Abstract

Proper names in fiction and in discourse about fiction generate certain puzzles. How can claims like "Raskolnikov is Russian" be true if there is no Raskolnikov? If fiction involves make-believe rather than truth, why say that Nineteen Eighty-Four is about the real London? In my dissertation I argue that the key to resolving such puzzles is by considering the ways in which interpretations of works of fiction generate normative constraints on our imaginings. And I argue that traditional solutions fail both because they operate with inadequate theories of proper names, and because they do not recognize the centrality of interpretation and imagination to fiction-involving discourse. ;After laying out desiderata for my project in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 I elaborate an account of the contents communicated by utterances that explains how even nonreferring names can be used to "talk about the same thing." In Chapter 3 I argue that to classify a narrative as fiction is to link it to a certain historical practice, one whose standards of interpretation and assessment evolve over time. Because this theory does not define fiction in terms of general semantic properties, it allows us to recognize the variety of roles both referring and nonreferring names can play in different works. Chapter 4 surveys some of these roles, developing an account of our judgments of truth and fictional correctness for particular works. ;In the last two chapters I turn to an analysis of proper names in utterances about fiction. In Chapter 5 I argue that once we recognize the relativity to interpretation of the contents communicated by these utterances, we should maintain that referring names in discourse about fiction designate their ordinary referents in their ordinary way. In Chapter 6 I develop a conception of pretend reference that explains how utterances containing empty names can be true, without assuming that these names have special meanings or that they refer to nonexistent or abstract objects. The result is a unified, systematic theory of proper names across a wide range fiction-involving discourse that does justice to our imaginative engagement with fiction