Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Table

Abstract

The primary aim of this paper is to provide a plausible fictional creationist explanation of when and how a fictional object comes into existence without a successful creative intention, focusing on the problem posed by Stuart Brock’s nominalist author scenario. I first present some intuitions about parallel scenarios for fictional objects and concrete artifacts as data to be explained. Then I provide a sufficient condition for the existence of artifacts that can explain both cases. An important upshot of this is that there is an overlooked way to bring artifacts into existence that should merit serious consideration, and this leads to a version of the mind-dependence, but not the intention-dependence, view of artifacts.

1. Fictional Creationism and Intentional Creation

Fictional creationism is the ontological view that fictional objects are contingently created abstract artifacts whose existence is mind-dependent in the sense that their existence supervenes on our mental activities involving literary practices.1 A major advantage of fictional creationism is that it can provide a straightforward explanation for our intuition that the following so-called external metafictional sentences, sentences that seem to be directly talking about fictional objects, are literally true:

(1)

Harry Potter is a fictional character.

(2)

Harry Potter is a distinct fictional character from Hermione Granger.

(3)

Harry Potter was created by acts involving literary practice.

(4)

There are many fictional characters less famous than Harry Potter.

Let us, for the sake of discussion, assume referentialism (or Millianism) about names, i.e., the semantic view that the semantic content of a name, if it has any, is simply its referent.2 Then, according to fictional creationism, sentences (1)–(4) semantically express true singular propositions about the fictional character Harry Potter: (1) is true because Harry Potter has the property of being a fictional character; (2) is true because Harry Potter and Hermione Granger are two distinct fictional characters; (3) is true because Harry Potter has the property of having been created by acts involving literary practices; (4) is true because the quantifier in (4) ranges over fictional characters, and some of them are less famous than Harry Potter. This straightforward explanation makes fictional creationism theoretically attractive.

However, like other views about fictional objects, fictional creationism has its own costs. For example, fictional creationists should explain away the apparent truth of fictional negative existentials such as “Harry Potter does not exist” even though it is literally false.3 Fictional creationists should also address the alleged identity problem of fictional objects, i.e., whether any satisfactory identity criteria for fictional objects can be given.4

The purpose of this paper, however, is to answer another important question, namely, the following “when and how” question posed by Stuart Brock [22]:5

When and How: When and how does a fictional object come into existence?

As Brock notes, one seemingly plausible attempt to answer this question is to invoke an author’s intention to create fictional objects. So, let us first consider the following principle of when and how a new fictional object is intentionally created:

Intentional Creation: A new distinct fictional object o is intentionally created by an author S, if and only if (or whenever) S has an appropriate intention to create the new fictional object o that is distinct from other fictional objects, and as a causal consequence of that intention, S pretends to believe a singular proposition about o.6

According to Intentional Creation (“IC” for short), an author’s creative intention and her act of pretense caused by this intention play a key role in intentionally creating a fictional object. IC seems to provide a satisfactory explanation for many ordinary cases: Rowling probably had an appropriate intention to create new fictional objects that led her acts of pretense, and as a result of these acts she created fictional characters such as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, a fictional school such as Hogwarts, and a fictional substance such as the Philosopher’s Stone.

Despite the apparent plausibility of IC, however, IC does not provide a full-blown answer as to When and How, for it seems that some fictional objects can come into existence without successful creative intentions. In Section 2, I will first introduce Brock’s nominalist Rowling scenario, to which IC does not apply, and list some related intuitions about both fictional objects and concrete artifacts as data to be explained. In Section 3, I suggest one sufficient condition for the existence of artifacts that can uniformly explain all the data presented in Section 2. This will show that there is an overlooked way to bring artifacts into existence that deserves serious consideration. In Section 4, I supplement the discussion in Section 3 with a detailed explanation of when and how fictional objects are brought into existence without successful creative intentions.

