This paper explores the relationship between romantic love and polyamory. Our central question is whether traditional norms of monogamy can be excised from romantic love so as to harmonize with polyamory’s ethical dimensions (as we construe them). How one answers this question bears on another: whether ‘polyamory’ should principally be understood in terms of romantic love or instead some alternative conception(s). Our efforts to address these questions begin by briefly motivating our favored approach to romantic love, a “narratival” one inspired (...) by 1930s cultural theorist Denis de Rougemont, wherein such love is exclusive, supernatural or promising transcendence, painful, impeded, and, ultimately, fatal. We maintain that, even once exclusivity is removed as an official component, tensions with polyamory’s ethical dimensions remain: romantic love’s other elements rationalize acting and feeling in ways that privilege a singular beloved above others. A tempting solution is to further revise romantic love. However, we are skeptical that this leaves space for distinctively romantic love. Our tentative proposal, then, is that polyamory’s ethical dimensions favor rejecting romantic love as ultimately desirable. (shrink)

It is controversial whether virtual reality should be considered fictional or real. Virtual fictionalists claim that objects and events within virtual reality are merely fictional: they are imagined and do not exist. Virtual realists argue that virtual objects and events really exist. This metaphysical debate might appear important for some of the practical questions that arise regarding how to morally evaluate and legally regulate virtual reality. For instance, one advantage claimed of virtual realism is that only by taking virtual objects (...) and events to be real can we explain our strong emotional reactions to certain virtual actions, as well as their potential immorality. This paper argues that emotional reactions towards, and wrongs within, virtual reality are consistent with its being merely fictional. The emotional and ethical judgments we wish to make regarding virtual reality do not provide any grounds for preferring virtual realism. (shrink)

Die Frage nach der Ethik in Computerspielen fragt im Kern danach, wie Computerspiele moralische Fragen aushandeln können. Ausgangspunkt ist die folgende Beobachtung: Situationen und Tätigkeiten, die in Wirklichkeit¹ moralisch brisant wären, sind seit jeher ein beliebter Gegenstand von Computerspielen. Seien es spielerische Umsetzungen von Kriegssituationen wie in den Reihen Call of Duty oder Metal Gear Solid, seien es heftige körperliche Auseinandersetzungen wie in Tekken oder auch in Super Smash Bros., seien es bleihaltige Abenteuer wie in Uncharted oder Tomb Raider – (...) in zahlreichen Fällen wie diesen führen wir beim Spielen Handlungen aus, die wir, wenn wir sie in Wirklichkeit durchführten, für... (shrink)

Much of the excitement about virtual reality and its potential for things like entertainment, art, education, and activism is its ability to generate experiences that are powerfully immersive. However, discussions of VR tend to invoke the notion of immersive experience without subjecting it to closer scrutiny; and discussions often take it for granted that immersive experience is a single unified phenomenon. Against this, we argue that there are four distinct types or aspects of immersive experience that should be distinguished: representational (...) immersion, which corresponds roughly to what is sometimes called “psychological presence”; participatory immersion, which is related to the interactive aspects of VR experience; affective immersion, which has to do with the subject’s emotional relation to the experience; and narrative immersion, which captures the phenomenon of being caught up in the flow of events experienced. We argue that this four-way distinction helps us understand the powerfully immersive character of VR, while also recognizing its continuity with the immersion we experience with media such as novels, films, and music. We also argue that the account of immersion we offer here lets us better understand the connection between VR and empathy, charting a middle course between extreme enthusiasts who view VR as the ultimate “empathy machine” and extreme skeptics who argue that this attitude is misguided. (shrink)

Both lay people and philosophers assume that hoping for something implies imagining it. According to contemporary philosophical accounts of hope, hope involves an element of imagination as input, part, or output of hope. However, there is no systematic view of the interaction between hope and the different processes constituting imagination. In this paper we put forward a view of (i) the kind of imaginings typically triggered by hopeful states, (ii) the nature of the interaction between hope and hopeful imaginings, and (...) (iii) the epistemic value of imagining out of hope. We argue that a paradigmatic output of hope is an immersive kind of cognitive imagination. Additionally, justified hopes constrain our immersive imaginings in such a way as to provide them with a specific epistemic value. Hopeful imaginings are not mere fantasies or wishful thinking; they constitute valuable experiences we can learn from and rely on in planning our future. (shrink)

