I have a pile of grading to do, so naturally I’d rather be thinking of something else. In particular, I’d rather be thinking of intentionalist theories of truth in fiction. The following is rather speculative even by blog standards, but I think the cases are a little amusing at least.

The clearest, and most accessible, of the theories I’m interested in here is presented in Alex Byrne’s Truth in Fiction: The Story Continued (AJP 93). (Do you think that if I keep writing about old papers they will magically appear online?!)

In it true in fiction F that p iff the Reader could infer that the Author in inviting the reader to make-believe that p.

Similar proposals have been made by Walton and Currie. For some purposes the differences between the proposals will matter, but I’m not sure that this is one of them. What’s interesting about these kinds of cases is that they have a hope of explaining the many and varied ways in which fictional works can be unreliable. Currie in particular has done some nice work outlining the flexibility that’s available here. And since I think unreliability is the most important issue for a theory of truth in fiction to explain, that means these theories deserve pretty close attention. (I think even those theories can’t explain why moral claims in the story are unreliable, even when those claims match with the author’s view and intents, but that’s for another day. I suspect the right thing to say here is related to what we say about Hamlet and computer databases and evolution.)

One kind of worry is that these accounts will overgenerate for certain complex fictions. We’ll start with something that isn’t a counterexample, then move on to some things that might be. The Reader of Animal Farm is meant to make-believe that some pigs take over a farm and then become corrupt and turn on those who helped them to power. She is also meant to believe that this, in broad outlines, is the story of Stalin’s Russia. But it is not true in the story that Stalin had turned on the workers who had assisted him to power. No worries though – this is something the Reader is invited to believe, not just to make–believe.

But what happens if our story is related not to the world in this way, but to other stories? The simplest example would be a story that is an allegory, perhaps not quite as crude as Animal Farm, for other works of fiction. So imagine the following kind of story. (I’m sure this could be written, and I’m also sure that I could not write it.) The story appears to be about four contemporary American businessmen sitting around a bar in Hell bemoaning their fate. After a while, it becomes clear that the stories of each of the four characters resembles that of a Shakespearean character. So one resembles Hamlet, another Macbeth, another Lear and the fourth Othello. It is never suggested that the people are Hamlet or Macbeth etc, but the parallels in their stories are striking. Then in the final act we learn quite a bit more about the inner lives of these characters. It wasn’t true that the allegoric duplicate of Hamlet, call him Hal, learned that his uncle killed his father when he saw his father’s ghost. Rather, Hal killed his own father, and the ghost was a distorted manifestation of his conscience. (This may be revealed after a troubling conversation with McBride, the second businessman.) It is clear, I think that the Author of this story is inviting the Reader to at least consider, and perhaps to adopt, a striking interpretation of Hamlet. But to think about Hamlet is just to make-believe that it is true, and then examine the details of what is being make-believed. So I think the Author of this work is inviting the Reader to make-belive that Hamlet, like Hal, killed his father. But while it is true in the fiction that Hal killed his father, it is not true in the fiction that Hamlet killed his father. Indeed, it might not even be true in the fiction that Hamlet exists, or even that Hamlet does.

Perhaps this is just a technical problem that can be fixed by tidying-up the concept of make-believe that is at issue. Perhaps it will turn out, on careful consideration, that the Author of this allegory is not inviting the Reader to make-believe that Hamlet killed his father, but to make-believe that she make-believes it, or something. Or there may be some other way that we can reflect the fact that this invitation is in some way embedded in the fiction, while the invitation to make-believe that Hal killed his father is constitutive of the fiction. I can’t see how to do this immediately, but it feels like a solvable puzzle in principle.

If it is to be solved, note some other cases, or one other case considered twice over, that must also be dealt with. In the ‘Oxen of the Sun’ episode of Ulysses, Joyce parodies a succession of writers from the history of English literature. Not all of the parodies are entirely disrespectful – he means the Reader to see his story in a new way by looking at it through the prism of historical styles, as well as seeing something about the styles by seeing them applied to a contemporary story. One of the first targets is Mallory. So we have Joyce writing the following:

This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at the reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing for there was above one quick with child, a gentle dame whose time hied fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered what cry that it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he, that it be not come or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was ware and saw a franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the table that was older than any of the tother and for that they both were knights virtuous in the one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder he spoke to him full gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bring forth by God His bounty and have joy of her childing for she hath waited marvellous long. And the franklin that had drunken said, Expecting each moment to be her next. Also he took the cup that stood tofore him for him needed never none asking nor desiring of him to drink and, Now drink, said he, fully delectably, and he quaffed as far as he might to their both’s health for he was a passing good man of his lustiness. And sir Leopold that was the goodliest guest that ever sat in scholars’ hall and that was the meekest man and the kindest that ever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was the very truest knight of the world one that ever did minion service to lady gentle pledged him courtly in the cup. Woman’s woe with wonder pondering.

I think that the Reader here is meant to make-believe, among other things, that Leopold is an Arthurian knight. That’s not because he is an Arthurian knight, even in the story, but because by make-believing it the Reader gets a better appreciation of exactly what kind of early 20th Century Irishman he is. Maybe this isn’t true make-believe, but rather some different kind of imaginative activity, but I think some work is needed to say exactly how the relevant kinds of make-believe are to be separated. In my allegory I had the story saying something about another story. Here Joyce uses another story to say something about his story, but without I think making anything about the other story be true in his. Bloom never leaves 16 June 1904 after all, and certainly does not leave it for Arthurian times.

Oxen of the Sun is problematic for intentionalist theories for another reason, but here intuitions may really be starting to fade out. There are, I am reliably told, three layers to the story going on here. As well as telling the story of an hour of 16 June 1904, and telling the story of the history of English literature, Joyce is also telling the story of the gestation of a foetus. Each of the nine (not clearly demarcated) sections of the chapter is the story of a month of the gestation. Now one may wonder why one would want to do all these things at once, or even whether Joyce entirely succeeded, but scholarly opinion is that he did. So I think one Reader at least is meant to make-believe that a foetus gestates throughout the chapter. But it isn’t true in Oxen of the Sun that a foetus gestates, except perhaps for the little gestation of Mrs Purefoy’s. So I think we shall eventually need to restrict the intentionalist story in some way to stop the foetal story being part of what is true in Ulysses. How to do this without losing some of the ability to deal with unreliable texts, I have no idea. If I had a spare year or two to work this out…