Fiction, Indispensability and Truths

Based on a modification of the indispensability argument, the paper claims that fictions are indispensable, thus true, and simultaneously rejects any ontological commitment to fictional entities. In the first part, data coming from natural language semantics are gathered to argue for a disconnection between truth and ontology, against Quine's criterion of ontological commitment. In the second part, we exploit analyses from literary criticism and philosophy of art to support the indispensability of fiction, and to account for a strong sense of truth of fiction. In the background of the paper lies the idea that fictional narrations pertain to the interpretative and practical uses rather than to any descriptive use of language.