Literature and Emotion

A "sad and corrupt" age, a period of "crisis" and "upheaval"—what T.S. Eliot famously summed up as "the panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history." Modernism has always been characterized by its self-conscious sense of suffering. Why, then, was it so obsessed with laughter? From Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Bergson and Freud to Pirandello, Beckett, Hughes, Barnes, and Joyce, no moment in cultural history has written about laughter this much. James Nikopoulos investigates modernity’s paradoxical relationship with mirth. Why was the (...) gesture we conventionally associate with happiness deemed the only sensible way of responding to a world, as Max Weber wrote, that had been "disenchanted of its gods?" In answering these questions, Nikopoulos also delves into our ongoing relationship with laughter. He looks to contemporary research in emotion and evolutionary theory, as well as to the two-thousand-plus-year history of the philosophy of humor, in order to propose a novel way of understanding laughter, humor, and their complicated relationships with modern life. The Stability of Laughter explores how art unsettles the simplifications we revert to in our attempts to make sense of human history and social interaction. (shrink)

The problem of tragedy is the problem of explaining why tragedy gives us the pleasure that it does, given that it has the content that it has. I propose a series of constraints that any adequate solution to the problem must satisfy. Then I develop a solution to the problem that satisfies those constraints. But I do not claim that the solution I develop uniquely satisfies the constraints I propose. I aim merely to narrow the field of contending solutions, and (...) then to draw attention to an overlooked contended in that narrowed field. (shrink)

That Oscar Wilde was a central figure for aestheticism needs no arguing; that he should be taken seriously as an aesthetician is perhaps a less obvious matter. While much of his work concerns itself with the traditional purview of aesthetics as a philosophical discipline, commentators have rarely granted his writings that attention to ideas qua ideas that marks off a philosophical interest in a writer's oeuvre from other types of analysis. A number of attempts to tackle Wilde's pronouncements in a (...) broadly philosophical fashion have been made through the decades.1 Most recent scholarship, however, has regarded Wilde... (shrink)

What does it mean to be a morally good person? It can be tempting to think that it is simply a matter of performing certain actions and avoiding others. And yet there is much more to moral character than our outward actions. We expect a good person to not only behave in certain ways but also to experience the world in certain ways within.

The aim of this paper is to give a new interpretation of Aristotle's account of the emotions evoked in the course of engaging with tragic narratives that would give rise to a coherent account of catharsis. Very briefly, the proposal is that tragedy triggers vicarious emotions and catharsis is the purgation of such emotions. I argue that this interpretation of “fear and pity” as vicarious emotions is consistent with both Aristotle's account of emotions and his account of catharsis and also (...) with his choice of examples for tragedies that trigger catharsis. (shrink)

_Art and Morality_ is a collection of groundbreaking new papers on the theme of aesthetics and ethics, and the link between the two subjects. A group of distinguished contributors tackle the important questions that arise when one thinks about the moral dimensions of art and the aesthetic dimension of moral life. The volume is a significant contribution to philosophical literature, opening up unexplored questions and shedding new light on more traditional debates in aesthetics. The topics explored include: the relation of (...) aesthetic to ethical judgement; the relation of artistic experience to moral consciousness; the moral status of fiction; the concepts of sentimentality and decadence; the moral dimension of critical practice, pictorial art and music; the moral significance of tragedy; and the connections between artistic and moral issues elaborated in the writings of central figures in modern philosophy, such as Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The contributors share the view that progress in aesthetics requires detailed study of the practice of criticism. This volume will appeal both to the philosophical community and to researchers in areas such as literary theory, musicology and the theory of art. (shrink)

The following articke studies the definitions of sarcasm, its usage in literature, in educational system, and its pros and cons.

