|
|
|
|
|
|
Nevertheless, one might suspect that |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(i) the notion of Possible World extolled by a Possible Worlds Semantics or Model Theory of Possible Worlds has nothing in common with the homonymous notion extolled by the various theories of fiction and narrativity; |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(ii) independent of the above question, the notion of Possible World does not add anything interesting to the understanding of fictional phenomena.
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. Empty vs. Furnished Worlds |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In a Model Theory, Possible Worlds concern sets, not individuals, and a Possible Worlds Semantics cannot be a psycholinguistically realistic theory of language understanding: "It is the structure provided by the possible worlds theory that does the work, not the choice of a particular possible world, if the latter makes sense at all" (Partee 1988:118). "A semantical game is not played on a single model, but on a space of models on which suitable alternativeness relations are defined" (Hintikka 1988:58). The possible worlds of a Model Theory must be empty. They are simply advocated for the sake of a formal calculus considering intensions as functions from possible worlds to extensions. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the contrary, it seems evident that in the framework of a narrative analysis, either one considers given furnished and nonempty, worlds or there will be no difference between a fiction theory, and a logic of counterfactuals.2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
However, there is something in common between the worlds of Possible Worlds Semantics and the worlds of a fiction theory. From its very beginning, the notion of possible world as dealt with by Model Theory is a metaphor coming from literature (in the sense that every world dreamed of, or resulting from a counterfactual, is a fictional world). A possible world is what a complete novel describes (Hintikka 1967 and 1969). Moreover, every, time the Model Theory furnishes an example of possible world it gives it under the form of an individual furnished world or of a portion of it (if Caesar did not cross the Rubicon . . . ). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
According to Hintikka (1988:54ff), in a Model Theory possible worlds are instruments of a language of calculus, which is independent of the object language it describes, while they could not be used within the framework of a language as universal medium, which can only speak about itself. On the contrary, in a theory of fiction possible worlds are |
|
|
|
|
|