinguished from other approaches to fictions, notably from the imaginary-object theory. In this article, I argue that the two approaches are not mutually exclusive but can and should be integrated. In particular, the ontology of fiction can be fruitfully supplemented by a phenomenological analysis, which allows us to clarify the defining modes of givenness of fictional objects. Likewise, based on the results of the artifactual theory, some assumptions in the imaginary-object theory, which are liable to be interpreted as laying the ground to phenomenalism, can be corrected.

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