Fictional Composition (FC): If fiction x and fiction y are related by the crossover relation, then there is a fiction z that encompasses fiction x and fiction y.

Truth Condition (TC): If fiction x is encompassed by fiction z, then everything that is true according to fiction z is true according to fiction x.

With these two principles we can generate our problem.

1. Law and Order and St. Elsewhere are related by the crossover relation.
2. So, there is a fiction, call it ‘Tommy’, that encompasses Law and Order. [1, FC]
3. It is true according to Tommy that everything, except the last scene of St. Elsewhere, is a figment of Tommy Westphall’s imagination.
4. So, it is true according to Law and Order that everything, except the last scene of St. Elsewhere, is a figment of Tommy Westphall’s imagination. [2, 3, TC]

I don’t find objection 6 to be decisive against this argument. Here is why. The principle of Fictional Composition is not satisfied by the real world. This is because the real world is not a fiction. So, we cannot derive by parity of reasoning that Mayor Bloomberg, the real mayor of NY, is part of Tommy Westphall’s imagination. I also believe that objection 5 may also be a bit less persuasive with respect to this argument.

I do believe that there is a decisive objection to this argument though. I have left the crossover relation and the encompassing relation uninterpreted. I wish to leave the crossover relation as a primitive and but interpret the encompassing relation as something like the following (I’m not entirely happy with this interpretation):

If z encompasses x =df The representations of fiction x contribute to the truths of fiction z.

It seems that Fictional Composition is Okay on this interpretation of the encompassing relation, but Truth Condition is not. This seems clearly false:

Truth Condition (TC): If the representations of fiction x contribute to the truths of fiction z, then everything that is true according to fiction z is true according to fiction x.

I think that something like objection 5, but more like P.D.’s example of Through the Looking Glass, shows that this principle is false. Maybe though, there is another interpretation of the encompassing relation that makes (TC) more plausible.

I think that talk about fictional worlds is confusing things a bit. But I can make my point with this talk as well. There is a fictional world where everything takes place in Tommy Wetphall’s mind. This is a world that closely corresponds to the fiction Tommy that I introduced above. However, there is another fictional world where a doctor from St Elsewhere is tried. This is a world that closely corresponds with the fiction of Law and Order.

Do you think its the case that “Frasier” is in the same universe as “Cheers”? And if so, does that lend any credence to the Westphall hypothesis?

For just the same reason as we can have characters from the real world without setting our stories in the real world. If the very Mayor Bloomberg can be in the real world and Law and Order, the very same Jack McCoy can be in two different fictional worlds. You seem to be assuming the fictional world a character is in is essential to the character, and I don’t know what possible reason there is to believe that.

Lewis, sure I don’t have a knock-down argument that these Moorean facts are all really facts. But since there’s only one argument against this, and it is provably invalid, we don’t have any reason to doubt our initial inclinations.

By the way, this argument that Bloomberg in the show is not identical to Bloomberg in the real world doesn’t work. It’s consistent that Bloomberg has the property not employing Jack McCoy in @ while also having the property employing Jack McCoy in wLaw & Order. Maybe in every one of these cases the creators intended them to be the same character in the same world. (I doubt that in some of the intended crossover cases like Hi, Honey I’m Home but let’s grant it.) But they also intend their stories to be really happening, not part of Tommy’s dream, and when intentions clash that one should take precedence.

As to objection six, it seems clear that the character of Mayor Bloomberg has different properties than the man himself has. (For instance, the fictional one has the property of indirectly employing some characters from the show that to which the real one bears no similar relation). Therefore, as they are not identical, they are not the same entity. Dissimilarly, when Kramer appears on “Mad About You,” we may be inclined to believe that both Kramers are identical.

I am inclined to except that— on the interpretation that St Elsewhere was Tommy’s dream— Cheers, Frazier, and all the rest were also part of his dream. I am not inclined to believe this because of a deductive argument, but rather because it has an ineffable quality that I’ll call interpretive coolness.

As you point out in Objection 5, this does not mean that the show Cheers chronicled Tommy’s dream. Rather, there are events in the world of Tommy’s dream which match those chronicled in the show Cheers.

To pick another example: It is true in Through the Looking Glass that Alice dreamt of the Red King. In her dream, he was dreaming of her. This does not entail that she was merely his dream, although (we can imagine) he dreamt of her doing all the things that she actually did.

Your third point has to do with the authors’ intentions. What’s your general outlook on what determines truth in a fiction? I’m guessing you’re following a Lewis sort of line about a nearby possible world where the story is told as known fact… I read a nice account by Gregorie Currie last year (The Nature of Fiction, 1991, I think) according to which truth in fiction is what it is reasonable to infer that the fictional narrator believes. If you adopt this view, which I find attractive for many reasons, it’s a very short step from “the authors didn’t intend this to be a dream” to “there’s no reason to suppose that the fictional narrator believes this to be a dream” to “it is not true in the fiction that this is a dream”.

Ok, I guess that one ended up not being so much of a question, although it involved one.

My other question is this: You say:

So by the logic used here, the real world … is part of the giant St Elsewhere fiction. This is clearly false. (Or at least it was last I checked.)

Have you really checked? How?

(When I first thought of this question, I thought I was being flippant and cute, but on further reflection, I do think there really may be a serious skeptical worry lurking about.)

For instance, if in some other fiction, F, sharing a character, C, with St. Elsewhere someone says “we are part of W’s dream”, then if St. Elsewhere is the true fiction (the fiction considered the true one), F is true, and of course part of W’s dream. The no fact of the matter view would come from the fact that there is no proper sanctioning of other stories according to St. Elsewhere, since they are not present in the St. Elsewhere story. In the same fashion, if I write some story involving Snow White, but different from the story Snow White, then if Snow White is the true fiction, according to it my story’s extent of realness is indeterminate: maybe the things that I write about Snow White (the person) happened to her, maybe not, supposing there is no reference in Snow White to the things that happen to her according to my story. Of course, if I claim that my story is Snow White, this is false. So my story is the false fiction.

I would change premiss 2 to this one:

“If all of St. Elsewhere (except the last scene) takes place in Tommy Westphall’s mind, then according to St. Elsewhere any show that (1) bears the ancestral of the sharing a character relation with St. Elsewhere and (2) presents events that are different from what St. Elsewhere presents, and (3) does not contain reference to what St. Elsewhere sanctions as correct, either takes place in Tommy Westphall’s mind or otherwise there is no fact of the matter about whether it takes place or not in W’s mind.”

Does this sound better?