TY - JOUR T1 - A Revisionary View of Texts, Textual Meaning, and Fictional Characters JF - Organon F Y1 - 2017 A1 - Pettersson, Anders KW - fictional characters KW - John Searle KW - Roy Harris KW - textual meaning KW - the ontology of texts AB - Using ideas from John Searle, Roy Harris, Michael Reddy, and Nelson Goodman, I argue that texts, such as they are commonly conceived, lack brute existence. The common idea of texts is a conceptual construction which is useful in practical everyday contexts but not in serious theorizing, where it creates illusions and contradictions. One of these illusions is the idea of an objective textual meaning, a meaning which is “in the text”: what we actually have in the way of textual meaning are the ideas of various persons – authors, readers, and commentators – about the meaning of the text. When applied to fictional characters, this way of viewing things explains why it makes sense to regard fictional characters as being created and as lacking brute existence. IS - 3 VL - 24 SP - 366-383 UR - http://www.klemens.sav.sk/fiusav/doc/organon/2017/3/366-383.pdf U2 - Articles U3 - 366383 TI - A Revisionary View of Texts, Textual Meaning, and Fictional Characters ER -