Existence

what is the ontological status of puppets and dummys? i'm think of of ventriloquist dummies and puppets like emu-what kind of existence do they have? what happens to them when they are put away in a box?

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Great question. When

Great question. When functioning in a performance, I would think most of us would (rightly) see puppets and dummies as characters that are controlled by ventriloquists and puppeteers and thus not independent, autonomous agents. Their words and actions would be so entirely controlled by another agent that they themselves could only be the objects of praise or blame as part of a narrative or story (a matter of "make-believe" or imagination). I suppose there might be complicated circumstances in which someone controlling the puppets and dummies designates or assigns these characters some alter-ego or the embodiment of thoughts and feelings not shared by the controller, but this might be no more puzzling than what occurs when a novelist invents characters with goals the author does not share.

When you ask about "what kind of existence do they have," I suggest that they are probably best seen as in the same category as tools. So, when a hammer or a puppet is put in a box and not being used, they remain a hammer or puppet (assuming they are not subject to dissolution and become unrecognizable), but they are not *functioning* as a hammer or puppet (other than functioning as being a-ready-at-hand object that persons can use to hammer things and do performances). They also may have other properties and roles, depending on social history, e.g. perhaps both were used as murder weapons and so they are actually physical objects that are of great forensic interest or, more happily, they were used in a political demonstration against a racist, bigoted politician, currently terrifying the American public, and so they are remnants of a heroic protest movement.

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