Basic distinctions

5.2.1 Imagination and fictionality

From these definitions follows an important distinction between the propositions which are de facto imagined and those that are de jure fictional. The set of fictional propositions is not what is de facto imagined by the participant in the game of make-believe, but what isde jure imagined.

In other words, there is a precedence of the “rule” over the “moves” in a game of make-believe when it comes to determining what counts as fictional.⁶ This distinction fastens the analogy between truth and fictional “truth”. As Walton points out:

5[Walton1990], p.38.

6This might create some problems when we consider the interesting practices of literary fan-fictions which, arguably, put this basic distinction into question. I will discuss these in chapter 9.

Being fictional and being imagined are characteristics that many propositions share. [...] But it would be a serious mistake simply to identify the fictional with what is imagined. What is fictional need not be imagined, and perhaps what is imagined need not be fictional.

“Let’s say that stumps are bears,” Eric proposes. Gregory agrees, and a game of make-believe is begun, one in which stumps – all stumps, not just one or a specified few – “count as” bears. Corning upon a stump in the forest, Eric and Gregory imagine a bear. Part of what they imagine is that there is a bear at a certain spot – the spot actually occupied by the stump. “Hey, there’s a bear over there!” Gregory yells to Eric. Susan, who is not in on the game but overhears, is alarmed. So Eric reassures her that it is only “in the game” that there is a bear at the place indicated.

The proposition that there is a bear there is fictional in the game.

Or so Eric and Gregory think. They approach the bear cautiously, but only to discover that the stump is not a stump at all but a moss-covered boulder. “False alarm. There isn’t a bear there after all,” Gregory observes with surprise and relief. And for the benefit of outsiders, “We were mistaken in thinking that, in the world of the game, there was a bear there.” Eric and Gregory did imagine that a bear was there, but this did not make it fictional in their game. They do not say that fictionally there was a bear which evaporated when they approached, nor that it is no longer fictional that a bear was there at the earlier time. Gregory takes back his previous claim that fictionally a bear was in the place indicated, and he is right to do so.

Meanwhile, however, unbeknownst to anyone, there is an actual stump buried in a thicket not twenty feet behind Eric. Fictionally a bear is lurking in the thicket, although neither Eric nor Gregory realises the danger. No one imagines a bear in the thicket; it is not fictional that a bear is there because somebody imagines that there is. But it is fictional.

What makes it fictional? The stump. Thus does the stump generate a fictional truth. It is a prop. Props are generators of fictional truths, things which, by virtue of their nature or existence, make propositions fictional.⁷

So the distinction is the following: a proposition isimagined when someone imag-ines it; a proposition is fictional when someone should imagine it. As shown in the above quote, a proposition can be imagined without being fictional and it can be

7[Walton1990], p. 37.

CHAPTER 5. WALTON’S PROGRAMMATIC IDEAS

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fictional without being imagined by any participant in the game of make-believe.

5.2.2 Fictionality and truth

This important distinction grounds the other main result of Walton’s theory: fiction-ality, though analogous to truth, is is distinct from truth. The distinction was already made in §1.4.3above, when showing that the functional and the modal account make incompatible predictions about the truth-value of (1) and (2).

What is very interesting is that fictional propositions “correspond”, in some very precise sense, to real facts, namely the relevant features of the prop supplemented with the principles of generation in force when considering these features. But, typically, these fictional propositions are not true.

For instance, when Gregory says “Hey, there is a bear over there!” the fact

“corresponding” to the proposition expressed is the real fact that there is a stump over there (let us suppose Greg is not mistaken). But, of course, there is no bear in reality. So the proposition expressed by Gregory’s fictional sentence, although fictional, is false. On the other hand, suppose Gregory says “Hey, I am over there!”.

The proposition expressed by this sentence is both fictional and true. Indeed, it is clear from the description of the game that, in the game of make-believe, Gregory is Gregory.

So a fictional proposition can be either true or false, depending what the real situation is. Fictionality and truth are orthogonal concepts.

This distinction is very important, because it explains why fictional propositions are “objectively” fictional. In the following passage, one can see how Walton’s basic definitions and distinction are nicely interconnected to ground this “objectivity” of the fictional:

The role of props in generating fictional truths is enormously impor-tant. They give fictional worlds and their contents a kind of objectivity, an independence from cognisers and their experiences which contributes much to the excitement of our adventures with them. This objectivity constitutes another affinity between fictionality, insofar as it derives from props, and truth. The stump game shows that what is fictional, when props are involved, is detached not only from our imaginings but also from what people think and what they take to be fictional. We can be unaware of fictional truths or mistaken about them as easily as we can about those aspects of the real world on which they depend. Eric and Gregory are genuinely surprised to discover that fictionally a bear is lurking in the thicket. It is not thinking that makes it so; the prop does. Fictional

worlds, like reality, are “out there,” to be investigated and explored if we choose and to the extent that we are able. To dismiss them as “figment of people’s imaginations” would be an insult and underestimate them.⁸

This notion of “objectivity” is crucial in that it allows to distinguish between imaginings and misimaginings. It corresponds to the idea that one can be mistaken in their fictional reading. Fictional “falsity”, like (2), are misimaginings. In part 2, when I fine-tune the functional account, this distinction will play a central role and I will try to find the origin of this “objectivity”. In this part, the functionalist framework consists in grounding such a distinction without appealing to any notion of modal truth.