260087 On Fiction (S) (WiSe 2023/2024)

Novelists use language to talk about things that (apparently) do not exist. For example, Arthur Conan Doyle used the name ‘Sherlock Holmes’ to talk about a detective who never existed. In this seminar, we will discuss some contemporary approaches to the philosophical puzzles raised by this familiar use of language. For example: How is it that, despite the non-existence of Sherlock Holmes, we can meaningfully say that he lived in Baker Street? How can we make sense of the statement that Sherlock Holmes does not exist? We will also explore the relationship between the answers to these questions and, on the one hand, the metaphysical problems raised by the notion of existence, and, on the other, the linguistic problems related to the semantics of proper names.