Fiction and the Causal Theory of Names - Pavel

Poetics 8 (1979) 179-191 0 North-Holland Publishing Company

FICTION AND THE CAUSAL THEORY OF NAMES

THOMASG.PAVEL

The paper discusses the causal theory of names and its impact on the theory of fiction. It is claimed that the causal theory of names has a structural and a historical component. Names of fictional beings are structurally alike to usual proper names. As for the historical aspect, it is claimed that the historical or causal chain condition for name adequacy is too strong when mythology and fiction are taken into consideration. A flexible ontology Including various kinds of beings is necessary to adequately account for mythological and fictional beings.

Philosophers who examined the problem of literary characters and, more general, fictional objects, often worried about what appears to be a common sense com- mitment to some kind of existence and individuation of such characters and objects. Hamlet, Anna Karenina, Sherlock Holmes, Macbeth’s dagger, Des Essaintes’ mansion, Proust’s madeleine, are constantly talked about both by literary critics and ordinary people as if these characters and objects were fully individuated and even as if, in some unspecified way, they existed. But at the same time, according to the most widespread view in the philosophy of language, names like Hamlet or Anna Karenina and definite descriptions like ‘Proust’s madeleine’ do not denote. Various solutions have been proposed to this puzzle, none of which have escaped criticism.

A detailed discussion of this issue can be found in Howell (1979). Howell examines and rejects in turn “(i) a quasi-actualist, Meinongian treatment of fictional objects; (ii) the idea that fictional objects are non-actual but well-individuated entities existing in metaphysically possible worlds; (iii) the non-referential, substitu- tionalquantification-style view of such objects and (iv) a recent de dicfo-style model approach to fictional objects”. At least one. other treatment of fictional characters has recently been proposed, under which these characters are non-instanti- ated kinds (Wolterstorff 1979).

Howell’s discussion and rejection of alternative (ii), namely the view that fictional objects are non-actual but well-individuated entities existing in metaphysically possible worlds, involves the causal theory of reference propounded by such philosophers as Kripke, Kaplan, Plantinga, Donnellan and Putnam. ’ The purpose

1 For an account of this theory, containing several major papers, an introduction and an exten- sive bibliography, see Schwartz (1977).

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180 T.G. Pave1 J Fiction and the causal theory of names

of the present paper is to argue that some aspects of the causal theory of reference, far from undermining the above-mentioned alternative, render it in fact very plausi-

ble. It will be necessary to distinguish between two aspects of the causal theory of

reference and to claim that one of these aspects is not close enough to the practice of reference, such as it occurs in ordinary discourse. It will be argued then that reference to fictional characters and objects is not a logically strange activity, but rather that it relates to a common way of referring. The argument will suggest a view of fictional objects close to alternative (ii) and to Howell’s own proposal. I will conclude by briefly examining the notion of ‘world of work of art’.

1.

Consider the following sentences:

(1) John is just like Peter: neither can make a decision in due time. (2) John is just like Hamlet: neither can make a decision in due time.

Sentence (2) is a case of what Woods (1974) calls ‘mixed’ sentences, i.e., sentences which contain names with actual referents and names of fictional characters. How are these sentences to be understood? One alternative is to consider that (1) says that John and Peter have in common the property of not making decisions in due time and that (2) assigns this property to John and to Hamlet. If, furthermore, one assumes that names are abbreviations standing for sets (or clusters) of definite descriptions, then (1) may be taken as saying that

(la) In the set (or cluster) of the definite descriptions which the name John stands for one can find the description ‘the one who cannot make the decision in due time’. The same description can be found in the set (or cluster) of definite descriptions which the name Peter stands for.

In a similar way (2) may be understood as asserting that the same property figures in both the sets (clusters) of definite descriptions ‘John’ and ‘Hamlet’ stand for. One is free to compare John and Hamlet despite the lack of denotation of the lat- ter: a standard Russellian representation of the sentence protects the user from unwanted ontological consequences.

However, not all mixed sentences are as easily dispensed with. Consider an example from Woods (1974):

(3) Freud psychoanalyzed Gradiva.

Does this sentence mean that Freud psychoanalyzed the set (cluster) of definite descriptions ‘Gradiva’ stands for? Or, more acutely:

T.G. Pave1 / Fiction and the causal theory of names 181

(4) Mary is in love with Jago.

