Will the real Saul Kripke please stand up? Fiction, philosophy and possible worlds

Abstract

In this essay I propose some useful points of contact between literary theory (especially narrative poetics) and developments in modal or "possible worlds' logic. This is the branch of logic having to do with matters of necessity and possibility, or truths (such as those of mathematics and logic itself) which hold good in every possible world and contingent truths (such as those concerning historical events) which hold good across only that range of worlds which resemble our own in the relevant respects. These issues have lately received much attention from philosophers - among them Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam - who put forward a realist theory of reference based on modal-logical considerations. However, they also raise interesting questions about fictive "possible worlds', the status of truth-claims in literary criticism, and the complex relationship between history and fiction in various narrative genres. They therefore have a crucial bearing - I suggest - on the kinds of debate that first arose in the wake of post-structuralism and have since continued with regard to New historicism and other varieties of "textualist' approach. My essay begins by laying out the main arguments for the Kripke/Putnam "new' theory of reference, along with some relevant philosophical background including its departure from the hitherto dominant descriptivist theory proposed by Russell and Frege. I then explore the implications of modal logic in various contexts, among them that of historical enquiry (which often proceeds by means of counterfactual- supporting explanations) and issues concerning the ontology of fictive or imaginary objects. However my main purpose here is to put the case for modal realism - suitably construed - as a promising alternative to some of the more extreme anti-realist or discourse-relativist positions that have occupied the high ground of literary theory over the past two decades.