Verbal fictions

From Works by Jeremy Bentham

Division of entities into real and fictitious ; or say, division of noun-substantive into names of real entities, and names of fictitious entities :

By the division and distinction thus brought to view, great is the light thrown upon the whole field of logic, and thereby over the whole field of art and science, more especially the psychical and thence the ethical or moral branch of science.

It is for the want of a clear conception of this distinction that many en empty name is considered as the representative of a correspondent reality ; in a word, that mere fictions are in abundance regarded as realities.

D'Alembert is the author in whose works ¹ the notion of this distinction was first observed by me :—étre fictif is the expression employed by him for the designation of the sort of object for the designation of which the appellation fictitious entity has ever since been employed.

¹ Mélanges de Litterature et de Philosophie.

Vol. III, p. 286.
BENTHAM'S THEORY OF FICTIONS by Charles Kay Ogden,
London, New York : Kegan Paul etc., Harcourt etc., pp. xxvii-xxviii.

  by J. Bentham, August 1814

Of methodization, in so far as performed by denomination, the subjects, the immediate subjects are names and nothing more. Things ? Yes ; but no otherwise than through the medium of their names.

It is only be means of names, viz. simple or compound, that things are susceptible of arrangement. Understand of arrangement in the psychical sense ; in which sense, strictly speaking, it is only the ideas of the things in question that are the subjects of the arrangement, not the things themselves. Of physical arrangement, the subjects are the things themselves—the animals, or the plants, or the minerals disposed in a museum ; of psychical, the names, and through the names, the ideas of those several objects, viz. as disposed in a systematic work on the subject of the correspondent branch of Natural Philosophy—on the subject of Zoology, Botany, or Mineralogy.

If of this operation (viz. methodization by denomination) things were the only subjects, after names of persons, names there would be none other than names of things ; but of names that are not names of things, there are abundantly more than of names that are.

By things, bodies are here meant, portions of inanimate substance.

By this denomination we are led to the distinction, the comprehensive and instructive distinction, between real entities and fictitious entities ; or rather, between their respective names. Names of real entities are masses of proper names—names of so many individual masses of matter ; of common names—names respectively of all such individual masses of matter as are of such or such a particular description, which by these names is indicated or endeavoured to be indicated.

Words—viz. words employed to serve as names—being the only instruments by which, in the absence of the things, viz. the substances themselves, the ideas of them can be presented to the mind ; hence, wheresoever a word is seen, which, to appearance, is employed in the character of a name, a natural and abundantly extensive consequence is a propensity and disposition to suppose the existence, the real existence, of a correspondent object—of a correspondent thing, of the thing of which it is the name, of a thing to which it ministers in the character of a name.

Yielded to without a sufficiently attentive caution, this disposition is a frequent source of confusion—of temporary confusion and perplexity ; and not only so, but even of permanent error.

Vol. III, pp. 262-4.
In BENTHAM'S THEORY OF FICTIONS by Charles Kay Ogden,
London, New York : Kegan Paul etc., Harcourt etc., pp. xxxiv-xxxv.

* * *

Fictitious entities . . . are such, of which, in a very ample proportion, the mention, and consequent fiction, require to be introduced for the purpose of discourse ; their names being employed in the same manner as names of substances are employed ; hence the character in which they present themselves i that of so many names of substances.   (Etc.)

That the properties belonging to substances, to bodies in general, are attributed to them— that they are spoken of as if possessed of such properties—appears from the prepositions by which the import of their respective names is put, in connexion with the import of the other words of which sentence, the grammatical sentence, is composed.

Physical and psychical. Under one or other of these two denominations may all fictitious entities be comprised.

Let us commence with physical :

I. Motion, motions.   (Etc.)

Vol. III, pp. 262-4.
BENTHAM'S THEORY OF FICTIONS by Charles Kay Ogden,
London, New York : Kegan Paul etc., Harcourt etc., pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.