The Ontology of Stephen Colbert
I thought I'd share something short I wrote a few months ago just on a whim. I never could come to a successful conclusion about the problem I raise, and it still bugs me. I think it is a rather important problem for the metaphysics of fiction even if it just seems like a little quirky joke. I'd certainly love any comments or suggestions you may have. Anyway, the paper is "Talking to Stephen Colbert."
8 comments:
Question: Do you think there is a distinction between the fictional character and it's mode of presentation?
Michelle wrote: "To say that a product of convention may be thought of inappropriately by those who maintain the conventions strikes me as absurd."
My reaction is the complete opposite. Far from being absurd, this kind of thing is common. The first one that comes to mind is the misuse of language. For example, there is an accepted convention that as English language speakers we maintain (maybe this word is the problem?) about the use of the apostrophe in "its" and "it’s." Nonetheless, once one starts grading papers one realizes just how often this convention is applied inappropriately.
Here’s another possible counter-example; and one that might be more apt for what you are discussing. Money is the product of conventions and yet the way many people think about its nature, use, source, etc. is inconsistent with the nature, use, source, etc, as explained by economics, history, and philosophy. Most of us freely make use of the convention without really understanding it and even misunderstanding it. For example, most people think of money as a physical thing: a chunk of gold or a piece of paper. But money is a symbol, a representation. Thinking about money merely as something physical leads to various errors in economics; for example, thinking that the money supply is static or zero-sum.
So it seems to me quite easy to think that even though we participate in the conventions of theater we misunderstand the nature of those conventions. We watch Colbert and have no problem in non-philosophical reflection understanding what is going on, but once we start to philosophically reflect, we misunderstand these conventions and think that there is something weird metaphysically going on.
That said, I still do not understand the problems with solution 1; that one seems to make the most sense to me. Alas, I am not sure I understand the problem in the first place. Maybe this is why I do not do metaphysics.
In light of Shawn's comments, I resubmit my question: Michelle, do you think there is a distinction between a fictional character's 'nature' and its mode of presentation?
I'm most likley confused about all of this but in any case...
"Both statements can only be true if there is a distinction made between Stephen Col-bert and Stephen Col-bear, and so this solution cannot be right."
I don't see why it is a problem to make the distinction. You make the distinction in the paper and it seems to be a natural one to make.
" To say that a product of convention may be thought of inappropriately by those who maintain the conventions strikes me as absurd. "
I think I agree with Shawn about this. I'm remined of a point that Doug made at Feldman's colloquim. Just because we make a distinction in language does not neccesarily mean that there is a distinction in reality.
I personally like solution 5 the most, but I don't think that it commits us to a denial of some of the central tenets of fiction. Perhaps what is going on in the Colbert report, and why it is philosophically interesting, is because it is a sort of quasi-fiction. It is a fictional character that has broken through the limits of fiction and entered our world.
Another thing that I was thinking about. There may be an interesting distinction to be made here depending on the beliefs of the person being interviewed. Sometimes the interviewee knows that she is interacting with a fictional character, and in this way perhaps the interviewee becomes part of the fiction. And then the more funny cases are those in which the interviewee believes that Col-bear is sincere. In these cases it seems that Col-bear (a fictional entity) is interacting with reality in a much more intimate way.
Cecilea: I'm prone to think that there has to be, though I don't feel confident making any claims about what that amounts to. Consider Sherlock Holmes. We can think of Sherlock Holmes being a single character even though he has been presented through several different mediums.
Shawn: I'm not too sure how to respond to you, but this is something I want to be able to respond to (Like I said, I wrote this Colbert piece for the heck of it, to try to get clear on the issue at hand -- I didn't work too hard on getting good arguments for all the smaller points figured out. But I do need to get a good grasp of how fiction works as convention someday). First thing I want to say is that you're quite right; the word "maintains" is pretty dang slippery. By it I want something like "those who actively and adequately participate in the conventions," but the 'adequately' in there is begging the question pretty hard. I don't, at the moment, know how to avoid it. Clearly, it should be possible to get the conventions -wrong- (such as those who abuse English grammar), but I want to fight to the death for the idea that how fiction works is a matter purely of how we think of it. That seems just too right to me.
So, let's look at grammar. There was a time when English grammar worked considerably differently than it does today. People just spelled words and put those words together however they wanted (it was a matter of pride to have your own spellings for words). And then, some dudes came around and said, "By jove! I can't understand a bloody thing anyone writes!" So they wrote some grammar pamphlets, basing their conception of grammar partly off of how people actually spoke and partly off of their own twisted ideas of how English -ought- to work. Then, some of those pamphlets became extremely popular, and the particular rules of grammar listed in them became accepted as the -correct- grammar of the English language (similarly, the Oxford English Dictionary is what set the standard of there being -correct- ways to spell English words).