2. Artifacts That Come into Existence without Successful Creative Intentions

Stuart Brock [22] (p. 362) suggests considering the following imaginary scenario:

Nominalist Rowling: J. K. Rowling is an amateur philosopher. She is a nominalist and thus faithfully believes that abstract entities of any kind do not exist. When she writes the Harry Potter series, she believes writing her stories will not produce any fictional objects and does not intend to create any fictional objects. But many people start reading Rowling’s book and then talk about Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

Brock points out that fictional creationists should still admit that even in the Nominalist Rowling case, the existence of fictional objects such as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and the Philosopher’s Stone is in no way threatened. However, since Rowling has no intention to create fictional objects, IC is silent on when and how fictional objects come into existence in this case.

In response, David Friedell [8] (p. 134) argues that Nominalist Rowling does not pose a serious threat to fictional creationism, since even concrete artifacts such as tables come into existence without the intention of creating a table. Consider the following scenario:

Nihilist van Inwagen: Peter van Inwagen is a mereological nihilist and thus faithfully believes that there are no tables but merely simples arranged tablewise (van Inwagen [25]). When he carves wood in his garage, he does not intend to make a table; he is simply trying to arrange simples tablewise. However, when his neighbors see van Inwagen’s wood carving, they come to believe that a table comes into existence.

Friedell appeals to our intuition that in the Nihilist van Inwagen scenario, a table comes into existence even if van Inwagen has no intention of creating it. For the purpose of our discussion, let us assume that ordinary concrete artifacts such as tables do exist (though this is controversial) and leave mereological nihilism aside. Then, according to Friedell, the remaining research project is to discern the connection between makers’ intentions and artifacts, because it seems that makers’ intentions are still crucial in both the Nominalist Rowling and Nihilist van Inwagen scenarios: Although van Inwagen does not intend to create a table, he intends to arrange simples tablewise. Similarly, while the nominalist Rowling does not intend to create any fictional object, she intends to write the Harry Potter series to invite readers to engage in a certain pretense.

However, I do not agree with Friedell on what a remaining research project is. For it seems that there are very similar intuitive cases where both fictional objects and concrete artifacts come into existence without any kinds of the aforementioned makers’ intentions, namely, the intention to arrange simples tablewise and the intention to write novels to invite readers to engage in pretense. Let us consider the following pair of so-called “swamp” scenarios:

Swamp Book: Particles of swamp gas coalesce and form an object that is intrinsically identical to a copy of the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in our actual world. Many people start reading this book and then talk about Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

Swamp Table: Particles of swamp gas coalesce and form an object that is intrinsically identical to the table in my kitchen. People who witness this incredible process come to believe that a table comes into existence.

In each case, I think we have at the very least the ordinary intuition that Harry Potter and a new table come into existence.7 First, in the Swamp Book scenario, it seems that ordinary readers, even if they are well aware that there is no author of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, readily use the name “Harry Potter” after reading the book to talk about the fictional character Harry Potter. If their uses of “Harry Potter” become widespread in their linguistic community, then even literary critics might begin to write a character analysis about Harry Potter.

This observation suggests that even in the Swamp Book scenario, the speakers’ uses of external metafictional sentences such as (1)–(4) still seem to be literally true. If so, then the same motivation we saw in Section 1 seems to force fictional creationists to admit that there exists a fictional character named “Harry Potter” in the Swamp Book scenario; it seems highly ad hoc for fictional creationists to claim that Harry Potter does not exist because there is no author, even though the inhabitants of the Swamp Book scenario use external metafictional sentences in almost exactly the same way as we do (except when talking about the author).8

Likewise, I believe that as ordinary people, not philosophers, we have the intuition that a new table comes into existence in the Swamp Table scenario. Seeing an ordinary table-shaped object made from particles of swamp gas, ordinary people will naturally believe that a table comes into existence and be ready to use it to put things down, to eat, to write, to work, and so on. It is even possible that the table made from particles of swamp gas becomes a tourist attraction so that no one actually uses that table. In any case, it seems at least intuitive that there exists a table in the Swamp Table scenario, and this intuition is one of the data we should explain.9

