For full account see...
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/f/fict-par.htm
Author Information:
Steven Schneider
The paradox of emotional response to fiction is made up of an inconsistent triad of premises, all of which seem initially plausible.
(1) that in order for us to be moved (to tears, to anger, to horror) by what we come to learn about various people and situations, we must believe that the people and situations in question really exist or existed;
(2) that such "existence beliefs" are lacking when we knowingly engage with fictional texts;
(3) that fictional characters and situations are in fact capable of moving us at times.
A number of conflicting solutions to this paradox have been proposed by philosophers of art.
1. That our apparent emotional responses to fiction are only "make-believe" or pretend. (Contra #3)
2. That existence beliefs aren’t necessary for having emotional responses (at least to fiction) in the first place. (Contra #1)
3. That there is nothing especially problematic about our emotional responses to works of fiction, since what these works manage to do (when successful) is create in us the "illusion" that the characters and situations depicted therein actually exist. (Contra #2)
Radford's Initial Statement of the Paradox
Colin Radford argues that our apparent ability to respond emotionally to fictional characters and events is "irrational, incoherent, and inconsistent"
(1) existence beliefs concerning the objects of our emotions (for example, that the characters in question really exist; that the events in question have really taken place) are necessary for us to be moved by them.
(2) that such beliefs are lacking when we knowingly partake of works of fiction.
(3) such works do in fact move us at times.
Thus he concludes that: our capacity for emotional response to fiction is as irrational as it is familiar:
"our being moved in certain ways by works of art, though very ‘natural’ to us and in that way only too intelligible, involves us in inconsistency and so incoherence."
Note: if what we at first believed was a true account of something heart-wrenching turned out to be false, a lie, a fiction, etc., and we are later made aware of this fact, then we would no longer feel the way we once did— though we might well feel something else, such as embarrassment for having been taken in to begin with.
According to Radford one can only be rationally moved by someone’s plight if one believes that something terrible has happened to him. If I do not believe that he has or is suffering or whatever, I cannot rationally grieve or be moved to tears."
Such beliefs are absent when we knowingly engage with fictions.
One Major Objections
1. to his second premise (considered by Radford)
2. that, at least while we are engaged in the fiction, we somehow "forget" that what we are reading or watching isn’t real. We get sufficiently "caught up" in the novel, movie, etc. so as to temporarily lose our awareness of its fictional status.
1. if we truly forgot that what we are reading or watching isn’t real, then we most likely would not feel any of the various forms of pleasure that frequently accompany other, more "negative" emotions (such as fear, sadness, and pity) in fictional but not real-life cases
2. the fact that we do not "try to do something, or think that we should" when seeing a sympathetic character being attacked or killed in a film or play, implies our continued awareness of this character’s fictional status even while we are moved by what happens to him. (an emphasis on the behavioral disanalogies)
Radford writes that existence beliefs "[are] a necessary condition of our being unpuzzlingly, rationally, or coherently frightened. I would say that our response to the appearance of the monster is a brute one that is at odds with and overrides our knowledge of what he is, and which in combination with our distancing knowledge that this is only a horror film, leads us to laugh— at the film, and at ourselves for being frightened."
What Radford offers is less the solution to a mystery (how is it that we can be moved by what we know does not exist?) than a straightforward acceptance of something mysterious about human nature (our ability to be moved by what we know does not exist is illogical, irrational, even incoherent).
Three basic strategies for resolving the paradox:
The Pretend Theory
(Most notably Kendall Walton)In effect deny premise (3), arguing that it is not literally true that we fear horror film monsters or feel sad for the tragic heroes of Greek drama.
Walton defends premise (2) playing up of the behavioral disanalogies between our responses to real-life versus fictional characters and events.
But unlike Radford, who looks at real-life cases of emotional response and the likelihood of their elimination when background conditions change in order to defend premise (1), Walton offers nothing more than an appeal to "common sense":
"It seems a principle of common sense, one which ought not to be abandoned if there is any reasonable alternative, that fear must be accompanied by, or must involve, a belief that one is in danger."
Thus it is only "make-believedly" true that we fear horror film monsters, feel sad for the Greek tragic heroes, etc.
