عنوان

Can Fictional Superhuman Agents have Mental States?

Number

LA121570

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Can Fictional Superhuman Agents have Mental States?

General Material Designation

[Article]

First Statement of Responsibility

Gabriel Levy

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Leiden

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Brill

Text of Note

According to Deborah Tollefsen, from the analytic perspective called "interpretivism", there is a reasonable way in which groups can be said to have mental states. She bases her argument on the every-day use of language, where people speak as if groups have states such as intentions, desires and wishes. Such propositional attitudes form the basis of any account of truth-conditional semantics, the rules by which people grasp the conditions under which an utterance is true. If groups (abstract units of people) have mental states, perhaps superhuman agents have them too. One argument that may contradict this premise is one that says that, whereas groups exist, superhuman agents do not. However, if groups exist on the basis of normative narratives about them and the institutionalized actions they carry out in the world, the same can be said for superhuman agents. They are like legal fictions: fictional but real. Superhuman agents are fictional and real in a similar sense as groups. According to Deborah Tollefsen, from the analytic perspective called "interpretivism", there is a reasonable way in which groups can be said to have mental states. She bases her argument on the every-day use of language, where people speak as if groups have states such as intentions, desires and wishes. Such propositional attitudes form the basis of any account of truth-conditional semantics, the rules by which people grasp the conditions under which an utterance is true. If groups (abstract units of people) have mental states, perhaps superhuman agents have them too. One argument that may contradict this premise is one that says that, whereas groups exist, superhuman agents do not. However, if groups exist on the basis of normative narratives about them and the institutionalized actions they carry out in the world, the same can be said for superhuman agents. They are like legal fictions: fictional but real. Superhuman agents are fictional and real in a similar sense as groups.1

Date of Publication

2018

Physical description

425-448

Title

Method & Theory in the Study of Religion

Volume Number

30/4-5

International Standard Serial Number

1570-0682

Subject Term

Davidson

Subject Term

falsity

Subject Term

fiction

Subject Term

General

Subject Term

religion

Subject Term

Religious Studies

Subject Term

semantics

Subject Term

truth

Gabriel Levy

Call Number

10.1163/15700682-12341429

Electronic name

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y