Fiction and Indexinames

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, I will start from considering some theoretical desiderata concerning sentences that directly or indirectly involve fiction: i) the fictional use of language requires a context-shift; ii) one understands a sentence whether it is used fictionally or not; iii) one and the same proper name is, typically at least, used both within a certain work of fiction, i. e., when the sentence containing it is used fictionally, and outside that work of fiction, i. e., when, apparently at least, the sentence containing it is used nonfictionally yet in order to indirectly concern that very fiction; iv) different naming practices are to be mobilized by such different uses (independently of whether the apparently nonfictional use is actually successful as far as the reference of the name is concerned); v) independently of their really having a referent, proper names are always devices of direct reference. I will claim that once one takes proper names as indexicals of a particular sort,