He admits that these characters move us in various ways, both physically and psychologically—the similarities to real fear, sadness, etc. are striking—but regardless of what our bodies tell us, or what we might say, think, or believe we are feeling, what we actually experience in such cases are only "quasi-emotions" (e.g., "quasi-fear").
Quasi-emotions differ from true emotions primarily in that they are generated not by existence beliefs (such as the belief that the monster I am watching on screen really exists), but by "second-order" beliefs about what is fictionally the case according to the work in question (such as the belief that the monster I am watching on screen make-believedly exists.
"Charles believes (he knows) that make-believedly the green slime [on the screen] is bearing down on him and he is in danger of being destroyed by it. His quasi-fear results from this belief."
Thus, it is make-believedly the case that we respond emotionally to fictional characters and events due to the fact that our beliefs concerning the fictional properties of those characters and events generates in us the appropriate quasi-emotional states.
Attractive because of its apparent ability to handle a number of additional puzzles relating to audience engagement with fictions. (e.g. Why a reader or viewer of fictions who does not like happy endings can get so caught up in a particular story that, for example, he wants the heroine to be rescued despite his usual distaste for such a plot convention).
No need to hypothesize conflicting desires on the part of the reader here, since "It is merely make-believe that the spectator sympathizes with the heroine and wants her to escape while is (really) wants it to be make-believe that she suffers a cruel end."
.
Also: How fictional works—especially suspense stories—can withstand multiple readings or viewings without becoming less effective. According to Walton, this is possible because, on subsequent readings/viewings, we are simply playing a new game of pretend— albeit one with the same "props" as before: "The child hearing Jack and the Beanstalk knows that make-believedly Jack will escape, but make-believedly she does not know that he will… It is her make-believe uncertainty…not any actual uncertainty, that is responsible for the excitement and suspense that she feels."
Objections to the Pretend Theory
Walton supports his theory with reference to the familiar games of make-believe played.
(a father, pretending to be a vicious monster, will stalk his child and lunge at him at the crucial moment:
"The child flees, screaming, to the next room. …But…he unhesitatingly comes back for more. He is perfectly aware that his father is only ‘playing,’ that the whole thing is ‘just a game,’ and that only make-believedly is there a vicious monster after him. He is not really afraid"
Such games rely on what Walton calls "constituent principles" (e.g., that whenever there is a glob of mud in a certain orange crate, it is make-believedly true that there is a pie in the oven) which are accepted or understood to be operating.
Need not be explicit, deliberate, or even public:
But: To the extent that one is able to identify significant disanalogies with familiar games of make-believe, then, Walton’s theory looks to be in trouble.
Disanalogies
1. our relative lack of choice when it comes to (quasi-)emotional responses to fiction films and novels.
Noël Carroll writes in his 1990 book, The Philosophy of Horror,
"if it [the fear produced by horror films] were a pretend emotion, one would think that it could be engaged at will. I could elect to remain unmoved by The Exorcist; I could refuse to make believe I was horrified. But I don’t think that that was really an option for those, like myself, who were overwhelmedly struck by it."
Carroll also points out that as consumers of fiction we aren’t able to just turn our emotional responses on, either:
"if the response were really a matter of whether we opt to play the game, one would think that we could work ourselves into a make-believe dither voluntarily. But there are examples [of fictional works] which are pretty inept, and which do not seem to be recuperable by making believe that we are horrified. The monsters just aren’t particularly horrifying, though they were intended to be."
Carroll cites such forgettable pictures as The Brain from Planet Arous and Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman as evidence of his claim that some fictional texts simply fail to generate their intended emotional response.
2. The phenomenology of the two cases.
It is simply not true to ordinary experience that consumers of fictions are in similar emotional states when watching movies, reading books, and the like.
David Novitz, for one, notes that
"many theatre-goers and readers believe that they are actually upset, excited, amused, afraid, and even sexually aroused by the exploits of fictional characters. It seems altogether inappropriate in such cases to maintain that our theatre-goers merely make-believe that they are in these emotional states".
