论小说中的真?——从可能世界的视角看

Truth in Fiction:From the Perspective of Possible World Semantics

评价小说有很多方式,其中一个重要维度是小说中的"真","真"同时也是逻辑哲学的核心概念。有鉴于议题的相关性,从逻辑哲学的角度探讨小说中的"真"具有重要的意义。大卫·刘易斯从可能世界语义学的角度来解读小说中的真,他从语用的维度将小说理解为说故事的行为,将小说看作可能世界,将小说中的语句看作省略了"在如此这般的小说中"这一作用于可能世界上的内涵算子,并从反事实句的角度来探讨小说中的真语句及其推理,体现了逻辑分析的严谨性,为探讨小说中的真提供了新的视角,也彰显了刘易斯系统哲学的解释力和理论的统一性。

Given that truth is both an important aspect in the assessment of fiction and a core concept in philosophy of logic,the study of truth in fiction from the standpoint of philosophy of logic has a vital significance.David Lewis noticed this correlation.He analyzed truth in fiction from the perspective of possible world semantics,since a fiction can be taken as a possible world and the descriptions of fictional characters can be regarded as abbreviations for long sentences beginning with an intensional operator ＂in such-and-such fiction＂,namely,a restricted universal quantifier ranging over possible worlds where the fiction is told as a known fact.According to David Lewis,a fiction is a story that pretends to tell the truth instead of a string of sentences,which indicates the pragmatic dimension ofthe fiction.David Lewis treated statements of truth in fiction as counterfactuals based on his counterfactual logic,which provides a new perspective on truth in fiction and shows the unity and the broad explanatory power of his systematic philosophy.