Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Trnava University invites you to the lecture Who is afraid of inadvertently created fictional characters?

Lecturer: Zsófia Zvolenszky, zvolenszky@nyu.edu, http://phil.elte.hu/zvolenszky
Department of Analytic Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, SASPRO/Marie Curie COFUND Scheme
Department of Logic, Institute of Philosophy, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest

Place and time: February 28, 2017, 14:00, at Department of Philosophy FF TU Trnava, room 411.

Abstract

According to artifactualism about fictional characters (fictional artifactualism, for short) Prince Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova in Tolstoy’s War and Peace are abstract artifacts created by Tolstoy’s activities. But can authors create their fictional characters unintentionally—inadvertently? And is it problematic if fictional artifactualists allow the possibility of such inadvertent creation phenomena? In this talk, I will argue that those fictional artifactualists who are sympathetic to Saul Kripke’s general arguments about the reference of proper names and potential errors surrounding successful proper name use should—certain recent worries to the contrary—make room for inadvertently created fictional characters. More generally, I will explore ways in which authors’ intentions with respect to their creations are more limited than philosophers have thought.