When engaging with magic, we are moved by seemingly impossible events that contradict what we believe to be possible in the real world. We are surprised, curious, and baffled when we cannot explain how the magic we are witnessing is possible. We generally understand the events to be illusions. But how is it possible to be moved by something we know to be unreal? This problem is related to the paradox of fiction in aesthetics. Here, we introduce the problem in (...) the domain of theatrical magic, discuss possible solutions, and present a tentative account that allows us to accommodate inconsistent, seemingly incompatible beliefs at different representational levels in the viewers’ mind. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that David Lewis’s possible world semantics for counterfactual discourse and for fictional discourse are apparently inconsistent and in need of revision. The problem emerges for Lewis’s account once one considers how to evaluate ambifictional counterfactuals. Since this is likely not a concept familiar to most, and since it does not appear that the problem has been previously recognized in the critical literature, I will begin by rehearsing Lewis’s possible worlds semantics for counterfactuals and fiction. Then (...) I will explicate the distinction between intrafictional, extrafictional, interfictional, and ambifictional propositions. Next, I will state what an ambifictional counterfactual proposition is, and explain why this kind of discourse confounds Lewis’s system. I will conclude, finally, with a brief discussion of how the Lewisian would be best advised to resolve the paradox. (shrink)

Based on Husserl’s distinction between mode of living presence (Modus der Leibhaftigkeit) and mode of certainty (Glaubensmodus der Gewißheit), which coincide in normal univocal perception, the paper argues for a distinction between two different types of accordance (Einstimmigkeit) in perceptual experience – local accordance and global accordance. While local accordance is characterized by the unfolding of appearances in agreement with lines of accordance instituted by recent perceptual apprehensions within a certain spatio-temporal domain, global accordance is characterized by the agreement between (...) appearances unfolding in local accordance with previous and simultaneous apprehensions concerning the spatio-temporal surroundings of this domain. As will be shown, to perceive something in local accordance amounts to perceiving it in the mode of living presence, while to perceive something in global accordance amounts to perceiving it in the belief mode of certainty (relative to a certain surrounding). In light of these considerations, an account of the perception of figments and immersion is put forward which does not invoke make-belief or the idea of an as-if-perception. (shrink)

Some stories generate in us a peculiar experience of intense narrative engagement. This common experience, which we call narrative immersion, has been the object of a vast literature in psychology and other disciplines. Philosophers, however, have only recently engaged with this topic and the tendency has been to explain it by postulating specific kinds of mental states. We propose a different approach, explaining narrative immersion by means of a particular distribution of attention over the content of ordinary mental states. First, (...) we provide a characterization of narrative immersion based on studies by psychologists and other theorists. Then, we discuss alternative views and develop our own proposal. We articulate how attention works as we engage with the narrative, and how the adequate distribution of attention over the mental states involved in understanding the storyworld can offer the resources to explain the characteristic features of narrative immersion. Unlike alternative proposals, ours avoids the need to postulate controversial mental states. (shrink)

We take up issues raised in the commentaries about our proposal that social robots are depictions of social agents. Among these issues are the realism of social agents, experiencing robots, communicating with robots, anthropomorphism, and attributing traits to robots. We end with comments about the future of social robots.

The purpose of this article is to suggest that the fictionalist’s emotions toward religious discourse could be better supported than the current literature allows. By ‘fictionalist’ I mean those of whom interpret religious discourse as useful fiction. The threefold structure of the article will argue that: (1) the concept of aliefs has been falsely equated with the concept of imagining, (2) the fictionalist ought to adopt a hybrid theory of emotions rather than a cognitive appraisal and, (3) if (1) and (...) (2) are accepted, then key issues concerning the genuineness and appropriateness of emotions toward fictional entities can be overcome. I will conclude that something significant is at stake here, and that is whether or not the fictionalist’s emotions are deemed ‘real’ or not. Thus, to provide the best defence of the fictionalist’s emotions is to: (A) separate that which has been lumped together, that is: quasi emotions and alief-evoked emotions (B) argue for the hybrid account of emotions and, (C) defend the genuine and appropriate nature of fictional emotions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to create dialectical space for a hitherto under-discussed option in the philosophy of conspiracy theories. The extant literature on the topic almost exclusively assumes that conspiracy theories are a type of explanation. The typical mental attitude towards explanations is belief, a representational attitude that can be assessed as true, false, warranted or unwarranted. I call models based on this assumption alethic models. Alethic models can’t pick out conspiracy theories as a distinct class of mental (...) attitudes without latching onto their negative epistemic properties. The extant literature therefore finds itself in an unfortunate situation. It either has to presume that conspiracy theories are epistemically defective in general (generalism). Or it has to deny that conspiracy theories are a distinct class of mental attitudes. Conspiracy theories are then nothing more than theories, theories about conspiracies, and should be assessed on a case-by-case basis (particularism). Instead, this paper motivates the research program of narrative models. According to narrative models, conspiracy theories are first and foremost stories – structured fictions. And their relevant mental attitudes are the attitudes of fiction – make-believe and imagination. Fictions are not subjects to epistemic norms. They are neither rational nor irrational. Narrative models can therefore pick out conspiracy theories as a distinct class of mental attitudes without labeling them as defective in general. In addition, they are able to explain certain features of conspiracy discourse particularly well, and they offer new perspectives on the popularity of conspiracy theories and the means of intervention we have at our disposal. (shrink)

