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of their incompatibility, is what generates the tension to which Nichols points.8 University of Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK gregory.currie@nottingham.ac.uk References
Carruthers, P. 2003. Review of Currie and Ravenscroft. Recreative Minds. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1309 (last accessed 30 July 2010). Currie, G. and I. Ravenscroft. 2002. Recreative Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Egan, A. and T. Doggett. 2009. Wanting what you dont want. Philosophers Imprint 7: 117. Doggett, T. and A. Egan. 2010. Fiction, emotion and cognitive architecture. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. forthcoming. Friend, S. 2003. How I really feel about JFK. In Imagination, Philosophy and the Arts, eds M. Kieran and D. M. Lopes, 3553. London: Routledge. Hume, D. 1777/1985. On tragedy. In Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed. E.F. Miller, 21625. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Kind, A. 2011. The puzzle of imaginative desire. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, doi:10.1080/00048402.2010.503763, epub ahead of print 3 August 2010. Nichols, S. 2004. Review of Currie and Ravenscroft. Recreative Minds, Mind 113: 32934. Skow, B. 2009. Preferentialism and the paradox of desire. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 3: 116. Walton, K. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weinberg, J. and A. Meskin. 2006. Imagine that! In Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, ed. M. Kieran, 22235. Oxford: Blackwell.
8 Thanks to Fiora Salis for extensive discussion, and to Tyler Doggett, Stacie Friend, Manuel Garcia-Carpintero, Amy Kind, Elisa Paganini, Alberto Voltolini and others for comments on earlier and longer versions, some read at colloquia in Barcelona, Milan and Nottingham and at the New York APA, 2009.

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Harry Potter and the spectre of imprecision

JIM STONE

Saul Kripke writes: I hold the metaphysical view that, granted that there is no Sherlock Holmes, one cannot say of any possible person that he would have
Analysis Vol 70 | Number 4 | October 2010 | pp. 638644 doi:10.1093/analys/anq082 The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

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been Sherlock Holmes, had he existed. Several distinct possible people, and even actual ones such as Darwin or Jack the Ripper, might have performed the exploits of Holmes, but there is none of whom we can say that he would have been Holmes had he performed these exploits. For if so, which one? (1972: 158) Shifting to a contemporary fictional character, the idea is that no possible boy, if he were actual, would be Harry Potter. Different possible boys (with different genetic codes, different blood types) compete for the honour. As they all optimally satisfy the account of Harry Potter in J. K. Rowlings story, none of them is Harry Potter. So none of them, if he had performed Harry Potters exploits, would have been Harry Potter. For if so, which one? Amie L. Thomasson construes Kripkes problem as one concerning the proper names we use to refer to characters in pre-existing literary works: Because of the logical form of the name, it must refer to a single individual if it refers at all. But the descriptions provided in literary works fail to uniquely determine a single real or possible individual. Indeed an infinite number of possible individuals all match the incomplete description offered in literary works and still differ from each other regarding those properties that remain unspecified in the literary work. (1999: 45) Descriptions can be imprecise because they are vague, but sometimes they are imprecise because they are incomplete. (The criminal I saw had one head, two arms and two legs, I tell the police.) Those who believe Harry Potter is a possible person are faced with two related difficulties that flow from the storys imprecision. First, the singular term Harry Potter fails to refer to a possible person in our statements about Rowlings hero, since many possible boys have an equal claim to be its referent. Second, as no possible boy is the referent of Harry Potter, no possible boy, if he had existed, would have been Harry Potter. I offer in response a supervaluationist theory of reference for names of fictional characters. Proper names from fiction, which do not refer to a real object, can be precisified in much the way that vague terms are sharpened in supervaluationist theories of vagueness. The referent of a fictional proper name, under any suitable precisification, is a possible object. Harry Potter might have existed is true on this account, and the two difficulties can be met. Harry Potter denotes just one possible boy who, if he had existed, would have been Harry Potter. 1. Supervaluationism and the Problem of the Many Consider The Problem of the Many (Unger 1980). Just one cloud is in the sky, call it Edgar. A cloud is a sum of water droplets. As we reach Edgars

