## 1. Brief History and Overview



Some historically especially important precursors to modern
fictionalism are Jeremy Bentham (see Ogden 1932), who defended the
view that many entities referred to in ordinary discourse are
"fictitious", Hans Vaihinger, with his philosophy of the
"as if", and, specifically in the moral case, Friedrich
Nietzsche, whose view has been argued to amount to moral fictionalism.
Voltaire's famous "If God did not exist, it would be
necessary to invent him" can be seen as expressing a
fictionalist stance toward theism. Moreover, George Berkeley's
advice to think with the learned and speak with the vulgar is often
taken to express a fictionalist stance (from SS51 of *A
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge*, defending
his immaterialism from the charge that it does not fit the way we
speak). Sometimes Hume is mentioned as an early fictionalist (see for
example Varzi 2013). There are arguably earlier predecessors as well.
One possible example is the Pyrrhonist view that we should live
without belief (see Sextus Empiricus, "Outlines of
Scepticism"). Moreover, the doctrine of the two truths in
Buddhist philosophy has been interpreted as a distinction between
fictional truth and real truth (see Garfield 2006). Pierre Duhem
(1913) argues that the dominant view on astronomy before the advent of
modern physics was that a fictionalist attitude was appropriate. For
some discussion of these historical precursors, see Gideon Rosen
(2005) (for a discussion of Pyrrhonism, the early history of
astronomy, and Bentham), Arthur Fine (1993) (for a discussion of
Vaihinger), and Nadeem Hussain (2007) (for a discussion of Nietzsche
and other 19th century German philosophers with fictionalist
tendencies).



More recently, Hartry Field (1980 and 1989), Joseph Melia (e.g. 2000),
Mark Balaguer (e.g. 1998) and Stephen Yablo (see especially 2000a,
2000b, 2001 and 2002) have defended fictionalism about mathematical
discourse (see here the entry on
 fictionalism in the philosophy of mathematics);
 Bas van Fraassen (1980) has defended a version of fictionalism about
scientific theories; Richard Joyce (2001, 2005), Mark Kalderon (2005a)
and Daniel Nolan, Greg Restall and Caroline West (2005) have defended
moral fictionalism; Kendall Walton (1985, 1990 , 2000), Mark Crimmins
(1998), Stuart Brock (2002), Mark Balaguer (1998a), Anthony Everett
(2005), and Frederick Kroon (2000, 2004) have defended fictionalism
about things like negative existentials, identity statements,
propositional attitude reports, and fictional characters; Peter van
Inwagen (1990) and Cian Dorr and Gideon Rosen (2002) have defended
fictionalism about ordinary object discourse; Bradley Armour-Garb and
James Woodbridge (2015) and Alexis Burgess and John Burgess (2011)
have defended fictionalism about truth; and D.M. Armstrong (1989),
Gideon Rosen (1990), John Nolt (1986), Seahwa Kim (2005) and John
Divers (1999) have defended modal fictionalism (see here the entry on
 modal fictionalism).
 Needless to say, this is a just a sample of recent defenses of
fictionalist views. The present entry will be more focused on
fictionalism as a general strategy in philosophy than on fictionalism
about specific discourses. For some recent overviews of fictionalism,
see Kroon (2011), Caddick Bourne (2013), Divers and Liggins (2005),
Sainsbury (2010), and the full-length book on fictionalism Kroon,
McKeown-Green and Brock (2018). Important collections of texts on
fictionalism are Kalderon (2005b) and Armour-Garb and Kroon
(forthcoming). 


## 2. Some Qualifications and Distinctions



The earlier provisional characterization of fictionalism needs
qualification and supplementation. In this section, more precision
will be provided.


### 2.1 Language and ontology



A first crucial distinction is between a *linguistic* and an
*ontological* thesis. The linguistic thesis is, roughly, that
already expressed above, according to which utterances of sentences of
the discourse are best seen not as efforts to say what is literally
true, but as useful fictions of some sort. The ontological thesis, by
contrast, is the thesis that the entities characteristic of the
discourse do not exist, or have the ontological status of fictional
entities. One can in principle embrace the linguistic thesis without
embracing the ontological thesis, and vice versa.



Often the theses are run together. Nolan, Restall and West (2005) say,
when introducing fictionalism, "The simplest fictionalist
approach to a discourse takes certain claims in that discourse to be
literally false, but nevertheless worth uttering in certain contexts,
since the pretence that such claims are true is worthwhile for various
theoretical purposes". (The complication that they introduce is
that some fictionalists may simply be *agnostic* about the
relevant claims.) Zoltan Szabo (2001) says, "To be
a fictionalist about *F*s is to think that our naive
attitude toward *F*-discourse is only halfway correct: we are
right in thinking that we use genuine singular terms that purport to
refer to *F*s, but wrong in thinking that they actually succeed
in referring. In engaging in *F*-discourse we inadvertently
slip into fictional talk". One reason that the linguistic and
ontological theses are often run together is that the linguistic
thesis is often motivated by ontological concerns. For example,
someone who is a nominalist might on that ground find herself
attracted to fictionalism about mathematical discourse. 



The focus in this entry will primarily be on the linguistic thesis.
The ontological thesis might be held by someone who holds that we are
better off simply abandoning or rejecting the target discourse, and
that is not a distinctively fictionalist thesis.


### 2.2 Hermeneutic and revolutionary fictionalism



A second distinction is between *hermeneutic* and
*revolutionary*
 fictionalism.[1]
 Hermeneutic fictionalism about a discourse *D* is a thesis
about the actual nature of the discourse: according to hermeneutic
fictionalism we actually do not aim at the literal truth but only
appear or pretend to do so. Revolutionary fictionalism, by contrast,
insists that when engaging in *D* we *ought* only to
make such pretend-assertions; the point of engaging in *D*
would be achieved by pretend-assertions. Obviously, hermeneutic and
revolutionary fictionalism are different theses and must be evaluated
separately. In the rest of the discussion in section 2, I will focus
primarily on hermeneutic fictionalism. I trust that it will be
straightforward to see how the points generalize to revolutionary
fictionalism.


