Truth in Fiction, Impossible Worlds, and Belief Revision

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (1):178-193 (2019)
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Abstract

We present a theory of truth in fiction that improves on Lewis's [1978] ‘Analysis 2’ in two ways. First, we expand Lewis's possible worlds apparatus by adding non-normal or impossible worlds. Second, we model truth in fiction as belief revision via ideas from dynamic epistemic logic. We explain the major objections raised against Lewis's original view and show that our theory overcomes them.

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Author Profiles

Franz Berto
University of St. Andrews
Christopher Badura
Universität Hamburg

Citations of this work

Impossible Worlds.Francesco Berto - 2013 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2013):en ligne.
Hyperintensionality.Francesco Berto & Daniel Nolan - 2021 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Extracting fictional truth from unreliable sources.Emar Maier & Merel Semeijn - 2021 - In Emar Maier & Andreas Stokke (eds.), The Language of Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Exploding stories and the limits of fiction.Michel-Antoine Xhignesse - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (3):675-692.

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References found in this work

An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic: From If to Is.Graham Priest - 2008 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Truth in fiction.David K. Lewis - 1978 - American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1):37–46.
The Impossible: An Essay on Hyperintensionality.Mark Jago - 2014 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Impossible Worlds: A Modest Approach.Daniel Nolan - 1997 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (4):535-572.

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