To showaffective empathyis to share in another person's experiences, including her emotions. Most philosophers who write about emotions accept the broadly cognitivist view that emotions are rationally connected with beliefs. We argue that affective empathy is also rationally connected with belief; you can only share in another's emotions insofar as you can share certain of her beliefs. In light of that claim, we argue that affective empathy brings both epistemic dangers and epistemic benefits, that the ideal of universal empathy cannot (...) be built upon affective empathy, and that affective empathy cannot be the basis of morality. (shrink)

A long‐standing aim of cinema – in particular of ‘extreme’, ‘unwatchable’ or ‘feel‐ bad’ cinema – has been to acquaint viewers with extreme suffering. In this article I first offer an explication of that aim in terms of recent work in philosophy of mind, then exploit the resulting framework to examine claims to the effect that a new technological development, Virtual Reality, provides cinema's best shot at achieving that aim.

Why do we so often care about the outcomes of games when nothing is at stake? There is a paradox here, much like the paradox of fiction, which concerns why we care about the fates and threats of merely fictional beings. I argue that the paradox threatens to overturn a great deal of what philosophers have thought about caring, severing its connection to value and undermining its moral weight. I defend a solution to the paradox that draws on Kendall Walton's (...) solution to the paradox of fiction, developing his idea that it be extended to games. The solution takes games to involve make‐believe: in particular, players and spectators make‐believe that the outcome of the game matters. I also explore how the phenomenon extends beyond games. And I explore some moral implications: in particular, my view preserves the idea that we have reason not to impede others in their pursuit of what they care about. (shrink)

Las soluciones a la paradoja de la ficción propuestas por Kendall Walton y Gregory Currie, a pesar de diferir en puntos de detalle importantes, suponen dos movimientos conceptuales comunes para entender la situación de quien está inmerso en una obra de ficción, a través del recurso a la noción de “cuasi-emociones” y de la idea de construcción de escenarios imaginarios. Aquí propondré que sus propuestas fallan en sus dos puntos centrales, a partir de problemas que son, sin embargo, independientes. Por (...) un lado, sus ideas sobre las emociones que sentimos al estar atrapados por una obra de ficción fallan al suponer una versión inaceptable de la tesis cognitivista acerca de las emociones. Por otro, sus ideas sobre la construcción de mundos imaginarios por parte de los “consumidores de ficción” fallan al suponer una dicotomía entre mundos de ficción y realidad. Finalmente, discutiré brevemente el modo en que ambos tipos de problemas repercuten sobre la viabilidad del planteo de la paradoja misma. (shrink)

In this chapter, I present a comprehensive review of the literature on experimental philosophy of aesthetics.

Social robots serve people as tutors, caretakers, receptionists, companions, and other social agents. People know that the robots are mechanical artifacts, yet they interact with them as if they were actual agents. How is this possible? The proposal here is that people construe social robots not as social agentsper se, but asdepictionsof social agents. They interpret them much as they interpret ventriloquist dummies, hand puppets, virtual assistants, and other interactive depictions of people and animals. Depictions as a class consist of (...) three physical scenes with part-by-part mappings between them: (a) a base scene (the raw physical artifact), (b) the depiction proper (the artifact construed as a depiction), and (c) the scene depicted (the scene people are to imagine). With social robots, evidence shows people form the same three scenes plus mappings: They perceive the raw machinery of a robot, construe it as a depiction of a character, and, using the depiction as a guide, engage in the pretense that they are interacting with the character depicted. With social robots, people also recognize three classes of agents – the characters depicted, the intended recipients of the depictions (those who view or interact with the robots), and the authorities responsible for the robots (the designers, makers, and owners). Construing social robots as depictions, we argue, accounts for many phenomena not covered by alternative models. (shrink)