### 2.3 Meaning versus use



Most hermeneutic fictionalists about some particular discourse hold
that although we normally utter sentences within the discourse in a
fictional spirit, we could, and perhaps sometimes do, use these
sentences literally. For example, a mathematical fictionalist might
hold that when we utter "there are prime numbers" in
ordinary contexts we mean this in a fictional spirit, but add that
when we utter this sentence in the philosophy room we sometimes intend
to speak literally. But one can at least imagine a different kind of
hermeneutic fictionalism. Take the case of discourse about fictional
characters. A name like 'SpongeBob' is first introduced
for the purposes of story telling and for making claims internal to
the story; for example, the claim that SpongeBob lives in a pineapple
under the sea. But there is disagreement about the proper account of
the use of names of fictional entities extrafictive, non-story-telling
contexts, e.g. in "SpongeBob is a better role model than
Superman". Some philosophers hold that this
'extrafictive' use of fictional names shows that
'SpongeBob' has a reference outside the fiction (for
example, that it refers to an abstract entity). Others hold that while
'SpongeBob' can be used meaningfully in such contexts, it
is nonetheless, in such contexts, a mere non-referring empty name,
alongside 'Zeus' and 'Vulcan'. But we can
imagine a third kind of view, according to which names of fictional
characters are, as it were, only meaningful inside the fiction. Anyone
attracted to such a view must tell some special story about seeming
extrafictive truths (Brock 2002). Similarly, and returning to
fictionalism, one can imagine a fictionalist about some discourse who
denies that the relevant sentences even can be meaningfully used
outside the pretense; who holds that the sentences only have
pretense-uses.



The view may sound farfetched. But Yablo (1998) comes close to
suggesting a view of this sort when he says, after having motivated
fictionalism about the use of names of cities, that he does not know
what it would be to use "Chicago exists" more literally
than he already does. Let us call the fictionalism according to which
there is a literal use of the sentences in question with which the
ordinary use contrasts *use fictionalism*; call the other
*meaning fictionalism*. The distinction may correspond to
Armour-Garb and Woodbridge's (2015) distinction between
*extrinsic* and *intrinsic* pretense. Armour-Garb and
Woodbridge say that what characterizes extrinsic pretense is that we
*could* take the utterance made literally, whereas in cases of
intrinsic pretense, "the pretense is integral to the utterance
saying anything at all". Use fictionalism is arguably by far the
more common doctrine. But it is worth mentioning meaning fictionalism
as well, both because some fictionalists appear to endorse it, and
because the distinction will be relevant to some of the arguments
against fictionalism. Armour-Garb and Woodbridge call their own brand
of fictionalism semantic and oppose what they call pragmatic accounts.




There are further distinctions in the general vicinity. Following
Yablo (2001), one can distinguish between the following fictionalist
views (about discourse about *X*s):



> 
> 
> Instrumentalism: the speaker is not "really" asserting
> anything, only pretending to do so.
> 
> 
> 
> Meta-fictionalism: the speaker is "really" asserting that
> according to a certain fiction, the *X*s are so and so.
> 
> 
> 
> Object-fictionalism: the speaker is "really" asserting
> that the world is in a certain condition, namely, the condition it
> needs to be in to make it true in the relevant fiction that the
> *X*s are so and so.
> 
> 
> 
> Figuralism: the speaker is "really" asserting that
> *something* is in a certain condition, but perhaps not the
> world; the *X*s are functioning as representational aids in a
> figurative description of the *Y*s, where the *Y*s may
> themselves be representational aids invoked to help us describe still
> further objects.
> 
> 
> 



Let us take number discourse as our example, and consider these
fictionalist views as applied to number discourse. The instrumentalist
says that in an utterance of "the number of apples is
two", the speaker is merely pretending to assert something;
nothing is really asserted. The instrumentalist does not present an
alternative account of what the speaker is doing. The metafictionalist
says that something is asserted along the lines of: according to the
number fiction, the number of apples is two. The object fictionalist
says that what is asserted is something non-number-involving about the
real world -- something which would make it true in the fiction
that the number of apples is two: that there is an apple *x* and
an apple *y* such that *x* and *y* are distinct and
nothing distinct from both *x* and *y* is an apple. The
characteristic objects of the discourse, the numbers, are mere aids we
use to make utterances about how things stand in the real world.
Yablo's own preferred view, figuralism, is supposed to be a
close cousin of object fictionalism, but with an added twist.
Figuralism does not differ from object fictionalism in what it says
about the example used so far. The differences only show up when we
are considering utterances intuitively about these props themselves,
the numbers, such as "7 is smaller than 11". Sometimes,
Yablo says, numbers -- and other props -- are used as mere
representational aids, but sometimes they also function as things
represented. (He provides as a comparison "pinpricks of
conscience register less than pangs of conscience.") In a
typical utterance of "the number of apples is two", the
number functions as a representational aid. But in "there are
numbers" as used by the platonist, numbers function as things
represented. And in "the number of even primes is zero",
as a nominalist can be envisaged to use it when doing philosophy,
saying something that given her philosophical views is true, they
function both as representational aids ("number") and as
things represented ("even prime"). (Compare also the
catalogue of fictionalist views in Kalderon 2005a, ch. 3.) 



A broader distinction is that between what can be called *content
fictionalism* and *force fictionalism*. The content
fictionalist holds that in (ordinary) utterances of sentences of
*D* some content is asserted, but what is asserted is something
other than their literal content. The force fictionalist holds that
the content expressed in an (ordinary) utterance of a sentence of
*D* is not *asserted*: instead some other speech act is
performed. Instrumentalism is a form of force fictionalism. The other
forms of fictionalism are in the first instance forms of content
fictionalism. Notice that content and force fictionalism can be
combined. A fictionalist can hold both that in an (ordinary) utterance
of sentence of *D*, the literal content of the sentence is
conveyed but not asserted, and that some content other than the
literal content is asserted. This is even a rather natural view: in an
ordinary utterance of a sentence of *D*, the speaker
pretends-true the literal content of the sentence, and in so doing she
asserts something other than the literal content.



Sometimes when fictionalism is discussed, it is presupposed that
fictionalism would have to be of the meta-fictionalist variety. This
is a mistake. There are objections to meta-fictionalism that do not
generalize to other fictionalist theses. Joyce (2005) stresses that
meta-fictionalism does not adequately distinguish between telling a
story and describing a story. When we engage in fiction we do the
former, but the meta-fictionalist has it that we do the latter. Yablo
(2001) stresses, in the case of mathematical fictionalism, that in
ordinary uses of mathematical sentences, we seem to assert something
apriori and necessary, but it does not seem apriori and necessary that
according to the fiction of standard mathematics, things stand
thus-and-so. Generally, meta-fictionalism forces attention to the
"according to the fiction..."-operator, but the
problems that arise are beside the point on either of the other
fictionalist views. (See Kim 2005 for a discussion of some of the
problems that arise, having to do with, e.g., the contingent existence
of fictions.)


