Scared by things that don’t exist?

The paradox of fiction arises from three seemingly true but incompatible claims:

1. We have emotional responses to fictional characters, objects, and events that we encounter in works of art.

2. To have emotional responses to something, we must believe that it exists.

3. We do not believe that fictional characters, objects, and events exist.

The paradox is that we cannot accept all three claims at the same time without contradiction.

If we accept 1 and 2, meaning that we accept that we have emotional responses to fiction and that, therefore, we must believe that these fictional things exist, then we cannot accept number 3 (that we do not believe that fictional things exist). Otherwise we would be both accepting and not accepting that fictional things exist, which would be a contradiction.

We have emotional responses to fictional characters, objects, and events that we encounter in works of art. 

In a similar way, let’s say that we accept 2 and 3. Now we accept that, in order to have emotional responses to something, we must believe that it exists. We also accept that we don’t believe that fictional things exist. But now we must conclude that we cannot possibly have emotional responses to fiction, and this clearly contradicts our own experience as an audience for movies or books.

And finally, if we accept 1 and 3 (we do have emotional responses to fiction and we do not believe that fictional characters exist), then we must reject 2, which means that emotional responses do not require existence beliefs. But that leaves us with a riddle: how can it be that we respond emotionally to something that clearly does not exist?

Does fiction really cause emotions?

Let’s see what we can do. How can we solve this paradox? Given our three assumptions, any solution must deny one or more of them in order to resolve the contradiction.

So one way would be to deny claim 1: “We have emotional responses to fictional characters, objects, and events that we encounter in works of art.”

Perhaps we don’t. We could argue that we do not really have emotional responses to fiction, but only make-believe or simulate them. According to this theory, when we watch a horror movie, for example, we play a game of make-believe in which we imagine ourselves to be in the situation of the characters and act as if we are afraid of the monster.

The problem with this theory is that it seems to contradict our experience. When we see a really good monster movie, we are really scared. When the love interest finds a tragic death in the icy ocean, we are really devastated along with the …

Read the full article which is published on Daily Philosophy (external link)