Fiction Institutions

This chapter explains what fiction institutions are and what it is for a work to be fiction rather than non-fiction. It outlines Guala’s account of institutions as systems of regulative rules that represent equilibrium solutions to coordination problems. It characterizes fiction institutions as those institutions whose rules represent equilibrium solutions to coordination problems of communicating imaginings. It explains both why the communication of imaginings poses coordination problems, and why the coordination problems it poses are distinct from those posed by the communication of beliefs. By elucidating the relation between works of fiction and the institution of fiction, it then explains what distinguishes works of fiction from works that are not fiction and identifies the relation between fictive utterances and works of fiction. Finally, it explains what makes a certain feature of a work of fiction a good or a bad feature of that work, considered as fiction.