Fictional Existence

Abstract

Apparently we can make statements about fictitious objects and refer to them, but this has very often been denied. yet the natural view can be defended in terms of a distinction between assertions about objects in fictional works "already written", and those made by an author in the course of "writing" fiction. the former are true or false and subject to verification in a way analogous to empirical statements. yet none of this holds for the latter, which do not describe but "set out" a fictional situation. fictional characters and objects are created by an author simply through his writing about them; hence the criterion for whether a fictitious object exists is whether it is mentioned in a work of fiction. in terms of this analysis the classical objections against such a view can be answered; there can even be round squares if an author chooses to give them a role in a story.