Plato’s dialogues are self-defined as works of mimetic art, and the ancients clearly consider mimesis as working naturally before reason and beneath it. Such aview connects with two contemporary ideas—Rene Girard’s idea of the mimetic basis of culture and neurophysiological research into mirror neurons. Individualityarises out of, and can collapse back into our mimetic origin. This para-rational notion of mimesis as that in which and by which all our knowledge is framed requires we not only concern ourselves with Socrates’s arguments (...) and distinctions, but also see how the dramatic interaction of the characters is working on/in the characters, and consider how watching the interaction, hearing the parables and myths, and thinking through the arguments and interactions is meant to effect us. That Plato creates mimeses means he aims at passional conversion not merely argumentative worth, since mimesis aims to work on the passions. (shrink)

In Augustine's Confessions we can find two arguments against drama. One is entirely Platonic, echoing the problems raised in Republic 2 and 3 that representations of evil encourage moral turpitude. The other, an echo of Republic 10, is much more visible in Confessions, and Augustine is more perspicuous than Plato in laying out the difficulty; it has to do with the immoral effect of suffering grief at staged sufferings, where we are moved neither to escape the suffering nor to aid (...) the sufferer, but to enjoy the suffering. This paper will briefly reiterate Augustine's arguments against theater, show that those arguments apply to every verbal art and therefore to Confessions itself, and conclude the case against reading such books. I will then outline three possible ways to escape from the trap. (shrink)

The debate about how to solve the paradox of fiction has largely been a debate between Kendall Walton and the so-called thought theorists. In recent years, however, Jenefer Robinson has argued, based on her affective appraisal theory of emotion, for a noncognitivist solution to the paradox as an alternative to the thought theorists’ solution and especially to Walton's controversial solution. In this article, I argue that, despite appearances to the contrary, Robinson's affective appraisal theory is compatible with Walton's solution, at (...) the core of which lies the thesis that there are quasi-emotions. Moreover, since Robinson's theory is compatible with Walton's solution, I show how it can be used as a model to empirically test whether quasi-emotions exist. (shrink)

In this essay, I defend a particular view of how fiction affects our conception of the real world, our emotions, and our moral dispositions. Moreover, I aim to show how each of these elements are interconnected, such that an adequate understanding of one entails an adequate understanding of the others. In particular, I argue that fiction is especially adept at modifying the conceptual schemas that shape our classifications of and responses to persons, actions, and events in the real world. I (...) further argue that contrary to a number of widely influential positions, our emotional responses to fiction are neither irrational nor of a special class; rather, despite superficial differences, they are the product of the very mechanisms which generate our garden-variety emotional responses to actual objects. Finally, I argue that the capacity for fiction to affect our conceptual schemas, and emotions in the manner I propose suggests a significant role for fiction in the development of moral motivation and the adoption of reasons in moral judgments. (shrink)

Carola Barbero | : Je m’intéresse dans cet article aux émotions que nous ressentons lorsque nous lisons une oeuvre de fiction. Certains philosophes pensent que notre implication émotionnelle dans la fiction constitue un paradoxe, et implique soit une forme d’irrationalité, soit la participation à un jeu de « faire semblant ». Ici, je soutiendrai qu’une Théorie de l’Objet à la Meinong, en défendant une approche réaliste des émotions liées la fiction, permet de résoudre adéquatement ce paradoxe de la fiction. | (...) : This essay concerns the emotions that we feel when reading a work of fiction. Some philosophers think that our emotional engagement with fiction gives rise to a paradox and involves either irrationality or participation in a game of make believe. The aim of this work is to show how the paradox of fiction can be dissolved by making use of an Object Theory in a Meinongian style. (shrink)

A compelling exploration of the convergence of Jane Austen’s literary themes and characters with David Hume’s views on morality and human nature. Argues that the normative perspectives endorsed in Jane Austen's novels are best characterized in terms of a Humean approach, and that the merits of Hume's account of ethical, aesthetic and epistemic virtue are vividly illustrated by Austen's writing. Illustrates how Hume and Austen complement one another, each providing a lens that allows us to expand and elaborate on the (...) ideas of the other Proposes that literature may serve as a thought experiment, articulating hypothetical cases which allow the reader to test her moral intuitions Contributes to ongoing debates on the philosophy of literature, ethics, and emotion. (shrink)