### 2.4 Attitudes



There is also a question of what *mental attitude* the
hermeneutic fictionalist about a discourse *D* should say that
we have toward utterances made within *D*. As the name
"fictionalism" indicates, the attitude is often said to be
the attitude we have toward paradigmatic cases of fiction. (Our
motivation for adopting the attitude may be different in paradigmatic
cases of fiction than in the case of one of the discourses under
consideration here. But that is different.) The attitude is also often
said to be that of *pretense* or *make-believe*. Those
who compare *D* with make-believe normally rely on the account
of make-believe of Walton (1990, 1993). Yablo's (e.g. 1998,
2001, 2002) brand of hermeneutic fictionalism is one example. The
Yablo-Walton view is usefully divided into two parts. First, the
statements made within *D* are likened to *metaphorical*
statements. Second, a *pretense account of metaphor* is given.
On this type of view on metaphor, a metaphorical utterance is one that
represents the world as it needs to be in order to make the utterance
pretense-worthy in a game of make-believe that it suggests. An example
may help. Just as "Bert is carrying a gun" can be made
true, in the pretense relevant to this utterance, by Bert's
holding a twig, so, on this view on metaphor, can Romeo's
"Juliet is the sun" be made true by features of Juliet and
of the relation between Romeo and Juliet, given the pretense that
Romeo's utterance makes relevant. For example, the utterance may
be made true by Juliet's bearing the right type of real-world
relation to Romeo's well-being. (See Wearing 2012 for criticism
of this kind of view on metaphor.)



Clearly there are views between the extreme fictionalist view that
*D* is best given a metaphor/pretense account and the extreme
realist view that ordinary assertions within *D* aim at literal
truth. (i) Van Fraassen (1980), discussing scientific discourse,
emphasizes that our attitude toward our best theory of the world is,
or should be, 'acceptance' rather than belief, where
acceptance is an attitude that falls short of belief. (ii) Yablo
(2006) has investigated the possibility that when engaging in
mathematical discourse we *presuppose* that mathematical
entities exist. (And while it is possible to assimilate presupposition
to pretense such an assimilation is not part of Yablo's official
story.) Compare here also Hinckfuss (1993). (iii) A suggestion
developed in Eklund (2005) is that when it comes to a variety of
sentences we use, we are often simply *indifferent* to some
implications of what they express: the fictionalist can appeal to this
and say that we are indifferent to the real-world existential
implications of mathematical statements. (iv) Walton (1990) himself
insists that even if he is giving a pretense account, the claim is not
that speakers themselves *actively engage* in pretense. For a
pretense account to be correct of the utterances of some given
speaker, it is enough that the speaker participates in a pretense
discourse. Compare here also Crimmins' (1998) remarks on
"shallow pretense". Crimmins emphasizes that, despite his
talk of pretense, "we are instituting a manner of speaking, not
painting a fantasy world". Which of these theses to call
"fictionalist" is a matter of terminological choice. But
arguably, all the theses on the list share the main attractions of
paradigmatic versions of fictionalism.


## 3. Arguments for Fictionalism



Given the variety of fictionalisms it is hard to provide a succinct
survey of the arguments for and against fictionalism simpliciter. This
section is devoted to an overview of certain fictionalism-relevant
arguments, together with remarks on what forms of fictionalism these
arguments purport to justify. The overview focuses primarily on
arguments that are of relevance for fictionalism as a general
philosophical strategy, rather than arguments that only are relevant
to fictionalism about a specific subject matter.


### 3.1 Via eliminativist antirealism



One historically important argument for fictionalism goes as follows.
Suppose that we have an independent argument for what one may call
*eliminativist antirealism* about a particular discourse
(whether it be mathematical discourse, or moral discourse,
or ... .): an argument to the effect that the
atomic sentences of the discourse are all untrue, either because the
characteristic objects of the discourse do not exist -- there are
no numbers -- or because its characteristic predicates are
uninstantiated -- nothing is right, good, etc. This eliminativist
antirealism threatens to convict ordinary speakers of massive,
widespread error. This is often regarded as a serious problem. It is
here that fictionalism comes to the rescue: if we suppose that the
utterances in question are made in a fictional spirit, then
eliminativist antirealism about (say) mathematics does not commit
ordinary speakers of massive error.



As set out, this is an argument for hermeneutic fictionalism.
Revolutionary fictionalism, aiming to secure a purpose that
mathematical discourse can serve even if mathematical entities do not
exist, would not avert the threat that the eliminativist antirealist
would have to say of ordinary speakers that they are in massive error.
But there is a nearby argument for revolutionary fictionalism. It goes
like this: Eliminativist antirealism threatens to come at a serious
cost. If by the lights of our philosophy of mathematics there are no
mathematical entities, it seems mathematical discourse must be
abandoned (because mathematical utterances are systematically untrue):
such discourse cannot be worthwhile. It is here that revolutionary
fictionalism comes to the rescue: so long as there is some worthwhile
aim of mathematical discourse despite the nonexistence of mathematical
entities, mathematical discourse need not be abandoned.



Consider too some specific motivations for revolutionary fictionalism.
First, Joyce (2005) on moral fictionalism. Joyce starts out from the
assumption that, when taken literally, moral sentences are
systematically untrue, and seeks to show that it can still be
practically useful to pretend that it is not so. Joyce asks first what
the benefits are of believing that some acts are morally right and
others morally wrong, and thinks that even when such a belief is
false, it can be valuable: "The distinctive value of categorical
imperatives is that they silence calculations. In this manner, moral
beliefs function to bolster self-control against practical
irrationality" (301). The basic idea is that for prudential
reasons, essentially reasons such as those suggested by Hobbes and
Hume, one ought generally to act in accordance with alleged moral
requirements ("the fear of punishment, the desire for an ongoing
beneficial relationship, the motivation to maintain a good reputation,
the simple fact that one on the whole likes one's
fellows,..."). But were it not for the moral beliefs one
might still be tempted by the short term gains from acting immorally.
Turning to moral fictionalism, Joyce thinks that the make-believe that
moral properties are instantiated can have the same benefits as the
genuine belief that they are. In general, fictions can produce real
emotions, which have motivational effects. Joyce remarks, "Human
motivation is often aroused more effectively by mental images than by
mental calculation". Second, consider Field's (1980, 1989)
revolutionary fictionalism in the philosophy of mathematics. On
Field's view the function of mathematics is to facilitate
inferences from certain empirical, and nominalistically acceptable,
statements to others. A mathematical theory can perform this function
so long as it is conservative, where a mathematical theory *T*
is conservative if, roughly, for every nominalistic theory *N*,
*T*+*N* has no consequences for the ontology of
*N* that are not consequences of *N* alone. The
important point is that a mathematical theory need not be true in
order to be useful in this way. In both these cases, the supposed
lesson from the considerations adduced is that pretense would serve us
as well as real belief or real assertion.