Does (4) mean that Mary is in love with the set (cluster) of definite descriptions

‘Jago’ stands for? If so, what about:

(5) Despite all she knows about Jago, Mary is in love with him.

Kripke (1972) has convincingly shown that proper names are not abbreviations of definite descriptions but rigid designators. A being is given a name which refers to him, even if his set (cluster) of properties is unknown, variable or different from what one believes it is. ‘Shakespeare’ is not the name of ‘whoever wrote Hamlet or Othello’, since if one day irrefutable evidence is brought up, according to which these plays were written by, say, Bacon, this discovery would not entail that Bacon is Shakespeare, nor that Shakespeare ceases to be Shakespeare. Consequently, ‘Bacon’ and Shakespeare’ or any proper name for that matter, are linguistic labels

pegged to individuals, independently of the properties these individuals display. ’ Let us call this aspect of the ‘causal theory of reference’ the structural aspect. By showing that proper names cannot be identified with abbreviations of sets (or clusters) of definite descriptions and by proposing instead the illuminating notion of a

proper name as a rigid designator attached to some person or object, Kripke de- scribes the structure of the relationship between the linguistic label and its bearer.

Once attached to a being, a proper name refers to it, regardless of the possible changes in properties this being undergoes, and Q fortiori regardless of the changes

in our knowledge of them. This qualification ‘once attached to a being’ is of utmost importance in relation to a second aspect of the ‘causal theory of reference’ which could be called the historical aspect. While the structural aspect of the theory deals

with the indexical nature of proper names, the historical aspect focuses on the oper- ation of imposition of names. The historical component will be examined in detail shortly.

It is not difficult to see that the structural considerations of the ‘causal theory’ apply to fictional names as adequately as to ordinary proper names. ‘Hamlet’ is not merely an abbreviation for a set of descriptions, since it can be naturally employed counter-factually. Our knowledge about this character can be modified without the reference of the name being changed. One can say for example:

(6) Had Hamlet married Ophelia, both would have lived happily ever after.

In the world where Hamlet marries Ophelia and lives happily ever after, he is still

2 In a different context, fragment 688 of Pascal’s Pensees dramatically sets in contrast identity and qualities: “. . . what about a person who loves someone for the sake of her beauty; does he love her? No, for smallpox, which will destroy beauty without destroying the person, will put an end to this love for her. And if someone loves me for my judgement or my memory, do they love me? me, myself? No, for I could lose these qualities without losing my self”.

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Hamlet and she is still Ophelia, in the same way in Kripke’s arguments, a Napoleon who spent his whole life in Corsica, would still have been himself: The history of lit- erature presents us with several examples of changes in literary works which did not affect the use of fictional names. The eighteenth century public, for instance, could not accept the death of Cordelia in King Lear. Consequently, a modified version of the play by Nahum Tate, a minor eighteenth century dramatist, was preferred to the original play. According to Tate’s version, Cordelia survives and marries Edgar. If a conjunction of descriptions theory of names was true for fictional characters, it would follow that Shakespeare’s Cordelia is an entirely different character from Nahum Tate’s Cordelia. Although some aestheticians would probably want to claim this, the common intuition is rather that Nahum Tate has not created a second Cordelia, but simply has provided Cordelia with a happier destiny. One may compare this situation with real-life occurrences of sudden success, when, say, ‘being wretched’ ceases to belong to the set of descriptions of John. One can say, in such cases

(7) John is no more the person he was; happiness changed him entirely.

It is understood that (7) does not refer to John’s identify. A possible objection to the extension of the ‘causal theory’ to fictional names is

to point out that the ‘cluster’ variant of the description theory seems to accommo- date cases such as Cordelia’s. According to the ‘cluster of descriptions’ theory of names, a name is related to a cluster of properties, none of which is necessary for the name to apply. However, the application of the name is correct only when at least an unspecificied number of properties belonging to the cluster are present. Under this theory, ‘Cordelia’ stands for a group of properties like ‘x is Lear’s youngest daughter’, ‘x marries the king of France’, ‘x leads a French landing in Britain’, ‘x is a prisoner of Edmund’, ‘x is murdered at Edmund’s orders’, ‘x marries Edgar’. Notice that the last two properties are to some extent incompatible, or at least they can be modified so as to become incompatible. However, this need not deter the ‘cluster of description’ proponents. A term like ‘game’ may well be associated with a cluster of properties, some of which are mutually exclusive, e.g., ‘x is played by two players’, ‘x is played by four players’, etc. Accordingly, Nahum Tate’s character may be properly called Cordelia, even if some of the properties displayed are incompatible with some properties of the character in Shakespeare’s play. But ‘Cordelia’ will be nothing more than an abbreviation for a group of prop erties belonging to the cluster.