In addition to Swamp Book and Swamp Table, I also expect that we have the ordinary intuition that Harry Potter and a table come into existence in the following scenarios, where makers fail to have a successful creative intention because they are mistaken or clumsy:

Inadvertently Created Potter: When J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, she was under the mistaken impression that the protagonist, Harry Potter, was a real person. Introducing the name “Harry Potter”, Rowling intended to refer to a famous English entertainer she thought existed quite independently of her novel. Readers, who read her book and are aware that Harry Potter is not a real person, start to talk about Harry Potter as a fictional character.10

Inadvertently Created Table: Joy intends to make a piano bench. But due to her clumsy carpentry skills, the result comes out an ordinary table-shaped object. Her friends say that Joy has inadvertently created a table, and Joy agrees with them.

As in the Swamp Book scenario, in the Inadvertently Created Potter scenario, ordinary readers use the name “Harry Potter” to talk about the fictional character Harry Potter: their uses of external metafictional sentences such as (1)–(4) still seem to be literally true, and it seems to force fictional creationists to admit that there exists a fictional character named “Harry Potter” in the Inadvertently Created Potter scenario.11

Similarly, in the Inadvertently Created Table scenario, it is intuitive that a new table comes into existence: all the people, including Joy, believe that there is a table inadvertently created due to Joy’s clumsy skills. They are about to use it to put things down, to eat, to write, to work, and so on. And when they finally use it, they will not think that they are using a table-shaped piano bench as a table, which in fact is not a table; rather, they will think that they are simply using a table.12

It is important to note at this point that I do not deny that philosophers’ intuitions about the above scenarios may vary and sometimes be theoretically biased. However, I believe that there are at least some ordinary intuitions that Harry Potter and a new table come into existence in all six cases as the data we should explain or explain away. Of course, one could try to explain our intuitions about Nominalist Rowling and Nihilist van Inwagen, and at the same time try to explain away our intuitions about the other four scenarios through an error-theoretic explanation. However, my aim in this paper is to provide a non-revisionary, straightforward explanation without resorting to any error theory or biting the bullet: the remaining research project for me as a fictional creationist is to find a general principle that can explain the given data of three pairs of parallel scenarios between fictional objects and concrete artifacts. And if this project is successful, I think it should be preferred to a revisionary explanation. In the next section, I will provide one sufficient condition for the existence of artifacts that applies to all six cases, which is based on the concepts of a communal belief and an artifact function.

3. Communal Belief and Function

As a plausible working hypothesis for artifacts that come into existence without successful creative intentions, I suggest the following principle:

Communal Belief and Function: (When there is no one who intentionally creates an object o as an artifact kind K), if one’s actual belief that o belongs to a K is (or is disposed to be) rigidly accepted by a relevant community, and o has a K-function (or o already functions as a K), then o exists as a K.13

A few remarks will help clarify Communal Belief and Function (“CBF” for short). First, CBF provides a sufficient condition for the existence of artifacts, namely, one way of when and how artifacts come into existence. But CBF does not provide a full-blown existence condition for artifacts: it does not exclude other ways in which artifacts can come into existence. For example, CBF is consistent with the widespread view that artifacts can be created from the successful creative intentions of makers.

