Imaginary scenarios: On the use and misuse of fiction

Abstract This paper argues that the examination of representational (formal) and semantic (referential) features of fictional and factual narratives would be incomplete without discussing specific pragmatic (communicative, performative, heuristic, and cognitive) functions of fiction – how and why “fictions” are used in literature and arts, but also in scientific, philosophical, and everyday discourses. On the one hand, the pragmatic approach blurs the fictional/ factual divide and identifies similarities in the use of fiction across disciplinary borders. On the other, as we argue, to avoid panfictionalism inherent in Vaihinger’s philosophy of “as if” the pragmatic act of boundary-crossing should be accompanied by mapping out new “cross-territorial” forms and distinctions. The paper revises and recasts the “cross-territorial” concept of scenario as a narrative structure and a type of fictional modeling and explores its semantic and pragmatic features.