The paper reviews proposals by Abell, Predelli, and others on the semantics of fiction, focusing on the discourse through which fictions are created. Predelli develops the radical fictionalism of former writers like Kripke and van Inwagen, on which that discourse is contentless and does not express propositions. This paper offers reasons to doubt these claims. It then explores realist proposals like Abell’s in which singular terms in fictions refer to fictional characters, understood as socially created representational artifacts, and irrealist alternatives (...) in which the discourse is fully meaningful even though those terms fail to refer. (shrink)

Emotions have long been of interest to philosophers and have deep historical roots going back to the Ancients. They have also become one of the most exciting areas of current research in philosophy, the cognitive sciences, and beyond. -/- This book explains the philosophy of the emotions, structuring the investigation around seven fundamental questions: What are emotions? Are emotions natural kinds? Do animals have emotions? Are emotions epistemically valuable? Are emotions the foundation for value and morality? Are emotions the basis (...) for responsibility? Do emotions make us better people? -/- In the course of exploring these questions, the book also discusses cutting-edge empirical research on emotion, feminist approaches to emotions and their value, and methodological questions on how to theorize about the emotions. The book also contains in-depth discussions of specific emotions like compassion, disgust, anxiety, and curiosity. It also highlights emerging trends in emotion research. (shrink)

This is a short piece on literary literacy, in the form of a choose-your-own-adventure story. -/- The entire piece is spread across all three volumes: Volume 1 Chapter 12, Volume 2 Chapter 5, and Volume 3 Chapter 22.

The horror genre (in film, literature etc.) has, for its seemingly paradoxical aesthetic appeal, been the subject of much debate in contemporary, analytic philosophy of art. At the same time, however, the nature of horror as an affective phenomenon has been largely neglected by both aestheticians and philosophers of mind. The standard view of the affective nature of horror in contemporary philosophy follows Noël Carroll in holding that horror in art (or “art-horror”) is an emotion resulting from the combination of (...) disgust and fear. The view is also often accompanied by the view that horror in art is a distinct affect from horror in real life. This raises the question of what the relationship between horror in art and in real life might be. By looking within and outside art and the horror genre, and using a combination of historical, philosophical and empirical arguments, I argue for a departure from such standard views on the affective nature of horror. In alternative, I outline a novel view, on which horror is common to both real life and art and is primarily, typically individuated by a set of (output) affective reactions. (shrink)

This paper responds to two arguments that have been offered against the positing of ‘i-desires’, imaginative counterparts of desire supposedly involved in fiction, pretence, and mindreading. The Introspection Argument asks why, if there are both i-desires and desires, the distinction is so unfamiliar and hard to draw, unlike the relatively clear distinctions between perception and mental imagery, or belief and belief-like imagining. The Accountability Argument asks how it can make sense to treat merely imaginative states as revealing of someone’s psychology, (...) the way we do with responses to fiction. I argue that carefully considering the relationship between other states and their imaginative counterparts sheds light on how we should expect i-desires to differ from desires, and suggests that we may often be in states that are _indeterminate_, in limbo between the two categories. This indeterminacy explains why the distinction is often hard to draw, and why these states can be revealing about us even without (determinately) being real desires. (shrink)

In this paper, with reference to Vito Acconci’s Following Piece (1969) and Sophie Calle’s Take care of yourself (2007), I show that some works of conceptual art rely on exemplification to convey ideas, and I defend the following claims about those works. In the first place, I argue that the kinds of events and of objects they present us with are relevant for appreciating the views the works convey. In the second place, siding with Elisabeth Schellekens (2007) and Peter Goldie (...) (2007), I argue, contra James Young (2001), that those artworks can yield experiential knowledge. In the third place, I argue that those artworks also possess probatory value. Finally, I maintain that those artworks can be valuable instruments for the education of the emotions. (shrink)

