Generality in Fiction.

FICTION; LITERARY characters; READING; AUTHOR-reader relationships; THEORY of knowledge; AESTHETICS; COGNITION

The paper investigates the nature of general statements that can be extracted from a work of fiction and projected to the real world. The form of these statements is given as ‘an F typically has G’. It is argued that this extraction is guided by an assumption that at least some properties ascribed to a character in a work of fiction are such that the character is particularly representative of the property in question. A distinction is drawn between two kinds of general statements extractable from fiction, and this distinction is elaborated along six dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En este artículo se investiga la naturaleza de los enunciados generales que pueden extraerse de una obra de ficción y proyectarse en el mundo real. La forma de esos enunciados puede presentarse como ‘Un F tiene típicamente G’. Se argumenta que esta extracción tiene como guía el supuesto de que al menos algunas propiedades adscritas a un personaje de una obra de ficción son tales que ese personaje es particularmente representativo de la propiedad en cuestión. Se establece una distinción entre dos géneros de enunciados generales que se pueden extraer de la ficción, y esta distinción se elabora en seis dimensiones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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