Journal article 77 views
The Social Reality of Virtual Worlds
Rob Fraser 
Metaphysics, Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Pages: 85 - 98
Swansea University Author:
Rob Fraser
Full text not available from this repository: check for access using links below.
DOI (Published version): 10.5334/met.156
Abstract
What is the ontological status of virtual worlds? The two prominent positions in the recent debate are David Chalmers’s virtual digitalism and Neil McDonnell and Nathan Wildman’s virtual fictionalism. In this paper, I argue that there are good reasons to be dissatisfied with both. To overcome their...
| Published in: | Metaphysics |
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| ISSN: | 2515-8279 |
| Published: |
Ubiquity Press, Ltd.
2024
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa68392 |
| Abstract: |
What is the ontological status of virtual worlds? The two prominent positions in the recent debate are David Chalmers’s virtual digitalism and Neil McDonnell and Nathan Wildman’s virtual fictionalism. In this paper, I argue that there are good reasons to be dissatisfied with both. To overcome their limitations, I propose a novel position, virtual socialism. Drawing on the ‘two-dimensional’ approach to social ontology articulated by Brian Epstein, I suggest that virtual objects are social objects grounded in the states of a computer, but ‘anchored’ by a variety of social and non-social factors. Virtual socialism, I suggest, makes the best sense of the messy relationship virtual reality bears to digital reality, as well as the fact that virtual reality can sometimes be inconsistent. |
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| Keywords: |
virtual reality; realism; fictionalism; social ontology |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Funders: |
The Paul Schmitt Foundation pad for the publishing costs. |
| Issue: |
1 |
| Start Page: |
85 |
| End Page: |
98 |