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For the Devil the PARADOX of EMOTIONAL RESPONSE to FICTION

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For the Devil the PARADOX of EMOTIONAL RESPONSE to FICTION Tesis doctoral sympathy for the devil THE PARADOX OF EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO FICTION Tesis doctoral sympathy for the devil THE PARADOX OF EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO FICTION GEMMA DEL CARMEN ARGÜELLO MANRESA DRS. JÈSSICA JAQUES Y GERARD VILAR DEPARTAMENT DE FILOSOFIA UNIVERSITAT AUTÒNOMA DE BARCELONA 2010 Then what vast body must we make the mind Wherin are men, beasts, trees, towns, seas, and lands; And yet each thing a proper place doth find, And each thing in true proportion stands? Doubtlesse this could not bee, but that she turnes Bodies to spirits, by sublimation strange; As fire converts to fire the things it burnes As we our meats into our nature change. From their grosse matter she abstracts their formes, And draws a kind of quintessence from things; Which to her proper nature she transforms, To bear them light on her celestiall wings: Thus doth she, when from things particular, She doth abstract the universal kinds; Which bodilesse and immaterial are, And can be log’d but onely in our minds. Extract from “Of the Soule of Man and the Immortalite Thereof” by Sir John Davies (1599) index introduction 11 SECTION I: ON WHAT IS FICTION 19 1.1. Introduction 21 1.2. Eliminativist Approaches to Fiction 25 1.3. Speech Acts Theories of Fiction 35 1.4. Make-Believe Theories of Fiction 45 1.5. Fictions: Imaginary Worlds of Possibility 59 SECTION II: ON OUR EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT WITH FICTIONS 69 2.1. Introduction 71 2.2. The suspension of disbelief Solution 77 2.3. Simulation and Empathy Solutions 83 2.4. Thought-based Solutions 107 2.5. The Sympathy Solution 115 2.6. Sympathy for the Devil: An Approach to Aesthetic Cinematographic Experience 145 CONCLUSIONS: SOME NOTES ON IMAGINATIVE RESISTANCE 163 bibliography 169 INTRODUCTION During the last thirty years there has been a fruitful debate around the so-called “Paradox of fiction” or the “Paradox of emotional response to fiction”. That is, how can fictional situations move us even if we know they do not exist? When we read a novel, assist to the theater or when we watch a film at home we normally react emotionally if the stories these mediums present engage us in such a way that move us to tears, horror, indignation, annoyance, etc. However, we know that these stories and the characters within them are not real. Then, there is a problem, at least in philosophical terms. As members of the audience we do not think that we are falling into a paradoxical situation when we feel scared in watching or even reading It (King, 1987; Lee Wallace [dir.], 1990), on the contrary we consider that it is “normal” to feel in that way unless we would feel ashamed if someone else is watching us getting startled. But this later situation is typical, not problematic1. The problem lies in an inconsistency between our beliefs on what is presented to us, in other words, the fictitious situation, and our emotional reactions to it. In consequence the paradox of fiction consists in the following statement: “We have emotions for fictional persons or situations, even we do not believe in their existence” (Levinson, 2006b). Colin Radford first stated this paradox in 1975 in the widely discussed article “How can be moved by the fate of Anna Karenina”. In this work Radford argued that “our being moved in certain ways by works of art, thought very ‘natural’ to us and in that way only too intelligible, involves us in inconsistency and so incoherence”. In ordinary circumstances we have emotions towards objects and states of affairs in which we believe in. For example, if I am afraid to a dog I feel frightened because I believe it is dangerous, otherwise I would be calmed. This argument is based on a cognitive view of emotions that will be widely discussed in this work. According to Cheshire Calhoun and Robert Solomon (1992) studies on emotions are in between philosophy and psychology. The first philosophers in an attempt to understand emotions were Aristotle (2005, 2000, 1988) and the Stoics (Seneca, 1986) and afterwards there are five major theories that try to explain what is an emotion2: 1. Theories of the sentiment: Emotions are sensations or sentiments and it is important to understand our inner experience of them (Hume 1996, 1893, 1757a). 11 2. Physiological theories: Emotions are tied to our perception of our bodily sensations (Descartes, 1985, James, 1884). 3. Behavioral theories: Emotions are dispositions to behave in certain way like in Darwin’s proposal (Cheshire & Calhoun, 1992). 4. Evaluative theories: Emotions are intentionally directed towards the objects. They are attitudes by which we evaluate the world (Brentano 1902, Scheler, 2005). 