The paradox of fiction: the rationality of our emotional responses to works of fiction

• Main Author: Mathinivedha d/o Neviliappan
• Other Authors: Christina Chuang
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::Philosophy
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165649
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This paper seeks to explore the paradox of fiction, or more precisely, the paradox of why we are able to genuinely emotionally respond to characters, objects and situations in works of fiction. I argue that the paradox can be resolved by refining the second premise, asserting that we can have genuine, rational emotional responses to fictional characters/objects/situations even if we do not believe that they exist in real life, as long as they could potentially exist in real life or our emotional responses themselves are aligned with aesthetic conventions and conveyed appropriately. With a brief review of existing literature on this topic, I provide a justification for this refinement of the second premise by looking at our cognitive abilities of empathy and mental associations, as well as the notion of aesthetic conventions in our engagement and appreciation of works of art/fiction.