The Paradox of Fiction

How is it that we can be moved by what we know does not exist, namely
the situations of people in fictional stories? The so-called "paradox
of emotional response to fiction" is an argument for the conclusion
that our emotional response to fiction is irrational. The argument
contains an inconsistent triad of premises, all of which seem
initially plausible. These premises are (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; and (3) that fictional characters and situations do
in fact seem capable of moving us at times.

A number of conflicting solutions to this paradox have been proposed
by philosophers of art. While some argue that our apparent emotional
responses to fiction are only "make-believe" or pretend, others claim
that existence beliefs aren't necessary for having emotional responses
(at least to fiction) in the first place. And still others hold 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.

1. Radford's Initial Statement of the Paradox

In a much-discussed 1975 article, and in a series of "Replies to my
Critics" written over the next two decades, Colin Radford argues that
our apparent ability to respond emotionally to fictional characters
and events is "irrational, incoherent, and inconsistent" (p. 75). This
on the grounds that (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, and (2) that such beliefs are
lacking when we knowingly partake of works of fiction. Taking it
pretty much as a given that (3) such works do in fact move us at
times, Radford's conclusion, refreshing in its humility, is 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" (p. 78).

The need for existence beliefs is supposedly revealed by the following
sort of case. 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.
And so, Radford argues, "It would seem that I can only be moved by
someone's plight if I believe that something terrible has happened to
him. If I do not believe that he has not and is not suffering or
whatever, I cannot grieve or be moved to tears" (p. 68). Of course,
what Radford means to say here is: "I can only be rationally moved by
someone's plight if I believe that something terrible has happened to
him. If I do not believe that he has not and is not suffering or
whatever, I cannot rationally grieve or be moved to tears." Such
beliefs are absent when we knowingly engage with fictions, a claim
Radford supports by presenting and then rejecting a number of
objections that might be raised against it.

One of the major objections to his second premise considered by
Radford is that, at least while we are engaged in the fiction, we
somehow "forget" that what we are reading or watching isn't real; in
other words, that we get sufficiently "caught up" in the novel, movie,
etc. so as to temporarily lose our awareness of its fictional status.
In response to this objection, Radford offers the following two
considerations: first, 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; and second, the fact that we do not "try to do
something, or think that we should" (p. 71) 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. This second consideration—an
emphasis on the behavioral disanalogies between our emotional
responses to real-life and fictional characters and events—is one that
crops up repeatedly in the arguments of philosophers such as Kendall
Walton and Noel Carroll, whose positive accounts are nevertheless
completely opposed to one another.

Finally, Radford thinks there can be no denying his third premise,
that fictional characters themselves are capable of moving us—as
opposed to, say, actual (or perhaps merely possible) people in similar
situations, who have undergone trials and tribulations very much like
those in the story. So his conclusion that our emotional responses to
fiction are irrational appears valid and, however unsatisfactory, at
the very least non-paradoxical. Summarizing his position in a 1977
follow-up article, with specific reference to the emotion of fear,
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" (p. 210).

Since the publication of Radford's original essay, many Anglo-American
philosophers of art have been preoccupied with exposing the
inadequacies of his position, and with presenting alternative, more
"satisfying" solutions. In fact, few issues of The British Journal of
Aesthetics, Philosophy, or The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
have come out over the past 25 years which fail to contain at least
one piece devoted to the so-called "paradox of emotional response to
fiction." As recently as April 2000, Richard Joyce writes in a journal
article that "Radford must weary of defending his thesis that the
emotional reactions we have towards fictional characters, events, and
states of affairs are irrational. Yet, for all the discussion, the
issue has not.been properly settled" (p. 209). It is interesting to
note that while virtually all of those writing on this subject credit
Radford with initiating the current debate, none of them have adopted
his view as their own. At least in part, this must be because 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).

To date, three basic strategies for resolving the paradox in question
have turned up again and again in the philosophical literature, each
one appearing in a variety of different forms (though it should be
noted, other, more idiosyncratic solutions can also be found). It is
to these strategies, and some of the powerful criticisms that have
been levied against them, that we now briefly turn.
2. The Pretend Theory

Pretend theorists, 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. As noted
above, Walton's defense of premise (2) also rests on a 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"
(1978, pp. 6-7).

