Mundos imaginarios y cuasi-emociones: la solución a la paradoja de la ficción en Walton y Currie

Abstract

Though they differ in important details, the solutions to the paradox of fiction put forward by Kendall Walton and Gregory Currie share two key conceptual moves in their attempt to understand the situation of the consummer of fiction, through the notion of “quasi-emotions” and through their appeal to the idea of construction of imaginary scenarios. I argue that their accounts fail in both of these central respects, though the problems I identify are independent of each other. First I contend that their ideas as to the emotions we feel when we are caught up with a work of fiction fail insofar as they assume an untennable version of the cognitivist thesis regarding the emotions. Then I argue that their ideas regarding the construction of imaginary worlds on the part of the consummers of fiction fail insofar as they presuppose a dichotomy between fictional worlds and reality. In the concluding section I briefly discuss the way in which both of these problems reflect on the prospects for other treatments of the paradox itself.