Abstract

A crucial problem for fictional antirealists is posed by the fact of distinct propositional attitudes directed to, say, Anna Karenina. Realists conclude that Karenina exists as the common object of those attitudes. This conclusion appears to withstand even the subtlest antirealist responses—for example, those suggested by Walton’s fictionalist proposals. It has recently been argued that our impression that we are talking of an existent thing when we speak about Karenina is, however, mistaken. It derives from our nonconscious assumption (governing our discourse about her) that terms naming her function as rigid-designators. The view that results is neither realist nor fictionalist. Instead, it sees our talk about fictional entities as embodying sentences, realist in form, that are indeed literally true, but only at the world of the assumption. The present essay uses this view to resolve the problem noted above. It also suggests a resolution of Geach’s related Hob-Nob problem.