Reply to Andriy Vasylchenko’s Review of Formal Ontology and Conceptual Realism

Abstract

Adriy Vasylchenko makes the interesting observation that our references are frequently emotionally charged. A comprehensive theory of reference, Vasylchenko suggests, should include an account of this phenomenon. We agree. Indeed, as we will see, the theory of reference in conceptual realism can be used to explain an important feature of our emotional states when we read a novel, or watch a play, a movie, or even when viewing a painting. This feature, which in aesthetics is called psychical distance, is connected in part with the difference between active and deactivated reference in conceptual realism. We will take up that issue at the end this reply. There is, however, an important misunderstanding in Vasylchenko’s review of how the notion of existential presupposition applies—or, as he claims, fails to apply—to fictional objects and more generally to the abstract intensional objects of conceptual realism. We will discuss this latter issue first, and then turn to the issue of our emotional states and psychical distance when reading fiction or watching a play or a film, and perhaps even when having an aesthetic experience in general.