The Concept of Involvement and the Paradox of Fiction (original) (raw)
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Engaging with Works of Fiction
Rivista di Estetica, 2019
The contemporary debate in the philosophy of literature is strongly shaped by the anti-cognitivist challenge, according to which works of literary fiction (that contain propositions that are neither literally true nor affirmed by the author) cannot impart (relevant) knowledge to the readers or enrich their worldly understanding. Anti-cognitivists appreciate works of literary fiction for their aesthetic values and so risk to reduce them to mere ornaments that are entertaining, but eventually useless. Many philosophers have reacted to this challenge by pointing at ways in which works of literary fiction can be informative even though they lack worldly reference: it has been argued, for example, that works of fictions are thought experiments; that they add not to our theoretical knowledge, but to our know-how or to our phenomenal knowledge; or that that they help readers to understand the perspectives of others. A stubborn defense of literary cognitivism, however, risks to collapse into an instrumental understanding of literature. In my paper I suggest that both sides in the debate focus too narrowly on semantic features of the works in question that is tied to what I will call the " referential picture " of language. A shift perspective is needed: for one, we ought to fully appreciate that the term " literature " does not refer to a homogeneous phenomenon, but rather to a very heterogeneous and multifarious set of works that are read by many different readers for many different reasons in many different ways. Second, we need to understand that these works have in common much more than the semantic peculiarity of lacking worldly reference: they are a unique means of communication between authors and readers – and in particular the role of the latter is often neglected in contemporary debate. These two points should help us to get a more comprehensive understanding of the practice of literature and the vast range of values we can find works of literary fiction – and the interplay between them.
Attending Emotionally to Fiction
This paper addresses the so-called paradox of fiction, the problem of explaining how we can have emotional responses towards fiction. I claim that no account has yet provided an adequate explanation of how we can respond with genuine emotions when we know that the objects of our responses are fictional. I argue that we should understand the role played by the imagination in our engagement with fiction as functionally equivalent to that which it plays under the guise of acceptance in practical reasoning, suggesting that the same underlying cognitive-affective mechanisms are involved in both activities. As such, our imaginative engagement with fiction un-problematically arouses emotions, but only to the extent that we are not occurrently attending to our epistemic relation to the fiction i.e. fully attending to the fact that the object of our response is merely fictional. In order to illuminate this idea I examine a recent proposal that the phenomenology of attention is partially nonattributive, and I argue that emotional phenomenology too shares this characteristic.
The Experimental Solution for the Paradox of Fiction and the Paradox of Tragedy
This paper proposes an original answer to the two paradoxes of emotional response to fiction: the Experimental Solution. The first part highlights how the Experimental Solution demands an explicit understanding of the connection between emotions in the face of fiction and those within daily experience. Using Ronaldo de Sousa’s notion of paradigm scenarios, the Experimental Solution argues that fiction functions as a type of emotional laboratory where emotions are explored and tested, such that with fiction each one of us reworks the subtleties of the structure of paradigm scenarios. The second part of the paper elaborates some of the consequences of taking fiction as emotional laboratories, by showing that the continuum of emotional experience between daily life and literature reveals how emotional learning occurs in emotional response to fiction, such as to provide a privileged space for emotional growth. Finally, the paper presents some of the ways in which the Experimental Solution makes a little step forward though it agrees with many of the insightful conclusions of the make-belief theory pointing out two important modifications that occur with this new solution.
"Problems, Puzzles, and Paradoxes for a Moral Psychology of Fiction"
Problems, Puzzles, and Paradoxes for a Moral Psychology of Fiction By Katherine Tullmann Adviser: Dr. Jesse Prinz The goal of my dissertation is to provide a comprehensive account of our psychological engagements with fiction. While many aestheticians have written on issues concerning art and ethics, only a few have addressed the ways in which works of fiction offer problems for general accounts of morality, let alone how we go about making moral judgments about fictions in the first place. My dissertation fills that gap. I argue that the first challenge in explaining our interactions with fiction arises from functional and inferential arguments that entail that our mental states about fictional entities are non-genuine. This means that our mental states during our engagements with fiction are different in kind from typical beliefs, emotions, desires, etc. that we have in real-life contexts. I call this position the Distinct Attitude View (DAV). In its place, I propose a common-sense, standard attitude view (SAV): the idea that our psychological interactions with non-real entities can be explained in terms of the intentional content of those states as opposed to a distinct type of mental state. In expanding the SAV, I develop several independent accounts of social cognition, emotions, and moral judgments. I also show how the SAV can dissolve standard problems in the philosophy and psychology of aesthetic experience: the paradox of fiction, the problem of imaginative existence, and the sympathy for the devil phenomenon, amongst others.
Fictional Immersion: Attending Emotionally to Fiction
This paper addresses the problem of explaining how we can have emotional responses towards fiction. I claim that no account has yet provided an adequate explanation of how we can respond with genuine emotions when we know that the objects of our responses are fictional. I argue that we should understand the role played by the imagination in our engagement with fiction as functionally equivalent to that which it plays under the guise of acceptance in practical reasoning, suggesting that the same underlying cognitive-affective mechanisms are involved in both activities. As such, our imaginative engagement with fiction un-problematically arouses emotions, but only to the extent that we are not occurrently attending to our epistemic relation to the fiction i.e. fully attending to the fact that the object of our response is merely fictional. In order to illuminate this idea I examine a recent proposal that the phenomenology of attention is partially non-attributive, and I argue that emotional phenomenology too shares this characteristic.