Second, it should be clarified how I use the term “rigidly” in CBF. I use this term to avoid a case where a communal belief is overridden by a maker’s original intention and belief. For example, unlike in the original Inadvertently Created Table scenario, if Joy adamantly insists that she created a table-shaped piano bench and her friends recant their belief that there is a table and agree with Joy’s claim, then in this case I have no objection to the view that she did indeed create a piano bench and that her friends’ belief that a table was inadvertently created is overridden by Joy’s creative intention and belief.14 But sometimes, a communal belief that o belongs to a K is not overridden by a maker’s intention, even if the community comes to believe that the maker’s intention conflicts with their communal belief about o. In this case, I would say that the belief is rigidly accepted by that community. For example, today everyone believes that Bubble Wrap is a packaging material, and even after realizing that the original inventors intended that Bubble Wrap be a wall covering and not a packaging material, we will not believe that Bubble Wrap is a wall covering and not a packaging material. The belief that Bubble Wrap is a packaging material is rigidly accepted in our community and is not overridden by the makers’ original intention.15 Likewise, in any of the scenarios presented in Section 2, ex hypothesi, the communal belief that Harry Potter or a table comes into existence is not overridden by Rowling’s or van Inwagen’s intention and belief.16

Lastly, according to CBF, a new artifact o of kind K comes into existence when two conditions are satisfied: satisfying only one condition does not seem to be sufficient for the existence of artifacts. Suppose o is rigidly communally believed to belong to a computer, but in fact o is just a computer-shaped prop.17 In this case, of course, o is not a computer, and the obvious reason for this is that o has no function of a real computer. CBF is thus consistent with the possibility that a rigid communal belief about an artifact kind is massively mistaken.18

Conversely, if an object’s having a K-function without a communal belief were sufficient to be an artifact of K,19 then there would be too many artifacts of K than we expect: as Friedell (2018: 99) convincingly argues, my piano bench has always, for as long as it has existed, been a table, because it had a table-function: my piano bench could be used to put things down, to eat, to write, to work, and so on. In fact, every piano bench, every tree stump, and everything that has a table-function, is a table.20 Of course, there may be a theoretical reason for allowing more tables than we expect. But other things being equal, it would be better if we could find a theory that avoids this unintuitive result.21 In this respect, CBF is immune to this so-called overgeneration problem. Even if my piano bench has a table-function, it does not follow from CBF that my piano bench is also a table in an ordinary case where it is not rigidly communally believed to be a table.22^,23

The preceding remarks are sufficient to clarify CBF. Now note that CBF predicts the desired result, namely, that Harry Potter or a table comes into existence in all the scenarios in Section 2. First, consider a table. For the sake of discussion, let us name the table-shaped object “Tso” in each of the three scenarios about tables, i.e., Nihilist van Inwagen, Swamp Table, and Inadvertently Created Table. Then, in all three scenarios, there is someone who actually believes that Tso belongs to a table, and this belief is (or is disposed to be) rigidly accepted by a community in each scenario. In addition, Tso has a table-function. So, according to CBF, Tso exists as a table in all three scenarios.24 One lesson from this, I believe, is that for a table to exist, it does not matter how a table-shaped object came into existence in the first place, i.e., whether by a nihilist, by physical coincidence, or by accident. What matters is that there is a rigid communal belief that Tso belong to a table, and this fact explains our ordinary intuition about the existence of a table in three scenarios.25

Likewise, in all three scenarios about Harry Potter, i.e., Nominalist Rowling, Swamp Book, and Inadvertently Created Potter, even if there is no author who intentionally created Harry Potter, the belief that Harry Potter is a fictional object is rigidly accepted by a relevant community, and Harry Potter functions as a fictional object, i.e., its depiction in fiction invites us to pretend about Harry Potter that it is such-and such. So, CBF predicts that Harry Potter exists as a fictional object in all three scenarios.

However, there is a significant difference between the above explanation of how a table comes into existence and the explanation of how Harry Potter comes into existence. In the case of the table, there first exists a table-shaped, concrete, composite object, Tso, and the communal belief that Tso belongs to a table makes Tso exist as a table. However, if a parallel explanation applies to Harry Potter, in order for the communal belief that Harry Potter belongs to a fictional object to make Harry Potter exist as a fictional object, it seems that there must first exist an abstract object, Harry Potter. But then, (pace nihilists) unlike a concrete composite object, it seems to require further explanation as to how this abstract object comes into existence in the first place. In the next section, I will explain this in detail by employing the concepts of mythical objects and imaginary objects.