Images share a common feature with all phenomena of imagination, since they make us aware of what is not present or what is fictional and not existent at all. From this perspective, the philosophical approach of Kendall Lewis Walton—born in 1939 and active since the 1960s at the University of Michigan—is perhaps one of the most notable contributions to image theory. Walton is an authoritative figure within the tradition of analytical aesthetics. His contributions have had a considerable influence on a (...) broad range of topics, such as the role of categories in the understanding of the arts (Walton, “Categories of Art”. Philosophical Review, 79(3): 334–367, 1970), the ambiguous nature of emotions in the experience of fictional stories (Walton, “Fearing Fictions”. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(1): 5–25, 1978), the transparency of photographic images compared to other depictions (Walton, “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism”. Noûs, 18(1): 67–72, 1984) and, above all, the development of a general theory of fiction as imaginative activity. His 1990 book Mimesis as Make-believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts collects and re-elaborates articles Walton published on the subject since the 1970s. Though he does not attempt to give a definitive answer for what imagination is, Walton thoroughly investigates its role in all cases of representational works, describing depictions as a specific case of “make-believe” activity: images, in short, are specific props of a visual and perceptual “make-believe” game. (shrink)

An introduction to philosophy of language since Frege, focusing on the 20th century.

Thanks to the Inlaks Foundation in India, I was able to do my doctoral research on Our Talk About Nonexistents at Oxford in the early eighties. The two greatest philosophers of that heaven of analytical philosophy - Peter Strawson and Michael Dummett - supervised my work, reading and criticising all the fledgling philosophy that I wrote during those three years. At Sir Peter's request, Gareth Evans, shortly before his death, lent me an unpublished transcript of Kripke's John Locke Lectures. Work (...) on the Appendix about Indian Philosophy was supervised by the late Professor Bimal Krishna Matilal with whom informal but intense philosophical conversations used to spill over into dinner at his place almost every other day. It was Professor Matilal who sent me, over a summer, to study a tough Navya-Nyaya text under his own Nyaya teacher Pandit Visvabandhu Tarkatirtha at Calcutta. All four of these teachers were as kind to me as my life-long mentor in philosophy Professor Pranab Kumar Sen, whose clarity and depth remain the unreachable regu lative ideal of my intellect. When I came back to India, my life became blissfully free of the agonising anxiety to publish, until, after a conference at Jadavpur University where I gave an impromptu paper, ironically enough, on Non-doings, I met Derek Parfit. He had a six-hour conversation with me, explicitly planning my life. Five years had already elapsed since I had finished my D. Phil, but Derek read my thesis and liked it. (shrink)

Reflection on the nature and value of fiction has often paid attention to the possibility of acquiring knowledge through engaging with fictional works. The alleged imaginative character of fiction appreciation and the sort of emotional responses that fiction is able to prompt in the viewer have been frequently invoked in order to explain the peculiar cognitive value that fictions may possess. In this paper, I would like to question whether fiction as such possesses a specific kind of value. Although I (...) agree that fictional works can convey certain kinds of knowledge, I think that the cognitive virtues that we attribute to fictional works do not have much to do with their fictional character as such. Rather, these values are grounded upon the various properties that the different representational artifacts that can serve to produce fictional works possess. Thus while I think fictional works can deliver various sorts of cognitive value, this value is not intrinsically connected with the fictional nature of these works. (shrink)

Are there limits to what it is morally okay to imagine? More particularly, is imaginatively inhabiting morally suspect perspectives something that is off-limits for truly virtuous people? In this paper, I investigate the surprisingly fraught relation between virtue and a familiar form of imaginative perspective taking I call empathy. I draw out a puzzle about the relation between empathy and virtuousness. First, I present an argument to the effect that empathy with vicious attitudes is not, in fact, something that the (...) fully virtuous person can indulge in. At least one prominent way of thinking about the psychology of the virtuous person excludes the possibility that the virtuous could emotionally apprehend the world in a less than virtuous way, and empathizing with vicious outlooks does seem to run afoul of that restriction. Then, I develop an argument that runs in the contrary direction: virtue in fact requires empathy with vicious outlooks, at least in some situations. There is reason to think that a crucial part of being virtuous is ministering effectively to others’ needs, and there is also reason to think that other people may need to be empathized with, even if their emotional outlooks are at least minorly vicious. Finally, I outline two different solutions to this puzzle. Both solutions hold some promise, but they also bring new challenges in their train. (shrink)

Memphis Elvis is cool; Vegas Elvis is cheesy. How come? To call something cheesy is, ostensibly, to disparage it, and yet cheesy acts are some of the most popular in popular culture today. How is this possible? The concepts of cheese, cheesy, and cheesiness play an important and increasingly ubiquitous role in popular culture today. I offer an analysis of these concepts, distinguishing them from nearby concepts like kitchy and campy. Along the way I draw attention to the important roles (...) of cultural/historical context, background knowledge, and especially artist’s intentions as they are relevant to aesthetic assessments involving cheese and related concepts. I go on to contend that these concepts, properly understood, serve as helpful test cases concerning some important issues in contemporary aesthetics, such as the paradox of negative art and the contentious debate between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 1, Page 307-325, March 2022.

