harry potter and the spectre of imprecision

of their incompatibility, is what generates the tension to which Nicholspoints.8

University of NottinghamNG7 2RD, UK

[email protected]

References

Carruthers, P. 2003. Review of Currie and Ravenscroft. Recreative Minds. Notre DamePhilosophical Reviews. http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1309 (last accessed 30 July2010).

Currie, G. and I. Ravenscroft. 2002. Recreative Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Egan, A. and T. Doggett. 2009. Wanting what you don’t want. Philosophers’ Imprint 7:1–17.

Doggett, T. and A. Egan. 2010. Fiction, emotion and cognitive architecture. Philosophyand 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, 35–53. London: Routledge.

Hume, D. 1777/1985. On tragedy. In Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed.E.F. Miller, 216–25. 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 113:329–34.

Skow, B. 2009. Preferentialism and the paradox of desire. Journal of Ethics and SocialPhilosophy 3: 1–16.

Walton, K. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Weinberg, J. and A. Meskin. 2006. Imagine that! In Contemporary Debates in Aestheticsand the Philosophy of Art, ed. M. Kieran, 222–35. Oxford: Blackwell.

Harry Potter and the spectre of imprecisionJIM STONE

Saul Kripke writes:

I hold the metaphysical view that, granted that there is no SherlockHolmes, one cannot say of any possible person that he would have

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 andNottingham and at the New York APA, 2009.

Analysis Vol 70 | Number 4 | October 2010 | pp. 638–644 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: [email protected]

638 | jim stone

at Colum

bia University L

ibraries on February 25, 2013http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/

been Sherlock Holmes, had he existed. Several distinct possible people,and even actual ones such as Darwin or Jack the Ripper, might haveperformed the exploits of Holmes, but there is none of whom we cansay 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 pos-sible 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. Rowling’sstory, none of them is Harry Potter. So none of them, if he hadperformed Harry Potter’s exploits, would have been Harry Potter. For ifso, which one?

Amie L. Thomasson construes Kripke’s problem as one concerning theproper 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 indi-vidual if it refers at all. But the descriptions provided in literary worksfail to uniquely determine a single real or possible individual. Indeed aninfinite number of possible individuals all match the incomplete descrip-tion offered in literary works and still differ from each other regardingthose properties that remain unspecified in the literary work. (1999: 45)

Descriptions can be imprecise because they are vague, but sometimes theyare 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 apossible person are faced with two related difficulties that flow from thestory’s imprecision. First, the singular term ‘Harry Potter’ fails to refer to apossible person in our statements about Rowling’s hero, since many possibleboys have an equal claim to be its referent. Second, as no possible boy is thereferent of ‘Harry Potter’, no possible boy, if he had existed, would have beenHarry Potter.

I offer in response a supervaluationist theory of reference for namesof fictional characters. Proper names from fiction, which do not refer to areal object, can be precisified in much the way that vague terms are sharp-ened in supervaluationist theories of vagueness. The referent of a fictionalproper name, under any suitable precisification, is a possible object. ‘HarryPotter might have existed’ is true on this account, and the two difficulties canbe 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 thesky, call it ‘Edgar’. A cloud is a sum of water droplets. As we reach Edgar’s

harry potter and the spectre of imprecision | 639

at Colum

bia University L


Dow

nloaded from


outskirts, however, there are many sums of droplets, each including most ofEdgar 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 tochoose between them. If Edgar exists, just one sum is Edgar. Which one?

The Problem of the Many has been thought to flow from vagueness. DavidLewis maintained that vague terms, like ‘cloud’ and ‘The Outback’, admit

borderline cases because we haven’t made the semantic decisions that wouldmake the terms precise (Lewis 1986). In principle they can be precisified inany number of ways, even if doing so in a single way is beyond humancapacity.

Supervaluationism is an account of the semantics of vague terms, one thatpromises to solve sorites paradoxes and the Problem of the Many (Fine 1975and 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 Edgar’s vicinity, more or less. What istrue of Edgar on every such ‘acceptable’ precisification of ‘Edgar’ counts astrue 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 onevery such precisification counts as false simpliciter. For instance, it is falsethat 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 trueon every precisification, for every particular boundary it is neither true norfalse 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 cloudsand Outbacks are actual; no candidate Harry Potter is actual. All the candi-date clouds overlap; bracketing cases of transworld identity, none of theHarry Potter candidates do. Most striking, the referential problem for

‘Harry Potter’ doesn’t flow from the name’s vagueness. The competingcandidates are not borderline cases; each optimally satisfies Rowling’sstory. 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 term’s (indeed, the story’s) lack ofprecision.1 Just as supervaluationists treat vague terms as multiply ambigu-ous because they aren’t precise enough to select among candidate referents,names of fictitious characters can be treated as ambiguous for the same

reason, although their vagueness isn’t the source of the imprecision.

