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Post by kristy on Mar 17, 2008 19:07:45 GMT -6
I never liked The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings things. Never could get into it.
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Gravity
Fanatic Fantasizer
I Dare You To Tell Me No
Posts: 320
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Post by Gravity on Mar 17, 2008 19:24:59 GMT -6
Yup, I read about that on CNN.com at work a couple nights ago and flipped out! YAY! So excited! Three times the Daniel Radcliffe! *sigh* LOL
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Post by kristy on Mar 17, 2008 19:27:16 GMT -6
Oh yes...I saw him on Charm City Cakes, and he looked stoned out of his mind. LOL
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Post by Julie on Mar 22, 2008 9:33:46 GMT -6
I found an essay I wrote about Half-Blood Prince for my philosophy class in college... forgot all about that! It was on the paradox of fiction, which is about feeling emotion for characters that we know are not real, and I used HBP as an example throughout the essay.
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Post by kristy on Mar 22, 2008 9:36:00 GMT -6
Post it! I'd love to read it.
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Post by Julie on Mar 22, 2008 12:53:50 GMT -6
Okay LOL.
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Post by Julie on Mar 22, 2008 12:59:04 GMT -6
This past summer, I, along with millions of readers worldwide, counted down to one special event: the release of the sixth book in J.K. Rowling’s acclaimed Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. As soon as I had the 652-page epic in my hands, a chill of anticipation and delight rushed through my body. I had waited two years for this, the next chapter of Harry Potter’s spellbinding saga. As expected, as soon as I began reading the book, I could not stop. I raced through the entire novel in just over a day, stopping only occasionally to sleep, eat, and blink. As I read, I smiled, and I laughed, often. I cooed “awww!” at every adorable bit of budding romance. My heart raced with apprehension as I neared the book’s frightening climax; I gasped aloud at every surprise and shocker, and in the end, I will admit without shame, I cried. One of the most beloved characters of the series, a favorite of mine as well, is killed in this book, and after I finished reading it, my euphoria over experiencing the magic of yet another Harry Potter novel was mixed with a odd feeling of depression.
Some philosophers would question my reaction. How, they would wonder, could I be depressed over the “death” of a fictional character, a person who I know does not really exist? Going a step further, how could I feel any emotion toward any character in Harry Potter or any other fictional book? None of the characters are real, so how could I feel sorry for them, happy for them, or afraid for them? These questions exemplify what philosophers call the paradox of fiction.
Colin Radford, who initially wrote about the paradox of fiction, argued that “our apparent ability to respond emotionally to fictional characters and events is ‘irrational, incoherent, and inconsistent.’” The paradox is comprised of three propositions which contradict each other. The first is that we do have emotions for purely fictional characters and situations, which we know to be fictional. The second proposition is that having emotions for an object logically presupposes a belief in the existence of that object. The third and final proposition is that we do not believe in the existence of objects we know to be fictional. If each of these statements is taken to be true, a paradox is formed. According to the third proposition, if we know that a character in a book, for example, is fictional, then we do not believe that character is a real person. We may still feel emotions for this character, according to the first proposition, even though we know he or she is not real. The second proposition, however, states that having emotions for this character would logically mean we do believe he or she truly exists.
There are plenty of logical human beings, though, who do feel for characters in stories, yet do not deny that they are fictional creations. When I read Harry Potter, for instance, I am well-aware that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and all the rest of the characters are not real people, just as I know that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is not a real place. They are all just figments of the vast imagination of J.K. Rowling, intricately portrayed through a pattern of words on the pages of a set of books. I know all of this, and yet, I cannot help the emotions I feel toward them. I delight in Harry’s triumphs and sympathize with his defeats. I root for Ron and Hermione to finally confess their love for each other. I loathe Voldemort and Snape and the other villains. Am I irrational or illogical for having these feelings? My answer would be no; I consider myself an intelligent and logical person, and I would say most other readers who get caught up in emotions over a book are the same. We naturally have emotions for well-written fictional characters, so the first proposition is true.
