Search Results (17)

This article addresses the way Frostpunk’s saga highlights the semiotic nature of video games by establishing an aesthetic and ethical link in its ludonarrative mechanics and storytelling, which, in turn, may engage with the player in a debate where the identitarian discourses of both the fictional entities encoded within the game and the player (that is, of both functional and fictional agents) are put into question and thus may be reconfigured. To understand this connection between aesthetics, ethics, and identity, affect is central: through affect, players establish empathic links towards the encoded agents (including, but not limited to, the encoded citizens, the encoded setting, and the encoded avatar of the player within the game world), which in turn allows them to interact with them as if being real, at least while the playthrough is active. To achieve this, this article will first offer a theoretical review of the terms mentioned above (identity, affect, aesthetics, ethics), and then will apply them to 11Bit’s saga, Frostpunk. The article finishes with some conclusions regarding the semiotic nature of the video game and the universality of these analyses. Full article

This paper investigates an approach to studying analytic relations (identity, similarity, borrowing, etc.) between literary characters using properties and, in particular, properties that are interpretively considered as diagnostic. In our proposal, properties serve as interpretative tools rather than strict ontological features. Unlike most ontological theories of literary characters developed in analytic philosophy, our study focuses on how real-world interpreters construct textual meaning while remaining agnostic about the ontological status of literary entities (ficta, in a more general sense). By integrating perspectives from literary criticism, philosophy, and formal methods, we explore how scholars infer relations between characters through textual evidence, common knowledge, and interpretive frameworks. This research aims at refining methodological approaches to character analysis and at contributing to broader discussions on literary interpretation and fictionality. Full article

This paper introduces the GOLEM ontology, a novel framework designed to provide a structured and computationally tractable representation of narrative and fictional elements. Addressing limitations in existing ontologies regarding the integration of fictional entities and diverse narrative theories, our model extends CIDOC CRM and LRMoo and leverages DOLCE’s cognitive foundations to provide a flexible and interoperable framework. The ontology captures complexities of narrative structure, character dynamics, and fictional worlds while supporting provenance tracking and pluralistic interpretations. The modular structure facilitates alignment with various literary and narrative theories and integration of external resources. Future work will focus on expanding domain-specific extensions, validating the model through larger-scale case studies, and developing a reader response module to systematically model the reception of narratives. By fostering interoperability between literary theory, fan cultures, and computational analysis, this ontology lays a foundation for interoperable comparative research on narrative and fiction. Full article

Mind wandering is a mental activity that occupies up to 50% of our waking time. While scientists have now started to acknowledge and to study the creative potential of mind wandering for our imaginative skills, fiction has long recognised its value. This article focuses on the depiction of mind wandering in fiction, with examples ranging from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves to Ayumu Watanabe’s movie Children of the Sea. In particular, I focus on how images related to water are employed in this respect. It appears that water-related metaphors and imagery are particularly significant for the depiction of the interlacement between mind wandering and processes of creativity connected to fiction. This article argues that the notion of fictional world per se can be enriched and better conceptualised as a less “fixed” entity if pictured as a fluid, stream-like mental construct, shaped by imaginative engagement and mind wandering. Full article

This study introduces the Real-To-Fictional Ontology (RTFO), a structured framework designed to analyze the dynamic relationship between reality and fiction in literary works, with a focus on preparatory materials and their influence on narrative construction. While traditional Italian philology and genetic criticism have distinct theoretical and editorial approaches to avant-text, this ontology addresses their limitations by integrating fine-grained textual analysis with contextual biographical avant-text to enhance character interpretation. Modeled in OWL2, RTFO harmonizes established frameworks such as LRMoo and CIDOC-CRM, enabling systematic representation of narrative elements. The ontology is applied to the case study of Cesare Pavese’s La luna e i falò, with a particular focus on the biographical avant-text of Pinolo Scaglione, the real-life friend who inspired key aspects of the novel. The fragmented and unstable nature of avant-text is addressed through a factoid-based model, which captures character-related traits, states and events as interconnected entities. SWRL rules are employed to infer implicit connections, such as direct influences between real-life contexts and fictional constructs. Application of the ontology to case studies demonstrates its effectiveness in tracing the evolution of characters from preparatory drafts to final texts, revealing how biographical and contextual factors shape narrative choices. Full article