Glenn Hartz makes a similar point, in stronger language:
"My teenage daughter convinces me to accompany her to a ‘tear-jerker’ movie with a fictional script. I try to keep an open mind, but find it wholly lacking in artistry. I can’t wait for it to end. Still, tears come welling up at the tragic climax, and, cursing, I brush them aside and hide in my hood on the way to the car. Phenomenologically, this description is perfectly apt. But it is completely inconsistent with the Make-Believe Theory, which says emotional flow is always causally dependent on make-believe… [H]ow can someone who forswears any imaginative involvement in a series of fictional events…respond to them with tears of sadness?"
Carroll:
...as opposed to children playing make-believe, when responding to works of fiction we do not seem to be aware at all of playing any such games.
The only thing required here is the acceptance or recognition of a constituent principle underlying the game in question, and this acceptance may well be tacit rather than conscious.
But: (Carroll)
this "strains credulity" to suppose that not only are we unaware of some of the rules of the game, but that "we are completely unaware of playing a game. …Surely a game of make-believe requires the intention to pretend. But on the face of it, consumers of horror do not appear to have such an intention."
In defense of Walton’s account Alex Neill offers that is DOES account for the phenomenology of emotional response because;
"the fact that Charles is genuinely moved by the horror movie…is precisely what motivates Walton’s account"
and...
‘quasi-fear’ is NOT feigned or pretended, rather than actual, feelings and sensations.(but brought on by imaginative "pretend" cognition of actual events rather than literal/normal cognition of actual events.)
Walton label’s Charles’s physiological/psychological state ‘quasi-fear’ to mark the fact that what his feelings and sensations are feelings and sensations of is precisely what is at issue. On his view, we can actually be moved by works of fiction, but it is make-believe that what we are moved to is fear.
Problems with Quasi-Emotions
1. (Perhaps) Quasi-emotions are unnecessary theoretical entities some claim. There is no theory independent reason to posit them. If we can explain the phenomena without appeal to these supposed entities, we would have no reason to believe that they exist at all. Therefore it would be more economical, and thus more rational, to endorse an explanation which did not invoke this seemingly ad hoc supposition.
Can on give a satisfying explanation without appeal to quasi-emotions? If not then we have reason to think they exist by "reason to the best explanation" of the phnomena.
2. Some philosophers have pointed to cases of involuntary reaction to visual stimuli—the so-called "startle effect" in film studies terminology—where the felt anxiety, repulsion, or disgust is clearly not make-believe, since these reactions do not depend at all on beliefs in the existence of what we are seeing. Such involuntary responses seem more in line with the involuntary nature of emotional responses to fiction.
Simo Säätelä, for example, argues that
"fear is easy to confuse with being shocked, startled, anxious, etc. Here the existence or non-existence of the object can hardly be important. …When we consider fear [in fictional contexts] this often seems to be a plausible analysis— it is simply a question of a mistaken identification of sensations and feelings. Thus no technical redescription in terms of make-believe is needed."
#2 does not offer a full-blown theory of emotional response to fiction in its own right because there seems to be at least some cases of fearing of fictions where the startle effect is not involved.
Also it is not at all clear what equivalents to the startle effect are available in the case of (cognitive) emotions such as, say, pity and regret.
Glenn Hartz argues not that our responses to fiction are independent of belief, to be understood on the model of the startle effect, but that they are pre-conscious:
Note: REAL (as opposed to pretend) beliefs which are not consciously entertained, but are automatically generated by certain visual stimuli. These beliefs are inconsistent with what the spectator—fully aware of where he is and what he is doing—explicitly avows.
"how could anything as cerebral and out-of-the-loop as ‘make believe’ make adrenaline and cortisol flow?"
The Thought Theory
Denies premise (1).
Note: Premise one is an old and established thesis, traceable as far back as Aristotle and central to the so-called "Cognitive Theory of Emotions," that existence beliefs are a necessary condition of (at the very least rational) emotional response.
Thought Theory claims that, although our emotional responses to actual characters and events may require beliefs in their existence, there is no good reason to hold up this particular type of emotional response as the model for understanding emotional response in general.
What makes emotional response to fiction different from emotional response to real world characters and events is that, rather than having to believe in the actual existence of the entity or event in question, all we need do is "mentally represent" (Peter Lamarque), "entertain in thought" (Noël Carroll), or "imaginatively propose" (Murray Smith) it to ourselves.
(If we take our emotional responses to fiction to be central to or paradigmatic of our emotional lives, then...)
