Truth and fiction in lewis's critique of Meinongian semantics

pp. 277-300

in: Dale Jacquette, Alexius Meinong, the shepherd of non-being, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

In his essay, "Truth in Fiction', David Lewis raises four objections to a Meinongian semantics of fiction. Meinongian semantic domains admit existent and nonexistent objects, including objects ostensibly referred to in fiction, and permit reference and true predication of constitutive properties to existent and nonexistent objects alike. Lewis proposes an alternative to Meinong's object theory that considers the truth of a sentence in a work of fiction only within an explicit story-context. He explains truth in fiction by (selectively) prefixing (most) problematic sentences with the operator, "In such-and-such fiction…'. "Sherlock Holmes is a detective', for example, on Lewis's analysis, becomes, "In the Sherlock Holmes' stories, Sherlock Holmes is a detective'. I criticize all four of Lewis's objections to a Meinongian theory of fiction, suggesting that they can be answered or refuted, thereby blunting Lewis's charge that a Meinongian semantics is at a theoretical disadvantage in comparison with his modal story-contexting. Lewis-style modal story-contexting, moreover, is not incompatible with a Meinongian logic of fiction. Finally, by itself, without Meinongian object theory, Lewis's proposal is subject to equally powerful countercriticisms. Lewis-style story-contexting needs to be combined with a Meinongian semantics of fiction in order to avoid Lewis's objections to Meinongian object theory, and to avoid Meinongian objections to Lewis's story-context-prefixing.