Deflationism, realism, and fictionalism

Abstract

Frances Egan's Deflating mental representation gives a forceful defence of deflationism about mental representation. Deflationism is a form of selective realism: It is realist about vehicles of mental representation, but not contents. In this commentary, I will argue that deflationism is unstable. Ultimately, despite its attractions, deflationism threatens to collapse into either realism or (more likely) fictionalism.