When we label something as “fiction,” it is usually because we assume a corresponding “essence” exists. Perhaps all discourse—including this very text—is a form of fiction. The words that form a theory, and the meanings they carry, can exist without physical substance. It is the “Self” that stands in opposition to them that possesses substance. Does this mean essence only resides in that which is substantial? If substance lacked essence, it would be indistinguishable from fiction; yet if substance were nothing but essence, how would it differ from being a fiction itself? The substantial Self exists in contrast to fiction. Essence, then, may be the very mode of being that arises when the substantial Self confronts fiction.
If, for the substantial Self, fiction refers to that which lacks substance, then all “Others” could be considered fiction—for their substance is not one’s own. What, then, does “substance” actually signify in this context?
Perhaps it is reproducibility. If essence is the mode of substance that emerges in the encounter between the Self and fiction, then essence is that which persists and recurs even through that encounter. Conversely, that which does not recur—or whose recurrence is uncertain—is what we call fiction.
Furthermore, reproducibility is observer-dependent, which is to say, it is dependent on the Other. The “substance” of reproducibility is, paradoxically, guaranteed only through interaction with the Other—the very entity we initially defined as fiction.