According to Walton, 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. As Walton puts it, "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" (p. 14). 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.

What has made the Pretend Theory in its various forms attractive to
many philosophers is its apparent ability to handle a number of
additional puzzles relating to audience engagement with fictions. Such
puzzles include the following:

* 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. Following Walton, there is 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. .[H]e (really) wants it to be make-believe
that she suffers a cruel end" (p. 25).
* 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" (p. 26).

3. Objections to the Pretend Theory

Despite its novelty, as well as Walton's heroic attempts at defending
it, the Pretend Theory continues to come under attack from numerous
quarters. Many of these attacks can be organized under the following
two general headings:
a. Disanalogies with Paradigmatic Cases of Make-Believe Games

Walton introduces and supports his theory with reference to the
familiar games of make-believe played by young children—games in which
globs of mud are taken to be pies, for example, or games in which 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" (1978, p. 13).
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. However, these principles need
not be explicit, deliberate, or even public: "one might set up one's
own personal game, adopting principles that no one else recognizes.
And at least some of the principles constituting a personal game of
make-believe may be implicit" (p. 12). According to Walton, just as a
child will experience quasi-fear as a result of believing that
make-believedly a vicious monster is coming to get him, moviegoers
watching a disgusting green slime make its way towards the camera will
experience quasi-fear as a result of believing that, make-believedly,
they are being threatened by a fearsome creature. In both cases, it is
this quasi-fear which makes it the case that the respective game
players are make-believedly (not really) afraid.

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. One such disanalogy concerns our relative lack of choice
when it comes to (quasi-)emotional responses to fiction films and
novels. Readers and viewers of such fictions, the argument goes, don't
seem to have anything close to the ability of make-believe
game-playing children to control their emotional responses. On the one
hand, we can't just turn such responses off—refuse to play and prevent
ourselves from being affected—like kids can. As Noel Carroll writes in
his 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" (1990, p. 74).

On the other hand, 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" (p. 74).
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.

Another proposed disanalogy between familiar examples of make-believe
game-playing and our emotional engagement with fictions focuses on the
phenomenology of the two cases. The objection here is that, assuming
the accuracy of Walton's account when it comes to children playing
make-believe, 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" (1987, p. 241). 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? (1999, p. 572)Carroll too argues that
"Walton's theory appears to throw out the phenomenology of the state
[here 'art-horror'] for the sake of logic" (1990, p. 74), on the
grounds that, 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.

Of course, Walton's position is that 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 thinks that it "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" (pp.
74-75). Although he disagrees with Walton's Pretend Theory on other
grounds, Alex Neill offers a powerful reply to objections which cite
phenomenological disanalogies. In his words, what philosophers such as
Novitz, Hartz, and Carroll miss "is that the fact that Charles is
genuinely moved by the horror movie.is precisely what motivates
Walton's account":

By labeling this kind of state 'quasi-fear,' Walton is not suggesting
that it consists of feigned or pretended, rather than actual, feelings
and sensations. .Rather, 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 we are moved to is fear.
(1991, pp. 49-50)Suffice to say, the question whether objections to
Walton's Pretend Theory on the grounds of phenomenological difference
are valid or not continues to be discussed and debated.
b. Problems with Quasi-Emotions

In arguing that Walton's quasi-emotions are unnecessary theoretical
entities, 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. 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" (1994,
p. 29). One problem with turning this objection into a full-blown
theory of emotional response to fiction in its own right, as both
S„„tel„ and Neill have suggested doing, is that there seem to be at
least some cases of fearing fictions where the startle effect is not
involved. Another problem is that it is not at all clear what
equivalents to the startle effect are available in the case of
emotions such as, say, pity and regret.