Some philosophers, however, would argue that what we feel when reading a fiction book or watching a fictional movie or play, for instance, are not true emotions, but less complex states, such as moods or reflex reactions. This is the first possible solution to the paradox of fiction, named the Non-Intentionalist Solution. The Non-Intentionalist Solution proposes that we may feel cheerful or sad after experiencing a work of fiction or that we may react with shock to certain scenes, but none of these are real emotions. Cheerfulness and sadness are moods, and shock is only a reaction. According to Jerrold Levinson in his article “A Survey of the Terrain,” these all “lack the full intentionality and cognitivity of emotions.” Thus, this solution rejects the first proposition, that we do have emotions for fictional characters. In my opinion, the Non-Intentionalist Solution may work for less complex works of fiction, which may shock people or make them laugh without containing enough depth to invoke a true emotional response. A poorly-scripted “slasher” movie, for example, may shock an audience and illicit gasps and screams from inside a dark theater, without evoking real fear in its viewers. On the other hand, a more complex psychological thriller, such as “Silence of the Lambs,” may leave some viewers feeling deeply unsettled and frightened, even though they know that it, too, is only a work of fiction. Even Levinson admits that the Non-Intentionalist Solution “seems to apply comfortably to only a small portion of the full range of developed responses to fictions.”
As a person who has always enjoyed movies and books that will get an emotional response out of me, I can attest to the fact that there is a larger range of responses to fiction that do not seem to qualify as simply “moods” or “reactions.” I was not merely in a “sad mood” when I finished reading Harry Potter this summer; in fact, I would argue that the book left me in a “good” mood because I enjoyed it, even though I was filled with anguish over the death of one of my favorite characters. Likewise, I do not believe that my tears over that character’s death were simply a “reflex reaction” to the words I had read. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “emotion” as “a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling.” In the case of my example, my anguish was a mental state, accompanied by the physiological response of crying. Based on this definition, it is hard to deny that many of the responses people have to works of fiction qualify as emotions. Thus, this first solution does not fully solve the paradox of fiction.
A second possible solution is the Suspension of Belief Solution, which says that while we are caught up in fictions, we temporarily allow ourselves to believe that the fiction is real, which allows us to have emotions towards fictional characters and events. This solution denies the third proposition and supports the second. The Illusion Theory, as this solution is also called, goes along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s idea of “willing suspension of disbelief.” However, Coleridge’s original idea was simpler and less literal than this solution, which is trying to say not that people find fictional characters and events so realistic they are believable, or that people wish certain fictions were real, but that they actually begin to believe in the existence of such fictions, even after knowing that the fictions are not real. Gregory Currie dismisses this idea in this brief statement:
I agree with Currie’s take on this solution. I often get caught up in the fictional story of a book or movie, and there have been many fictional character who have been so well-portrayed that they seem almost like real people to me, but never have I actually believed in their existence. Part of the fun of fiction is that I can let myself escape to a different, often imaginary place and have experiences I might never otherwise have, through the eyes of make-believe characters, to whom I nonetheless can relate. If I truly believed a fiction were real, even only temporarily, I am not sure it would be as enjoyable. Professor Harry Deutsch alludes to these same notions in his “Postscript on Fear and Pity.”
A third proposed solution is the Surrogate Object Solution, which suggests that the reason we respond emotionally to fiction is because we do not have emotions toward the fiction objects themselves, but toward real objects, which, in our minds, are represented by the fictional ones. When we read, we think of real people in place of the characters, real events in place of what actually happens in the story, and so on. For example, an American audience might get emotional while watching a movie in which a plane crashes into a building because such a scene might remind them of the September 11 tragedy. Members of the audience would probably be more prone to feeling sadness or fear during such a scene after September 11, 2001 than they would have before that date. Likewise, a girl who had recently lost her grandfather to cancer might think of him when reading a story in which a character dies of cancer and cry, whereas she might not have been so easily moved to tears otherwise.
