Ficción y referencia: notas en contra de la estrategia descriptivista en su versión fregeana clásica

Abstract

The paper contains a critical analysis of the Classical Fregean version of the descriptivist strategy for the semantic analysis of fictional discourse. In the first part, the Fregean analysis of fictive uses is exposed, against which two main points are made: (i) there are some problems in applying the Fregean notion of sense to fictional names occurring in fictive uses of statements; (ii) contrarily to what seems to be assumed, the idea of simulation is compatible with both reference and truth. The second part, focused on metafictive uses, has also two main points: (i) problems similar to the above-mentioned ones arise when the notion of sense is applied to fictional names occurring in metafictive uses; (ii) Church´s proposal for extending Frege´s theory so as to account for the intuitive truth of negative existentials containing fictional names is not clearly justified. In conclusion, traditional descriptivism, even if it may appear to be attractive by virtue of its ontological moderation, does not succeed in providing us with an adequate account of the semantic content of fictional discourse.