There is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experience and artistic value accommodate the existence of boring art? How can being bored constitute an appropriate mode of engagement with a work of art as a work of art? More (...) broadly, how can there be works of art whose very success requires the experience of boredom? Our goal in this paper is threefold. After offering a brief survey of kinds of boring art, we: i) derive a set of questions that we argue constitutes the philosophical problem of boring art; ii) elaborate an empirically informed theory of boredom that furnishes the philosophical problem with a deeper sense of the affect at the heart of the phenomenon; and iii) conclude by offering and defending a solution to the problem that explains why and how artworks might wish to make the experience of boredom key to their aesthetic and artistic success. (shrink)

Contrary to the emotions we feel in everyday contexts, the emotions we feel for fictional characters do not seem to require a belief in the existence of their object. This observation has given birth to a famous philosophical paradox (the ‘paradox of fiction’), and has led some philosophers to claim that the emotions we feel for fictional characters are not genuine emotions but rather “quasi-emotions”. Since then, the existence of quasi-emotions has been a hotly debated issue. Recently, philosophers and psychologists (...) have proposed to solve this debate by using empirical methods and experimentally studying differences between ‘real’ and ‘fictional’ emotions. In this paper, our goal is to assess the success of these attempts. We begin by surveying the existing empirical literature and stressing the methodological problems that plague most studies that might seem relevant to the debate, before focusing on recent studies that avoid this pitfall. We then argue that, due to conceptual problems, these studies fail to be relevant to the philosophical debate and emphasize new directions for future empirical research on the topic. (shrink)

In this paper, I relate key features of Adolf Reinach’s abundant ontology of propositional states of affairs of his to Armstrong’s—or an Armstrongian—state of affairs ontology, with special regard to finding out how sparse or abundant the latter is with respect to negative states of affairs. After introducing the issue, I clarify the notion of a propositional state of affairs, paying special attention to the notion of abstract versus concrete. I show how Reinach’s states of affairs are propositional, and how (...) they compare with Chisholm’s well-known propositional states of affairs. In the next section, I outline Reinach’s five roles for states of affairs and show that only one of them is relevant to Armstrongian state of affairs ontology. In the following section, I utilise this role to create a ranking of state of affairs ontologies according to how abundant they are. It is, however, unclear which level Armstrongian state of affairs ontology is at, since it is unclear if, like Reinach’s ontology, it includes negative states of affairs. In the final section, I argue that the answer is a qualified ‘yes’, i.e. it does not occupy the sparsest level. (shrink)

The nature and consequences of readers’ affective engagement with literature has, in recent years, captured the attention of experimental psychologists and philosophers alike. Psychological studies have focused principally on the causal mechanisms explaining our affective interactions with fictions, prescinding from questions concerning their rational justifiability. Transportation Theory, for instance, has sought to map out the mechanisms the reader tracks the narrative experientially, mirroring its descriptions through first-personal perceptual imaginings, affective and motor responses and even evaluative beliefs. Analytical philosophers, by contrast, (...) have largely focussed on the problems fiction poses for traditional theories of rationality (as in the ‘Paradox of Fiction), challenging fiction’s wider epistemic value. The result has been a theoretical impasse in which the power of fiction to affectively ‘transport’ a reader is at once often lauded (by psychologists) as a privileged route to interpersonal understanding, and condemned (by philosophers) as an abdication of the authority of reason. This chapter surveys some of the central claims on both sides, tracing the source of the debate to competing conceptions of rationality. (shrink)

Nostalgia and food are intertwined universals in human experience. All of us have experienced nostalgia centered on food, and all of us have experienced food infused with nostalgia. To explore the links between nostalgia and food, I start with a rough taxonomy of nostalgic foods, and illustrate it with examples. Despite their diversity, I argue that there is a psychological commonality to experiencing nostalgic foods of all kinds: imagination. On my account, imagination is the key to understanding the cognitive, conative, (...) affective, and perceptual aspects of experiencing nostalgic foods. In turn, the recognition of imagination’s centrality in experiencing nostalgic foods reveals how food can produce aesthetic experiences comparable to those produced by literature and painting. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the application of contemporary theories of the imagination—largely drawn from cognitive psychology—to our understanding of film. Topics include the role of the imagination in our learning what facts hold within a fictional film, including what characters’ motivations, beliefs, and feelings are; how our perceptual experience of a film explains our imaginative visualizing of its contents; how fictional scenarios in films generate certain affective and evaluative responses; and how such responses compare to those we have toward analogous circumstances (...) in real life. (shrink)

