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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Rosen's 1990 'Modal Fictionalism' argument shows that treating worlds as mere fictions generates a vicious circularity, since the fictionalist operator itself requires modal analysis.

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The fictionalist operator can be explained pragmatically (as a speech act) without requiring modal analysis of what 'could' be in fictions.
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    • 2.Circularity between modality and fictionalism is benign if both concepts are interdependent primitives, not if one reduces to the other.
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    • 3.Rosen's argument assumes fictionalism must *eliminate* modal notions entirely, but fictionalism could accept modality as basic and non-reducible.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.The fictionalist operator 'according to the fiction' requires understanding what *could be* true in the fiction, which is irreducibly modal.
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    • 2.To avoid circularity, fictionalism needs a non-modal account of possibility, but no such account is available without presupposing modality.
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    • 3.If modal fictionalism reduces modality to fiction, but fiction requires modal operators to be coherent, the reduction is viciously circular.
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