1 Recall Thomasson writes above that a character’s name’s extension is determined by thestory’s descriptions.

640 | jim stone

at Colum

bia University L


Dow

nloaded from


Enough of the underlying logic of The Problem of the Many survives to invitesomething like a supervaluationist solution.

2. How would the solution go?

In principle, Rowling’s story can be precisified so that it always selects justone possible wizard among the candidates (I will suppose that identicallysimilar possible worlds are numerically identical). Consider the set of possibleworlds (S) such that all of the story’s sentences are true in each of them. EveryS-world contains a boy that it represents as satisfying the story’s descriptionsof the character named ‘Harry Potter’. D is the set of those possible boys.Acceptable (or ‘suitable’) precisifications of ‘Harry Potter’ select particularmembers of D, each of whom is taken to be as he is represented in theS-world in which he exists. When we make claims about Rowling’s fictitioushero, 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 suitableprecisification. What is true of members of D on some, but not all, suitableprecisifications is neither true nor false of Harry Potter.

Note that, on this account, the force of claims like ‘Harry Potter is awizard’ is not that something so named is a wizard but that, on every suitableprecisification, ‘Harry Potter’ denotes a possible boy who is a wizard in theS-world in which he exists. This truth does not entail that the feature of beinga wizard is instantiated; otherwise the claim would be false, since there are nowizards.

Given this semantics for statements about fictional characters, it’s true thatHarry is a wizard, false that he never plays Quidditch, and neither true norfalse that he has a scar on his arm. Nonetheless, Harry could have a scar onhis arm, because, on every suitable precisification, the possible boy selectedhas the feature in his S-world that he exists in some world or other where hehas 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 wesuitably precisify ‘Harry Potter’, just one member of D is Harry Potter; there-fore, it’s true that just one of them is identical to Harry Potter. For the samereason, ‘Harry Potter’ denotes just one of those candidates. Also, it’s true thatHarry could have existed, since however we precisify the name, Harry Potteris a mere possibility that could have existed. But, for each D-member, it isneither true nor false that it is the candidate denoted by ‘Harry Potter’. Wherea, b, c and d are the candidates, it is true that Harry Potter is either a or b or cor d, but it’s indeterminate which of them he is. For instance, it is not true ofa on every precisification that a is Harry Potter, nor is it false of a on everyprecisification that a is Harry Potter.

Then isn’t Kripke’s question unanswered? Of which possible person canwe say that it would have been Harry Potter if it had existed? As it’s neithertrue nor false that a is Harry Potter, that b is Harry Potter, and so on for


at Colum

bia University L


Dow

nloaded from


c and d, there is none of which we can say that it would have been HarryPotter if it had performed his exploits. This last inference is a non-sequitur,however. Many merely possible boys compete for the honour of being HarryPotter, recall. A possible boy must optimally satisfy Rowling’s story to get tothe starting line, but what wins the contest is really performing Harry’sexploits. 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 Harry’sexploits ipso facto wins the prize.

In sum, we’ve met the two difficulties mentioned in the introduction.‘Harry Potter’ refers to just one possible wizard, and we know which candi-date would have been Harry Potter if it had performed his exploits. Whichone? Every one of them.

3. Could I have been Harry Potter?

Why do I say that all the candidate Harry Potters are mere possibilities? Sincebeing a wizard is genetically determined, no real boy could have been awizard. That would have been someone else. Also, given the Necessity ofOrigin no real boy could have had wizard parents. But what if the story isrevised so that being a wizard is an accidental feature of wizards, one whichnon-wizards might have possessed? In that case, there is an S-world where Iperform Harry’s exploits. The boy in that world exists in the actual worldtoo, 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 neithertrue nor false that I am Harry Potter. Does that boy-wizard’s actuality givehim an edge over his merely possible competitors? Actuality helps, I submit,only because it is required to perform Harry’s exploits. When it comes toperforming Harry’s exploits, actuality is wasted on me; so his being identicalto someone actual gives him no advantage. If he had performed Harry’sexploits, however, he would have been Harry Potter. The same goes forthe mere possibilities.

