Abstract
The various theories outlined last week each have limitations that prevent them from claiming exclusivity, so we can't avoid a certain eclecticism, i.e. the simultaneous use of several of the rival theories. With this in mind, we need to begin by distinguishing three types of statement involving a fictional noun like "Sherlock Holmes", corresponding to three types of use of the noun in question. These three types of statements are: fictional statements, parafictional statements and metafictional statements (to be examined in the next session).
Fictionalstatements are those found in fiction: for example, Conan Doyle's statements about Sherlock Holmes. For these statements, the idea of pretending, of simulation, is essential. These statements are neither true nor false, because the author isn't really referring to an individual named Sherlock Holmes, who possesses a number of notable properties: he's pretending.
Although neither true nor false, fictional statements create or establish fictional truths. If the author writes that Pickwick has a wart on his cheek, then it is true (in fiction) that Pickwick has a wart on his cheek. But there are other fictional truths than the explicit fictional truths established by fictional statements. Implicit fictional truths are all that can be inferred from explicit fictional truths and background knowledge, which can be assumed to apply to the world of fiction as much as to the real world.
Once established by fictional discourse, fictional truths (explicit or implicit) can in turn be reported by statements that describe the content of the fiction, and thus possess a "constative" rather than "performative" direction of adjustment. These are parafictional statements. Parafictional statements are the statements with which we talk about fiction, in order to render its content. Unlike fictional statements, which rely on pretence and are absolutely neither true nor false (their truth is relative or internal to the fiction), parafictional statements such as "Sherlock Holmes is a detective" appear to be true for good—true in an absolute sense, true at all. We understand these statements as conveying an implicit prefix: "In Conan Doyle's fiction, Sherlock Holmes is a detective". The characteristic of parafictional statements is precisely that we can add the prefix without changing the meaning, and, correlatively, we have no hesitation in deeming them true or false, i.e. as correctly or incorrectly describing reality.