This first argument for fictionalism is only an indirect argument for
the view. It says only that if we have reason to embrace eliminativist
antirealism about some discourse, then fictionalism about *D*
should also be attractive. The argument does not even purport to
address the intrinsic merits of fictionalism. 


### 3.2 The Oracle



Suppose a being you take to be an omniscient Oracle told you there are
not in fact any abstract entities; you come to believe this claim.
Would you not go on talking as before? Wouldn't you continue to
say things like "You can't tile that rectangular floor
with 17 tiles, for 17 is a prime number" and other seemingly
committing sentences? And would anything really, so to speak, be or
feel different about your use of these sentences?



If the verdict is that we really would continue using these sentences
as before and nothing would seem different about our use of them, then
we have here an argument for hermeneutic fictionalism. Surely after
the Oracle's pronouncement we no longer commit ourselves to the
existence of abstract entities. But if we are just going on as before,
we were not thus committing ourselves earlier either.



The Oracle argument has primarily been used in discussions of abstract
objects. But the strategy is clearly in principle generalizable. Take
for instance the moral case. Suppose an Oracle were to tell you that
really there are no moral facts. It can be argued that this would not
cause you to change your practice of making moral assertions. The case
can be argued to be analogous with the mathematics case.



Some brief remarks on the Oracle argument are in order. First, the
Oracle argument presumes that the ontological commitments of a
speaker's assertions are transparent to the speaker. It can
legitimately be denied that speakers have the relevant sort of access
to their commitments. Second, the Oracle argument implicitly
highlights an important distinction. Fictionalism is often motivated
by concerns about what we are and are not ontologically committed to.
But what should we focus on when gauging our ontological commitments
-- the *beliefs* that we have, or what commitments we take
on in *our utterances*? As presented, the Oracle argument in
the first instance speaks to what commitments we take on in our
utterances: it does not speak directly to the question of what the
ontological commitments of our beliefs are. Third, as stated, the
argument is obviously an argument for *hermeneutic*, not
revolutionary, fictionalism. An Oracle argument for revolutionary
fictionalism would rather emphasize that the Oracle's statement
would give us no reason to abandon the discourse.



(The Oracle argument is from Yablo 2000a. The thought experiment itself
is originally from Burgess and Rosen 1997.) 


### 3.3 The paradox of existence



Here is a kind of puzzle or paradox that several philosophers have
stressed. On the one hand, existence questions seem hard. The
philosophical question of whether there are abstract entities does not
seem to admit of an easy or trivial answer. At the same time, there
seem to be trivial arguments settling questions like this in the
affirmative. Consider for instance the arguments, "2+2=4. So
there is a number which, when added to 2, yields 4. This something is
a number. So there are numbers", and "Fido is a dog. So
Fido has the property of being a dog. So there are properties."
How should one resolve this paradox? One response is: adopt
fictionalism. The idea would be that in the philosophy room we do not
speak fictionally, but ordinarily we do. So in the philosophy room,
the question of the existence of abstract entities is hard; outside
it, the question is easy. When, ordinarily, a speaker utters a
sentence that semantically expresses a proposition that entails that
there are numbers, what she says is accurate so long as according to
the relevant fiction, there are numbers. But when she utters the same
sentence in the philosophy room, she speaks literally and then what
she asserts is something highly non-trivial. The fictionalism that
would seem to be motivated by this reasoning is use fictionalism.



(See, e.g., Yablo 2000a, Szabo 2001, Hofweber 2000, and
Thomasson 2013 for discussion of this type of argument. However, of
these authors, only Yablo uses the paradox of existence to motivate
fictionalism. Szabo, Hofweber and Thomasson all offer other
diagnoses.) 


### 3.4 Analogies with uncontroversially non-literal discourse



One way to argue for fictionalism about a region of discourse is to
show that our use of declarative sentences within the discourse
resembles our use of non-literal language in other areas. There are
three considerations that can be brought up under this heading.



(1) Unobtrusive metaphors -- metaphors that easily go unnoticed
-- are quite common. So we should not be surprised if some
philosophically interesting discourse should turn out to be permeated
by such metaphors. Consider the following list from Yablo (2000a):



> 
> They put a lot of hurdles in your path, there's a lot that could
> be said about that, there's no precedent for that, something
> tells me you're right, there are some things better left unsaid,
> there is something I forgot to tell you, viz. how to operate the lock,
> nothing gets my goat as much as chewing gum in class, a lot you can do
> for me, let's roll out the red carpet, the last thing I want is
> to..., their people have risen in my esteem, I took her into my
> confidence, my patience is nearly exhausted, I'll take my
> chances, there's a trace of sadness in your eyes, a growing
> number of these leaks can be traced to Starr's office,
> she's got a lot of smarts, let's pull out all the stops,
> let's proceed along the lines suggested above.
> 



The idea is that there are many unobtrusive metaphors; and that if
metaphors can often be this unobtrusive, then maybe the
non-literalness of our actual utterances of sentences of *D* is
also unobtrusive. Of course, what Yablo says here is controversial.
One can insist that some of Yablo's examples are not metaphors
but idioms. And one can insist that for some of the examples, the only
reason to regard them as non-literal would stem from a prior
conviction that their literal truth would require metaphysical
absurdities. But so long as there are a fair number of unobtrusive
metaphors, Yablo has a point.



(2) Relatedly, one way that fictionalists try to argue for their
doctrines is by appeal to cases where, supposedly, fictionalist theses
are obviously true. Consider first motion discourse. Some
fictionalists hold that we happily say things like "the sun
rises" despite knowing fully well that this sentence is not
literally true in the relevant contexts of utterance. The idea is that
for the literal truth of these sentences a Ptolemaic, absolutist
worldview would have to be correct. But obviously, even though we use
these sentences to make assertions, we do not believe this sort of
worldview to be true. We engage instead in a Ptolemaic and absolutist
fiction. Next consider expressions of the form 'the average
*F*'. We routinely utter declarative sentences containing
such expressions in subject position; it seems that for such a
sentence to be literally true there would really have to be an average
*F*. This seems absurd. It seems odd that we should cheerfully
commit ourselves to such an absurdity. Hence, it is sometimes
suggested, hermeneutic fictionalism is true of the use of these
expressions. 