Some realist views about fiction are non-objectual in that they see fictional characters not as objects but rather as properties or the like; notably, kinds, roles, or denoting concepts. The view centered on denoting concepts proposed in Orilia’s “A Theory of Fictional Entities Based on Denoting Concepts” (2012) is presented in this paper with further motivations and details and in relation to issues not previously dealt with from its perspective. This view differs from other proposals of this sort, such as those by Cocchiarella and Landini, for its flexibility in allowing for story-free fictional characters: they can migrate from one story to another. This migration is granted in two ways, one that relies on the preservation of salient common features and another grounded on an appropriate causal connection between stories, typically involving authorial intentions. A more detailed account of this connection and of its interplay with the preservation of salient features is elaborated. Moreover, the phenomenon of fictionally non-existent characters (as in fiction within fiction) is addressed. Finally, the presence in fiction of historical, plural, indeterminate, and identity-inconsistent characters is examined and analyzed in terms of denoting concepts. Full article

My essay aims at considering the mythological figure of Melusina and her literary development, starting from the Middle Ages up to the Romantic period. The main purpose is to determine how this fictional entity, originally regarded as the symbol of nature and its fecundity, has changed over the time in relation to the historical and cultural complex and how this has reverberated in terms of interpretation of the identity of the literary character. I will consider the medieval versions of Jean D’Arras (1392), with some consequent references to Coudrette (1401–1405) and von Ringoltingen (1456), and the German romantic fairytale rewriting of Ludwig Tieck (1800). If the thematic nucleus remains the same, the configuration of the female character changes by reflecting the new Romantic poetics in terms of interest towards femininity, subjectivity and the study of the morphology of the Earth. In particular, Melusina is no longer seen as a mere and passive object, but as a subject who for the first time, hiding in an emblematic cave, reveals to the reader her own interiority and her own truth, totally assimilating herself to the external environment. The conclusion will show how the cultural subtext modifies the interpretation of this atavistic character. Full article

This article examines the ontological status of virtual objects in light of contemporary philosophical debates on virtual reality (VR). The main point of departure is an analysis of David Chalmers’ concept of “virtual realism”, which argues that virtual objects can be considered real because they meet fundamental criteria of reality such as existence, causal power, and non-illusoriness. Chalmers rejects positions that treat virtual objects as fictions or illusions, emphasizing their ability to elicit real effects and shape users’ experiences. Chalmers suggests an ontological equivalence between physical and virtual objects, raising questions about the nature of reality and the criteria for attributing it in the context of dynamic technological changes. In this work, I propose an alternative approach to the ontology of virtual objects, situating them within Karl Popper’s World III. Unlike traditional views that emphasize the digital nature of virtual objects, this perspective treats them as immaterial yet perceptible entities that acquire an autonomous status through their role in intersubjective and cultural processes. This approach refines the debate by offering a framework that distinguishes virtual objects from both physical and purely abstract entities. I argue that virtual objects, though immaterial, can be recognized as real entities due to their ability to generate real perceptual, emotional, and cognitive effects. This approach expands traditional understandings of ontology, offering new perspectives on the nature of reality in a digital context. Full article

According to fictional anti-realism, fictional characters should be excluded from the ontological inventory. Even though ficta are not assumed to be genuine entities, some issues concerning their identity seem to be genuine ones. Anti-realist philosophers may adopt three different strategies in order to deal with them: the Negation Strategy (i.e., such problems are not genuine ones), the Translation Strategy (i.e., such problems should be translated in terms of ficta-surrogates, genuine entities that replace ficta), and the Simulation Strategy (i.e., such problems should be handled within the pretense that ficta are genuine entities). In this paper, I shall argue in favor of the Translation Strategy as it shows some analytical advantages over its rivals, especially in treating the interplay between identity issues about ficta and ordinary narrative/interpretive practices. Full article

What are the political, gender, and theological implications at stake when associating Jesus with modern combat and righteous violence? Jesus is rendered in combative form across media—i.e., live-action films and shorts, animated television, sketch comedy, graphic novels, and video games. This rendition occurs at a confluence of meaning, most immediately for the sake of generating comedy through juxtaposition (in this case, rendering the meek with a sword) and/or reaffirming Jesus’ prominent cultural value through an association with other popularly mediatized entities. Beyond these initial layers of significance, however, I argue that Jesus becomes associated with violence and brutality for the sake of de/legitimizing politically conservative ideologies with respect to Christianity and American exceptionalism, redeeming the crisis of “domesticated masculinity” and fortifying traditional masculine norms, and theologically reinstituting popular paradigms of low Christology. Ideological “manhood” remains traced to one’s ability to perform traditional gender roles (i.e., family provider, community protector, and father/procreator). To capture the discrepancy that Jesus of Nazareth, as presented in canonical gospels, largely concerns none of these roles, I analyze the hypermasculine Christ, and the various weapons he employs, as part of a popular genealogy of Western value systems and discourse. Though in this article I reference some examples of non-American media, I reserve my analysis and commentary for the stakes and implications of what it means for U.S. Americans to produce and consume such content. In short, I submit that popular America idolizes itself in the form—one amidst many—of a naïve, combative, and boorish Christ: an arrogant and, at times, narcissistic man with delusional views of the world made dangerous through invasive power and authority. Western entertainment has deemed the United States (through its fictional stand-ins) as morally failing yet still chosen. Within this logic, American Christians need not reform their ways as long as they cultivate evidence of their exceptionalism. Full article

