Abstract

This introduction presents a concise plan for the book, and it provides a sketch of the sense of ‘fictionalism’ relevant for what will follow. It also anticipates the relationships between Radical Fictionalism and so-called non-realist views of fictional discourse, it sketches the consequences of Radical Fictionalism for the distinction between storyworld and periphery, and it introduces the reverberations of Radical Fictionalism on some central themes in the study of narrative. Three homages serve as an indirect preliminary description of the background for Radical Fictionalism, namely Kendall Walton’s _Mimesis as Make-Believe_, David Lewis’ ‘Truth in Fiction’, and John Searle’s ‘The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse’.