Mind the Gap: Dystopia as Fiction

Fictional entities and worlds are not necessarily incomplete, as is usually acknowledged by scholars of fictionality following Carnap and/or Kurt Gödel. They are necessarily noncomprehensive. Completeness refers to the properties assigned to entities by way of the formation rules of a world, whereas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Style (University Park, PA) PA), 1991-07, Vol.25 (2), p.211-222
Main Author: Mihailescu, Calin Andrei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actual entities
Actuality
Children
Criticism and interpretation
Dystopian fiction
Dystopias
Fiction
Humans
Literary criticism
Modal realism
Philosophical realism
Philosophy
Portrayals
Totalitarianism
Utopian fiction
Utopian socialism
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Summary:Fictional entities and worlds are not necessarily incomplete, as is usually acknowledged by scholars of fictionality following Carnap and/or Kurt Gödel. They are necessarily noncomprehensive. Completeness refers to the properties assigned to entities by way of the formation rules of a world, whereas comprehensiveness refers to all imaginable properties. A nonlocalistic approach to fictionality is required in order to account for the formation rules of fictional worlds as wholes and to describe particular kinds of incompleteness. Dystopia induces the illusion of comprehensiveness by sharply distinguishing a complete compound of the world (the command system and the impersonal rulers) from an utterly incomplete one (the subjects of dystopian societies).
ISSN:0039-4238
2374-6629