5. Cognitive Theories: Emotions are totally or partially considered as cognitions, or as something that depends logically or causally on cognitions, i.e., beliefs (i.e., Cheshire & Calhoun, 1992, Deigh, 1993, Lyons, 1993, Nussbaum, 2005, Oksenberg, 1997, Solomon, 2003). Cognitive Theories are the core of the paradox of fiction and in this work we will try analyze them through the eyes of Aesthetics as well I will try to prove that they do not provide a satisfactory account to explain how we engage emotionally to fictions. However, for the moment we will take them as a point of departure in order to understand basically what is the “Paradox of fiction” about. Hence the fact that we necessarily need to believe in the situation we are in front of in order to feel an emotion, there is a contradiction when we are in front of fictions because we know they are not real, so is it possible that we could believe in them? There is a large tradition in philosophy that maintains that we can only believe in something that it is real and in consequence the content of our beliefs must be true. The content of each belief corresponds to states of affairs that keep up a correspondence to reality and at the same time it could be translated into propositions, so it is capable of being judged according to criterions of truthfulness and falsehood. In consequence, having a belief is asserting that something is true and that it exists. Here will not be the place to discuss this notion of belief, because it is certain that when we believe in something we believe it is true. Its correspondence with reality is another matter; however it is true at least that if we believe in the truthfulness of our beliefs we believe in the existence of their contents. Now, what happens when we are emotionally engaged by fictions? The problem arises when we look carefully at the notion of belief. We neither believe that the characters of the fictions are real, nor the stages were they act on, nor the circumstances we watch depicted. We know they are unreal, and although this evidence they move us, sometimes softly and occasionally so strongly that they have such an impact in our lives. The “Paradox of fiction” lies upon these facts; the argumentation of this paradox centers around the contradiction between the unreality of the fictional situations and the reality of our beliefs within our emotional lives (according to cognitive approach to emotions). And in consequence contains four premises: 1. We believe in statements that are true and that support that something exists. 2. In order to have an emotion we do have to believe in certain state of affairs. 3. We do not believe in the existence of the content of fictions (that is, the states of affairs purported by fictions). 4. Fictions move us. 12 These premises show us that there is a paradox when we are engaged emotionally with fictional situations that means, on the emotions we feel in the aesthetics field. Many philosophers have tried to find out a solution in order to understand why and how this paradox happens. In this work I will explore many of the most important solutions offered to this paradox. However I will divide the paradox according to the central premises (the second and the third). According to the third premise we do not believe in the existence of the content of fictions, so in order to have an emotion we have to believe that something exists. I think one of the main problems regarding the “Paradox of fiction” is that there is not a clear definition on what is a fiction and how we get engaged with them. So it is necessary to find a satisfactory definition of fictions in order to know what kind of mental relation we have towards them. Another problem, and the most important one, is related to the notion of belief concerning the definition of emotions (the second premise) and the impossibility of conceiving getting emotionally engaged with fictional or imaginary entities we do not believe in. For that reason I will divide this work in two sections. In Section 1 I will try to define what is fiction. However I am more concerned with narrative fictional works than with a definition of fiction in general or what could be an “Ontology of Fiction”. The main reason for choosing this kind of works is that the paradox of fiction has been traditionally related to narrative works whether literary, theatrical or cinematographic, because their propositional content is conceivable either as a belief, as a thought or as an imaginary mental state. In this Section we shall analyze three of the most important approaches that try to give a definition of fiction: The “Eliminativist Approaches”, the “Speech Act Theories”, and “The Make-Believe Theories”. Chapter 2 is dedicated to “Eliminativist Approaches” to Fiction.
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