Anti-meinongian actualist meaning of fiction in Kripke's 1973 John Locke lectures

pp. 301-328

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

Abstract

Critical exposition is offered of Kripke's actualist interpretation of the meaning of fiction, against the background of his actualist modal metaphysics. Kripke is committed to the proposition that Sherlock Holmes not only does not happen to exist in the actual world, but for that reason cannot possibly exist in any nonactual merely possible world. Difficulties in Kripke's analysis are highlighted, and contrasted with the Meinongian alternative account of the intended objects of fictional discourse as nonexistent objects satisfying the same generic intensional Leibnizian identity criteria, despite their relevant predicational incompletenesses, as any existent entities. Kripke emphasizes the role of pretending in creating and experiencing works of fiction, which is correct as far as it goes. However, it does not take into account the fact that pretending is itself an intentional relation, and that there is no satisfactory solution in Kripke's lectures as to how pretending that Anna Karenina has actually been named and actually has the other properties associated with her in one novel is different from pretending that Sherlock Holmes has actually been named and actually has different properties associated with him in another novel can be distinguished, without bringing the distinct intended fictional nonexistent Meinongian objects Sherlock Holmes and Anna Karenina into the referential semantic domain by which the meaning of fictional discourse is explained.