Paradox of fiction

Although the emotional experience of fictional things in general has been discussed in philosophy since Plato,[1] the paradox was first suggested by Colin Radford and Michael Weston in their 1975 paper "How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?".

[2] Since Radford and Weston's original paper, they and others have continued the discussion by giving the problem slightly differing formulations and solutions.

[citation needed] In 1975, philosophers Colin Radford and Michael Weston published their paper "How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?

"[2] In it, Radford and Weston discuss the idea of emotional responses to fiction, drawing upon the titular character from Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina.

[2] In 1978, American philosopher Kendall Walton published the paper "Fearing Fictions", in which he addresses Radford and Weston's paradox.

The conversation that Radford, Weston, and Walton started on the topic of emotional responses to fiction has continued and evolved to this day.

[4] In these theories, emotions do not involve judgments or beliefs and consequently premise 2 is not true prima facie, nullifying the paradox of fiction entirely.

[5] Robert Stecker argues that studying the paradox is nevertheless important for understanding people's emotional responses to fiction.

[citation needed] The pretend theory denies premise 1, that people have emotional responses to fictitious things.

[8][9] In his doctoral thesis, Dominique Makowski denies the three premisses of the paradox and suggests reframing the issue in the context of emotion regulation, as a regulatory mechanism referred to as fictional reappraisal.