I rehash what I learned in the elective on the history of the English language I took as an undergrad for a reason (other than to brag about my awesome knowledge, of course): while the rules of the English language are almost entirely the product of convention, they have turned concrete. While, sure, there is still change to the conventions of English now and then, I want to say that the rules of grammar differ significantly from the "rules" of fiction due to the fact that these pamphlets and dictionaries -set- the rules of grammar in a way that the "rules" of fiction have not been. I want to say that, unlike the nature of the English language, the nature of fiction continues to be whatever we will accept it to be. I think.
(I haven't entirely figured out what I believe fiction is or how it works, so I put the disclaimer on anything I say that, you know, there's a pretty good chance that I'm wrong and will someday loudly declair myself to have been wrong. It'll be fun.)
Now, your economics example. I don't really understand it too well, but I understand it well enough to realize that it poses a serious problem to my view. I don't think I can get around it as a counterexample as easily as I got around the grammar counterexample, as I don't think (or know that) there are rules dictating to use how to think about money. What I feel inclined to say is that the error we make in regards to the nature of money is deep within metaphysics, whereas any similar error we make in issues of Stephen Colbert's identity would be right on the surface of the situation. Let me try to explain what I mean (keeping in mind my disclaimr: I'm probably wrong).
This will probably relate to your last concern, too.
The problem I am discussing in this paper is a side-problem related to this very simple one. Suppose we are watching the movie _Fight Club_, and someone asks who it is on the screen. Here are two possible answers: 1) That is Tyler Durden; 2) That is Brad Pitt. Both of these answers have merit. The thing is, they are not equivalent. You expect your listener to get different information from the two answers. Anyone who is competent should be able to understand either answer, and anyone who is competent should be able to understand how they differ.
So, what I'm trying to say is that your money example begins by asking people what their beliefs about the "deep," metaphysical nature of money is and then, from that, drawing conclusions. This issue about fiction, on the other hand, starts by asking people what their beliefs about the straightforward "shallow" facts of the situation is and then trying to draw conclusions from that. Even if people misunderstand the metaphysical nature of Stephen Colbert while watching his show, they should be able to at least understand the straightforward facts of the situation. And these straightforward facts lead to a bit of a dilemma.
As for your very last comment, maybe solution 1 does work. I'm not sure. I just don't think so because it seems to lead to "That's Tyler Durden" and "That's Brad Pitt" meaning one and the same thing. (I should probably have used an example of a movie that wasn't first a novel, but you can't just pretend that I had, if you find that problematic.)
Well, I have written a whole dang lot and I need to take a shower. Either I can put off my shower and edit what I have written now, or I can just push 'publish' and then hope I didn't make any horrendous mistakes. I'll go with the latter.
Andy: I think the problem with Solution 1 is not easiest to see with Colbert. If we accepted Solution 1, I think we'd have to accept the same view about other characters portrayed by other actors. So, if we accept Solution 1, we'd have to say that Tyler Durden is nothing but Brad Pitt acting in a certain way. I feel a strong intuitive pull not to allow this. We think of Tyler Durden in different ways that we think about Brad Pitt. For instance, it is possible for us to theorize about what happens to Tyler Durden after the end of Fight Club, or what happened to him before the movie began. We don't want to say that Tyler Durden went on to be in a monogamous relationship with Angelina Jolie, but it seems as though this is what we would have to say if we were to accept Solution 1.
Similarly, we don't want to say that Stephen Col-bear was part of the Second City comedy troup (or whatever it's called), as was Stephen Col-bert.
However, I want to note that I in no way want to suggest that problems such as this mean we must accept a realist theory of fictional entities, allowing them into our ontology in some strange way. Just that, whatever theory we do accept will have to explain how we think of fictional entities as separate from the actors who sometimes portray them and how we can watch Stephen Colbert without, I guess, our brains exploding. I, currently, am curious about fictionalist accounts of fictional objects. Whatever theory of fictional objects we adopt, whether realist or anti-realist, will have to account for these issues. If my wording made it seem as though I were only allowing for realist solutions, then that is an error on my part.
As to your comments about Solution 5... I did come up with a sixth solution that was somewhat like what you said. Or, rather, it was an extremely bad and confused attempt at something that could be spelled out, with effort, like what you said. This idea of a quasi-fiction intrigues me.
Oh, I guess I just made quite a hasty assumption. I really don't know any of the backstory for Stephen Col-bear. Maybe he was in the Second City Comedy Troup. But, regardless, I'm sure the backstory for Col-bear that has been developed throughout the show's run must create one difference between the real life of Stephen Col-bert and the fake life of Stephen Col-bear.
I am not sure that the different metaphysics of the money example and the fiction example are relevant. 1) I am not sure why the money example is a deep metaphysical issue. 2) The example was a counter example to the idea that conventions could not be thought of inappropriately by the same folks who make use of the convention. That the convention in money involves something more metaphysical, does not seem to undermine the idea that people do think inappropriately about the conventions they use. I'll see, however, if I can modify the example (or come up with a new one) that doesn't involve any deep metaphysical issues.
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