A people a place, a settlement ; Peace Rationally Nationally Universally

https://archive.org/stream/choctawlanguag00byinrich/choctawlanguag00byinrich_djvu.txt

pi n ki, n., our father. 
Pi n ki aba, Aba pi n ki, n., our Heavenly 

Father; God. 
Pi n ki chito, n., our great Father; the 

President of the United States. 
Pi n ki chitokaka, n., our great Father; 

the President. 
Pi n ki ishto, n., our Great Father; God; 

PonJd ishto, the Chickasaw equivalent. 
Pi n ki ishtoka, n., our Great Father; the 

President of the United States; Pinki 

ishtokaka aba binili, our Great Father 

who sits in Heaven

http://www.iep.utm.edu/fict-par/

Excert
... rationally moved ...
End excert

Excert (excert thru chapter 1)

The Paradox of Fiction

How is it that we can be moved by what we know does not exist, namely the situations of people in fictional stories? The so-called "paradox of emotional response to fiction" is an argument for the conclusion that our emotional response to fiction is irrational. The argument contains an inconsistent triad of premises, all of which seem initially plausible. These premises are (1) that in order for us to be moved (to tears, to anger, to horror) by what we come to learn about various people and situations, we must believe that the people and situations in question really exist or existed; (2) that such "existence beliefs" are lacking when we knowingly engage with fictional texts; and (3) that fictional characters and situations do in fact seem capable of moving us at times.

A number of conflicting solutions to this paradox have been proposed by philosophers of art. While some argue that our apparent emotional responses to fiction are only "make-believe" or pretend, others claim that existence beliefs aren't necessary for having emotional responses (at least to fiction) in the first place. And still others hold that there is nothing especially problematic about our emotional responses to works of fiction, since what these works manage to do (when successful) is create in us the "illusion" that the characters and situations depicted therein actually exist.

Table of Contents

1. Radford's Initial Statement of the Paradox
2. The Pretend Theory
3. Objections to the Pretend Theory
   1. Disanalogies with Paradigmatic Cases of Make-Believe Games
   2. Problems with Quasi-Emotions
4. The Thought Theory
5. Objections to the Thought Theory
6. The Illusion Theory
7. References and Further Reading

1. Radford's Initial Statement of the Paradox

In a much-discussed 1975 article, and in a series of "Replies to my Critics" written over the next two decades, Colin Radford argues that our apparent ability to respond emotionally to fictional characters and events is "irrational, incoherent, and inconsistent" (p. 75). This on the grounds that (1) existence beliefsconcerning the objects of our emotions (for example, that the characters in question really exist; that the events in question have really taken place) are necessary for us to be moved by them, and (2) that such beliefs are lacking when we knowingly partake of works of fiction. Taking it pretty much as a given that (3) such works do in fact move us at times, Radford's conclusion, refreshing in its humility, is that our capacity for emotional response to fiction is as irrational as it is familiar: "our being moved in certain ways by works of art, though very 'natural' to us and in that way only too intelligible, involves us in inconsistency and so incoherence" (p. 78).

The need for existence beliefs is supposedly revealed by the following sort of case. If what we at first believed was a true account of something heart-wrenching turned out to be false, a lie, a fiction, etc., and we are later made aware of this fact, then we would no longer feel the way we once did—though we might well feel something else, such as embarrassment for having been taken in to begin with. And so, Radford argues, "It would seem that I can only be moved by someone's plight if I believe that something terrible has happened to him. If I do not believe that he has not and is not suffering or whatever, I cannot grieve or be moved to tears" (p. 68). Of course, what Radford means to say here is: "I can only be rationally moved by someone's plight if I believe that something terrible has happened to him. If I do not believe that he has not and is not suffering or whatever, I cannot rationally grieve or be moved to tears." Such beliefs are absent when we knowingly engage with fictions, a claim Radford supports by presenting and then rejecting a number of objections that might be raised against it.

One of the major objections to his second premise considered by Radford is that, at least while we are engaged in the fiction, we somehow "forget" that what we are reading or watching isn't real; in other words, that we get sufficiently "caught up" in the novel, movie, etc. so as to temporarily lose our awareness of its fictional status. In response to this objection, Radford offers the following two considerations: first, if we truly forgot that what we are reading or watching isn't real, then we most likely would not feel any of the various forms of pleasure that frequently accompany other, more "negative" emotions (such as fear, sadness, and pity) in fictional but not real-life cases; and second, the fact that we do not "try to do something, or think that we should" (p. 71) when seeing a sympathetic character being attacked or killed in a film or play, implies our continued awareness of this character's fictional status even while we are moved by what happens to him. This second consideration—an emphasis on the behavioral disanalogies between our emotional responses to real-life and fictional characters and events—is one that crops up repeatedly in the arguments of philosophers such as Kendall Walton and Noel Carroll, whose positive accounts are nevertheless completely opposed to one another.

Finally, Radford thinks there can be no denying his third premise, that fictional characters themselves are capable of moving us—as opposed to, say, actual (or perhaps merely possible) people in similar situations, who have undergone trials and tribulations very much like those in the story. So his conclusion that our emotional responses to fiction are irrational appears valid and, however unsatisfactory, at the very least non-paradoxical. Summarizing his position in a 1977 follow-up article, with specific reference to the emotion of fear, Radford writes that existence beliefs "[are] a necessary condition of our being unpuzzlingly, rationally, or coherently frightened. I would say that our response to the appearance of the monster is a brute one that is at odds with and overrides our knowledge of what he is, and which in combination with our distancing knowledge that this is only a horror film, leads us to laugh—at the film, and at ourselves for being frightened" (p. 210).

Since the publication of Radford's original essay, many Anglo-American philosophers of art have been preoccupied with exposing the inadequacies of his position, and with presenting alternative, more "satisfying" solutions. In fact, few issues of The British Journal of Aesthetics, Philosophy, or The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticismhave come out over the past 25 years which fail to contain at least one piece devoted to the so-called "paradox of emotional response to fiction." As recently as April 2000, Richard Joyce writes in a journal article that "Radford must weary of defending his thesis that the emotional reactions we have towards fictional characters, events, and states of affairs are irrational. Yet, for all the discussion, the issue has not.been properly settled" (p. 209). It is interesting to note that while virtually all of those writing on this subject credit Radford with initiating the current debate, none of them have adopted his view as their own. At least in part, this must be because what Radford offers is less the solution to a mystery (how is it that we can be moved by what we know does not exist?) than a straightforward acceptance of something mysterious about human nature (our ability to be moved by what we know does not exist is illogical, irrational, even incoherent).

End excert (exerted chapter 1)

To date, three basic strategies for resolving the paradox in question have turned up again and again in the philosophical literature, each one appearing in a variety of different forms (though it should be noted, other, more idiosyncratic solutions can also be found). It is to these strategies, and some of the powerful criticisms that have been levied against them, that we now briefly turn.