To counter this possible objection, one may recall that the paradigm-case for the ‘cluster of descriptions’ theory is a group of rather exceptional cases, names like ‘game’, ‘language’, and so on, the referents of which do not appear to have a small group of essential features in common. As Putnam (1970) convincingly argued, this is not necessarily the case for other types of names. Names of natural kinds, for instance, cannot be treated as referring to ‘clusters of descriptions’. A generaliza-


tion based on this rather idiosyncratic use of names is not necessarily welcome. What about proper names then? Kripke (1971) points out that in counterfactual statements, all the properties belonging to the cluster, excepting a small group of individuating properties, may disappear and still the proper name may be correctly applied. Within a given framework, one can think of situations where all the properties of Aristotle were changed, without him becoming someone else. Certainly, the minimal requirements for Aristotle to remain the same person vary according to the philosophical framework employed. Kripke (1972) appears to think, for instance, that the genetical structure of the fertilized egg which later became Aristotle is a sufficient individuating element. A theologian may consider however that the central fact of individuation consists in God’s associating a certain soul to the genetical structure. Ordinary use of language is closer to Aquinas’ view of individuation through form, for one can say with impunity:

(8) If Aristotle had different parents, he would have made a great king.

implying that Aristotle could have been himself, even if his genetical structure was different. For a modern biologist, to state (8) qua biologist, would certainly be bizarre. Nevertheless, nothing prevents the layman from uttering or assenting to (8). Consider sentences like:

(9) If only I was the son of Rotschild.

The utterer of (9) means that if he, as a well-individuated human being, was the son of Rotschild, his destiny would have been different. (9) does not obligatorily imply that were this wish fulfilled, the identiry of the speaker would be different. Although a reading of (9) which carries such an implication is not ruled out, the most common interpretation of (9) seems to be one assuming the preservation of the speaker’s identity in the world where he is indeed Rotschild’s son. Some philosophers would probably like to inquire about the criteria of a non-biological trans- world identity. I suggested above that, from the theologian’s point of view, there certainly is such a criterion. It should be added that a phenomenologist will be equally ready to provide an intuitively acceptable non-biological identity criterion.

The consequence of the above discussion is that the ‘cluster of descriptions’ theory of names does not account for the use of proper names in’ all actual situations. Philosophers who focus their discussion on names of actual and logically possible objects, while fully grasping this Inadequacy, appear to think that fictional names have to be treated differently from ordinary names. I must point out that in the contexts I am aware of, the reasons for the difference in treatment are always historical. Structurally the use of ‘Cordelia’ is not distinct from that of ‘Aristotle’ or ‘Socrates’. Indeed, let us assume that Nahum Tate had written a play in which Cordelia is capable, from the outset, of expressing her love for her father, where she does not marry the king of France but accompanies Lear through his tribula-


tions and marries Edgar in the end. Literary critics possessing some degree of sophistication will probably claim that Nahum Tate replaced Cordelia by another character. Still, the most common way of describing what happened is to say that in Tate’s hypothetical play Corclelia behaves differently than she does in Shake- speare’s play. Imagine then a play where there are many unclear allusions to a char-

acter, named Ugulo. Ugulo never appears on stage, he is not related to any of the

goings on and nobody knows anything precise about him. Let’s say, however, that the characters make sudden remarks like ‘Mary, think of Ugulo!’ or ‘John, don’t forget Ugulo’, or ‘Often, in bed, before going to sleep, I remember Ugulo . . . ‘. The descriptions related to this name are vague and non-commital; they could not possibly serve as identifying descriptions in Donnellan’s (1970) sense. Still, before long, the spectators know that there is some entity, called Ugulo, which (or who) has precisely the only property that nobody knows of any of its (his, her) properties. Assume now that in a second play, one learns that Ugulo is a half-mad dwarf kept prisoner in an underground cell; suppose, moreover, that he manages to escape and makes a triumphal entrance on stage. The spectators who have seen the first play will be naturally relieved to flesh out Ugulo. But that Ugulo had some identity, even if entirely undetermined from an epistemic point of view, they already

knew from indications supplied by the first play. The Ugulo example has been construced with Kripke’s (1972) Neptune argu-

ment in mind. It strives to show that fictional characters can be named and individuated outside any kind of description. The way the name Ugulo works is not unlike that of any rigid designator, although it is perfectly true that there is no means of uniquely specifying its bearer in the actual world.