Since CBF predicts the results that accord with our ordinary intuitions about all six scenarios, I believe we now have good reason to accept CBF until a compelling argument against CBF is developed. But before finishing this section, I want to point out two important ramifications of accepting CBF.

First, CBF is in favor of the view that a concrete artifact can come into existence through appropriation, i.e., a pre-existing object o can become an artifact without physical alteration.26 For example, a new wine rack can come into existence by appropriating a suitably shaped piece of driftwood on the beach without physically altering it, i.e., by placing it in a kitchen and using it to place wine bottles long enough so that everyone accepts that it is a wine rack

But furthermore, CBF implies that appropriating o as an artifact kind K does not even require actual use of o as a K: even if no one uses o as a K, o can be appropriated as a K if o is rigidly communally believed to be a K and o has a K-function. That is, we can interpret the above scenarios, such as Nihilist van Inwagen, Swamp Table, and Inadvertently Created Table, as cases of appropriating a pre-existing concrete object as a table by a rigid communal belief without actual use. Although I reserve the detailed explanation of appropriation by a rigid communal belief for another time, I would like to make three points about this: First, this at least accords with our ordinary intuition that there is a table in all the above scenarios, even if no one has actually used it yet. If there is already a rigid communal belief that Tso belongs to a table, and Tso has a table-function, then it does not seem to matter for the existence of a table whether one actually starts to use it or not, even though an actual use might induce a rigid communal belief in many ordinary situations.27 Second, this poses a problem for those who deny appropriation by claiming that in alleged cases of appropriation o is just used as a K, but does not belong to a K.28 This is because if there is a case of appropriation by a rigid communal belief without actual use, actual use is not necessary for appropriation. Lastly, I believe that CBF also implies the possibility of appropriating abstract artifacts. I will discuss this in more detail in the next section.

The second and, in my opinion, more significant ramification is that accepting CBF leads to a version of the mind-dependence, but not intention-dependence, view of both concrete and abstract artifacts. Artifacts can come into existence without makers’ creative intentions, but since their birth still depends on the mental state of people, i.e., their rigid communal belief, this does not support the mind-independence view of artifacts. Still, it is not unnatural to call them artifacts in the sense that we bring these artifacts into existence unlike natural kinds. In sum, CBF shows that there is an overlooked but important way of bringing artifacts into existence that should merit serious consideration in favor of the mind-dependence (but neither intention-dependence nor mind-independence) view of artifacts.

4. How to Bring Fictional Objects into Existence without Creative Intentions

According to CBF, even if there is no author who intends to create Harry Potter as a fictional object, once the belief that Harry Potter is a fictional object is rigidly accepted and Harry Potter functions as a fictional object, Harry Potter exists as a fictional object. However, as I pointed out in the last section, it seems that there must first exist an abstract object, Harry Potter, in order for the communal belief that Harry Potter belongs to a fictional object to make Harry Potter exist as a fictional object. In this section, I will provide an explanation for this.

Here my suggestion is to employ the concepts of mythical objects and imaginary objects.29 Let me briefly explain both in turn: First, mythical objects are abstract objects inadvertently created as a result of a person’s mistaken belief.30 A famous example of mythical objects is Le Verrier’s Vulcan: Le Verrier mistakenly believed in the existence of the inner planet of Mercury, named it “Vulcan”, and tried to entertain a singular proposition about Vulcan. As a result of Le Verrier’s mistaken belief, a mythical planet Vulcan was inadvertently created. Second, imaginary objects are abstract objects created as a result of a person’s propositional imagination.31 Suppose Jin knows that there are no actual emperors of France and the United States, but imagines that they exist, and names them “Nappy” and “Mappy”, respectively. He keeps imagining singular propositions about Nappy and Mappy: that they are bald, that they hate each other, etc. As a result of Jin’s imagination, imaginary objects, Nappy and Mappy, are created.

