The paradox of fiction was proposed by Colin Radford, who argued it was paradoxical to have emotional responses to fictional characters. The argument for the paradox as Radford lays it out goes as follows: (a) We often have emotions for fictional characters and situations known to be purely fictional. (b) Emotions for objects logically presuppose beliefs in the existence and features of those objects. (c) We do not harbor beliefs in the existence and features of objects known to be fictional. In The Paradox of Fiction, Damien Freeman lays out the critiques and responses to these critiques for each premise. He then investigates the different definitions of, Paradox, emotion, and response, to lay out a better understanding of each term’s meaning and while doing so introduces subtle critiques that could solve the paradox. While the paradox seems intuitive, I argue that it can be solved through a critique of the third premise.

Background Critiques of the Paradox:

The Paradox of Fiction is written by Damien Freedman who lays out the paradox, and previous literature, and provides a critique by defining key terms. After laying out Radford’s argument for the paradox, Freeman goes into various counterarguments to each premise. The counterargument to the first premise—that we have emotional experience towards objects we know are fictional— is from Walton, who argues that there are quasi-emotions that have the same phenomenological experience as emotions but differ in that they don’t presuppose belief in the object of the emotion. Walton’s counter argument for the first premise has been attacked though in two ways: Firstly, it is attacked because critics argue quasi-emotions rely on a false analogy to children’s make-believe games. Whereas these children have control over their make-believe emotions, people watching films don’t have control over their emotional responses. Secondly, quasi-emotions are attacked for not being real and instead only theoretical. When it comes to the second premise that argues emotions for objects presuppose belief if their object’s existence, Freedman lays out some critiques. Lamarque argues that emotions don’t presuppose belief since all that is required for emotion is the mental representation of a scene or object. So, with this account, fiction can generate emotions even when we know the story is purely fictional. Freedman lays out Turvy’s critique of this counterargument. Turvey argues that representations such as fictional films are indifferent to the actual existence of what is being portrayed, meaning Lamarque’s view is missing the point. This critique of the counterargument is getting at the issue of reality which Radford explains in the following: “Why is merely entertaining a thought about Anna Karenina and her travails (rather than believing the thought about her existence and her travails) enough to generate an emotional response?” For a counter argument for the third premise, which states we can’t believe in the existence of objects we know are fictional, Freedman cites Coleridge. He argues the willing suspension of disbelief is an example of how we can temporarily believe in objects that we know are purely fictional. While the critiques of this counterargument are allegedly few, one is that momentarily suspended disbelief is too short of a time frame and not representative of a sustained emotional response to fictional objects which is arguably required for this counterargument. After going through the counterarguments to the three premises and the main critiques of these counterarguments, Freedman then breaks down the definitions of paradox, response, emotion, and fiction as a way of subtly proposing a way around the paradox.

My Analysis:

While Radford’s first premise is that we often have emotional responses to characters we know are purely fictional is generally true so I will not argue against this one. I think the second premise in the paradox—that having emotions towards an object presupposes a belief in that object— is more suspect. I generally agree with Lamarque’s stance that “imaginatively proposing” the existence of an object is enough to create emotions for that object. Modern science seems to back this, visually representing a scene in our mind is all it takes to trigger the same emotional response as if we viewed that scene without our own eyes. We can have emotions towards an object and be invested in characters that we know are fictional as shown in the previous premise. It is likely that you have experienced emotions towards fictional characters that you know are fictional, and it is also likely that you have experienced emotions for fictional characters that you momentarily believed to be real. A possible way to interpret this premise to be true (with fewer counterexamples) is by stating instead that emotions for an object presuppose imagination or a picture of that object in one’s mind. Replace belief in that object with the imagination of that object.

The last premise to the paradox of fiction is that we can not believe in objects we know are fictional and this is the premise that I think is the most vulnerable. While this seems intuitively true that one can’t both believe something exists and doesn’t exist, there can be situations of suspended disbelief as Coleridge argues, where we get into the characters so much that we represent them in our mind as real even if only for a moment. I think the strongest critique of this counterargument is not from the critics of Coleridge as laid out by Freedman, but rather that during suspended disbelief, we don’t actually believe that the fictional character is fictional, so this doesn’t actually prove as a counterexample. My response is that there are levels of belief and tiers of representation in our mind; while one can have suspended disbelief, they can also have an underlying knowledge that an object is fictional. When we imagine possibilities that don’t exist, we both believe in them and don’t. I would argue that this is because holding images in our mind is experientially similar to holding real objects in our mind (real as in existing in the physical world). Tying emotions to mental representation still does not solve the paradox though. The way to do so is by showing that we can have full belief and full disbelief for an object at the same time.

We form emotions in response to external stimuli or imagined stimuli. In the case of fiction, we either visually see characters or situations like in movies or mentally construct characters or situations like in literature. In both cases we have an emotional response—our body doesn’t know the difference between fictional mental representations and real-world mental representations. Since our physiological emotional response system can’t distinguish between fiction and reality, it fully believes in fictional characters. Even if we mentally know a character is purely fictional, at the same time our body still fully believes in the existence of these characters or situations. Thus, we can both have full belief in fictional characters and at the same time full disbelief. This is a counterexample of the third premise and solves the paradox.

Example Case with Fear:

While this is all in theoretical terms, how would one solve the paradox of fiction in an example? The paradox can be framed more specifically as follows: You should not be able to experience fear for a fictional character because you know they are fictional, but since you do have emotions for that character then you must believe in their existence, yet you cannot believe something exists if you know it does not exist. First, you know you experience fear in response to a fictional character [P1]. We are hardwired through mirror neurons and other physiological mechanics to mirror the emotions of people we see or mentally represent. In the case of film, we will feel what emotions the characters are feeling, and in the case of fictional books, we imagine the characters and so will have an emotional response to those characters as well. While we know these characters are fictional, we still have an emotional response because imagined scenarios trigger our physiological beliefs which leads to emotional responses. In this case, you know the characters are fictional, but your physiology doesn’t—in a way it is tricked into believing these characters or situations are real. Thus, you can have mental disbelief in characters but physiological belief. When a character is being chased down you will know it is fictional but also feel the fear meaning your body doesn’t know. I would argue this is enough to disprove the third premise. We can believe (physiologically) in characters that we (mentally) know are purely fictional. One could argue that in the context of the argument “belief” is only mental belief. I would argue that belief is something intricately tied to physiology so they shouldn’t be seen as distinct. So, in conclusion, the Radford paradox can be overcome through the critique of his third premise.