(3) Both in his (2000a) and elsewhere, Yablo draws up a list of
analogies between on the one hand uncontroversially non-literal
discourse and on the other hand discourse about "platonic
objects" -- for present purposes one can think of these
simply as would-be objects ripe for fictionalist
 treatment[2]
 --. I will not here reproduce the whole list. But here are some
representative suggested analogies: 


* Paraphrasability: [Creatures of metaphorical make-believe] are often
paraphrasable away with no felt loss of subject matter. 'That
was her first encounter with the green-eyed monster' goes to
'that was her first time feeling jealous'. 'That
really gets my goat' goes to 'that really irritates
me'.



[Platonic objects] are often paraphrasable away with no felt loss of
subject matter. 'There is a possible world with furry
donkeys' goes to 'furry donkeys are possible'.
'She did it one way or another' goes to 'she did it
somehow'. Etc.
* Silliness: [Creatures of metaphorical make-believe] invite
'silly questions' probing areas the make-believe does not
address, e.g. we know how big the average star is, but where is it
located? You say you lost your nerve, has it been turned in? Do you
plan to *drop*-forge the uncreated conscience of your race in
the smithy of your soul?



[Platonic objects] invite questions which are similarly silly. What
are the intrinsic properties of the empty set? Is the event of the
water's boiling itself hot? Are universals wholly present in
each of their instances? Do relations lead a divided existence,
parcelled out among their relata?



It is obviously debatable exactly how telling these analogies are. One
may for example reasonably suspect that the claim that the supposedly
silly questions about platonic objects really all are silly will have
appeal only for philosophers of a certain bent of mind.


## 4. Arguments against Fictionalism



Turn now to arguments against fictionalism. As with the arguments for
fictionalism, the focus will be on arguments that are relevant to
fictionalism as a general metaphysical strategy, rather than arguments
that only are relevant to fictionalism about a given subject
 matter.[3]
 Many of the arguments are directed primarily against fictionalism of
the hermeneutic variety.


### 4.1 The phenomenological objection



The most obvious objection to fictionalism is that it seems just
absurd to assimilate some seemingly sober discourse such as
mathematical or modal or moral discourse to make-believe and fiction.
("Mathematical discourse just doesn't *seem* at all
like Cowboys and Indians.") This is an objection specifically
targeted against hermeneutic fictionalism; it is plainly irrelevant as
directed against a revolutionary fictionalist.



We have already seen some fictionalist replies to this objection. One
reply (section 3.4) is that, philosophically interesting discourses
aside, we engage in make-believe and fiction more often than we
ordinarily tend to think. Another reply -- related to the
distinctions drawn in section 2.4 -- is that there are variants
of fictionalism that do not claim there to be a close analogy between
the target discourse on the one hand and fiction and make-believe on
the other. For discussion of the phenomenological objection, see,
e.g., Brock (2014).



There have been attempts to make what is essentially the
phenomenological objection more precise. Jason Stanley (2001) has two
related objections concerning the nature of the fictionalist's
appeal to pretense. (i) The hermeneutic fictionalist says that we are
engaged in make-believe where it doesn't seem to us that we are.
Hence, Stanley says, "If the hermeneutic fictionalist is
correct, then *x* can bear the propositional attitude of
pretense toward a proposition, without it being in principle
accessible to *x* that *x* bears the propositional
attitude of pretense towards that proposition. But this introduces a
novel and quite drastic form of failure of first-person authority over
one's own mental states". (ii) By what the fictionalist
says, the same psychological mechanisms as are involved in
make-believe are involved in understanding the use of a discourse of
which fictionalism is true. But it seems this can be shown to be
problematic on empirical grounds. Autistic persons have difficulties
with make-believe, so by the fictionalist's hypothesis they
should likewise have difficulties understanding the use of a discourse
of which fictionalism is true. But autistic persons do not have
difficulties with mathematical discourse, or modal discourse, or
discourse concerning negative existentials, etc. (For discussion of
Stanley's autism objection, see Liggins 2010.)



A related but distinct concern is that the fictionalist draws a
distinction without a difference: there is no real difference between
belief and the supposedly distinct attitude that the fictionalist
posits. (For discussion, see Daly (2008), Horwich (1991),
O'Leary-Hawthorne (1994), Rosen (forthcoming), Rosen and Burgess
(2005), and Thomasson (2013.) As just stated, the objection may sound
like an obvious non-starter: of course there is a difference between
belief and whatever attitude it is that we take toward fiction. But
there are some reasons to still take the objection seriously. First,
as discussed above, fictionalists do often appeal to a different
attitude from the one we adopt toward paradigmatic cases of fiction,
and for that reason alone one cannot move straight from the obvious
possibility of engaging in fiction to the possibility of us doing what
the philosophical fictionalist says we do, or should do. Second,
characteristic of fiction is that we often do abandon the perspective
internal to the fiction and instead adopt an external, critical
perspective. Nothing similar seems to standardly be going on with,
say, mathematical discourse or moral discourse. However, these points
noted, it is still natural for the fictionalist to shrug off this
concern, saying with Rosen (forthcoming) that the question of whether
someone who is generally disposed to behave as if p really believes
that p can be settled by what the person is disposed to say upon
reflection regarding whether she believes that p or not.


### 4.2 Can fictionalism deliver the goods?



Even though there are many different arguments for and motivations
behind fictionalism, one main motivation is clearly the ontological
one. Fictionalism about a discourse *D* is often seen as
attractive precisely because it promises to get around otherwise
potentially serious philosophical problems regarding
*D*'s ontology. But one worry is that fictionalism can
fail to make good on this promise. Here are some examples of how this
can happen.



First, according to fictionalism about a given discourse, the
discourse is in important respects analogous to paradigmatic cases of
fiction. This is supposed to have ontological advantages.
Specifically, the entities characteristic of the relevant discourse
are sometimes supposed then to have the same ontological status as
fictional entities. But if fictional entities are problematic in their
own right, then not much is gained by this move. Fictionalism about
fictional characters -- see, e.g., Brock (2002), and Everett
(2005), and ch. 10 of Walton (1990) -- is one attempt to get
around this problem. A different response to the objection is that it
takes too seriously the label "fictionalism". Some
prominent types of fictionalism claim only that in ordinary utterances
of sentences of some discourse, speakers don't aim at literal
truth. That claim by no means amounts to saying that the putative
entities of the discourse have the same ontological status as
fictional entities, whatever exactly that is.