Another reason why fictional names should not be identified with conjunctions or clusters of descriptions is this: if Sherlock Holmes was an abbreviation for a list of properties, then, provided that these properties do not contradict the natural laws of our world - and in the case of Holmes they don’t - it is possible that in

some world ontologically accessible from our own, Sherlock Holmes exists. This is another way of saying that Sherlock Holmes could have existed in our own world; he has entirely acceptable properties, all he lacks is existence. But this is an unwanted consequence, both from an ontological and from an aesthetic point of view. One of the features of fiction is that it may set a limit not to be tresspassed between our world and its worlds. This is not to be understood as a denial of the relationship between art and reality. Still, Don Quixote was wrong when attacking the puppets of Master Pedro, and when in need of a brilliant detective, it is nonsense to look for Sherlock Holmes. Indeed, if the name Sherlock Holmes works as a rigid designator, then Sherlock Holmes himself cannot come into existence in the actual world, since his name fKes him forever in fiction.

T.G. Pave1 / Fiction and the cauvll theory of names 185

II.

In what preceded, I argued that fictional names are not used as abbreviations for either conjunctions or clusters of definite descriptions. Rather the practice of tic- tion-writers, critics and ordinary people speaking about fictional characters and objects suggests that names in fiction work like usual proper names, that is as rigid designators attached to individuated objects, independent of the objects’ properties. It has also been submitted that the ‘causal theory’ of reference may be analysed into a srrucfurul and a historical component. The arguments presented strived to show that in as far as the structural aspects are concerned, there is no detectable difference between ordinary proper names and fictional names. In what follows I will argue that the historical component of the ‘causal theory’ of reference does not decisively affect the assumption that fictional names designate well-individuated entities.

The ‘causal theory’ assumes that reference is determined by an initial act of imposing a name on a referent. How exactly the impositio nominis takes place is not clear, the causal theorists not having yet developed a full account of this aspect of the theory. Indications in Kripke (1972), Kaplan (1973) and Donnellan (1974) suggest that a name can be attached only to a uniquely specified object. The unique specification required appears to be of an empirical nature. Thus, in one of Kripke’s much discussed examples, the astronomer Leverrier, after discovering some abnormalities in the orbit of the planet Uranus, figures out that they are caused by the presence of an as yet undiscovered planet and decides to call this planet Neptune. An example given by Kaplan (1969) slightly modified by Donnellan (1977), stipu- lates that provided the first child born in the 21st century will exist, his name can be fixed (now) as, say, ‘Newman 1’. It may have turned out that the abnormalities of Uranus were caused by some other factor than an unknown planet. In the same vein, it is not inconceivable that there will be no children born in the 21st century. In both cases then, the names ‘Neptune’ and ‘Newman 1’ would be rigid designators of objects that turn out not to exist. They rigidly designate, however, uniquely specifiable objects in possible worlds which bear a relationship of empirical alternativeness to the actual world. If my understanding of the causal theory is correct, the unique specification and the empirical possibility of the denominatum are oblig atory conditions for an impositio nominis to be acceptably established.

Conversely, when faced with a name, one might decide whether its reference is acceptably established, by causally (Kripke 1972) or historically (Donnellan 1974) retracing the actual use to the original impositio nominis. Thus, the name ‘Glenn Gould’ referring to the well-known pianist is acceptably used in a piece of conversa- tion if one is theoretically able to go backwards in time in a step-by-step fashion, so as to relate the association ‘Glenn Gould’-Glenn Gould to an original ‘baptism’. This requirement is intended to rule out situations when a proper name is mistakenly used. Suppose that someone who is listening to a recording of the Well-tempered clavier praises Glenn Gould’s performance, while in fact the pianist is, say, Alfred

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Brendel. By checking step-by-step the origin of the recording and the name of the pianist back to the original ‘baptism’, one does not find a ‘Glenn Gould’-naming, but a ‘Brendel’-baptism. The chain of relations between the baptism and the actual

use needs not to be made up only of strictly causal relations, as Donnellan (1974) pointed out. It is sufficient that a clear historical sequence links the two moments.