I think the Surrogate Object Solution does hold some weight, in that there are examples, such as the ones I have described, in which I see this theory working. However, I do not feel that it solves the paradox of fiction at all, for it only applies under certain conditions. If the girl reading the story about a character dying of cancer had never lost a loved one to a disease, she would have no surrogate object to insert into her interpretation of the story. Any emotional response she would have while reading the story, such as crying, would be directed solely toward the fictional characters. Likewise, when I cried over the death of the character in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I could have been crying over a situation I had really experienced, involving a person of whom the character reminded me, but in reality, I was not. This character, although well-written and vivid in my mind, did not remind me of anyone I know in my real life, and when he died in the book, my emotional response was caused by his death specifically. There are too many other situations like this for the Surrogate Object theory to be considered a real solution to the paradox of fiction.
The solution that I think best serves to explain the paradox of fiction is the Anti-Judgmentalist Solution. This solution concedes to my view that having an emotional response to a piece of fiction does not require a belief in the fiction. It only requires “weaker sorts of cognitions, such as seeing a certain way, or conceiving in a certain manner, or regarding as if such and such.” This solution challenges the second proposition, which is the one I feel is incorrect, of the three. It is possible to feel emotion toward fiction without believing it to be real. All we must do is regard the characters and situations as if they could be real or believe in their existence within the realm of fiction. Continuing with my Harry Potter example, I know that the story of Harry Potter is not true, in real life, that is. Within the series of books and movies, however, I have to believe that all of the events that have happened to Harry really occurred, within the story, or none of it will make sense or serve a purpose. As Levinson explains,
When I cried while reading Harry Potter, the emotion I felt was because a character I had admired for his wisdom and humor died unnaturally and unexpectedly and because he was a character to whom Harry Potter himself was close. I felt not only shock and sorrow over the character’s death, but pity for Harry as well, who had lost a valued mentor and ally. I did not really believe in the existence of either character; I did not, for example, send “Harry Potter” a letter of condolence, as I would have if the character had been a real, living person. However, I saw both characters and their relationship to one another as “real” within the context of the story, and this sparked my emotion. Also, it is natural to feel pity for anyone who loses someone he or she cares about, and that was another motivation for my emotion. Both support the anti-judgmentalist view.
Does the anti-judgmentalist theory really solve the paradox of fiction, though? It is difficult to say. Philosophers who believe it is illogical to have emotion toward a fictional object will continue to argue this theory, while those who do believe in emotional responses to fiction will continue to dismiss the other theories that go against it. This is why the issue of emotion and fiction creates such a paradox, and because it so subjective and psychological in nature, it is unlikely there will ever be one, unanimously-accepted answer.
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Post by kristy on Mar 22, 2008 22:19:44 GMT -6
This past summer, I, along with millions of readers worldwide, counted down to one special event: the release of the sixth book in J.K. Rowling’s acclaimed Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. As soon as I had the 652-page epic in my hands, a chill of anticipation and delight rushed through my body. I had waited two years for this, the next chapter of Harry Potter’s spellbinding saga. As expected, as soon as I began reading the book, I could not stop. I raced through the entire novel in just over a day, stopping only occasionally to sleep, eat, and blink. As I read, I smiled, and I laughed, often. I cooed “awww!” at every adorable bit of budding romance. My heart raced with apprehension as I neared the book’s frightening climax; I gasped aloud at every surprise and shocker, and in the end, I will admit without shame, I cried. One of the most beloved characters of the series, a favorite of mine as well, is killed in this book, and after I finished reading it, my euphoria over experiencing the magic of yet another Harry Potter novel was mixed with a odd feeling of depression. Some philosophers would question my reaction. How, they would wonder, could I be depressed over the “death” of a fictional character, a person who I know does not really exist? Going a step further, how could I feel any emotion toward any character in Harry Potter or any other fictional book? None of the characters are real, so how could I feel sorry for them, happy for them, or afraid for them? These questions exemplify what philosophers call the paradox of fiction. Colin Radford, who initially wrote about the paradox of fiction, argued that “our apparent ability to respond emotionally to fictional characters and events is ‘irrational, incoherent, and inconsistent.’” The paradox is comprised of three propositions which contradict each other. The