Fregean Realism: Frodo Lives! and Other Fictions

Fregean Realism: Frodo Lives! and Other Fictions argues that literary fictions, pictures, and other artworks are modes of access to Gottlob Freges third realm of objective thoughts, about both what is in the real world and what is not, but might, or might not, be. Starting with a critique of fictionalismthe doctrine that art makes no ontological commitments because it depends on acts of pretendingAndrei Pop shifts focus to the shared meaning addressed by acts of pretending and other audience reactions to works of art. This book shows that a Fregean theory of sense, assertion, and concepts does justice to the context-specificity of artistic meaning while allowing for durableindeed eternalconceptual content. It explores implications for venerable problems such as the truth of art, the reality of aesthetic properties, beauty and ugliness, but also for specific genres or modes, like sculpture, allegory, the relation between image and caption, and the first-person picture.