A similar objection to Walton's quasi-emotional states has been put
forward by Glenn Hartz. He 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: that real (as opposed
to pretend) beliefs which are not consciously entertained 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. As Hartz puts it, "how could
anything as cerebral and out-of-the-loop as 'make believe' make
adrenaline and cortisol flow?" (1999, p. 563).
4. The Thought Theory

Thought theories boldly deny premise (1), the old and established
thesis, traceable as far back as Aristotle and central to the
so-called "Cognitive Theory of emotions," (see Theories of Emotion)
that existence beliefs are a necessary condition of (at the very least
rational) emotional response. At the heart of the Thought Theory lies
the view 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" (Noel Carroll), or "imaginatively propose" (Murray Smith) it
to ourselves. By highlighting our apparent capacity to respond
emotionally to fiction—by treating this as a central case of emotional
response in general—the thought theorist believes he has produced hard
evidence in support of the claim that premise (1) stands in need of
modification, perhaps even elimination.

Even before the first explicit statement of the Thought Theory in a
1981 article by Lamarque, a number of philosophers rejected existence
beliefs as a requirement for emotional response to fictions. Instead,
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. (1978, p. 39, 44)

More recently, but again without reference to the Thought Theory, 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" (1986, p. 66).

Although the two are closely related, strictly-speaking this version
of the 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" (1990, p. 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" (1978, p. 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).
5. Objections to the Thought Theory

Somewhat surprisingly, the Thought Theory has generated relatively
little critical discussion, a fact in virtue of which it can be said
to occupy a privileged position today. In a 1982 article, however,
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. (pp. 261-62]

More recently, film-philosopher 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" (1997, p.
433). According to Turvey, because 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, and 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 it is correct with respect to the medium of film, however,
what we might call Turvey's "concreteness consideration" does not
stand up as a critique of the Thought Theory generally. In the case of
literature, for example, the reader obviously does not respond
emotionally to the words as they appear on the printed page, but
rather to the mental images these words serve to conjure in his mind.

It is also debatable whether the 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" (1997, p. 456).

Arguing on behalf of the Thought Theory, 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" (1995, p. 116). 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.

Perhaps the biggest problem for the Thought Theory lies in its
difficulty justifying its own presuppositions. In his original
article, Radford asks the following questions in order to highlight
the mysterious nature of our emotional responses to fiction: "We are
saddened, but how can we be? What are we sad about? How can we feel
genuinely and involuntarily sad, and weep, as we do knowing as we do
that no one has suffered or died?" (1977, p. 77). These are questions
the Thought theorist will have a tough time answering to the
satisfaction of anyone not already inclined to agree with him. That is
to say, where 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.
6. The Illusion Theory

Illusion theorists, of whom there seem to be fewer and fewer these
days, deny Radford's second premise. They suggest a mechanism—whether
it be some loose concept of "weak" or "partial" belief, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge's famous "willing suspension of disbelief," 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.

In Section 1, we came across one of the most powerful objections to
have been levied against the Illusion Theory to date: the 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. (1978, p. 7)The force of this and related
objections has led to a state of affairs in which Gregory Currie, in a
lengthy essay on the paradox of emotional response to fiction, can
devote 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. (1990, pp.
188-89)Notice, however, that a tremendous amount of weight seems to be
placed here 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 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"?

It certainly isn't clear whether the Illusion Theory in any form can
be salvaged as a possible solution to the paradox of emotional
response to fiction. It isn't even clear whether what we have here
really qualifies as a "paradox" at all. As Richard Moran (1994)
argues, with reference to what he takes to be non-problematic cases of
emotional response to modal facts (things that might have happened to
us but didn't) and historical facts (things that happened to us in the
past): "our paradigms of ordinary emotions exhibit a great deal of
variety., and.the case of fictional emotions gains a misleading
appearance of paradox from an inadequate survey of examples"(p. 79).
What is clear, however, is that the various debates surrounding the
topic of emotional response to fiction continue to rage in the
philosophical literature.
7. References and Further Reading

* Allen, R.T. (1986) "The Reality of Responses to Fiction."
British Journal of Aesthetics 26.1, pp. 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, pp. 557-78.
* Joyce, R. (2000) "Rational Fear of Monsters." British Journal of
Aesthetics 40.2, pp. 209-224.
* Lamarque, P. (1981) "How Can We Fear and Pity Fictions?" British
Journal of Aesthetics 21.4, pp. 291-304.
* Moran, R. (1994) "The Expression of Feeling in Imagination."
Philosophical Review 103.1, pp. 75-106.
* Neill, A. (1991) "Fear, Fiction and Make-Believe." Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49.1, pp. 47-56.
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