Truth in fiction, impossible worlds, and belief revision

Christopher Badura; Francesco Berto

doi:10.1080/00048402.2018.1435698

Truth in fiction, impossible worlds, and belief revision

Christopher Badura^*, Francesco Berto

^*Corresponding author for this work

Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We present a theory of truth in fiction that improves on Lewis's [1978] ‘Analysis 2’ in two ways. First, we expand Lewis's possible worlds apparatus by adding non-normal or impossible worlds. Second, we model truth in fiction as (make-believed) belief revision via ideas from dynamic epistemic logic. We explain the major objections raised against Lewis's original view and show that our theory overcomes them.

Original language	English
Number of pages	16
Journal	Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Volume	Latest Articles
Early online date	27 Feb 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2018.1435698
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 27 Feb 2018

Keywords

Impossible worlds
Inconsistent fiction
Sylvan's box
Truth in fiction
Belief revision

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10.1080/00048402.2018.1435698Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Badura_2018_AJP_Truthinfiction_CC
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
Final published version, 627 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "Truth in fiction, impossible worlds, and belief revision",

abstract = "We present a theory of truth in fiction that improves on Lewis's [1978] {\textquoteleft}Analysis 2{\textquoteright} in two ways. First, we expand Lewis's possible worlds apparatus by adding non-normal or impossible worlds. Second, we model truth in fiction as (make-believed) belief revision via ideas from dynamic epistemic logic. We explain the major objections raised against Lewis's original view and show that our theory overcomes them.",

keywords = "Impossible worlds, Inconsistent fiction, Sylvan's box, Truth in fiction, Belief revision",

author = "Christopher Badura and Francesco Berto",

note = "Franz Berto{\textquoteright}s research was funded by the European Research Council (ERC CoG), Consolidator grant no. 681404, {\textquoteleft}The Logic of Conceivability{\textquoteright}. Christopher Badura{\textquoteright}s research was funded by the Ruhr University Research School PLUS, funded by Germany{\textquoteright}s Excellence Initiative [DFG GSC 98/3].",

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Truth in fiction, impossible worlds, and belief revision

Abstract

Keywords

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