From Fictionalism to Realism

In ontology, realism and anti-realism may be taken as opposite attitudes towards entities of different kinds, so that one may turn out to be a realist with respect to certain entities and an anti-realist with respect to others. In this book, we focus this controversy for what concerns social entities in general and fictional entities in particular, these last being often considered nowadays as a kind of social entities. More specifically, fictionalists – those who hold that we only make-believe that there are entities of a certain kind – and creationists – those who maintain that entities of a certain kind are the products of human activity – will present themselves as the champions respectively of the anti-realist and the realist stance regarding the above entities. By evaluating the pros and cons of both these positions, this book is intended as spotting new light in a longstanding debate.

Index

Introduction
From Fictionalism to Realism—Fictional and Other Social Entities
Carola Barbero, Maurizio Ferraris and Alberto Voltolini

Chapter One
Fictionality and Imagination Reconsidered
Kendall L. Walton

Chapter Two
Against the Irrationality Argument for Fictional Emotions
Carola Barbero

Chapter Three
Defiction?
Alberto Voltolini

Chapter Four
A Puzzle About Fictional Characters
Stuart Brock, Cei Maslen and Justin Ngai

Chapter Five
The Social Character of Fictional Entities
Frederick Kroon

Chapter Six
Figmentum: An Essay in Legal Ontology
Paolo Di Lucia

Chapter Seven
Perspectives of Documentality
Maurizio Ferraris

Chapter Eight
Fictionalism in Ontology
Achille C. Varzi