REALISM ABOUT IMPOSSIBLE FICTIONS

Abstract

In this paper, I argue for the thesis that some impossible propositions are true-in-fiction, and I suggest that we ought to take the datum that we seem to engage with non-vacuous impossible contents, seriously. I discuss a trilemma presented by Derek Matravers that highlights some tensions between the philosophy of fiction and modal epistemology, and I suggest that we ought not to deny the existence of fiction with impossible contents. I then consider arguments for the rejection of such impossible fictions, as well as attempts to account for them within a possibilist framework, but I argue that these are unsatisfactory. If I am right, this seems to call for the development of a hyperintensional semantics for fiction and imagination.