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outskirts, however, there are many sums of droplets, each including most of Edgar but drawing its boundary in a different place. All of them are plausible candidates for the referent of Edgar and we have no principled way to choose between them. If Edgar exists, just one sum is Edgar. Which one? The Problem of the Many has been thought to flow from vagueness. David Lewis maintained that vague terms, like cloud and The Outback, admit borderline cases because we havent made the semantic decisions that would make the terms precise (Lewis 1986). In principle they can be precisified in any number of ways, even if doing so in a single way is beyond human capacity. Supervaluationism is an account of the semantics of vague terms, one that promises to solve sorites paradoxes and the Problem of the Many (Fine 1975 and Dummett 1975). The idea is that vague terms are multiply ambiguous. Statements containing vague terms are true if they are true no matter how the ambiguity is resolved. Consider all the precisifications possible for Edgar to this or that sum of water droplets in Edgars vicinity, more or less. What is true of Edgar on every such acceptable precisification of Edgar counts as true simpliciter. For instance, it is true that Edgar is a cloud, that just one cloud is in the sky, that it is identical to Edgar. What is false of Edgar on every such precisification counts as false simpliciter. For instance, it is false that Edgar is not composed of water droplets. What is true of Edgar on some, but not all, acceptable precisifications counts as neither true nor false. For instance, while it is true that Edgar has a precise boundary, since this is true on every precisification, for every particular boundary it is neither true nor false that Edgar ends at exactly this place. There are disanalogies between The Problem of the Many and The Problem of Reference to Fictional Characters. All the candidate clouds and Outbacks are actual; no candidate Harry Potter is actual. All the candidate clouds overlap; bracketing cases of transworld identity, none of the Harry Potter candidates do. Most striking, the referential problem for Harry Potter doesnt flow from the names vagueness. The competing candidates are not borderline cases; each optimally satisfies Rowlings story. Still, there is a multiplicity of distinct candidates for the referent of Harry Potter and no principled way to choose between them. Further, the multiplicity flows from the singular terms (indeed, the storys) lack of precision.1 Just as supervaluationists treat vague terms as multiply ambiguous because they arent precise enough to select among candidate referents, names of fictitious characters can be treated as ambiguous for the same reason, although their vagueness isnt the source of the imprecision.

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Recall Thomasson writes above that a characters names extension is determined by the storys descriptions.

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Enough of the underlying logic of The Problem of the Many survives to invite something like a supervaluationist solution. 2. How would the solution go? In principle, Rowlings story can be precisified so that it always selects just one possible wizard among the candidates (I will suppose that identically similar possible worlds are numerically identical). Consider the set of possible worlds (S) such that all of the storys sentences are true in each of them. Every S-world contains a boy that it represents as satisfying the storys descriptions of the character named Harry Potter. D is the set of those possible boys. Acceptable (or suitable) precisifications of Harry Potter select particular members of D, each of whom is taken to be as he is represented in the S-world in which he exists. When we make claims about Rowlings fictitious hero, the truth about Harry is what is true on every suitable precisification of Harry Potter. What is false about Harry is what is false on every suitable precisification. What is true of members of D on some, but not all, suitable precisifications is neither true nor false of Harry Potter. Note that, on this account, the force of claims like Harry Potter is a wizard is not that something so named is a wizard but that, on every suitable precisification, Harry Potter denotes a possible boy who is a wizard in the S-world in which he exists. This truth does not entail that the feature of being a wizard is instantiated; otherwise the claim would be false, since there are no wizards. Given this semantics for statements about fictional characters, its true that Harry is a wizard, false that he never plays Quidditch, and neither true nor false that he has a scar on his arm. Nonetheless, Harry could have a scar on his arm, because, on every suitable precisification, the possible boy selected has the feature in his S-world that he exists in some world or other where he has a scar on his arm. Harry Potter does or does not have a scar on his arm is true on every suitable precisification, too. Further, no matter how we suitably precisify Harry Potter, just one member of D is Harry Potter; therefore, its true that just one of them is identical to Harry Potter. For the same reason, Harry Potter denotes just one of those candidates. Also, its true that Harry could have existed, since however we precisify the name, Harry Potter is a mere possibility that could have existed. But, for each D-member, it is neither true nor false that it is the candidate denoted by Harry Potter. Where a, b, c and d are the candidates, it is true that Harry Potter is either a or b or c or d, but its indeterminate which of them he is. For instance, it is not true of a on every precisification that a is Harry Potter, nor is it false of a on every precisification that a is Harry Potter. Then isnt Kripkes question unanswered? Of which possible person can we say that it would have been Harry Potter if it had existed? As its neither true nor false that a is Harry Potter, that b is Harry Potter, and so on for

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c and d, there is none of which we can say that it would have been Harry Potter if it had performed his exploits. This last inference is a non-sequitur, however. Many merely possible boys compete for the honour of being Harry Potter, recall. A possible boy must optimally satisfy Rowlings story to get to the starting line, but what wins the contest is really performing Harrys exploits. If a had performed them, a would for that reason have beaten b, c and d, none of which do.2 In short, whatever candidate performs Harrys exploits ipso facto wins the prize. In sum, weve met the two difficulties mentioned in the introduction. Harry Potter refers to just one possible wizard, and we know which candidate would have been Harry Potter if it had performed his exploits. Which one? Every one of them. 3. Could I have been Harry Potter? Why do I say that all the candidate Harry Potters are mere possibilities? Since being a wizard is genetically determined, no real boy could have been a wizard. That would have been someone else. Also, given the Necessity of Origin no real boy could have had wizard parents. But what if the story is revised so that being a wizard is an accidental feature of wizards, one which non-wizards might have possessed? In that case, there is an S-world where I perform Harrys exploits. The boy in that world exists in the actual world too, so he is not a mere possibility but me as I might have been but never was. In this case it is neither true nor false that Harry Potter is a mere possibility, since he is actual on some precisifications but not on others; and it is neither true nor false that I am Harry Potter. Does that boy-wizards actuality give him an edge over his merely possible competitors? Actuality helps, I submit, only because it is required to perform Harrys exploits. When it comes to performing Harrys exploits, actuality is wasted on me; so his being identical to someone actual gives him no advantage. If he had performed Harrys exploits, however, he would have been Harry Potter. The same goes for the mere possibilities. 4. What about unicorns? Kripke also argues that there couldnt have been unicorns. He writes: Now there is no actual species of unicorns, and regarding the several distinct hypothetical species, with different internal structures (some reptilic, some mammalian, some amphibious), which would have the