In this introduction, I consider different problems posed by the use of singular terms in fiction (section 1), paying especial attention to proper names and, in particular, to names of real people, places, etc. As we will see (section 2), descriptivist and Millian theories of reference face different kinds of problems in explaining the use of fictional names in fiction-related contexts. Moreover, the task of advancing a uniform account of names in these contexts—an account which deals not only with fictional (...) names but also with “real” names—will prove to be very hard no matter whether we favour realist or antirealist intuitions about fictional discourse (section 3). Section 4 offers an overview of the content of this volume, with emphasis on the discussion between Manuel García-Carpintero and Stacie Friend about the meaning of “real” names in fiction-related contexts, the main topic of the Third Blasco Disputatio. (shrink)

The paradox of fiction tackles how we can be considered as rational while having emotions towards fictional and thus non-existing events. I aim to show that the different philosophical positions on this issue can be reconciled within the emotion regulation framework. This approach refines the concept of emotion, defining it as a sequence of distinct regulated processes. I argue that the philosophical solutions that have been proposed to solve the paradox can be framed as different regulation mechanisms occuring at each (...) stage of the emotion sequence. Based on these results, I propose an original and unifying solution to the paradox of fiction which relies on the notion of quasi-belief. On one hand, this solution solves the paradox of fiction through rejecting each proposition of the paradox at different stages of the emotion process. On the other hand, it explains through the notion of rational appraisal why the question of the existence of emotions towards fictional events is bound to the question of their rationality. The functional roles of emotion towards fictional events are thus discussed, showing how rationality shapes emotions towards fictional events. (shrink)

A familiar question in the literature on emotional responses to fiction, originally put forward by Colin Radford, is how such responses can be rational. How can we make sense of pitying Anna Karenina when we know there is no such person? In this paper I argue that contrary to the usual interpretation, the question of rationality has nothing to do with the Paradox of Fiction. Instead, the real problem is why there is a divergence in our normative assessments of emotions (...) in different contexts. I argue that explaining this divergence requires a more nuanced account of the rationality of emotion than has previously been proposed. One advantage of my proposal over alternatives is that it helps to explain one way we can learn emotionally from fiction and imagination. (shrink)

Over the past four decades, the paradox of fiction has sparked considerable debate among philosophers. Unfortunately, the most promising solution to this puzzle, thought theory, currently earns its plausibility by way of intuition rather than evidence. I aim to address this by updating thought theory in light of recent empirical findings on affect. I will draw upon a wide range of scientific research—on the cognitive mechanisms driving emotion, the role of affect in counterfactual mind wandering and prospection, and the evolutionary (...) function of affect—to substantiate the claim that fictions can give rise to both real and rational emotional states. (shrink)

This essay argues that there are theoretical benefits to keeping distinct—more pervasively than the literature has done so far—the psychological states of imagining that p versus believing that in-the-story p, when it comes to cognition of fiction and other forms of narrative. Positing both in the minds of a story’s audience helps explain the full range of reactions characteristic of story consumption. This distinction also has interesting conceptual and explanatory dimensions that haven’t been carefully observed, and the two mental state (...) types make distinct contributions to generating emotional responses to stories. Finally, the differences between the mental states illuminate how a given story can be both shared with others and at the same time experienced as personal. (shrink)

The question of the cognitive role of fictionality is this: what is the correct cognitive attitude to take to p, when it is fictional that p? We began by considering one answer to this question, implicit in the work of Kendall Walton, that the correct response to a fictional proposition is to imagine that proposition. However, this approach is silent in cases of fictional incompleteness, where neither p nor its negation are fictional. We argue that that Waltonians should embrace a (...) pluralistic account of the cognitive role of fictional incompleteness: in some cases of fictional incompleteness, we are permitted to resolve the incompleteness during our engagement with the target fiction, and in other cases, we are obliged not to resolve the incompleteness. But though pluralism is accommodated by Walton’s wider account of fictionality, it puts tension on his motivating idea that fictionality stands to the imagination as truth stands to belief. And so we develop a rival conception of the cognitive role of fictionality that is built around a different analogy: on this evidentialist approach, (known) fictionality stands to the imagination as evidence stands to credence. (shrink)