It has often been visible in various areas of the philosophy of language that a tension exists between a normative and a descriptive attitude. This situation is only natural and some normative control over language is indispensable in areas where a sense of responsibility and even austerity must be preserved, such as could be the case in the philosophy of exact science. In this field, it is likely that what Routley (1979) calls the ‘reality fixation’ will continue to play an important role. But the criteria and restrictions applicable to this area of linguistic activity do not necessarily fit other areas as well. Some of the requirements of an adequate aesthetic language may be less stringent than those of the philosophy of exact sciences. Not that speaking of works of art implies a complete relaxation of linguistic awareness (although too often this is indeed the case, at least in the free, relaxed world of art criticism). But it could be that some disciplinary tactics of the philosophers inter- ested primarily in more fundamental problems than the aesthetic ones may render

rational talk difficult or impossible in a field where a more tolerant, descriptively oriented stand may be needed. These platitudes are offered as an introdhlction to the discussion of Donnehan’s (1974) notion of ‘blocks’ in the historical backward chains of reference. hly point will be that although it is likely that in some contexts Donnellan’s treatment of fictional names constitutes an adequate way of getting

rid of these names, in the context of aesthetics and poetics, where fictional names and beings are precisely what we do not want to get rid of, this treatment is inade- quate.

Donnellan (1974) states that in order for a statement containing a proper name to be true or false, an individual is required, who relates historically to the use of

his name. For the statement

(10) Homer was a great poet.

to have a truth-value, one must be able to locate an individual, correctly related to the use of the name ‘Homer’ by a chain of historical links. If such an individual is

not found, there will be a “failure of reference”. The statement

. (11) Homer did not exist.

is true, according to Donnellan, “just in case there is a failure of reference, not in the statement itself, but in other possible or actual predicative statements involving the name”, such as statement (10). What constitutes, then, a failure of reference? In order to answer this question, Donnellan examines an example involving fictional beings. A child who discovers that Santa Claus is a fiction, states that

T.G. Pave1 /Fiction and the causal theory of names 187

(12) Santa Claus does not exist.

According to DormelIan, he means by this that sentences like ‘Santa Claus comes tonight’ are cases of reference failure. What happens, according to Donnellan, is that by checking historically the origin of the name ‘Santa Claus’, the child finds an event that precludes any referent being identified, namely the fact that Santa Claus was introduced in his language by a fiction told him by adults. Donnellan calls such events ‘blocks’ in the referential history of a name. Other examples of ‘blocks’ are the situation in which a child invents imaginary companions with whom he pretends to converse, or the instance in which, although the Homeric poems were in fact composed by many different writers, at some point an ancient scholar attributes them to a single person, called ‘Homer’. Nonexistent beings are those whose referential history ends in a ‘block’. Thus, fictional beings are introduced via ‘blocks’.

But think of a Greek city, say Athens, where myths were strongly believed in. In 5th century B.C. Athens, names like Zeus, Aphrodita or Pallas Athena referred to well-individuated beings, full of interesting properties, beings who intervened in daily lives, who had to be addressed and appeased, etc. From the point of view of a member of that community, the name ‘Pallas Athena’ worked as a rigid designator, attached to an individual deity, uniquely specifiable according to a set of criteria (e.g., Pallas Athena was the goddess who protected Athens, the daughter of Zeus, born in a special way by emerging from his head, etc.), which were acceptable inside the given community. From a 20th century strongly normative point of view, the citizens of 5th century B.C. Athens lived in a perpetual state of reference failure. But from a merely descriptive point of view, their references to gods and goddesses were entirely successful. 3 Despite their success no one would have been able to point to a ‘correct’ (in Donnellan’s sense) chain of historical links relating their uses of godly names to an impositio nominis. Instead, everyone took for granted that the myths about the origins of the gods provided for a particularly reliable source of name assignments. Putnam (1973) speaks of the division of linguistic labor. Ac- cording to him, 20th century people may speak about things like ‘elms’ or ‘gold’ without precisely knowing the means of recognizing them, because in the society as a whole there are people who have “the job of telling whether or nor something is real& gold” (p. 125). But suppose there exists some country isolated from outside technology in which the people are no longer capable of telling whether something is really gold. Would this mean that the people in that country should no longer speak of gold? They may continue to refer to gold, reassured by the memory of happier times when goldsmiths were still around to verify whether something was gold or not. A similar situation may arise in a religious city. Its citizens may admit that no one has seen the gods for some time; the myths, however, are

3 Kaplan (1973) and Plantinga (1974) offer such arguments. Kripke’s (1972) considerations seem to apply only indirectly to fictional beings.

