Really? People do refer to what they have imagined.

Your claim is false.

Really? People do refer to what they have imagined.

Your claim is false.

If you assume from the outset that numbers exist, you can "prove" that they have properties. And if you assume from the outset that they have properties, you can "prove" that they exist. But you can make exactly the same assumptions and "proofs" for fictional characters. So why would you be wrong to do so? (No question-begging, please.)

One further question. Are ideas, and their contents, objects? If so, why cannot a fictional character be the content of an idea of a particular set of properties, and therefore exist? Such an idea could be shared between different people, and represented in literature, art and drama. It would then make sense to say that it is represented correctly or incorrectly, according to whether the representation corresponds properly with the established idea.

You do not mean what I mean when I use the term "refer to."

My claim is true.

The assumption that numbers have properties isn't faulty, but the assumption that fictional characters have properties is faulty.

We have to distinguish between 1) our ideas and 2) what our ideas are ideas of. Ideas exist, and what ideas refer to may or may not. The idea of a fictional idea does exist, but what the idea is an idea of (namely, a fictional character) does not exist.

And why is that? Why cannot fictional characters be non-concrete objects?

If neither Santa Claus nor Sherlock Holmes existed at all, then the idea of Santa Claus would be absolutely identical to the idea of Sherlock Holmes, since they would both be completely empty ideas. But the two ideas are not identical. How do you account for that?

My usage is in accord with standard usage. You are free to stipulate a different usage for 'refer'.
Another poster on this board claimed that rocks have experiences because he stipulated a different usage for 'experience'. I'm sure he thinks it is also true that his claim is true.

If you relly think your claim is true then all you are doing is saying you think we should change the way we use such words as 'refer' and 'representation'.

If neither Santa Claus nor Sherlock Holmes existed at all, then the idea of Santa Claus would be absolutely identical to the idea of Sherlock Holmes, since they would both be completely empty ideas. But the two ideas are not identical. How do you account for that?

What does it mean to say that something "does not exist at all"? Do you believe that existence is a matter of degree?

Of course the two ideas are not identical. They are quite different. But how would that imply that Holmes and Claus are not identical or that they are identical?

No, I do not. By "does not exist at all" I meant "is not even an abstract object".



I was not claiming that Holmes and Claus are identical or not identical. I was arguing as follows:

1. Let us suppose that Sherlock Holmes and Santa Claus do not exist, period. Not as fictional characters, imaginary beings, or anything.

2. Therefore, the idea of Sherlock Holmes is not an idea of anything. It is just an empty idea. It has no content. It is not an idea of anything, because "an idea of X" refers to X, and thus implies that there is an X. And in this case we are supposing that there is no X.

3. The same applies to the idea of Santa Claus.

4. Now, since the idea of Sherlock Holmes and that of Santa Claus are both empty ideas, they (the ideas themselves) are identical as regards their content, for they both have zero content. Zero is identical to zero. (Note here that I am talking about the properties of the ideas themselves. I am not claiming that there are any properties of the contents; obviously there could not be, if there are no contents.)

5. If two ideas are identical as regards their content (because they have none), then they are indistinguishable.

6. But the idea of Sherlock Holmes is in fact distinguishable from that of Santa Claus.

7. Therefore (1) must be false.

Logical?

Santa and the character depicted as having the name Santa are not one in the same. We know the character exists, for it was created, and if in addition to that, Santa also existed, then at least two different things exist.

I don't hold that the meaning of "existence" changes. Things exist (if they do) in the only one way they can. The character exists, but Santa does not. The Santa character is not Santa.

When Ann says, "Santa Claus wears boots," she is correct, for she is simply talking in shorthand for "The character depicted as having the name Santa is depicted as wearing boots." That, of course, it true--not false.

When Bob says, "Santa Claus wears boots," he is incorrect, for he isn't talking about the character depicted as having the name Santa but is actually talking about a non-existent entity that would have the name Santa if he did exist.

By the way, I avoid use of the phrase "exists as." It's terribly misleading.

