The fourth wall against possibilism on truth-in-fiction
Deniz Satik
December 2021
 

This paper presents a novel problem for accounts of theories of truth-in-fiction which hold that fictional entities exist in other possible worlds but not the actual world, following Lewis (1978). This problem is based on the phenomenon in fiction known as breaking the fourth wall, in which a fictional character acknowledges their fictionality, either indirectly–by being aware that they are fictional–or directly, by communicating with their actual audience. It is argued that such facts cannot be captured under any version of possibilism. I provide a contextualist account of seeming communication of fictional characters and their actual audience.
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Reference: lingbuzz/006347
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keywords: fiction, possible worlds, fourth wall, contextualism, semantics
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