Second, consider Peter van Inwagen's (1990) fictionalism about
ordinary objects. Van Inwagen suggests that when we say, e.g.,
"There is a table here", what we really assert is
something like: there are *simples arranged tablewise* here.
Sider (1993) notes a problem: van Inwagen's paraphrase strategy
presupposes that there are simples and not gunk (in other words, it
presupposes that all objects decompose into minimal parts,
'simples') and there is no straightforward way of
reformulating it so as to take into account the possibility of gunk.
If indeed it seems at all wrong that in our everyday discourse we
should manifest a preference for the hypothesis that there are
macrophysical objects over agnosticism about the matter, it should
anyway seem more wrong still that in our ordinary practices we should
manifest a preference for the hypothesis that there are simples rather
than gunk. Sider's point concerns only van Inwagen's
specific strategy. But there is a general lesson nearby: the adequacy
of the paraphrases might itself depend on substantive metaphysical
assumptions.


### 4.3 Criticisms concerning systematicity



One main worry that Stanley (2001) presses with respect to hermeneutic
fictionalism concerns systematicity. Take the case of mathematics.
Infinitely many sentences belong to mathematical discourse, and to be
competent with mathematical discourse involves having the competence
to grasp these infinitely many sentences. Standard considerations
concerning the finitude of our minds require that our grasp of these
infinitely many sentences is something we have by virtue of our grasp
of some finite set of principles: a compositional semantic theory is
required. But it is, the worry goes, unclear what a compositional
fictionalist semantic theory might conceivably look like.



Yablo's (2001) response to the systematicity objection is to
say, "There are kinds of speech that finite beings clearly do
understand, yet whose semantics does not seem to be compositional. One
does not expect a compositional semantics for hyperbole, metonymy, or
irony: one does not expect a compositional semantics for speech
governed by shifting presuppositions. Somehow, though, we understand.
This suggests that [hermeneutic fictionalist] analyses directed at
kinds of speech that resemble hyperbole, metonymy, or etc. should not
be held to the standard of strong-systematicity-or-bust". There
is something odd about this response. The reason why we do not expect
a compositional semantics for hyberbole is that we do not really
expect a *semantics* for hyperbole at all. We do not think that
there are certain sentences that have hyperbolic *meanings*
-- whatever that would amount to -- but rather that
sometimes some sentences are *used* hyperbolically. Even so,
there is something telling about what Yablo says. The analogy with
hyperbole and irony shows Yablo to be a use fictionalist: his
hypothesis is not one about the types of meanings mathematical
sentences have but about what we ordinarily do with mathematical
sentences. From this perspective, the demand for a compositional
fictionalist semantics for mathematical sentences is misplaced for the
reason that the fictionalist does not propose a different semantics
for mathematical sentences at all.



Stanley discusses, and rejects, a response to his argument much like
the one here brought up. He considers the question of whether the
fictionalist about *D* should be taken as making a claim about
what proposition really is expressed in an ordinary utterance of a
declarative sentence of *D*, or rather just a claim about what
is pragmatically communicated. Apparently allowing that the
fictionalist gets off the hook in the latter case, Stanley marshals a
number of arguments in favor of the former alternative. However, the
distinction Stanley draws is clearly different from the distinction
between meaning fictionalism and use fictionalism. One can be a use
fictionalist while holding that one's view is about what
proposition is expressed in an ordinary utterance of a relevant
sentence. It is not clear why a fictionalist hypothesis about which
proposition is expressed in an utterance should incur an obligation to
hold that there is a compositional fictionalist semantics.



These remarks are not meant to indicate that the mathematical
fictionalist does not owe us a systematic account of what is
communicated by mathematical sentences. The point is just that what is
owed is not a compositional semantics. Yablo's analogy,
hyperbole, can be used to make the point, despite the obvious
differences between this case and the mathematics case. All that is
needed properly to understand hyperbole is an ordinary compositional
semantics giving the literal meanings of the sentences involved plus a
general principle relating the propositions semantically expressed by
the sentences to the inflated propositions the sentences express when
used hyperbolically. Similarly, given use fictionalism all that is
needed properly to understand what is communicated in ordinary
utterances of mathematical sentences is an ordinary compositional
semantics, together with principles linking the literal contents of
mathematical sentences to what the fictionalist says the utterances
ordinarily convey. 


### 4.4 The fictionalist's preferred analogies



As noted above, one way that fictionalists try to argue for their
doctrines is by appeal to cases where, supposedly, fictionalist theses
are obviously true. Two such cases are motion discourse, and talk
about 'the average *F*'. However, in both of these
cases, it can plausibly be argued that proper attention to the
*semantics* undercuts the fictionalist's claim.



First, critics such as Stanley (2001) stress that while terms of the
form 'the average *F*' superficially seem like
singular terms, they do not behave semantically like ordinary singular
terms. But if they do not behave semantically like ordinary singular
terms there is no call for a fictionalist account explaining why we do
not commit ourselves to there being entities such as the average F
when assertively uttering sentences of the form "the average
*F* is G" (see also Kennedy and Stanley 2009).



Turn next to motion discourse. Brendan Jackson (2007) argues that any
temptation to be a fictionalist about motion discourse stems from an
oversimplified conception of the semantics of the relevant sentences.
Compare



> 
> 
> (1) Europe is small.
>   
> 
> (2) That cell phone is a bit heavy.
>   
> 
> (3) The remote is to the left of the television.
>   
> 
> (4) A lion is hiding behind the bush.
> 
> 
> 



Jackson notes two things. First, these cases are "analogous to
what is going on when we utter typical motion ascriptions. We can
describe all these utterances as *incomplete*, in the sense
that there is some parameter -- a comparison class, a purpose, a
perspective or a frame of reference -- that must be taken into
account if the utterance is to be regarded as expressing a possibly
true proposition, and yet the utterance contains no explicit word or
phrase that specifies a value for this parameter". And second,
semanticists typically agree on what is going on in (1)-(4): the
sentences are simply *context-sensitive*. There is no need for
a fictionalist proposal to explain why in typical utterances of them
we express something true. According to Jackson, the same story can be
told in the case of motion ascriptions.



The points concerning motion discourse and 'the average
*F*' in the first instance cast doubt only on some
specific examples that fictionalists tend to use to motivate their
fictionalist theses. But they also suggest a more general lesson:
fictionalist theses can often be undercut by closer attention to the
semantics of the discourse in question. 