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It is impossible that distinct real boys optimally satisfy Rowlings story, which is causally anchored to this planet and our time by names like London and Kings Cross Station.

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external appearances postulated to hold of unicorns in the myth of the unicorn, one cannot say which of these distinct mythical species would have been the unicorns. (1972: 157) Something like the strategy outlined above can be deployed here. Whats true of unicorns on every precisification of the myth to a particular hypothetical species is true of unicorns. Hence unicorns could have been actual and, for every myth-satisfying species, if it had been actual, it would have been the species of unicorns. 5. Objection and questions For the modal realist, however, the actual does not denote a metaphysically privileged class. The merely possible candidates really perform Harry Potters exploits. Kripke rejects Modal Realism, however. Also Modal Realism grounds a semantics for de re modal claims only if it is coupled with Counterpart Theory, and I have argued that Counterpart Theory and Modal Realism are incompatible (Stone 2009). In any case, we can construe my conclusion as a conditional: if Modal Realism is mistaken, Harry Potter neednt fear the Spectre of Imprecision. What happens to references to a fictional character if the storys description of him is incoherent? Perhaps we can discount as a slip one of the incoherent claims. But what about deliberate incoherence, e.g. a parable about a mathematician who squares the circle and her treatment by the scientific community? In that case I suggest we can precisify to possible mathematicians who appear to all concerned to have squared the circle. This is an instance of imagining a possible world but describing it as an impossible one, as when we mistakenly think we imagine a world where water turns out not to be H2O. But what if the storys description of the character is riddled with gratuitous contradictions? Then no possible people satisfy the storys descriptions so, on every precisification to a possible person who satisfies them, whatever we say will be true and also false. The characters name refers to nothing. Finally, how does my account apply to J. K. Rowlings story itself? Literary fictions describe a way the world might be, where the descriptions are meant to entertain an audience and are accurately presented as based largely on imaginings. Barring incoherence, a story consists of true assertions about possible beings. Taken collectively, these assertions are self-verifying, since their truth depends on whats true on every precisification of the story that selects a possible being that optimally satisfies them. A philosopher who describes a possible world to give his students another way things might be isnt composing a literary fiction, even if he accidentally mimics Rowlings story, since his descriptions arent meant as entertainment. But both endeavours have the same semantics.

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To conclude: the supervaluationist treatment of vague terms is controversial (Williamson 1994); however, it is a top contender in the literature on vagueness, the alternatives arguably being more controversial. Whatever its fate in that venue, something like it can be invoked independently concerning reference to fictions and more generally to descriptions of possible worlds. Philosophers who wish to identify Harry and Sherlock with possibilities have a way to address the too many referents problem for names of fictional characters.3
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The University of New Orleans New Orleans, Louisiana, 70148, USA jstone@uno.edu References
Dummett, M. 1975. Wangs paradox. Synthese 30: 30124. Fine, K. 1975. Vagueness, truth and logic. Synthese 30: 265300. Kripke, S. 1972. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lewis, D. 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Stone, J. 2009. Why counterpart theory and modal realism are incompatible. Analysis 69: 65053. Thomasson, A.L. 1999. Fiction and Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Unger, P. 1980. The problem of the many. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 41167. Williamson, T. 1994. Vagueness. London: Routledge.
3 Thanks for helpful comments to Berit Brogaard, Irem Kurtsal Steen, Roy Sorensen and two anonymous referees from Analysis. Special thanks to Judith Crane.

Speech acts and poetry

MAXIMILIAN DE GAYNESFORD

Geoffrey Hill (2008) and Christopher Ricks (1996) strenuously reject what we may call Austins Claim: that utterance of a sentence in poetry could not be serious (Austin 1962: 910, 2122, 92, 104). But they accept the conclusion that Austin, with others (e.g. Strawson 1964; Searle 1969), draw from this claim: that the utterance of a sentence in poetry could not be a performative utterance. Hill and Ricks are mistaken, I believe,

Analysis Vol 70 | Number 4 | October 2010 | pp. 644646 doi:10.1093/analys/anq077 The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org