Fictional objects

Fictional objects are discussed in philosophy as a special class of nonexistent object. They are problematic because whilst they are nonexistent we still want to make meaningful statements AbOUT them that can have truth values. Even though there is particular object which our statement is true of.

Searle created a set of rules by which we could examine fictional objects and work out what we would want to say about them. His proposed rules are that:

1. The author decides whether a work is fictional, they can only be accused of lying if they have committed themselves to the truth of what they write.

2. If the author decides to write a piece of fiction they pretend to perform illocutionary acts

3. The acts actually performed are utterance acts.

4. The meanings of words are kept because the pretense of illocutionary acts taking place is maintained. This is important because otherwise a new set of acts would need to be learnt which would require people to have a completely different understanding of how fiction works than they do of non-fiction.