Emotion in the Appreciation of Fiction
Why is it that we respond emotionally to plays, movies, and novels and feel moved by characters and situations that we know do not exist? This question, which constitutes the kernel of the debate on »the paradox of fiction«, speaks to the perennial themes of philosophy, and remains of interest to this day. But does this question entail a paradox? A significant group of analytic philosophers have indeed thought so. Since the publication of Colin Radford's celebrated paper »How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?« (1975), the number of proposals to solve, explain, reformulate, dismiss or even revitalize this apparent paradox has continued to proliferate. In line with recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, in this paper I will argue against the sustainability of the paradox, claiming that the only reasonable way to continue our discussions about it consists in using it as a heuristic tool to shed light on problems regarding our involvement with fiction. Against this background, I will then focus on one of the problems related to how our emotional responses to fiction contribute to our appreciation of it. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first section shows the parallel evolution of the paradox of fiction and the analytic philosophy of emotion. Here I claim that, although the paradox is epistemically flawed, since one of its premises is rooted in a limited view on the emotions typical of early cognitiv-ism, the discussions it provokes are still epistemically useful. As Robert Stecker (2011, 295), among others, has pointed out, the paradox was formulated during the heyday of cognitive theories of the emotions in which emotion necessarily requires belief. Today, however, only few authors would endorse this premise. If emotion does not always require belief (as the majority of authors in the contemporary debate admit), let alone belief about the existence of the object towards which it is directed, then there is no reason to speak of a paradox. From this first conclusion, however, it does not follow that the paradox is completely without use from the epistemic point of view. A glimpse at the topics touched on during the discussions about how to solve, reformulate, or negate the paradox reveals their value in shedding light on the interrelation between emotion and fiction. The second section elaborates a phenomenologically inspired cognitive account of the emotions by focusing on their cognitive bases, their influence on Emotion in the Appreciation of Fiction 205 cognitions, and their cognitive function. In this model, emotions are responsible for indicating values, for showing what matters to us, and for being appropriate to their objects. My claim is that this view applies not only to reality, but also to our involvement with fiction. In the final section I draw on this account to focus on one kind of appreciation of fiction which necessarily requires our emotional involvement. Following an idea put forward by Susan Feagin (1996, 1), I employ the concept of »appre-ciation« to refer to a set of abilities exercised with the aim of extracting value from the work. There is a long tradition in aesthetics that condemns any focus on the emotions in the appreciation of art and fiction, and defends the necessity of aesthetic appreciation without emotional influence. To refer to this negative attitude towards the emotions, I will borrow an expression coined by Susan Feagin (2013, 636), who refers to »the intellectualized view of appreciation«. Against this widespread view, I will argue that some aspects of the fiction can only be appreciated with the help of our emotions. The cognitive approach developed in the previous section can explain how the emotions might in fact play a significant role in the appreciation of art and fiction. Attention will be paid to three activities involved in appreciation, for all of which emotion is crucial: processing relevant information about the fictional world, understanding aspects of it, and becoming acquainted with the values it presents. My aim here is to argue that there are particular aspects of the fictional world that can only be appreciated if recipients have the appropriate emotions.
2006
Analyic philosophers of flln have generally adopted an anti-reaiist attitude towards fiction and a Russellean-Quinean notion of parsimony in order to avoid the ontological difficulties of endc>rsinp; nonexistent fictional objects. However, as a result of this rnetaphysical bias they have had to embrace a number of problematic consequences, such as make-believe, quasi-emotions, relativism about what is pafi of a fiction, and a degree of indetenninacy regarding the properlies of fictional objects. In contrast, I w-ill develop here a realist alternative contending that fictional engagement squares u'ith everyday propositional attitudes and emotions and avoids relativism and indeterminacy. i will def'end this realist analysis of flction by demonstrating that it d<;es not possess the ontological liabiiity its detractors suggest. Instead. it proposes little, if anything, more than the moderate realist ontokrgy of an actualist possible worlds model. fbr the reas()n that the accrount of flction I forward is devekrped from this analysis in the metaphysic of modality. However, I will not suggest that fictions are possible worlds. Rather, I will argue that fictional worlds are impossible worlds as a result of the authorial act of fiction-making.
Phenomenology, Fiction and Emotions: A Merleau-Ponty Answer to the Paradox of Fiction
This paper will explore the engagement between phenomenology and the arts, specifically fiction. It is my contention that fiction provides a host of phenomenologically relevant experiential data that can be used to help further one’s development as an existential agent. To facilitate this I will look at how phenomenology provides a solution to the paradox of fiction. The paradox of fiction asks: how is it that we have a real emotional response to fictional characters or situations when we do not believe that these characters or situations actually exist? This paper will attempt an answer to this so-called paradox by arguing for a phenomenological solution that utilises Merleau-Ponty’s approach to aesthetics. For Merleau-Ponty the work of is an expression of a particular artist’s lived point of view on the intersubjective world of experience. The work of art is an artefact of that expression that can then be re-experienced by those who engage with the work mediated through their own lived experience. What one responds to when one has an emotional reaction to a piece of fiction is not the character per se, but rather the possibility of a different lived perspective on the world that the character opens up for the reader. The emotional response then is to the expression of the possible point of view on the world, and the existence of the character as such is inconsequential. By providing an expression of different points of view on the world, fiction allows for the development of one’s emotional life through the phenomenological engagement with those emotions in a controlled environment. This phenomenological approach to fiction bears not just on one’s emotional development, but it also fosters the development of one’s aesthetic, ethical, and inter-personal life. Since first person description of lived experience is a hallmark of phenomenology, fiction, by providing phenomenologically rich descriptions of how other people experience the world is of the utmost importance to phenomenology.