Massimo2002
Active Member
Who's to say fictional characters aren't real ? If they aren't real then why did people create them ?
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What makes something fictional and something real ?
- Thread starter Massimo2002
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- philosophy
Some may be based on real people, but by presenting them as fictional, one has some poetic license and can portray them any way one wishes without getting sued.
dybmh
דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
My vote: they're real, but they don't exist ( in a conventional manner ). I distinguish between reality and existence. Reality is the broader category. Existence is a sub-set ( category, technically ) within the category of reality. They're nesting, related concepts.
PureX
Veteran Member
Fiction is obviously a part of reality. As are all other cognitive conceptions we humans generate in our minds about our experience of existence.
The difference is not about their being "real" or not, but rather about them being representational. Fictional characters are abstract representations of how we perceive the sentient beings around us. Often, these abstract representations and the storied environments and circumstances we place them in make it easier for us to comprehend the actual beings and circumstances that we encounter.
It's all "real". But words, images, characters, numbers, symbols, stories and the like are representationally real. Whereas that which we experience directly is actually real.
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Koldo
Outstanding Member
Massimo2002
Active Member
The correct answer. They exist and are real but not in the complete way as the characters are portrayed.
They are. It's all real. Anything that can be experienced or known by humans in any way is real. Better question is - in what way we can experience and know something.
dybmh
דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
They exist? How long is Oliver Twist's arm? Can you or anyone anywhere measure it?
However, I wouldn't label Oliver Twist incomplete simply because of this. He certainly has arms.
See also:
"One of the troubles with ontology is that it not only isn’t clear what there is, it also isn’t so clear how to settle questions about what there is, at least not for the kinds of things that have traditionally been of special interest to philosophers: numbers, properties, God, etc. Ontology is thus a philosophical discipline that encompasses besides the study of what there is and the study of the general features of what there is also the study of what is involved in settling questions about what there is in general, especially for the philosophically tricky cases. How we can find out what there is isn’t an easy question to answer."
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Think of it as building an ideal where legends come from.
Good example?
Chuck Norris.
What can't he do?
dybmh
דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
Stay committed to his spouse?
Fictional characters need to be created by someone's mind. Non-fictional characters we accept as having existence independent of anyone's mind.
I think a main reason, among others, why people create fictional characters is for entertainment.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Real is a fun word. Here is something unreal, as it is a story about real, but it is real that it is a story. Imagine a pond, a small area of water. It is not real, but it is real that you can imagine it. In the pond are 2 ducks, a real one and an unreal one, since it is a decoy duck. But it is a real decoy duck.
So it is really funny who real really works.
In other words, real depends on context of how real is used.
Hey, Mass..........We assign definitions to words. We do that so you and I can understand what the other is trying to communicate. Your question poses a contradiction. 'Fictional' contradicts 'real' in general usage. The word 'characters' usually means a 'story' is being told. A story can depict something that really happened. Your OP suggests a story that originates in someone's mind. The story is imaginary. You are asking if imaginary characters are real. The characters are not real by definition.
If you ask, "Do the characters exist ?". They do exist. They exist in your mind. When you tell me the story using words that we both define the same, the characters and story will exist in my mind......There are different reasons why we create characters or stories in our minds. Almost every advance man has achieved originated in his imagination. Architects draw what exists in their minds so a craftsmen can understand what they have to construct in reality. Detectives reconstruct what happened at a crime scene in their imagination. Our imagination is extremely valuable. That's why we often create images with characters in our minds. In Philosophy these characters are called 'ficta' or fictional entities. Does this answer your OP question?
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As Robin Williams said, "Reality! What a concept!"
This would be a good question to ask the next fictional character you meet...
Heyo
Veteran Member
I agree on nested, related concepts, but I think it's the other way around.
Existence is the broader concept. E.g.: we say that Spider-Man "exists" as a character in the MCU. Real is only what exists in reality, i.e. can be measured with a scientific instrument.
There are other levels of existence besides real and fictional, as I have pointed out (and frequently linked) in 5 Planes of Existence
Are You familiar with the word, 'ficta'? I may not remember the correct spelling.
Heyo
Veteran Member
No, and searching for the term didn't help.
What's it about? That may help with the search.
From my memory, I see Ficta as a term used by Philosophy students to mean Fictional entities. I am not too familiar with Academic
Philosophy.
It took some time but I found the term in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Fictional characters belong to the class of entities variously known as fictional entities or fictional objects or ficta, a class that includes not just animate objects of fiction (fictional persons, animals, monsters, and so on) but also inanimate objects of fiction such as fictional places (Anthony Trollope’s cathedral town of Barchester and Tolkien’s home of the elves, Rivendell, for example).
Fictional Entities - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- People also ask
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