This volume presents new essays on the propositional imagination by leading researchers. The propositional imagination---the mental capacity we exploit when we imagine that everyone is colour-blind or that Hamlet is a procrastinator---plays an essential role in philosophical theorizing, engaging with fiction, and indeed in everyday life. Yet only recently has there been a systematic attempt to give a cognitive account of the propositional imagination. These thirteen essays, specially written for the volume, capitalize on this recent work, extending the theoretical picture (...) of the imagination and exploring the philosophical implications of cognitive accounts of the imagination. The book also investigates broader philosophical issues surrounding the propositional imagination. The first section addresses the nature of the imagination, its role in emotion production, and its sophistication manifestation in childhood. The essays in the second section focus on the nature of pretence and how pretence is implicated in adult communication. The third section addresses the problem of 'imaginative resistance', the striking fact that when we encounter morally repugnant assertions in fiction, we seem to resist imagining them and accepting them as fictionally true. In the final section, contributors explore the relation between imagining, conceiving, and judgements of possibility and impossibility. The Architecture of the Imagination will be an essential resource for the growing number of philosophers and psychologists studying the nature of the imagination and on its role in philosophy, aesthetics, and everyday life. (shrink)

Several quantitative studies (e.g. Kidd & Castano, 2013a; Djikic et al., 2013) have shown a positive correlation between literary reading and empathy. However, the literary nature of the stimuli used in these studies has not been defined at a more detailed, stylistic level. In order to explore the stylistic underpinnings of the hypothesized link between literariness and empathy, we conducted a qualitative experiment in which the degree of stylistic foregrounding was manipulated. Subjects (N = 37) read versions of Katherine Mansfield's (...) 'The Fly', a short story rich in foregrounding, while marking striking and evocative passages of their choosing. Afterwards, they were asked to select three markings and elaborate on their experiences in writing. One group read the original story, while the other read a 'non-literary' version, produced by an established author of suspense fiction for young adults, where stylistic foregrounding was reduced. We found that the non-literary version elicited significantly more (p < 0.05) explicitly empathic responses than the original story. This finding stands in contradiction to widely accepted assumptions in recent research, but can be assimilated in alternative models of literariness and affect in literary reading (e.g. Cupchik et al., 1998). We present an analysis of the data with a view to offering more than one interpretation of the observed effects of stylistic foregrounding. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to review extant empirical studies of empathy in narrative reading in light of (i) contemporary literary theory, and (ii) neuroscientific studies of empathy, and to discuss how a closer interplay between neuroscience and literary studies may enhance our understanding of empathy in narrative reading. An introduction to some of the philosophical roots of empathy is followed by tracing its application in contemporary literary theory, in which scholars have pursued empathy with varying degrees of conceptual (...) precision, often within the context of embodied/enactive cognition. The presentation of empirical literary studies of empathy is subsequently contextualized by an overview of psychological and neuroscientific aspects of empathy. Highlighting points of convergence and divergence, the discussion illustrates how findings of empirical literary studies align with recent neuroscientific research. The article concludes with some prospects for future empirical research, suggesting that digitization may contribute to advancing the scientific knowledge of empathy in narrative reading. (shrink)

For both Rush Rhees and Stanley Cavell, Wittgenstein’s late investigations into language and language games are caught up with a profound underlying concern about the possibility of discourse itself. Rhees and Cavell isolate two such conditions, which are closely related.The first, emphasized by Cavell, is what he calls “acknowledgment.” In his seminal essay “Knowing and Acknowledging”, Cavell engages traditional skeptical arguments against the possibility of knowing other minds. Unlike most philosophers, however, Cavell does not attempt to repudiate the skeptic’s concerns (...) by devising a proof of the existence of other minds or a method for knowing them with certainty. Any such proof, he argues, would merely.. (shrink)

This paper’s main thesis is that in virtue of being believable, a believable novel makes an indirect transcendental argument telling us something about the real world of human psychology, action, and society. Three related objections are addressed. First, the Stroud-type objection would be that from believability, the only conclusion that could be licensed concerns how we must think or conceive of the real world. Second, Currie holds that such notions are probably false: the empirical evidence “is all against this idea…that (...) readers’ emotional responses track the real causal relations between things.” Third, responding with a full range of emotions to a novel surely requires that it be believable. Yet since we know the novel is fiction, we do not believe it. So in what does its believability consist? (shrink)

In a recent paper, Bence Nanay has argued against what he calls the Discontinuity Thesis: the claim that literature (along with all other nonabstract art forms) can never count as genuine philosophizing. I first claim that Nanay’s argument either proves too much or rests on heavy-duty premises that he does not adequately defend. I then present my own strategy for resisting Discontinuity, which argues that the proper response to both literature and philosophy can include emotional engagement coupled with reflection.

