Seeing the Fictional

ABSTRACT When we see a movie or a play, do we see the fictional entities and events depicted? On the one hand, it seems incredibly natural to think we do. For instance, it seems obvious that one thing that differentiates Smith, who watches Star Wars , from Bob, who merely reads the novelization of Star Wars , is that Smith, but not Bob, has seen Darth Vader kill Obi‐Wan Kenobi. Yet, no philosophers working on fiction think this is literally true. And they have good reasons to be skeptical. For, if you have seen Darth Vader kill Obi‐Wan Kenobi, then it seems to follow that Darth Vader must have killed Obi‐Wan Kenobi, in which case, it follows that both were at one point living, flesh‐and‐blood, entities. But if Darth Vader is a flesh and blood being, then he must be spatiotemporally located, in which case, where is he? In this paper, I argue that we do in fact literally see (and hear) fictional entities when we see films. I do so in three stages. First, I argue against various error theories that attempt to account for the intuitions that we do see fictional entities in film. Then, I sketch a metaphysics of fictional entities, which vindicates our genuinely seeing them. Finally, I explore some of the interesting controversies and objections raised to this ontology of the fictional.