first is that we do have emotions for purely fictional characters and situations, which we know to be fictional. The second proposition is that having emotions for an object logically presupposes a belief in the existence of that object. The third and final proposition is that we do not believe in the existence of objects we know to be fictional. If each of these statements is taken to be true, a paradox is formed. According to the third proposition, if we know that a character in a book, for example, is fictional, then we do not believe that character is a real person. We may still feel emotions for this character, according to the first proposition, even though we know he or she is not real. The second proposition, however, states that having emotions for this character would logically mean we do believe he or she truly exists. There are plenty of logical human beings, though, who do feel for characters in stories, yet do not deny that they are fictional creations. When I read Harry Potter, for instance, I am well-aware that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and all the rest of the characters are not real people, just as I know that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is not a real place. They are all just figments of the vast imagination of J.K. Rowling, intricately portrayed through a pattern of words on the pages of a set of books. I know all of this, and yet, I cannot help the emotions I feel toward them. I delight in Harry’s triumphs and sympathize with his defeats. I root for Ron and Hermione to finally confess their love for each other. I loathe Voldemort and Snape and the other villains. Am I irrational or illogical for having these feelings? My answer would be no; I consider myself an intelligent and logical person, and I would say most other readers who get caught up in emotions over a book are the same. We naturally have emotions for well-written fictional characters, so the first proposition is true. Some philosophers, however, would argue that what we feel when reading a fiction book or watching a fictional movie or play, for instance, are not true emotions, but less complex states, such as moods or reflex reactions. This is the first possible solution to the paradox of fiction, named the Non-Intentionalist Solution. The Non-Intentionalist Solution proposes that we may feel cheerful or sad after experiencing a work of fiction or that we may react with shock to certain scenes, but none of these are real emotions. Cheerfulness and sadness are moods, and shock is only a reaction. According to Jerrold Levinson in his article “A Survey of the Terrain,” these all “lack the full intentionality and cognitivity of emotions.” Thus, this solution rejects the first proposition, that we do have emotions for fictional characters. In my opinion, the Non-Intentionalist Solution may work for less complex works of fiction, which may shock people or make them laugh without containing enough depth to invoke a true emotional response. A poorly-scripted “slasher” movie, for example, may shock an audience and illicit gasps and screams from inside a dark theater, without evoking real fear in its viewers. On the other hand, a more complex psychological thriller, such as “Silence of the Lambs,” may leave some viewers feeling deeply unsettled and frightened, even though they know that it, too, is only a work of fiction. Even Levinson admits that the Non-Intentionalist Solution “seems to apply comfortably to only a small portion of the full range of developed responses to fictions.” As a person who has always enjoyed movies and books that will get an emotional response out of me, I can attest to the fact that there is a larger range of responses to fiction that do not seem to qualify as simply “moods” or “reactions.” I was not merely in a “sad mood” when I finished reading Harry Potter this summer; in fact, I would argue that the book left me in a “good” mood because I enjoyed it, even though I was filled with anguish over the death of one of my favorite characters. Likewise, I do not believe that my tears over that character’s death were simply a “reflex reaction” to the words I had read. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “emotion” as “a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling.” In the case of my example, my anguish was a mental state, accompanied by the physiological response of crying. Based on this definition, it is hard to deny that many of the responses people have to works of fiction qualify as emotions. Thus, this first solution does not fully solve the paradox of fiction. A second possible solution is the Suspension of Belief Solution, which says that while we are caught up in fictions, we temporarily allow ourselves to believe that the fiction is real, which allows us to have emotions towards fictional characters and events. This solution denies the third proposition and supports the second. The Illusion Theory, as this solution is also called, goes along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s idea of “willing suspension of disbelief.” However, Coleridge’s original idea was simpler and less literal than this solution, which is trying to say not that people find fictional characters and events so realistic they are believable, or that people wish certain fictions were real, but that they actually begin to believe in the existence of such fictions, even after knowing that the fictions are not real. Gregory Currie dismisses this idea in this brief statement: I agree with Currie’s take on this solution. I often get caught up in the fictional