Fiction: A Philosophical Analysis, by Catharine Abell

Abstract

The philosophical questions that arise in relation to our engagement with fiction are multifaceted. Fiction is often seen as a source of metaphysical and semantic puzzles, such as how fictional names like ‘Frodo Baggins’ can be meaningful if they lack referents. Such questions are often (if not always) pursued in relative isolation from the kinds of questions that have typically been of interest to aestheticians, such as how works of fiction differ from works of nonfiction and how our emotional and cognitive engagement with fiction should be understood. In contrast to such a piecemeal methodology, Catharine Abell’s agenda in Fiction: A Philosophical Analysis is broad and ambitious, aiming to offer a novel institutional account of the nature of fiction which in turns supports answers to a wide range of philosophical questions about the metaphysical, semantic, and epistemic aspects of our engagement with fiction. Given her broad and integrative remit, a...