Sometimes I Am Fictional: Narrative and Identification

Abstract

Most analytical philosophers consider that we cannot identify with fictional characters in a literal sense. Specifically, Carroll and Gaut argue that doing so would imply a high degree of irrationality. In this paper I stand for the claim that we can identify with fictional characters thanks to a suspension of disbelief. First, I rely on narrative theories of personal identity to propose a model of how the process of identification might happen in real life. Then, I explain how this model can be adapted to account for the suspension of disbelief that occurs in the special case of identification with fictional characters.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to two anonymous referees for their comments on a previous draft.

Notes

1 We can note that Giovannelli also draws an analogy between character-identification and the identification that we can feel towards other stages of our own life. He does so through Locke’s theory of personal identity. For my part, I will rely on neo-Lockean narrative theories of personal identity. In any case, my claim will be stronger that Giovannelli’s one (see Giovannelli, 2010).

2 This does not mean that we can only identify with selves that belong to our life as persons. Our beliefs about our socio-psycho-physical continuity may be wrong. For example, we can remember a certain past action as our action and identify with the self who did that action. However, we may be misattributing that past action to ourselves even if it was performed by someone else (see Schacter, 2001, pp. 88–111). In this regard, the process of identification is independent of metaphysical identity.

3 Lamarque has argued against this parallelism between persons and fictional characters (Lamarque, 2007). I have provided arguments against Lamarque’s claim in Muñoz-Corcuera, 2016b.

4 This suggests that in these cases we believe that our current self does not belong to our actual life as persons, but to the life of the fictional character. I explain how this can be possible when analysing how the cognitive component of the process of identification interacts with the emotive component.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Spanish Government through the Research Project ‘Institution and Constitution of Individuality: Ontological, Social and Legal Aspects’ [PID2020-117413GA-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033].