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Paradoxes of Emotion and Fiction / Robert J. Yanal.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: University Park, PA : Penn State University Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©1999Description: 1 online resource (176 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780271071411
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 128/.37 21
LOC classification:
  • B105.E46 Y37 1999
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- One. The Paradox of Emotion and Fiction -- Two. Is Emotion Toward Fiction Irrational? -- Three. Emotion Toward Fiction or Fact? -- Four. Make-Believe and Quasi-Emotion -- Five. Emotion With and Without Belief -- Six. Thought Theory from Coleridge to Lamarque -- Seven. Thought Theory T -- Eight. The Paradox of Suspense -- Nine. The Paradox of Tragedy -- Summary -- Index
Summary: How can we experience real emotions when viewing a movie or reading a novel or watching a play when we know the characters whose actions have this effect on us do not exist? This is a conundrum that has puzzled philosophers for a long time, and in this book Robert Yanal both canvasses previously proposed solutions to it and offers one of his own.First formulated by Samuel Johnson, the paradox received its most famous answer from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who advised his readers to engage in a ";willing suspension of disbelief."; More recently, philosophers have argued that we are irrational in emoting toward fiction, or that we do not emote toward fiction but rather toward factual counterparts, or that we do not have real but only quasi-emotion toward fiction, generated by our playing games of make-believe. All of these proposed solutions are critically reviewed.Finding these answers unsatisfactory, Yanal offers an alternative, providing a new version of what has been dubbed ";thought theory."; On this theory, mere thoughts not believed true are seen as the functional equivalent of belief at least insofar as stimulating emotion is concerned. The emoter's disbelief in the actuality of components of the thoughts must be rendered relatively inactive. Such emotion is real and typically has the character of being richly generated yet unconsummated.The book extends this theory also to resolving other paradoxes arising from emotional response to fiction: how we feel suspense over what comes next in a story even when we are re-reading it for a second or third time; and how we take pleasure in narratives, such as tragedy, that excite unpleasant emotions such as fear, pity, or horror.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780271071411

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- One. The Paradox of Emotion and Fiction -- Two. Is Emotion Toward Fiction Irrational? -- Three. Emotion Toward Fiction or Fact? -- Four. Make-Believe and Quasi-Emotion -- Five. Emotion With and Without Belief -- Six. Thought Theory from Coleridge to Lamarque -- Seven. Thought Theory T -- Eight. The Paradox of Suspense -- Nine. The Paradox of Tragedy -- Summary -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

How can we experience real emotions when viewing a movie or reading a novel or watching a play when we know the characters whose actions have this effect on us do not exist? This is a conundrum that has puzzled philosophers for a long time, and in this book Robert Yanal both canvasses previously proposed solutions to it and offers one of his own.First formulated by Samuel Johnson, the paradox received its most famous answer from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who advised his readers to engage in a ";willing suspension of disbelief."; More recently, philosophers have argued that we are irrational in emoting toward fiction, or that we do not emote toward fiction but rather toward factual counterparts, or that we do not have real but only quasi-emotion toward fiction, generated by our playing games of make-believe. All of these proposed solutions are critically reviewed.Finding these answers unsatisfactory, Yanal offers an alternative, providing a new version of what has been dubbed ";thought theory."; On this theory, mere thoughts not believed true are seen as the functional equivalent of belief at least insofar as stimulating emotion is concerned. The emoter's disbelief in the actuality of components of the thoughts must be rendered relatively inactive. Such emotion is real and typically has the character of being richly generated yet unconsummated.The book extends this theory also to resolving other paradoxes arising from emotional response to fiction: how we feel suspense over what comes next in a story even when we are re-reading it for a second or third time; and how we take pleasure in narratives, such as tragedy, that excite unpleasant emotions such as fear, pity, or horror.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 27. Okt 2021)