It is premise (1) that stands in need of modification, perhaps even elimination.
(First explicit statement of the Thought Theory in a 1981 article by Lamarque. But even earlier a number of philosophers rejected existence beliefs as a requirement for emotional response to fictions.)
They argued that the only type of beliefs necessary when engaging with fictions are "evaluative" beliefs about the characters and events depicted; beliefs, for example, about whether the characters and events in question have characteristics which render them funny, frightening, pitiable, etc.
Eva Schaper, for example, in an article published three years before Lamarque’s, writes that:
"We need a distinction…between the kind of beliefs which are entailed by my knowing that I am dealing with fiction, and the kind of beliefs which are relevant to my being moved by what goes on in fiction. …[B]eliefs about characters and events in fiction…are alone involved in our emotional response to what goes on."
R.T. Allen argues that,
"A novel…is not a presentation of facts. But true statements can be made about what happens in it and beliefs directed towards those events can be true or false. …Once we realize that truth is not confined to the factual, the problem disappears."
On this view, to be amused by a character requires only the one make the evaluative judgement that he has characteristics are amusing. (Sort of a hypothetical reading of the text- not an existential one.) We are frightened when we evaluate a our mental representation of a fictional situation as dangerous in a abstract as opposed actually dangerous.
Note: Thought Theory should not be confused with what is often referred to as the "Counterpart Theory" of emotional response to fiction. As Gregory Currie explains, according to this latter theory, "we experience genuine emotions when we encounter fiction, but their relation to the story is causal rather than intentional; the story provokes thoughts about real people and situations, and these are the intentional objects of our emotions" [188]. Walton himself provides an early statement of the Counterpart Theory: "If Charles is a child, the movie may make him wonder whether there might not be real slimes or other exotic horrors like the one depicted in the movie, even if he fully realizes that the movie-slime itself is not real. Charles may well fear these suspected dangers; he might have nightmares about them for days afterwards" [10]. Some variations of this theory go so far as make their claims with reference to possible as opposed to real people and situations. Regardless, it is important to note that Counterpart theories have at least as much in common with Pretend theories as with Thought theories, since, like the former, they seem to require a modification of Radford’s third premise (it is not the fictional works themselves that move us, but their real or possible counterparts).
Objections to the Thought Theory
Thought Theory has generated relatively little critical discussion
Radford himself attacks it on the following grounds:
"Lamarque…claims…that I am frightened by ‘the thought’ of the green slime. That is the ‘real object’ of my fear. …But if it is the moving picture of the slime which frightens me (for myself), then my fear is irrational, etc., for I know that what frightens me cannot harm me. …So the fact that we are frightened by fictional thoughts does not solve the problem but forms part of it."
Malcolm Turvey criticizes the Thought Theory on the grounds that
It appears to ignore the concrete nature of the moving image, instead hypothesizing a "mental entity…as the primary causal agent of the spectator’s emotional response."
We can and frequently do respond to the concrete presentation of cinematic images in a manner that is indifferent to their actual existence in the world. Because there is nothing especially mysterious about this fact, no theory at all is needed to solve the problem of emotional response to fiction film.
Even if this "concreteness consideration" is correct with respect to the medium of film, it does not stand up as a critique of the Thought Theory generally. (Literature, for example,)
Also, perhaps Thought Theory cannot be revised so as to incorporate the concreteness consideration, by simply redefining the psychological attitude referred to by Carroll as "entertaining" in either neutral or negative terms.
In order for us to be moved by a work of fiction, the revised theory would go, all we need do is adopt a nonassertive—though still evaluative—psychological attitude towards the images which appear before us on screen (while watching a film) or in our minds (when thinking about them later, or perhaps while reading about them in a book). Turvey himself makes a move in this direction when he writes that "the spectator’s capacity to ‘entertain’ a cinematic representation of a fictional referent does not require the postulation of an intermediate, mental entity such as a ‘thought’ or ‘imagination’ in order to be understood".
Murray Smith invites us to
"imagine gripping the blade of a sharp knife and then having it pulled from your grip, slicing through the flesh of your hand. If you shuddered in reaction to the idea, you didn’t do so because you believed that your hand was being cut by a knife."
The point is that the mere thought and evaluation of the envisioned situation is enough to explain you reaction.