### 4.5 Philosophy of language concerns



The hermeneutic fictionalist about a discourse *D* typically
claims that there is a radical mismatch between on the one hand what
we may call the *assertoric contents* of utterances of
sentences of *D* (what is expressed in ordinary utterances of
these sentences) and on the other hand the *semantic contents*
of these sentences (what these sentences semantically express, in the
contexts of utterance). But when it is stated thus baldly what the
strategy is, two related worries should immediately arise, having to
do with foundational issues in the philosophy of language.



First, even setting radical use theories to the side, many
philosophers have supposed that the semantic content of a sentence is
somehow determined, at least largely, by what the sentence is
customarily used to express. This would seem to entail that there must
be a close connection between the semantic content of a sentence and
how the sentence is customarily used. But then it is odd if there is
the kind of systematic mismatch between assertoric content and
semantic content that the fictionalist claims that there is; or that
is the worry.



Second, putting matters in this more technical way highlights another
potential difficulty. There are deep and unresolved issues in
philosophy of language concerning the nature of assertoric and
semantic content, respectively, and concerning the relation between
them. While these issues remain unresolved, it may be premature to put
forward strong claims about the relation of the assertoric and
semantic contents. Generally, and relating back to the points made in
the previous subsection, it can be suspected that fictionalists tend
to have a too simple view of semantic content.



One fictionalist reply to these concerns is to say that it is only for
argument's sake that she adopts a conservative view of the
semantic contents of the sentences of the discourse in question. She
can say that her basic point is that the discourses are not in fact
ontologically committing. If the sentences are not ontologically
committing even when they are used literally, that is fine. What she
is arguing is that *even if* the sentences are ontologically
committing as used literally, there is reason to think that the
discourse is not ontologically committing. Perhaps, in light of the
point about how use determines meaning, the fact that our use of the
sentences is not ontologically committing should cast doubt on any
semantics of these sentences given which they are. But that does not
affect the more general philosophical point the fictionalist is
typically concerned to make: that the discourse is not ontologically
committing.


### 4.6 Old problems in new bottles?



One kind of worry one might have about fictionalism is that it does
not really, by itself, help avoid the problems that beset similar
approaches. Here are two examples.



(1) Paraphrase. Since long before fictionalism really came into vogue,
philosophers have liked to appeal to paraphrase: it has often been
claimed that sentences which seem to express such-and-such
propositions, really only express such-and-such other propositions.
(E.g., it sounds as if you are genuinely talking about material
objects, but really you are only claiming something about actual and
possible sense-data.) Often such appeals to paraphrase have foundered
upon the details: telling objections have shown how the paraphrases
fail to deal with all the sentences within the purview of the
proposal. Objections to some fictionalist theories that have been
proposed take a similar form, since some fictionalists in effect offer
paraphrases. Take for instance van Inwagen's (1985) objection to
fictionalism about fictional characters, as espoused for instance by
Kendall Walton (1985, 1990, 2000). Consider van Inwagen's pair
of sentences,



> 
> 
> (S1) There is a fictional character who, for every novel, either
> appears in that novel or is a model for a character who does.
> 
> 
> 



and



> 
> 
> (S2) If no character appears in every novel, then some character is
> modeled on another character.
> 
> 
> 



Sentence (S1) seems to entail sentence (S2), but, the charge is, the
paraphrases offered by Walton do not respect this. The paraphrases
that Walton offers are of the form "To engage in pretense of
kind K is fictionally to speak truly in a game of such-and-such a
sort": but then the paraphrase of (S2) is not entailed by the
paraphrase of (S1). There is naturally much that can be said about the
objection. (The reply Walton (2000) himself gives is that the claim
that (S1) entails (S2) is itself pretend-true.) Essentially the same
sort of objection is pressed by Richard (2000), Stanley (2001) and
Kroon (2004) against Mark Crimmins' (1998) fictionalism about
propositional attitude talk and discourse involving empty names.



(2) In his (2005a) defense of a version of moral fictionalism, Mark
Kalderon argues that would-be non-cognitivists who seek to avoid the
Frege-Geach problem (for a presentation of this problem see the
Embedding Problem section of the entry on
 moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism)
 should adopt a version of moral fictionalism. The resulting theory
would be one according to which moral sentences have ordinary
representational contents, but acceptance of moral sentences does not
amount to belief in the literal truth of these contents but rather
only to holding a non-cognitive attitude toward them. The reason why
this is supposed to get around the Frege-Geach problem would be that
arguments like



> 
> 
> (P1) Stealing is wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> (P2) If stealing is wrong, then getting one's little brother to
> steal is wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> (C) So, getting one's little brother to steal is wrong.
> 
> 
> 



turn out on this revised non-cognitivist view to be straightforwardly
valid: for the proposition semantically expressed by the conclusion
sentence is entailed by the propositions semantically expressed by the
premise sentences.



However, one may reasonably worry that the envisaged fictionalist move
doesn't in fact help at all with the Frege-Geach problem. For
someone actually *presenting* an argument like this would be
presenting a good argument. But for this to be so, what the arguer
actually expresses by the premise sentence must provide good reason to
accept what she actually expresses by the conclusion sentence. Since
what the arguer actually expresses is, on the fictionalist view,
different from what the sentences she utters semantically express, it
is not sufficient for the fictionalist to point to how the sentences
(P1) and (P2), when taken literally, express propositions that entail
the proposition expressed by the sentence (C) taken literally.
Kalderon's moral fictionalist faces the problem of giving an
account that respects the fact that the argument actually put forward
is valid. But this seems not to be essentially different from the
traditional non-cognitivist's problem of saying what the
meanings of the relevant sentences are such that the impression that
the argument is valid can be respected. (This objection to Kalderon
was stated, more briefly, in the original 2007 version of this entry,
and was also presented, independently, in Lenman 2008. Kalderon
replied to it in his 2008a and 2008b, and Eklund 2009 is in turn a
reply to Kalderon. See also ch. 6 of Miller 2013)


### 4.7 The Brock-Rosen objection



Here is a simple way to lay out what is known as the Brock-Rosen
objection to modal fictionalism. (Taken from Divers and Hagen's
(2006) presentation.) Consider the proposition



> 
> (*P*) There is a plurality of worlds,
> 



where by 'worlds' we mean Lewisian possible worlds. The
modal fictionalist doesn't want to commit herself to the literal
truth of *P*. But the objection is that she ends up doing so
anyway. For



> 
> (1) According to the modal fiction, at every world, *P*.
> 



Now, the modal fictionalist holds, the objection goes, that for every
modal sentence '*A*',



> 
> (*M*) '*A*' is true iff according to the
> modal fiction, *A*\*,
> 



where '*A*\*' is the translation of
'*A*' into possible worlds talk.