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taken to be the memories of those who, many years earlier, still lived in the company of gods. 4

After a certain period of time, belief in particular gods may wane. There is no unique cause for this phenomenon. People are exposed to foreign religions and ac- quire a sense of religious relativity, philosophers come with new alternatives based on abstract reasoning, etc. It is hard to assume that collective (or individual) loss of faith in a given mythology can be represented as a discovery that, at some point in the historical links which relate the names of gods to the initial imposing of names, there is a ‘block’, or an event which mistakenly introduced these names as rigid designators of existing entities. More likely, the mythology as II whole starts gradually to lose its credibility. In the history of weakening mythologies, often there is a period of systematic ambiguity, when people cannot commit themselves to the literal existence of most gods and their traditional feats, without this entail- ing a radical negation of the existence of some gods in subtler forms than those narrated by the myths. At this stage the myths about the surviving gods are interpreted symbolically as saying something non-literal about existing and probably well-individuated gods. We are witnessing this phenomenon within contemporary Christianity, where the belief in the literal existence of supernatural beings like the devil fades away, while several aspects of the history of Jesus Christ are fre- quently interpreted symbolically.

The mythological mind distinguishes between at least three kinds of statements: factual statements, which cover everyday life, frue statements, referring to gods and heroes and fictions, which include stories other than myths (e.g., fables, funny moral stories, etc). ’ Differences between these statements are not always clear since in many societies the factual statements are closely related to the mythical ones. The distinction between mythical truth, which is assumed to be more pro- found and serious than factual truth, and leisure-oriented fiction is, however, well- established. Now, when a mythological system gradually loses its grip on a society, major parts of it tend to be assimilated into the leisure-oriented fiction. The ancient gods and heroes start to be perceived as fictional characters. But can we equate the suspension of religious belief with the discovery of a ‘block’, of an event that in ancient times made people assume that gods were real? Would it not be more likely to think that the ‘block’ is set precisely when the mythological system ceases to be a religious truth and slides into fiction? And is it not more probable that this ‘block’ or warning device is (figuratively) installed rather at the entrance into the newly fictionalized domain than at the origins of the historical links relating each

4 A discussion of the Christian counterpart of this situation is to be found in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments. according to which one of the difficulties of faith is precisely the relation to historically inaccessible witnesses. 5 See Eliade (1967). who quotes the Pawnee distinction between ‘true stories’ or myths and ‘false stories’ or narratives. The Cherokee have a similar distinction, opposing ‘sacred’ versus ‘profane’ stories. Myth has, according to Eliade’s happy formula, “‘absolute authority”.

T.G. Pave//Fiction and the causal theory of names 189

name of a god to the god’s ‘baptism’? What happens in such cases is that with the weakening of the mythological system, one or more (or all) individuals belonging to that mythology is (are) moved into another domain. But if an individual or an entire population of supernatural beings, bearing names, having properites, and so on, slides into fiction, does it mean that its members lose their individuation and their status as beings?

The above discussion suggests that although structurally names are rigid designators, historically, their attachment to entities is often not recoverable by a backward chain of causal or historical links, at least in the sense of contemporary factually oriented theories. Humans largely use names (and mean them as rigid designators) without caring about the causal or historical chain. In some areas they cheerfully accept that such chains have the mistiest origins. This situation suggests that the requirement concerning the causal (historical) chains of reference should thus be relaxed and relativized to different referential practices of the various speech com- munities. ’ In addition, referential practice suggests that in dealing with mythology, religion and fiction, it is useful to set up a complex ontology, involving different domains, populated by different kinds of beings. ‘Blocks’ are thus rendered unne- cessary. What they are supposed to explain will be represented in such an ontology by the moving of an individual or group of individuals from one domain to another. Incidentally, the allowance for travel between these domains could facilitate the representation of mixed sentences.

III.