The view that narrative artworks can offer insights into our lives, in particular, into the nature of the emotions, has gained increasing popularity in recent years. However, talk of narrative often involves reference to a perspective or point of view, which indicates a more fundamental mechanism at work. In this article, I argue that our understanding of the emotions is incomplete without adequate attention to the perspectival structures in which they are embedded. Drawing on Bennett Helm’s theory of emotion, I (...) argue that the narrative view fails to take into account the influence of perspective on the emotions. In order to address this gap in our understanding of the emotions, I highlight a mode of engagement with literature that prioritizes the perspectival features of a work. Focusing on lyric poetry, I argue that non-narrative artworks are those best placed to highlight this fundamental aspect of our emotional experiences. (shrink)

Polemics are a sort of critique typically suffused with inimical emotions and passions. But how are these emotions and passions to be construed? Neither authorial expression nor actual arousal properly account for their rôle in polemics. Rather, the polemicist must stage an unequal battle between a polemical self and the polemical target vis-à-vis an anticipated audience, skilfully handling, through his words, the emotions ascribed to each of them.

The paper defends Wollheim’s account of aesthetic expressive perception by showing that it may fruitfully be extended to artistic genres other than painting. The paper hopes to show the richness of Wollheim’s theory of expressive projection as an account of aesthetic perception. In investigating the application of Wollheim’s account of artistic expression to literature, I shall illustrate how understanding expression as the result of the projective activity of the writer is a useful way of understanding some of the expressive properties (...) of two poems by Wordsworth. I shall also attempt to show how Wordsworth’s poems require and facilitate the activity of projection by the reader, so as to allow for the appreciation of the work’s expressive properties. In exploring the application of Wollheim’s account of expression-as-projection to poetry, this paper will also attempt to defend Wollheim’s account against some objections raised by Malcolm Budd. (shrink)

Die Hypothese meines Beitrags ist, dass Interpretationen fiktionaler Romane zum Teil rationale Erklärungen der emotionalen Zustände fiktiver Romanfiguren sein sollten. Der Hintergrund dieser Hypothese ist zum einen die generelle Definition von Interpretationen als rationalen Erklärungen und zum anderen die neue Theorie der affektiven Intentionalität von Gefühlen (eine Variante der kognitiven Gefühlstheorie). Diese Theorie unterscheidet mehrere Komponenten von Gefühlen und weist nach, dass eine überwiegend rationale Vernetzung dieser Komponenten eine notwendige Bedingung für ihre Interpretation ist (Abschnitt 1). Dieser methodische Zugriff lässt (...) sich an geeigneten Romanen testen und verifizieren, beispielsweise an Flauberts 'Madame Bovary' – einer fiktionalen Geschichte, die sich als eine einzige komplexe und verkettete rationale Erklärung der suizidalen Verzweiflung Emmas deuten lässt. Das bedeutet allerdings nicht, dass eine solche rationale Erklärung die Interpretation fiktionaler Romane ausschöpft. Vielmehr lassen sich fünf verschiedene, ineinandergreifende Stufen von Romaninterpretationen unterscheiden (Abschnitt 2). Gerade wenn Literaturinterpretationen eine komplexe Form annehmen, wird das bekannte Paradox virulent, dass wir uns bemüßigt fühlen, komplexe Interpretationen der Emotionen und Handlungen von Figuren zu liefern, die nicht existieren. In neueren Arbeiten zeichnet sich eine primär psychologische Lösung dieses Paradoxes ab. Zu dieser Lösung gehört der Befund, dass das Bemühen um rationale Erklärungen fiktiver Figuren unsere Fähigkeit, reale Personen in unserem sozialen Umfeld, aber auch in fremden Kulturen angemessen zu interpretieren, in erstaunlichem Ausmaß fördert. (shrink)

