Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Reference in Fiction

Stacie Friend (Birkbeck College London)

20 May 2015 | 15:00 | Seminari de Filosofia UB

No one would deny that works of nonfiction refer to real individuals and

events. If I read a biography of Napoleon, I take the work to refer to

Napoleon. But many literary scholars and philosophers have claimed that

reference either fails or is at best irrelevant in fiction, so that even

when fictions are about the real world this "aboutness" is merely indirect.

From this perspective, my imaginings in response to War and Peace cannot

represent the real Napoleon, or at least not in the same way as the

biography. I argue to the contrary that works of fiction often refer to real

individuals in the same way as nonfiction. I develop an account of reference

in stories and argue that reference matters to the appreciation of fiction.

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