If the above suggestions are acceptable, then there is no need for concern over the treatment of fictional objects as well-individuated entities. This treatment follows the common referential practices. The proposed relaxation and relativization of the causal (historical) requirements may stimulate the aesthetician to inquire about the specifically aesthetic means of introducing a name and maintaining its reference. ’

The preceding remarks may be linked to Wolterstorffs and Howell’s attempts to establish the notion of ‘world of work of art’. Indeed, if on the one hand Don Quixote does not belong to our world (nor to any of its empirically possible alternatives), and on the other hand he is not merely an abbreviation for a conjunction or a cluster of descriptions, but a welLindividuated fictional object who has a rigid designation, then it is only natural to assume that he belongs to the ‘world of the novel Don Quixote ‘.

I would like to conclude by pointing out that the notion of ‘worlds of works of art’ is not an explanatory notion, but only a useful explanandum. Indeed, to take

6 Evans (1973) carries a similar proposal in much detail. ’ Howell (1979) proposes a theory of individuation via fields of attention.


the example of Don Quixote, the novel has a complex ‘world’structure, the compo- nents of which do not always logically harmonize with one another. Leaving aside some of the less central stylistic effects such as the question of the main narrator (who is he? Cervantes, Cid Hamet?), the events of the novel take place in two paral- lel sets of worlds. One set has as its ‘actual’ world the characters and events given as ‘real’ in the novel (e.g., the infatuation of a certain Alonso Quijana with chivalry stories, his first escape, his adventures, etc.). A number of possible worlds are linked to the actual-in-the-novel world by a usual relation of alternativeness. Such is for instance the world where the priest, the barber and other Quijana’s friends manage to prevent him from escaping a second time. The second set of worlds may be described as the worlds of Quixote. The ‘actual’ world of this set is a mixture of the actual-in-the-novel-world and of the worlds given as actual in the chivalry stories devoutly believed by Quixote. The individuals which populate Quixote’s world are both the characters of the ‘actual-in-the-novel’ world and characters derived from chivalry stories. Quixote’s system of interpreting data is a highly idiosyncratic mixture of laws belonging to the ‘actual-in-the-novel’ and chivalry stories worlds. Again, besides the basic Quixote’s world, there are many possible Quixote’s worlds, such as the world in which Quixote succeeds in defeating the giants disguised as wind mills. One of the main aesthetic effects of the novel is the ambiguity of ‘raw’ events: any such event can be incorporated in both the set of ‘actual-in-the-novel’ worlds and the set of Quixote’s worlds. Sancho Panza’s puzzles originate precisely in his inability to adhere firmly to one of these sets of worlds. His willingness to share Quixote’s worlds is contantly hampered by the more natural interpretation of what happens in terms of the set of worlds ‘actual and possible in the novel’. (At the end of the novel, however, after his master recovers his sanity, it is Sancho who still believes in Quixote’s worlds.)

Or, to take a more modern example, consider The Once and Future King by T.E. White. This novel has the peculiarity that it is simultaneously set in medieval times at King Arthur’s court and in the late 19th and early 20th century imperial Great Britain. The set of worlds actual-and-possible-in-the-novel resemble, thus, to some extent Quixote’s worlds: there is a continuous hesitation between two different frames of reference. In such cases, and in many others, likewise, the notion of worldof-the-work-of-art refers to a complex entity which needs careftil logical and

aesthetical disentangling. Questions like the following thus remain to be examined and answered by the philosophers and aestheticians in this context: what kinds of actual, possible, impossible and erratic sets of worlds make up the world-of-such- and-such-work-of-art?; is the occurrence of particular kinds of sets of worlds in works of art subject to general regularities?; are there restrictions and preferences?; what is the artistic and cultural historic relevance of choices made by artists and trends?


References

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Thomas G. Pavel was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1941. A graduate of the University of Bucharest, he received his Doctorate in linguistics at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, France). Currently a professor of linguistics at the University of Ottawa, he specializes in the interactions of linguistics and literary studies. His publications include many literary and linguistic papers, as well as a study in literary semiotics: La Syntaxe Narrative des TragPdies de Corneille (Paris: Klincksieck; Editions de l’Universit6 d’ottawa, 1976). an essay on language and existence: Inflexions de voix (Presses de 1’UniversitC de Montre’al, 1976). and a collection of philosophical stories: Le Miroir Persan (Paris: DenBel; Montrial: Quinze, 1977).

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Fiction and the Causal Theory of Names - Pavel