On the Nature of Fiction-Making: Austin or Grice?

Only Imagine is a wonderful book. Clear and tersely written, it provides a compelling defence of a rather unpopular view (indeed, one usually dismissed without serious appraisal as a non-contender): namely, extreme intentionalism about the determination of fictional content and the nature of fictionality. It thus unquestionably advances the philosophical debate. It is also a pleasure to read for those of us who like fictions and not just the philosophy thereof: Stock discusses for her arguments many examples from real fictions, systematically making perceptive remarks. Here I will respond to an objection that she makes to the normative account that I have defended in previous work, arguing that it has explanatory advantages grounded on the subordination on that account of author-intentions to fictional contents independently determined by social practices. Stock (161–163) engages critically with an alternative view that I have defended in previous work, on which it is not primarily author intentions but norms that determine fictional content and define fictionality.1 However, as I will show first, in spite of initial appearances the differences between our views are not that big. The reason is that my view ascribes a crucial role to intentions, too, and, in fact, like Stock, to the actual intentions of the fiction-maker, as opposed to those of hypothetical constructs of various sorts; while, on the other hand, she is also prepared to assign a comparably important role to fiction-making norms (161).