Responding Emotionally to Fiction

Abstract

Contemporary analytical philosophers ask why we respond emotionally to characters we believe to be fictional. Why, for example, do we grieve for Anna Karenina? To understand this problem it is helpful to turn to Spinoza, who argues that the ability to keep our emotions in line with our beliefs is a complex skill. Rather than asking why we depart from it in the case of fictions, we need to begin by considering how we acquire it in the first place. Spinoza also considers the value of this skill. In his account, fictions function rather like Winnicott’s transitional objects. They enable us to negotiate the boundary between the real and the imaginary in a way that contributes to our philosophical understanding and increases our capacity to live together.