Abstract
Do fictional names refer to fictional characters? Realists argue they do, while anti-realists argue they do not. According to referentialism, a proper name contributes its referent to the singular proposition expressed by sentences of which the name is a constituent. Furthermore, referentialists argue that the mechanism via which a name means its bearer is best understood as a causal-historical chain of which subsequent uses of the name are parasitic on some initial use (or baptism). For the anti-realist, fictional names present a problem for referentialism as many sentences, such as “Peter Pan was created by J. M. Barrie, seem to refer and express true singular propositions. However, for realists, such sentences are congruent with a referential theory of naming. I will examine two realist accounts in detail, Meinongianism and artifactualism, and argue that artifactualism is the more likely candidate for a realist referential theory concerning fictional names.
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