Among the most hotly debated issues in contemporary analytic philosophy are those related to the nature and foundations of fiction. One of them regards the distinction between fiction and non-fiction, which pertains to the area of aesthetics. Another one regards the nature of the cognitive and linguistic resources required to produce and appreciate fiction, which pertains to the area of the philosophy of mind and cognitive science and the philosophy of language. One further issue regards the question of whether there are fictional entities as the objects of our thoughts and discourse about fictional characters and, if there are any such entities, what their nature really is. This, which pertains to the area of metaphysics, will be the focus of this entry.

Keywords: fiction, fictional names, fictional characters, make-believe, ontology.