Paradox of Fiction / Paradox of Life

Abstract

The paradox of fiction lies in the seeming contradiction that we appear to have real emotions for fictional characters, while at the same time knowing that they do not exist. The several solutions all have their drawbacks, and mainly focus on behavioural and emotion disanalogies between emotions for reality and fiction. However, in focusing on fiction, they overlook the many borderline cases of emotions in real life that exhibit the same disanalogies. The most promising solution – thought theory – claims that the object of emotion is the thought, not the (non-existing) object. As we also deal with reality in a narrative fashion, this means that the paradox actually extends to reality.