When Fictive Objects are Visualized: A Challenge for Descriptive Theories

Fictive objects, even those issued from literature, supersede their descriptive characterization. That, unlike what Neo-Meinongians claim, they have (nuclear) properties over and above their constitutive ones (those explicitly attributed to them in their native work) is shown by the fact that, to the naïve reader, they seem to be complete and to have their properties contingently (to exemplify them rather than to encode them). This is even more obvious when these objects reappear in other books. And yet even more patent when these entities become visualized in paintings, comics or movies. Indeed, the possibility of diverging visual adaptations is challenging for descriptive theories of fictional characters: one may add properties to fictional characters in incompatible ways while still identifying the same character. Gregor Samsa, from Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, is a case in point: there are many incompatible visual representations of it/him; it/he is deliberately vaguely described in the original text; it/he thus very plausibly supersedes its/his descriptive characterization.