In part due to its intuitive plausibility, in part due to its ability to explain away certain behavioral disanalogies with real-life cases of emotional response (for example: although he frightens us, the reason we don’t run out of the theater when watching the masked killer head towards us on the movie screen is because we never stop believing for a moment that what we are watching is only a representation of someone who doesn’t really exist), few philosophers have sought to meet the challenge posed by the Thought Theory head on.
The Biggest Problem for the Thought Theory
Difficult to justify its own presuppositions.
The Thought theorist seems to run into trouble is in explaining just why it is the mere entertaining in thought of a fictional character or event is able to generate emotional responses in audiences.
The Illusion Theory
Denies Radford’s second premise.
Suggests a mechanism—whether it be some loose concept of "weak" or "partial" belief (Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous "willing suspension of disbelief," or Freud’s notion of "disavowal" as adapted by psychoanalytic film theorists such as Christian Metz, or something else entirely) whereby existence beliefs are generated in the course of our engagement with works of fiction.
Obvious behavioral disanalogies between our emotional responses to real-life versus fictional characters and events.
Even when the existence beliefs posited by the Illusion theorist are of the weak or partial variety, Walton argues that:
"Charles has no doubts about the whether he is in the presence of an actual slime. If he half believed, and were half afraid, we would expect him to have some inclination to act on his fear in the normal ways. Even a hesitant belief, a mere suspicion, that the slime is real would induce any normal person seriously to consider calling the police and warning his family. Charles gives no thought whatever to such courses of action."
Gregory Currie devotes all of two sentences to his dismissal of the Illusion Theory:
"Hardly anyone ever literally believes the content of a fiction when he knows it to be a fiction; if it happens at moments of forgetfulness or intense realism in the story (which I doubt), such moments are too brief to underwrite our often sustained responses to fictional events and characters. Henceforth, I shall assume the truth of [Radford’s second premise] and consider the [other] possibilities."
Tremendous amount of weigh placed on the word "literally."
Is it really true to the facts that when normal people—not philosophers or film theorists!—talk about the "believability" of certain books they have read and movies they have seen, the notions of belief and believable-ness they have in mind are merely metaphorical, or else simply confused or mistaken?
And that everyday talk of being "absorbed by" fictions, "engaged in" them, "lost" in them, etc. can be explained away solely in terms of such non-belief dependent features of the fictions in question as their "vividness" and "immediacy"?
References
Allen, R.T. (1986) "The Reality of Responses to Fiction." British Journal of Aesthetics 26.1, 64-68.
Carroll, N. (1990) The Philosophy of Horror; or, Paradoxes of the Heart. New York, Routledge.
Currie, G. (1990) The Nature of Fiction. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Hartz, G. (1999) "How We Can Be Moved by Anna Karenina, Green Slime, and a Red Pony." Philosophy 74, 557-78.
Joyce, R. (2000) "Rational Fear of Monsters." British Journal of Aesthetics 40.2, 209-224.
Lamarque, P. (1981) "How Can We Fear and Pity Fictions?" British Journal of Aesthetics 21.4, 291-304.
Moran, R. (1994) "The Expression of Feeling in Imagination." Philosophical Review 103.1, 75-106.
Neill, A. (1991) "Fear, Fiction and Make-Believe." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49.1, 47-56.
Novitz, D. (1987) Knowledge, Fiction and Imagination. Philadelphia, Temple University Press.
Radford, C. (1975) "How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplemental Vol. 49, 67-80.
--- (1977) "Tears and Fiction." Philosophy 52, 208-213.
Säätelä, S. (1994) "Fiction, Make-Believe and Quasi Emotions." British Journal of Aesthetics 34, 25-34.
Schaper, E. (1978) "Fiction and the Suspension of Disbelief." British Journal of Aesthetics 18, 31-44.
Smith, M. (1995) "Film Spectatorship and the Institution of Fiction." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53.2, 113-27.
Turvey, M. (1997) "Seeing Theory: On Perception and Emotional Response in Current Film Theory." Film Theory and Philosophy, R. Allen and M. Smith (Eds.). Oxford, Oxford University Press, 431-57.
Walton, K. (1978) "Fearing Fictions." Journal of Philosophy 75.1, 5-27.