Discussions of fiction typically begin with the question of whether or not we must postulate fictional objects, with the defender of fiction attempting to establish that we absolutely cannot do without them, and the opponent attempting to show how we can manage to avoid postulating them through paraphrasing our apparent discourse about them and reconceiving our apparent experience of them. I believe that this approach to fiction is misguided on two counts.

It is misguided, first, to address the question of whether we should postulate fictional objects without first understanding what sorts of things they would be. We cannot see the potential costs and advantages of bringing fictional entities into our ontology until we have a clear conception of what sorts of entities fictional characters would be and how they would compare with other entities we might bring into our ontology. Vague fears that fictional characters would be too disorderly, too strange, so that postulating them would be liable to get us into trouble often drive decisions to avoid fictional objects at all costs. But we can only address whether such fears are grounded on the basis of understanding what these entities would be. Thus I propose that in Part One we postpone the question of whether or not there are such things as fictional objects, and begin by considering an easier question: If we were to postulate fictional objects, what would they be? In answer to this question I begin to draw out the artifactual theory of fiction.