Fiktive Tatsachen, ihre Relativität und deren Angabe

Abstract

Abstract The present article is concerned with the term realism. It develops an argument to distinguish between two different types: epistemically reflexive and non-reflexive realism. Wherever a fiction prompts its readers to distinguish between speaker-utterances from utterances not tied to a fictive character realism of the epistemically non-reflexive variety is at hand. Such a fiction posits a reality not to be reduced to the conceptual scheme of its fictive inhabitants. Realism of the epistemically reflexive sort indicates the relativity of the very conceptual fabric by which utterances not tied to a fictive entity give access to a fictive reality. In such a game of make believe there is, ontologically speaking, no room for the conjecture of a reality providing its fictive inhabitants as well as its non-fictive interpreters with concepts to name things as they are in themselves. How this comes to pass is shown by making use of Roland Barthes’ famous term ›reality effect‹ and subsequently illustrated by using the example of Franz Innerhofer’s novel Schöne Tage (Beautiful Days, 1975). The main argument is framed by a discussion of 19th century literary realism, on the one hand, and some concluding remarks on the potential cognitive benefits of epistemically reflexive realism, on the other hand. Whereas epistemically non-reflexive realism is a part of the family resemblance of a large portion of 19th century narrative fiction, so-called poetic realism is, according to the present article, to be considered as epistemically reflexive realism. Finally, it is argued that whenever a fiction, so to speak, loosens the connection between a fictive reality and certain concepts by suggesting the conceptual relativity of its own prescriptions to imagine certain things as fictionally true readers might be all the more willing to transfer those very same concepts into their own world.