What are virtual items, and are they real?

Abstract

A central debate in the philosophy of virtual reality (VR) focuses on the reality of virtual items. Broadly, there are two main disagreements. Some views accept a metaphysical orientation to VR, and disagree on the reality of virtual items. For instance, David Chalmers (Disputatio 9(46):309-352, 2017, Disputatio 11(55):453-486, 2019, 2022) defends digitalism, the view that virtual items are real digital items. Neil McDonnell & Nathan Wildman (Disputatio 11(55):371-397, 2019), by contrast, defend fictionalism, which maintains that virtual items are unreal fictions. Other views, like Grant Tavinor’s (2021), reject the metaphysical orientation, arguing that focusing on the reality of virtual items is a mistake. In what follows I evaluate these two disagreements. I argue that experiences of virtual items depend on episodes of picture perception. Recognizing this reveals that the current debates are either easily resolved in favor of one view, or are not disagreeing about the reality of virtual items, but about what virtual items are.