An instance of (*M*) is then



> 
> (2) 'Necessarily *P*' is true iff according to the
> modal fiction, at every world, *P*.
> 



By (1) and (2) together with disquotational principles concerning
truth,



> 
> (3) Necessarily *P*.
> 



And hence,



> 
> (4) *P*.
> 



Although the Brock-Rosen objection was first raised against modal
fictionalism and has been most discussed in that context, it is
important to note that the objection generalizes. For instance, one
can run a similar argument in the case of numbers. (This was first
stressed in Nolan and O'Leary-Hawthorne 1996.) Here is how the
objection goes in that case. 



According to mathematical fictionalism,



> 
> (#) For any sort of entity *F*, There are *n*
> *F*s iff according to the numbers fiction, *The number of Fs
> = n*.
> 



But now apply this to numbers. An immediate consequence is that the
fictionalist must conclude that (strictly and literally) there are
numbers. 



One diagnosis -- and purported resolution -- of this problem
relates to the distinctions earlier drawn. According to this
diagnosis, what the objection at most shows is that the fictionalist
should be a use fictionalist. If any kind of fictionalist has to rely
on general translation schemes such as (*M*) or (#) it is the
meaning fictionalist. The use fictionalist can, with no real loss,
employ them more selectively: it is only when speaking *within the
fiction* that we rely on them. (For this diagnosis, presented in
different terms, see Nolan and O'Leary-Hawthorne 1996, Yablo
2001, and Woodward 2007. For more on the Brock-Rosen objection to
modal fictionalism, see the entry on
 modal fictionalism.)


## 5. Significance



Let us lastly turn to the broader picture: the general philosophical
significance of fictionalism.



Obviously, and as earlier remarked, the hermeneutic fictionalist can
come to the eliminativist antirealist's aid: adopting
fictionalism is for the eliminativist antirealist a more attractive
alternative than to adopt some form of error
 theory.[4]




Quite apart from positive motivations for antirealism, fictionalism is
also of relevance for evaluating particular arguments for realism. Let
me discuss two. (a) What we may call *ordinary language
arguments*. An ordinary language argument for the existence of
*F*s goes as follows. "(1) Sentences thus-and-such are
true. (2) (Semantic analysis shows that) for those sentences to be
true, there must be *F*s. (3) So, there must be
*F*s." An argument of this form is clearly valid. The
question of the soundness of an argument of this kind comes down to
whether the premises are true. Hermeneutic fictionalism presents
problems for the justification of premise (1). Maybe all that is
evident from ordinary discourse is that we somehow convey or
communicate true propositions when uttering the relevant sentences.
But hermeneutic fictionalism indicates how we can do so without the
sentences semantically expressing true propositions. Thomasson (2013)
is a recent extended discussion of the relation between fictionalism
and her own preferred ontological view, which is argued for by what
she calls "easy arguments", a kind of ordinary language
arguments. Thomasson's *ontological deflationism* says,
roughly, that all manners of philosophically controversial entities
exist, and do so in some sense trivially. The way Thomasson presents
things, fictionalism and ontological deflationism are in conflict. But
if fictionalism is only a linguistic thesis (compare the distinction
between the ontological thesis and the linguistic thesis) -- and
that is how Thomasson appears to understand it -- that's
not quite true. What is true is that fictionalism presents problems
for Thomasson's specific way of arguing for ontological
deflationism, by appeal to ordinary language arguments. (b)
Indispensability. Let us again take mathematics as our example. One of
the most influential arguments for platonism in the philosophy of
mathematics is the indispensability argument, according to which
quantification over mathematical entities is indispensable to our best
theory of the world, and hence we should take mathematical entities to
exist. (This is a very rough characterization of indispensability
arguments. For more detail see the entry on
 indispensability arguments in the philosophy of mathematics.)
 But revolutionary fictionalism suggests a complication: even if, in
some sense, quantification over mathematical entities is indispensable
to our best theory of the world, perhaps it is not *literal*
quantification over mathematical entities that is thus indispensable.
The relation between hermeneutic fictionalism and indispensability
arguments is a bit more indirect. But hermeneutic fictionalism is
relevant to indispensability arguments insofar as it is analyses of
what scientists of various stripes actually say and believe that tell
us what is "our best theory of the world". 



The arguments for realism just mentioned are arguments that typically
would be presented by those who take a 'Quinean' approach
to ontology. Given this approach -- the approach of many of those
theorists today who take ontology seriously -- we should believe
in those entities that our best theory of the world quantifies over.
Although fictionalism presents problems for specific Quinean
arguments, like the indispensability argument, fictionalists are
naturally taken to be methodological allies of orthodox Quineans. They
can agree with orthodox Quineans that we should believe in those
entities that our best theory of the world quantifies over. It is only
that they would stress that we must understand this to mean
"*literally* quantifies over", and that in some
interesting cases the condition of literalness is not satisfied. 



More radically, however, the theme of one of Yablo's earliest
papers on fictionalism, Yablo (1998), is that the mere availability of
fictionalism as a theoretical option presents problems for ontology as
a serious enterprise. Given that when the Quinean says that we should
believe in what the best theory quantifies over, this must be
understood to mean "*literally* quantifies over".
But then the Quinean program in ontology relies on the
literal/fictional distinction. But this distinction is problematic:
saying what parts of our speech are fictional and which are literal
is, Yablo argues, at least as problematic as saying which sentences
are synthetic and which are analytic. So there is at least as good
reason to doubt the literal/fictional distinction -- and hence
the Quinean program in ontology -- as there is to doubt the
analytic/synthetic distinction. This is ad hominem, since Quine
himself famously attacked the analytic/synthetic distinction.



There are two metaontological points that someone might be inclined to
make here. A relatively moderate point is that it is often so hard to
make out on what side of the literal/fictional distinction some
discourse falls that arguments of the Quinean kind seldom are well
supported. A different point is that there is sometimes -- or, in
the most radical version of the idea, always -- no fact of the
matter as to whether some piece of discourse is literal or fictional.
It is the most radical point here that is the most closely analogous
to what Quine says about the analytic/synthetic distinction.