story of a book or movie, and there have been many fictional character who have been so well-portrayed that they seem almost like real people to me, but never have I actually believed in their existence. Part of the fun of fiction is that I can let myself escape to a different, often imaginary place and have experiences I might never otherwise have, through the eyes of make-believe characters, to whom I nonetheless can relate. If I truly believed a fiction were real, even only temporarily, I am not sure it would be as enjoyable. Professor Harry Deutsch alludes to these same notions in his “Postscript on Fear and Pity.” A third proposed solution is the Surrogate Object Solution, which suggests that the reason we respond emotionally to fiction is because we do not have emotions toward the fiction objects themselves, but toward real objects, which, in our minds, are represented by the fictional ones. When we read, we think of real people in place of the characters, real events in place of what actually happens in the story, and so on. For example, an American audience might get emotional while watching a movie in which a plane crashes into a building because such a scene might remind them of the September 11 tragedy. Members of the audience would probably be more prone to feeling sadness or fear during such a scene after September 11, 2001 than they would have before that date. Likewise, a girl who had recently lost her grandfather to cancer might think of him when reading a story in which a character dies of cancer and cry, whereas she might not have been so easily moved to tears otherwise. I think the Surrogate Object Solution does hold some weight, in that there are examples, such as the ones I have described, in which I see this theory working. However, I do not feel that it solves the paradox of fiction at all, for it only applies under certain conditions. If the girl reading the story about a character dying of cancer had never lost a loved one to a disease, she would have no surrogate object to insert into her interpretation of the story. Any emotional response she would have while reading the story, such as crying, would be directed solely toward the fictional characters. Likewise, when I cried over the death of the character in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I could have been crying over a situation I had really experienced, involving a person of whom the character reminded me, but in reality, I was not. This character, although well-written and vivid in my mind, did not remind me of anyone I know in my real life, and when he died in the book, my emotional response was caused by his death specifically. There are too many other situations like this for the Surrogate Object theory to be considered a real solution to the paradox of fiction. The solution that I think best serves to explain the paradox of fiction is the Anti-Judgmentalist Solution. This solution concedes to my view that having an emotional response to a piece of fiction does not require a belief in the fiction. It only requires “weaker sorts of cognitions, such as seeing a certain way, or conceiving in a certain manner, or regarding as if such and such.” This solution challenges the second proposition, which is the one I feel is incorrect, of the three. It is possible to feel emotion toward fiction without believing it to be real. All we must do is regard the characters and situations as if they could be real or believe in their existence within the realm of fiction. Continuing with my Harry Potter example, I know that the story of Harry Potter is not true, in real life, that is. Within the series of books and movies, however, I have to believe that all of the events that have happened to Harry really occurred, within the story, or none of it will make sense or serve a purpose. As Levinson explains, When I cried while reading Harry Potter, the emotion I felt was because a character I had admired for his wisdom and humor died unnaturally and unexpectedly and because he was a character to whom Harry Potter himself was close. I felt not only shock and sorrow over the character’s death, but pity for Harry as well, who had lost a valued mentor and ally. I did not really believe in the existence of either character; I did not, for example, send “Harry Potter” a letter of condolence, as I would have if the character had been a real, living person. However, I saw both characters and their relationship to one another as “real” within the context of the story, and this sparked my emotion. Also, it is natural to feel pity for anyone who loses someone he or she cares about, and that was another motivation for my emotion. Both support the anti-judgmentalist view. Does the anti-judgmentalist theory really solve the paradox of fiction, though? It is difficult to say. Philosophers who believe it is illogical to have emotion toward a fictional object will continue to argue this theory, while those who do believe in emotional responses to fiction will continue to dismiss the other theories that go against it. This is why the issue of emotion and fiction creates such a paradox, and because it so subjective and psychological in nature, it is unlikely there will ever be one, unanimously-accepted answer. I gasped aloud at every surprise and shocker, and in the end, I will admit without shame, I cried. One of the most beloved characters of the series, a favorite of mine as well, is killed in this book, and after I finished reading it, my euphoria over experiencing the magic of yet another Harry Potter novel was mixed with a odd feeling of depression.
