Fictional objects?: A "Fregean" response to Terence Parsons

Abstract

This article scrutinizes some of T. Parsons' arguments in favor of assuming Meinongian fictional objects. Parsons justifies his Meinongian approach by showing with respect to carefully chosen example sentences that the special paraphrases commonly used in order to circumvent the assumption of non-existent objects are not always adequate. In particular, he explores a Fregean approach that amounts to conceiving of fictional objects as intensional objects and rejects it. The present author reanalyzes Parsons' examples on the basis of Frege's original distinctions. He shows that an adequate account of fictional objects requires neither their interpretation as intensional objects nor the assumption of non-existing objects.