The Seven Consequences of Creationism

Voltolini, Alberto

doi:10.1007/s12133-008-0038-7

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…More specific to the philosophy of fiction is the interpretation of "creationist locutions" [8] (p. 17), which leads to a debate about so-called "fictional creationism": creationists argue that such locutions should be taken at face value; consequently, they hold that it is possible to create abstract objects in general and to create individuals of paper in particular, and they proceed to explain how [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] 3 . Anti-creationists deny this possibility and proceed to explain away creationist locutions.…”

Section: Creationism In the Philosophy Of Fictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See [11] for a recent book-length defence of creationism based on an institutional theory of fiction. The debate over fictional creationism has grown to be considerably large by now; some influential, fairly recent contributions include [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. 4 The force of the argument is comparable to the force of indispensability arguments in the philosophy of mathematics, taking the "best scientific practice" regarding fictional characters to be literary studies [28,29].…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Paradox of Fictional Creatures

Rouillé

2023

Philosophies

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Authors create fictional characters; that is a “creationist locution”. Artefactualism takes such statements very seriously and holds that fictional characters are abstract artefacts, i.e., entities that are both created and abstract. Anti-creationists, by contrast, deny that we need to postulate such doubtful entities to explain creationist locutions. In this paper, I present this debate in the form of a paradox, which organises the many existing theories of creationist locutions in a single logical space. This new way of framing the problem displays the crucial role of so-called “linking principles”. In general, it seems that fictionality entails nonexistence, while creation entails existence. This is why “fictional creatures” are puzzling. I further argue that to create means to invent and to realise, and finally, that fictional characters are invented but not created, contra artefactualism. I thus advocate for a new kind of anti-creationism about fictional characters.

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Section: Creationism In the Philosophy Of Fictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Paradox of Fictional Creatures

Rouillé

2023

Philosophies

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“…They in general can bear a property only relative to an act involving the attribution of that property, namely the object an associated referential act is meant to refer to. 11 9 The particular conditions that may distinguish a fictional object from an intentional object are further discussed in Thomasson [30] and Voltolini [35]. 10 The underspecification of intentional objects should not be confused with the nonspecificity of the complement of intensional transitive verbs, a point that will be discussed later.…”

Section: Intentional Objects and Fictional Objectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantification with Intentional and with Intensional Verbs

Moltmann

2015

Synthese Library

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Whether natural language permits quantification over 'nonexistent', intentional objects is subject of a major controversy, as is the nature of such entities themselves. This paper argues that certain constructions in natural language involving 'intentional verbs' such as 'think of ', 'describe', and 'imagine' cannot be analysed compositionally without positing intentional objects, as entities strictly dependent on intentional acts. The paper also argues that intentional verbs involve a distinctive semantics, which is fundamentally different from that of intensional transitive verbs, a difference reflected in a range of quantificational phenomena.The questions whether natural language permits quantification over intentional objects as the 'nonexistent' objects of thought is the topic of major philosophical controversy, as is the status of intentional objects as such. Many philosophers deny the possibility of there being 'nonexistent' objects of thought. Others following Meinong [12], take 'nonexistent' objects of thought to be entities individuated only by a particular set of properties, and as having a weaker form of being than existence. Yes others, in the tradition of Brentano [1], admit the possibility of intentional, nonexistent objects, but take them to be dependent on an intentional act or state. This paper will argue that natural language does reflect a particular notion of intentional object and in particular that certain types of natural language constructions (generally disregarded in philosophical literature) cannot be analysed without positing intentional objects. At the same time, those intentional objects do not come for free; rather they are strictly dependent on intentional acts that generally need to be present, in one way or another, in the semantic structure of the sentence.The constructions in question display a particular dependence of intentional objects on the event argument of an intentional verb in the same sentence, a verb like F. Moltmann ( )

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How to Vindicate (Fictional) Creationism

Voltolini

2020

Synthese Library

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The Seven Consequences of Creationism

Cited by 5 publications

References 27 publications

The Paradox of Fictional Creatures

The Paradox of Fictional Creatures

Quantification with Intentional and with Intensional Verbs

How to Vindicate (Fictional) Creationism

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