Let us now consider the following four sentences:

(5)

Vulcan is a mythical planet.

(6)

Vulcan is a distinct mythical planet from Phaeton.

(7)

Nappy is an imaginary emperor.

(8)

Nappy is a distinct imaginary emperor from Mappy.

It seems to us that these sentences are literally true. Just like fictional creationism, so-called mythical creationism and imaginary creationism have the great advantage that they can provide a straightforward explanation for the intuitive truth of (5)–(8): they are literally true because they semantically express true singular propositions about mythical or imaginary objects. Thus, at least fictional creationists are guided to be mythical creationists and imaginary creationists as well.32

Accepting these two kinds of creationism, I suggest the following principles, which provide a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of a mythical object and of an imaginary object, respectively:

Creation of Mythical Objects: A mythical object o is inadvertently created by a subject S, if (or when) S mistakenly believes that there is such an object as o and tries to entertain a singular proposition about o.

Creation of Imaginary Objects: An imaginary object o is created by a subject S, if (or when) S propositionally imagines a singular proposition about o.

These two principles, Creation of Mythical Objects (“CMO” for short) and Creation of Imaginary Objects (“CIO” for short), provide creationists, I believe, with sources for explaining how an abstract object Harry Potter first comes into existence in scenarios such as Nominalist Rowling, Swamp Book, and Inadvertently Created Potter.

To be specific, in the Nominalist Rowling and Inadvertently Created Potter scenarios, when we, as readers, read Rowling’s book, we mistakenly believe that there is a fictional character named “Harry Potter” created by Rowling, and we try to pretend singular propositions about Harry Potter. As a result of our mistaken belief, according to CMO, a mythical object Harry Potter comes into existence. In the case of Swamp Book, although we know that there is no author of the swamp book, when we read it, we, as readers, propositionally imagine singular propositions about the wizard named “Harry Potter”. As a result of our imagination, according to CIO, an imaginary object Harry Potter comes into existence.33

Now we can see how an abstract object, Harry Potter, first comes into existence in all three scenarios: it first exists as a mythical or imaginary object. But if Harry Potter is rigidly believed to be a fictional character and functions as a fictional object in a community, then Harry Potter comes to exist as a fictional object. This completes an explanation we missed in Section 3: CBF predicts the desired result with the help of CMO and CIO: Harry Potter exists as a fictional character in all three scenarios about Harry Potter.

Here there is room for the concept of appropriating abstract objects. Just as we can interpret three scenarios about a table as cases for appropriating a pre-existing concrete object as a table by a rigid communal belief as we saw in the last section, we can interpret three scenarios about Harry Potter as cases for appropriating a pre-existing created abstract object (in our cases, a mythical or imaginary object) as a fictional object by a rigid communal belief. This yields a general explanation of appropriation that applies to both a table and a fictional object: they are appropriated by a rigid communal belief.34 Although I reserve a detailed discussion of the question of how to appropriate an abstract object for another time, I believe that it deserves further discussion and serious consideration.35

5. Concluding Remarks

In this paper, I have argued that CBF provides a plausible and uniform explanation for various cases in which both concrete artifacts and fictional objects seem to come into existence without successful creative intentions. From this, I believe that IC combined with CBF allows fictional creationists to provide a satisfactory answer to Brock’s When and How question.36

I have also pointed out two important ramifications of accepting CBF: First, CBF implies that there is room for the concept of appropriating both pre-existing concrete and abstract objects as concrete and abstract artifacts by a rigid communal belief. Second, if CBF is correct, there is an overlooked but important way of bringing artifacts into existence that should merit serious consideration in favor of the mind-dependence (but neither intention-dependence nor mind-independence) view of artifacts.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, philosophers might disagree about the intuitions related to each scenario I have discussed in this paper. However, I believe that CBF at least respects our pre-theoretic ordinary intuitions about each scenario, and therefore, other things being equal, we are justified in accepting CBF until a more convincing principle is presented.