Those who endorse a platonistic view of fictional objects maintain that there is no good paraphrase of sentences like (G), but one might question this. For instance, one might maintain that (G) can be paraphrased by a sentence like this:
[INDENT]'Sherlock Holmes is a detective' is true-in-the-Holmes-stories.
[/INDENT]If we read (G) in this way, then it is not be about Sherlock Holmes at all; rather, it is about the Sherlock Holmes stories. Thus, in order to believe (G), so interpreted, one would have to believe in the existence of these stories. Now, one might try to take an anti-platonistic view of the nature of stories, but there are problems with such views, and so we might end up with a platonistic view here anyway - a view that takes sentences like (G) to be about stories and stories to be abstract objects of some sort, e.g., ordered sets of propositions.[15] Which of these platonistic views is superior can be settled by determining which (if either) captures the correct interpretation of sentences like (G) - i.e., by determining whether ordinary people who utter sentences like (G) are best interpreted as talking about stories or fictional characters.

(G) "Sherlock Holmes is a detective"

is not true inside or outside stories because no entity whatsoever has that name since fictional character are just that: fictional characters--so they don't exist. So (G) is false in both places. I think the best option we have is to adopt what SEP says about it, here:

I agree (and it is what I have been saying). And this seems to me fast's view too. At least his is what you call, "anti-Platonic" (a description I think misleading). There are two views: 1. An "anti-Platonic" view, which is almost certainly true, and then, 2. What is the correct explanation of fictions, which may be somewhat problematic, although I think the general line that we are talking about stories is true.

I sincerely hope we're all on the same page with that.

I do take stories to be really existent abstract objects, but not fictional characters. But Fast is making a very similar distinction (which is mentioned in the SEP) between Santa as exemplifying properties and Santa as encoding properties. And that view presupposes Santa is an abstract object. But if he is, then its strange to say statements within fictional stories are "a bit of fiction" but somehow our sentences uttered outside stories are true. That's just absurd, and is totally backwards.

So I find myself saying that we can talk about stories, but we sure can't talk about fictional characters--to countenance otherwise leads down either Meingong's path, or maintains that fictional characters are abstract objects. And it seems to me both views are false.

But what makes you think that the idea of Sherlock Holmes is an empty idea?

I do not think it is an empty idea, but I think it would be so if (1) of my previous post were true. I do not understand how the idea of Sherlock Holmes can be the idea of something if there is no Sherlock Holmes.

As I pointed out before, if I have an idea of X, then X is what I have an idea of. But X cannot be anything if it does not exist. You mentioned intensional properties, but this point has not been pursued much. I think it may hold the key to making progress in this discussion.

I do not think it is an empty idea, but I think it would be so if (1) of my previous post were true. I do not understand how the idea of Sherlock Holmes can be the idea of something if there is no Sherlock Holmes.

the context in which Sherlock Holmes came to be in the first place

based on his way of thinking , upon.......

I do not think it is an empty idea, but I think it would be so if (1) of my previous post were true. I do not understand how the idea of Sherlock Holmes can be the idea of something if there is no Sherlock Holmes.

As I pointed out before, if I have an idea of X, then X is what I have an idea of. But X cannot be anything if it does not exist. You mentioned intensional properties, but this point has not been pursued much. I think it may hold the key to making progress in this discussion.

Why can't I have an idea of Sherlock Holmes when Sherlock Holmes does not exist? Indeed, the question is self-answering, since we do have an idea of Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes does not exist. I just described the content of the idea of Sherlock Holmes. You are confusing the content of an idea with the referent (if any) of the idea. The content of an idea is that which is instantiated if the idea has a referent, but the content is not, itself, the instantiation of the idea. You might as well ask how I can dream of being in India and riding on an elephant when I am not in India riding on an elephant. The answer to that question is there is no mystery about it, for that is exactly what happens. The question implies a "counter-evidential intuition".

It asks how something can be true, implying that it is not true, when, in fact, all of our evidence is that what is implied is not true is, in fact true.

So people have asked, how is it possible that life arose from "dead" matter, implying that it could not have done so, when all the evidence we have is that is precisely what did occur. Thus the name, "counter-evidential intuition".