4. What about unicorns?

Kripke also argues that there couldn’t have been unicorns. He writes:

Now there is no actual species of unicorns, and regarding the severaldistinct hypothetical species, with different internal structures (somereptilic, some mammalian, some amphibious), which would have the

2 It is impossible that distinct real boys optimally satisfy Rowling’s story, which is causallyanchored to this planet and our time by names like ‘London’ and ‘King’s Cross Station’.

642 | jim stone

at Colum

bia University L


Dow

nloaded from


external appearances postulated to hold of unicorns in the myth of theunicorn, one cannot say which of these distinct mythical species wouldhave been the unicorns. (1972: 157)

Something like the strategy outlined above can be deployed here. What’strue of unicorns on every precisification of the myth to a particular hypo-thetical species is true of unicorns. Hence unicorns could have been actualand, for every myth-satisfying species, if it had been actual, it would havebeen the species of unicorns.

5. Objection and questions

For the modal realist, however, ‘the actual’ does not denote a metaphysicallyprivileged class. The merely possible candidates really perform Harry Potter’sexploits. Kripke rejects Modal Realism, however. Also Modal Realismgrounds a semantics for de re modal claims only if it is coupled withCounterpart Theory, and I have argued that Counterpart Theory andModal Realism are incompatible (Stone 2009). In any case, we can construemy conclusion as a conditional: if Modal Realism is mistaken, Harry Potterneedn’t fear the Spectre of Imprecision.

What happens to references to a fictional character if the story’s descrip-tion of him is incoherent? Perhaps we can discount as a slip one of theincoherent claims. But what about deliberate incoherence, e.g. a parableabout a mathematician who squares the circle and her treatment by the sci-entific community? In that case I suggest we can precisify to possible math-ematicians who appear to all concerned to have squared the circle. This is aninstance 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 notto be H2O. But what if the story’s description of the character is riddled withgratuitous contradictions? Then no possible people satisfy the story’s descrip-tions so, on every precisification to a possible person who satisfies them,whatever we say will be true and also false. The character’s name refersto nothing.

Finally, how does my account apply to J. K. Rowling’s story itself? Literaryfictions describe a way the world might be, where the descriptions are meantto entertain an audience and are accurately presented as based largely onimaginings. Barring incoherence, a story consists of true assertions aboutpossible beings. Taken collectively, these assertions are self-verifying,since their truth depends on what’s true on every precisification of thestory that selects a possible being that optimally satisfies them. A philosopherwho describes a possible world to give his students another way things mightbe isn’t composing a literary fiction, even if he accidentally mimics Rowling’sstory, since his descriptions aren’t meant as entertainment. But both endeav-ours have the same semantics.


at Colum

bia University L


Dow

nloaded from


To conclude: the supervaluationist treatment of vague terms is controver-sial (Williamson 1994); however, it is a top contender in the literature onvagueness, the alternatives arguably being more controversial. Whatever itsfate in that venue, something like it can be invoked independently concerningreference to fictions and more generally to descriptions of possible worlds.Philosophers who wish to identify Harry and Sherlock with possibilities havea way to address the ‘too many referents’ problem for names of fictionalcharacters.3

The University of New OrleansNew Orleans, Louisiana, 70148, USA

[email protected]

References

Dummett, M. 1975. Wang’s paradox. Synthese 30: 301–24.

Fine, K. 1975. Vagueness, truth and logic. Synthese 30: 265–300.

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. Analysis69: 650–53.

Thomasson, A.L. 1999. Fiction and Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Unger, P. 1980. The problem of the many. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 411–67.

Williamson, T. 1994. Vagueness. London: Routledge.

Speech acts and poetryMAXIMILIAN DE GAYNESFORD

Geoffrey Hill (2008) and Christopher Ricks (1996) strenuously reject

what we may call Austin’s Claim: that utterance of a sentence in poetry

could not be ‘serious’ (Austin 1962: 9–10, 21–22, 92, 104). But theyaccept 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,

3 Thanks for helpful comments to Berit Brogaard, Irem Kurtsal Steen, Roy Sorensen andtwo anonymous referees from Analysis. Special thanks to Judith Crane.

Analysis Vol 70 | Number 4 | October 2010 | pp. 644–646 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: [email protected]

644 | maximilian de gaynesford

at Colum

bia University L


Dow

nloaded from


harry potter and the spectre of imprecision

Documents