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Post by kristy on Mar 22, 2008 22:21:53 GMT -6
This past summer, I, along with millions of readers worldwide, counted down to one special event: the release of the sixth book in J.K. Rowling’s acclaimed Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. As soon as I had the 652-page epic in my hands, a chill of anticipation and delight rushed through my body. I had waited two years for this, the next chapter of Harry Potter’s spellbinding saga. As expected, as soon as I began reading the book, I could not stop. I raced through the entire novel in just over a day, stopping only occasionally to sleep, eat, and blink. As I read, I smiled, and I laughed, often. I cooed “awww!” at every adorable bit of budding romance. My heart raced with apprehension as I neared the book’s frightening climax; I gasped aloud at every surprise and shocker, and in the end, I will admit without shame, I cried. One of the most beloved characters of the series, a favorite of mine as well, is killed in this book, and after I finished reading it, my euphoria over experiencing the magic of yet another Harry Potter novel was mixed with a odd feeling of depression. Some philosophers would question my reaction. How, they would wonder, could I be depressed over the “death” of a fictional character, a person who I know does not really exist? Going a step further, how could I feel any emotion toward any character in Harry Potter or any other fictional book? None of the characters are real, so how could I feel sorry for them, happy for them, or afraid for them? These questions exemplify what philosophers call the paradox of fiction. Colin Radford, who initially wrote about the paradox of fiction, argued that “our apparent ability to respond emotionally to fictional characters and events is ‘irrational, incoherent, and inconsistent.’” The paradox is comprised of three propositions which contradict each other. The first is that we do have emotions for purely fictional characters and situations, which we know to be fictional. The second proposition is that having emotions for an object logically presupposes a belief in the existence of that object. The third and final proposition is that we do not believe in the existence of objects we know to be fictional. If each of these statements is taken to be true, a paradox is formed. According to the third proposition, if we know that a character in a book, for example, is fictional, then we do not believe that character is a real person. We may still feel emotions for this character, according to the first proposition, even though we know he or she is not real. The second proposition, however, states that having emotions for this character would logically mean we do believe he or she truly exists. There are plenty of logical human beings, though, who do feel for characters in stories, yet do not deny that they are fictional creations. When I read Harry Potter, for instance, I am well-aware that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and all the rest of the characters are not real people, just as I know that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is not a real place. They are all just figments of the vast imagination of J.K. Rowling, intricately portrayed through a pattern of words on the pages of a set of books. I know all of this, and yet, I cannot help the emotions I feel toward them. I delight in Harry’s triumphs and sympathize with his defeats. I root for Ron and Hermione to finally confess their love for each other. I loathe Voldemort and Snape and the other villains. Am I irrational or illogical for having these feelings? My answer would be no; I consider myself an intelligent and logical person, and I would say most other readers who get caught up in emotions over a book are the same. We naturally have emotions for well-written fictional characters, so the first proposition is true. Some philosophers, however, would argue that what we feel when reading a fiction book or watching a fictional movie or play, for instance, are not true emotions, but less complex states, such as moods or reflex reactions. This is the first possible solution to the paradox of fiction, named the Non-Intentionalist Solution. The Non-Intentionalist Solution proposes that we may feel cheerful or sad after experiencing a work of fiction or that we may react with shock to certain scenes, but none of these are real emotions. Cheerfulness and sadness are moods, and shock is only a reaction. According to Jerrold Levinson in his article “A Survey of the Terrain,” these all “lack the full intentionality and cognitivity of emotions.” Thus, this solution rejects the first proposition, that we do have emotions for fictional characters. In my opinion, the Non-Intentionalist Solution may work for less complex works of fiction, which may shock people or make them laugh without containing enough depth to invoke a true emotional response. A poorly-scripted “slasher” movie, for example, may shock an audience and illicit gasps and screams from inside a dark theater, without evoking real fear in its viewers. On the other hand, a more complex psychological thriller, such as “Silence of the Lambs,” may leave some viewers feeling deeply unsettled and frightened, even though they know that it, too, is only a work of fiction. Even Levinson admits that the Non-Intentionalist Solution “seems to apply comfortably to only a small portion of the full range of developed responses to fictions.” As a person who has always enjoyed movies and books that will get an emotional response out of me, I can attest to the fact that there is a larger range of responses to fiction that do not seem to qualify as simply “moods” or “reactions.” I was not merely in a “sad mood” when I finished reading Harry Potter this summer; in fact, I would argue that the book left me in a “good” mood because I enjoyed it, even though I was filled with anguish over the death of one of my favorite characters. Likewise, I do not believe that my tears over that character’s death were simply a “reflex reaction” to the words I had read. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “emotion” as “a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling.” In the case of my example, my anguish was a mental state, accompanied by the physiological response of crying. Based on this definition, it is hard to deny that many of the responses people have to works of fiction qualify as emotions. Thus, this first solution does not fully solve the paradox of fiction. A second possible solution is the Suspension of Belief Solution, which says that while we are caught up in fictions, we temporarily allow ourselves to believe that the fiction is real, which allows us to have emotions towards fictional characters and events. This solution denies the third proposition and supports the second. The Illusion Theory, as this solution is also called, goes along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s idea of “willing suspension of disbelief.” However, Coleridge’s original idea was simpler and less literal than this solution, which is trying to say not that people find fictional characters and events so realistic they are believable, or that people wish certain fictions were real, but that they actually begin to believe in the existence of such fictions, even after knowing that the fictions are not real. Gregory Currie dismisses this idea in this brief statement: I agree with Currie’s take on this solution. I often get caught up in the fictional story of a book or movie, and there have been many fictional character who have been so well-portrayed that they seem almost like real people to me, but never have I actually believed in their existence. Part of the fun of fiction is that I can let myself escape to a different, often imaginary place and have experiences I might never otherwise have, through the eyes of make-believe characters, to whom I nonetheless can relate. If I truly believed a fiction were real, even only temporarily, I am not sure it would be as enjoyable. Professor Harry Deutsch alludes to these same notions in his “Postscript on Fear and Pity.” A third proposed solution is the Surrogate Object Solution, which suggests that the reason we respond emotionally to fiction is because we do not have emotions toward the fiction objects themselves, but toward real objects, which, in our minds, are represented by the fictional ones. When we read, we think of real people in place of the characters, real events in place of what actually happens in the story, and so on. For example, an American audience might get emotional while watching a movie in which a plane crashes into a building because such a scene might remind them of the September 11 tragedy. Members of the audience would probably be more prone to feeling sadness or fear during such a scene after September 11, 2001 than they would have before that date. Likewise, a girl who had recently lost her grandfather to cancer might think of him when reading a story in which a character dies of cancer and cry, whereas she might not have been so easily moved to tears otherwise. I think the Surrogate Object Solution does hold some weight, in that there are examples, such as the ones I have described, in which I see this theory working. However, I do not feel that it solves the paradox of fiction at all, for it only applies under certain conditions. If the girl reading the story about a character dying of cancer had never lost a loved one to a disease, she would have no surrogate object to insert into her interpretation of the story. Any emotional response she would have while reading the story, such as crying, would be directed solely toward the fictional characters. Likewise, when I cried over the death of the character in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I could have been crying over a situation I had really experienced, involving a person of whom the character reminded me, but in reality, I was not. This character, although well-written and vivid in my mind, did not remind me of anyone I know in my real life, and when he died in the book, my emotional response was caused by his death specifically. There are too many other situations like this for the Surrogate Object theory to be considered a real solution to the paradox of fiction. The solution that I think best serves to explain the paradox of fiction is the Anti-Judgmentalist Solution. This solution concedes to my view that having an emotional response to a piece of fiction does not require a belief in the fiction. It only requires “weaker sorts of cognitions, such as seeing a certain way, or conceiving in a certain manner, or regarding as if such and such.” This solution challenges the second proposition, which is the one I feel is incorrect, of the three. It is possible to feel emotion toward fiction without believing it to be real. All we must do is regard the characters and situations as if they could be real or believe in their