Contemporary accounts on fictional emotions, i.e., emotions experienced towards objects we know to be fictional, are mainly concerned with explaining their rationality or lack thereof. In this context dominated by an interest in the role of belief, questions regarding their phenomenal quality have received far less attention: it is often assumed that they feel “similar” to emotions that target real objects. Against this background, this paper focuses on the possible specificities of fictional emotions’ qualitative feel. It starts by presenting what (...) I call the “phenomenological question” about the qualitative feel of fictional emotions (section 1) and by showing that this is irreducible to questions about their cognitive, intentional, evaluative, and embodied nature (section 2). Drawing on some insights from early phenomenologists, the next two sections elaborate criteria to distinguish between real and sham emotions on the one side (section 3) and between genuine and non-genuine emotions on the other (section 4). Finally, I apply this orthogonal distinction to the particular case of fictional emotions (section 5). The paper argues that fictional emotions are neither sham emotions nor quasi-emotions, but full-fledged emotional experiences, despite them displaying the distinctive phenomenology of emotions experienced as non-genuine. In the particular case of fictional emotions, they are non-genuine because our psychology is in fact in a state dominated by aesthetic enjoyment. (shrink)

Vor etwa einem Jahrhundert entwickelte sich im deutschsprachigen Raum imRahmen einer allgemeinen Charakterisierung unserer ästhetischen Erfahrungvon Kunst eine umfassende Debatte über die Natur und die Möglichkeit vonGefühlen über fiktionale Charaktere und Situationen. Die damalige Debatteweist große Ähnlichkeit zur heutigen analytischen Debatte über das Paradoxonder Fiktion auf. Trotz des unterschiedlichen jeweiligen historischen Kontextesfindet sich in der analytischen Debatte und in der Philosophie zu Beginn des20. Jahrhunderts fast der gleiche Lösungsansatz. Gefühle über Fiktionen seienQuasi-Gefühle, d.h. ein gefühlsartiges Phänomen mit einer Realität sui (...) generis ,dem im Unterschied zu den wirklichen Gefühlen kein Urteil über die Existenzdes Objektes zugrunde liegt und dem die Verbindung zur Motivation fehlt. Zieldieses Aufsatzes ist es, eine Untersuchung der These der Quasi-Gefühle An-fang des 20. Jahrhunderts zu unternehmen sowie die Analogien zur heutigenDebatte zu zeigen. Der Aufsatz baut sich um drei thematische Achsen herumauf. Zunächst wird eine historische Darstellung der These der Gefühle über Fiktionen bei Groos, Lipps, Lange, Geiger und Külpe unternommen. Diese bil-det den Rahmen für die Debatte über die Quasi-Gefühle in der Grazer Schule.Anschließend wird die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Diskussion über Quasi-Gefühle bei Meinong, Witasek, Saxinger und Schwarz gerichtet. Zuletzt wer-den die Berührungspunkte zur heutigen analytischen Debatte im Ausgang vonsystematischen Fragen aufgezeigt. (shrink)

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. (...) Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end. (shrink)

Emotions Caused by Untrue Propositions: A Broader View of the Paradox of Fiction Ever since Colin Radford wrote his article ‘How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?’ in 1975, philosophers have tried to solve the so-called paradox of fiction, or the question how we can be moved by objects of which we know they don’t really exist. What is striking about discussions on the paradox of fiction is that they often present fictional works as collections of (...) untrue statements and focus on the content of these works, without regard for their form or mode of presentation. In this paper, I argue for a re-examination of the paradox of fiction, in which the work of fiction is treated as a complex of form and content. In this regard, I propose to expand Peter Lamarque’s thought theory, which he explicitly formulated to solve the paradox of fiction, with his later developed concept of opacity, which states that the content of the imaginings we form when reading fiction are fundamentally connected to the specific descriptions within the fictional work. (shrink)

Este texto tem como objetivo apresentar a principal motivação filosófica para se defender uma teoria causal da memória, que é explicar como pode um evento que se deu no passado estar relacionado a uma experiência mnêmica que se dá no presente. Para tanto, iniciaremos apresentando a noção de memória de maneira informal e geral, para depois apresentar elementos mais detalhados. Finalizamos apresentando uma teoria causal da memória que se beneficia da noção de veritação (truthmaking).