I find myself confused, as perhaps many young people do when contemplating the existence of fictional entities such as Santa Claus in the real world.........Now, the issue is more perplexing if we endow Santa Claus the ontological placeholder of living over at the North Pole with his reindeer. — Shawn
I attempted treating the problem as a reference issue between fictional entities [...] — Shawn
I mean, I'm guessing that didn't end well, as "fictional entity" is an oxymoron? — bongo fury
Do you mean, these people deny that "fictional entity" is an oxymoron - or that they have found that reasoning with oxymorons can end well? — bongo fury
The act of referring to a specific thing — Manuel
My belief is that the North Pole, reindeer and "real" world are as "fictional" as Santa Claus, as I have yet to come across any persuasive argument that relations do ontologically exist in a mind-independent world. — RussellA
I mean, I'm guessing that didn't end well, as "fictional entity" is an oxymoron? — bongo fury
I don't see why Santa Claus would be a "non-thing". It's a mental construction of a person... — Manuel
But generally speaking, this distinction is more semantic than substantive. — Manuel
In the sense that fictional is not necessarily contradictory to entity. — RussellA
Santa isn't an individual and yet is in the domain of discourse — Shawn
I think that's quite stringent. — Shawn
Santa isn't an individual — Shawn
and yet is in the domain of discourse. — Shawn
My belief is later stated in the OP, that somehow through language we can ascribe ontological placeholders to fictional entities such as Pegasus or Santa Claus. I find this feature of instantiation of imaginary objects perplexing in language. But that's how ordinary language works to my surprise. — Shawn
Fair enough. Do they say that non-actual is not necessarily contradictory to actual? — bongo fury
I can point to {"winged", "godlike", "stallion"} and give it the name "Pegasus". — RussellA
Do you mean there is no actual person answering to the usual descriptions and hence named by the relevant tokens of the word "Santa"? — bongo fury
"Santa" is a name appearing in a declaration of the domain of discourse? — bongo fury
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