Titus-Hepp Lecture Series: ‘Fictional Realism in the Funny Pages’

The Titus-Hepp Lecture Series welcomes Sam Cowling, associate professor of Philosophy at Denison University presenting “Fictional Realism in the Funny Pages.” In this lecture, Cowling examines fictional realist accounts of characters and argues that they run afoul of a range of case studies drawn from the medium of comics. He is the author of “Abstract Entities” (2017, Routledge) and works in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and the philosophy of comics.

Fictional realist views in metaphysics hold that our creative practices generate the existence of abstract artifacts like stories and characters. While such views enjoy considerable virtues, they also require an account of how such abstract artifacts are created.