There is an apparent inconsistency between the ways which we respond emotively to real and to mimetic presentations. Since emotive responses are normally influenced by a certain belief state that we hold regarding particular circumstances in conjunction with real events, it should follow that we only respond emotively to those events which we believe to be real. This is not, however, the case. We very often respond emotively to situations which we have no reason to believe are actual. That is, (...) we respond with seemingly real emotions to "unreal" situations such as those presented in fiction and film. ;Both Plato and Aristotle addressed this issue and provided many of the paths of argumentation still under debate today. I begin by outlining the problem to be considered and discuss the appropriate terms with which to refer to the phenomena under study. Using Plato and Aristotle as a foundation, and showing how belief fits into their claims about mimesis, I then move to the twentieth century with an explanation of some contemporary theories of the cognitive operations of the emotions. I address problems of emotional appropriateness and fitness, and I consider an empathy theory advocated by Robert Gordon in terms of mental simulation. Recent work on the "rational" functions of emotions should help to clarify the problems related to emotive responses to mimesis. Understanding how the emotions work, whether they are based in rationality and the degree to which they depend on belief, will indicate whether the emotive responses we have to mimetic situations are in any sense "justified." ;I further examine questions concerning not only why we have emotive responses to these non-existential-belief-producing states of affairs, but also what kind of emotive responses are in fact produced and if they are of the same quality as those aroused by "real" states of affairs. I address theories of fiction put forward by Kendall Walton, Peter Lamarque, Susan Feagin and others in an attempt to explain the differing perspectives from which contemporary aestheticians are working. (shrink)

Maurizio Ferraris | : L’une des réponses au paradoxe de la fiction consiste à dire que les émotions que nous éprouvons face aux oeuvres de fiction ne sont pas véritables. Mais qu’est-ce que pleurer ou rire pour de vrai ? En fait, presque toutes les formes de rire ou de larmes, et de réactions émotionnelles, sont compatibles avec la fiction, y compris celles qui sont des émotions vraies. Ce qui pose problème dans le paradoxe est la prémisse selon laquelle nos (...) croyances au sujet de la fiction doivent être vraies ou fausses. | : One of the answers to the paradox of fiction consists in claiming that the emotions that we feel about fictions are not genuine emotions. But what is it to laugh or to cry genuinely? In fact, almost all kinds of laughter and of cry are compatible with fictions, including genuine ones. What is wrong in the paradox of fiction is the premise according to which our beliefs about fictions have to be true or false. (shrink)

The “paradox of fictional emotions” involves a trio of claims that are jointly inconsistent but individually plausible. Resolution of the paradox thus requires that we deny at least one of these plausible claims. The paradox has been formulated in various ways, but for the purposes of this chapter, we will focus on the following three claims, which we will refer to respectively as the Response Condition, the Belief Condition and the Coordination Condition.

Why do people respond emotionally to works of fiction they know are make-believe? Boruah tackles this question, which is fundamental aesthetics and literary studies, from a totally new perspective. Bringing together the various answers that have been offered by philosophers from Aristotle to Roger Scruton, he shows that while some philosophers have denied any rational basis to our emotional responses to fiction, others have argued that the emotions evoked by fiction are not real emotions at all. In response to this, (...) Boruah contends that fictional emotions are rational because they are based on the same sorts of beliefs that we form about real situations and real people. He illustrates this argument with literary examples ranging from Shakespeare to Tolstoy. (shrink)

How is it that we can be moved by what we know does not exist? In this paper, I examine the so-called 'paradox of fiction', showing that it fatally hinges on cognitive theories of emotion such as Kendall Walton's pretend theory and Peter Lamarque's thought theory. I reject these theories and acknowledge the concept-formative role of genuine emotion generated by fiction. I then argue, contra Jenefer Robinson, that this 'éducation sentimentale' is not achieved through distancing, but rather through the engagement (...) of our emotions. Literature does this, I claim, by its uniquely perspicuous presentations of emotional concepts, and the cognitive pleasure that such 'presentations' prompt in us. (shrink)