existence within the realm of fiction. Continuing with my Harry Potter example, I know that the story of Harry Potter is not true, in real life, that is. Within the series of books and movies, however, I have to believe that all of the events that have happened to Harry really occurred, within the story, or none of it will make sense or serve a purpose. As Levinson explains, When I cried while reading Harry Potter, the emotion I felt was because a character I had admired for his wisdom and humor died unnaturally and unexpectedly and because he was a character to whom Harry Potter himself was close. I felt not only shock and sorrow over the character’s death, but pity for Harry as well, who had lost a valued mentor and ally. I did not really believe in the existence of either character; I did not, for example, send “Harry Potter” a letter of condolence, as I would have if the character had been a real, living person. However, I saw both characters and their relationship to one another as “real” within the context of the story, and this sparked my emotion. Also, it is natural to feel pity for anyone who loses someone he or she cares about, and that was another motivation for my emotion. Both support the anti-judgmentalist view. Does the anti-judgmentalist theory really solve the paradox of fiction, though? It is difficult to say. Philosophers who believe it is illogical to have emotion toward a fictional object will continue to argue this theory, while those who do believe in emotional responses to fiction will continue to dismiss the other theories that go against it. This is why the issue of emotion and fiction creates such a paradox, and because it so subjective and psychological in nature, it is unlikely there will ever be one, unanimously-accepted answer. When I cried while reading Harry Potter, the emotion I felt was because a character I had admired for his wisdom and humor died unnaturally and unexpectedly and because he was a character to whom Harry Potter himself was close. I felt not only shock and sorrow over the character’s death, but pity for Harry as well, who had lost a valued mentor and ally. I did not really believe in the existence of either character; I did not, for example, send “Harry Potter” a letter of condolence, as I would have if the character had been a real, living person. However, I saw both characters and their relationship to one another as “real” within the context of the story, and this sparked my emotion. Also, it is natural to feel pity for anyone who loses someone he or she cares about, and that was another motivation for my emotion. Both support the anti-judgmentalist view.That is exactly how I felt. Everything in that essay explains how I am so attached to fictional characters.
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Post by Karina on Mar 23, 2008 0:34:33 GMT -6
that was a great essay!
To me and my attatchment to fictionial charactors, that essay really kind of explained it to me... why i am so attached to fictional charactors.
i agree with that "anti-judgmentalist theory".
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Post by Julie on Mar 23, 2008 7:47:56 GMT -6
Thanks!! A lot of that philosophy class was total BSing (interesting, but kind of a joke at times), but I enjoyed writing that essay cause it was something I could relate to... as I know we all can here.
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Post by estrella on Mar 29, 2008 7:23:47 GMT -6
I take philosophy... I like it, it's not bad. And... I read the Deathly Hallows last week! I took one day!! It was really great, wow! (even though I found it a bit confusing at first, cause I'd skipped the 6th and I had no idea what a horcrux (sp?) was, I was pretty sure it was some kind of magical animal... LOL) Anyway, now I'm planning on buying the entire series, I really liked it.
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Post by Julie on Mar 29, 2008 10:37:30 GMT -6
Yay!!! For shame, reading the 7th one without reading the 6th LOL, but I'm glad you liked it.
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Post by Julie on Mar 29, 2008 23:53:43 GMT -6
I'm thinking of reading Sorceror's Stone to my class... I'm trying to figure out what to read to them next, and I'm kinda "eh" about everything I can think of... I've already read most of my favorites that are grade-appropriate. I have a couple of other options, but now that it's almost April and testing is over and we can all relax, it seems like a good time for a long fantasy book. Most of my class hasn't read HP because it's too hard, or they're afraid of the length, but I'm sure they've seen the movies.
I would have fun reading it, but the only thing I'm worried about is that it will lose some of the effect being read in an American accent LOL. That sounds kinda silly, but after the movies, I feel like it needs to sound more British... but I'm not gonna attempt to read that whole damn book in a British accent LOL. Do you think it will matter to the kids or not?
I think I might give them a few choices and let them vote, cause I'm torn.
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Post by Karina on Mar 30, 2008 0:02:31 GMT -6
a voting would be great
i think they would like to have a HP book read to them!
LOL, that would be funny if you read to them in a British accent! or just tryed to do the dialogue in British i always liked when teachers made different voices or accents for charactors
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