In the Netherlands, there was always a clear distinction between Protestant and Catholic folklore. That is visible in witchcraft accusations, but it is also visible in ghost lore. This lore is here reconstructed applying a not always used source, to wit newspaper articles. Here, I will discuss how accounts of hoaxing on the one hand and misinterpreted experiences on the other, help to understand how, in this case people in the Netherlands of roughly a century to a century and a half ago, realized their imagination of the dead. Not in a paradisical kind of afterlife, or as rotten corpses in the ground, but as specific entities which permeated the boundaries between the living and the dead. These newspaper reports are confronted with the stories (or jokes) collected by folklorists. I will also discuss content, with a special focus on the phenomenon of the hoax. Hoaxsters, however, allow the researcher to engage with an extra dimension in the encounter, between the ghost and the observer there is now a third party interacting with both. (How this involves the researcher, is always a problem in historical research.) Was there an overall ghost picture? What was the reaction of bystanders? Moreover, this essay will move between story and history, between the past as it was experienced and as it was related to contemporaries, between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ to give it another name. As it will appear, the boundary between the two seems blurred but in the end turns out rather precise. Full article

While the nature of fictional characters has received much attention in the last few years within analytic philosophy, most accounts fail to grasp what distinguishes fictional characters from other fictional entities. In this paper, I propose to amend this deficiency by defining fictional characterhood. I claim that fictional characters are fictional intentional systems, a thesis that I label as FIST. After introducing FIST, I compare it to some rival definitions of fictional characters found in the literature, explaining why FIST is preferable. Finally, I briefly delve into the implications of FIST for other issues related to the nature of fictional characters. Full article

Authors create fictional characters; that is a “creationist locution”. Artefactualism takes such statements very seriously and holds that fictional characters are abstract artefacts, i.e., entities that are both created and abstract. Anti-creationists, by contrast, deny that we need to postulate such doubtful entities to explain creationist locutions. In this paper, I present this debate in the form of a paradox, which organises the many existing theories of creationist locutions in a single logical space. This new way of framing the problem displays the crucial role of so-called “linking principles”. In general, it seems that fictionality entails nonexistence, while creation entails existence. This is why “fictional creatures” are puzzling. I further argue that to create means to invent and to realise, and finally, that fictional characters are invented but not created, contra artefactualism. I thus advocate for a new kind of anti-creationism about fictional characters. Full article

Once one draws a distinction between loyal non-existent items, which do not exist in a non-universal sense of the first-order existence predicate, and non-items, which fail to exist in a universal sense of that predicate, one may allow for the former but not for the latter in the overall ontological domain, so as to adopt a form of soft Parmenideanism. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons for this distinction. Full article

Cultural constructions of passive motherhood, especially within domestic spaces, gained currency in India and Ireland due to their shared colonial history, as well as the influence of anti-colonial masculinist nationalism on the social imaginary of these two nations. However, beginning from the latter half of the nineteenth century, postcolonial literary voices have not only challenged the traditional gendering of public and private spaces but also interrogated docile constructions of womanhood, particularly essentialized representations of maternity. Domestic spaces have been critical narrative motifs in these postcolonial texts through simultaneously embodying patriarchal domination but also as sites where feminist resistance can be actualized by “transgress(ing) traditional views of … the home, as a static immobile place of oppression”. This paper, through a comparative analysis of maternal characters in Edna O’Brien’s The Love Object and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Hell-Heaven, argues that socially disapproved/illicit relationships in these two representative postcolonial Irish and Indian narratives function as matricentric feminist tactics that subvert limiting notions of both domestic spaces and gendered liminal postcolonial subjectivities. I highlight that within the context of male-centered colonial and nationalist literature, the trope of maternity configures the domestic-space as the “rightful place” for the existence of the feminine entity. Thus, when postcolonial feminist fiction reverses this tradition through constructing the “home and the female-body” as sites of possible resistance, it is a counter against dual oppression: both colonialism and patriarchy. My intervention further underscores the need for sustained conversations between the literary output of India and Ireland, within Postcolonial Literary Studies, with a particular acknowledgement for space and gender as pivotal categories in the “cultural analysis of empire”. Full article