‘I agree, Shakuni,’ began Charvaka, ‘that there is no need to ask, of a character in a story, who they really are. Or rather, if you ask who such-and-such was, I simply tell you, he was a character in a story. Or, if we were talking about a dream of mine, he was a person in my dream. There is nothing more to say. And, moreover, if we try to say any more about what exactly we are talking about, in a story, to unwind or analyse what exactly we are referring to, we will not succeed: for nothing says it better than the natural language. Nothing gives you greater understanding of who and what these things are than for me to tell you that they are characters in a story, things appearing in a dream, or whatever. But you see, this all goes to show how very easily language works without there havin
