A Study On Walton’s Aesthetics Of Game Of Make-Believe

The concept of "make-believe" was first proposed by Kendall Walton in his "Pictures and Make-Believe" in1973. He has established the aesthetic theory system based on the core concept "game of make-believe" since then, and it has been more than fourty years till the present day. He claims, aesthetic appreciations towards almost all kinds of representational arts are playing in games of make-believe, in which the players take artworks as props that generate fictional truth. Appreciators as players in the game pretend to believe the fictional truth to be true in the fictional worlds constructed by the work. Since they intend to pretend in full awareness of the fictionality of the characters and the story, this game of make-believe is essentially a kind of mental simulation. Appreciators enter the fictional world inside the work and change the fictional entity with themselves, to mentally and psychologically experience the fictional environment, destiny and plots. The emotional reaction towards the work acquired by the appreciator also presents fictionality to some extent. The representation is therefore realized by simulation of the fictional environment instead of imitation of the objects. To be the representation of something, as a result, is to perform in the game of make-believe as the prop, to generate fictional truth about the represented thing. Thus, game of make-believe as mental simulation is the foundation of representational arts.Focused on the motives of the aesthetics of make-believe, the preface introduces and analyzes three main reasons why Kendall Walton proposed the concept of make-believe. The construction of the make-believe theory is launched on the basis of the observation of representational arts. The theory concentrates on the attributes that qualify artworks to be representational arts. With those characteristics, novels, romances and stories are more representational than other genres such as the texts in bibliographies and schoolbooks. According to Walton, what those attributes have in common is’fictionality’. Consequently, the second motive to construct the theory of make-believe relies on the meditation of the standard that could differ fictions from non-fictions convincingly. It’s nothing easier to solve this problem than the first one. However, to concern with the minimum range of objects would simplify the study and make it more efficient. Walton put forward the concept of’fictional representation’ therefore, to make the goal more concentrated. Moreover, it’s inevitable to elaborate the concept of’mimesis’when it’s to be contemplated. The foundation of representational arts. Thus, the third motive of the make-believe theory is to disprove several traditional perspectives of mimesis, such as the theory of symbolism, the theory of resemblance, the theory of hallucination and the theory of substitutes, as well as the demonstration of’representation’and’mimesis’in terms of linguistic philosophy. By tranforming the term of’mental simulation’borrowed from the congnitive science to the realm of aesthetics and philosphy of art, Walton created a new psychological dimension to the understanding of mimesis and representation, who believed that the activities of make-believe in any circumstances are essentially mental simulation.The first chapter draws an outline of the category’make-believe’and its related categories as a system, by analysis on five instances chosen from domains of religion, art, life and social culture, which can be defined as phenomena of make-believe. The phenomena of make-believe perform prevalently in human social life, as in the realm of religious ceremony, daydreams and dreams, children’s game, gardens designed for the specific theme, play and performance in the theater, masquerade parade on festivals and carnivals.’Make-believe’can be defined as such kind of human behavior that people willingly pretend to believe fictional facts are true in the fictional worlds, thereby also pretend to react to the fictional truth, just like the way they respond to the real stimulations in the real circumstances. The psychological state of make-believe could be taken as one of the main sources from which appreciators are able to acquire aesthetic pleasure during appreciating representational artworks. According to the definition, three propositions are concluded. Imagination is the psychological basis of make-believe. The game of make-believe has to work under the control of specific stipulations that are previously made by players or the designer. Besides, props are primarily necessary for players to perform their fictional identities in the game of make-believe, since props are the basic tools that generate fictional truth. Thus, imagination, the stipulation and props are three dominant elements of the game of make-believe.Firstly, the psychological activity of imagining is always in the manner that Walton mentioned as first-person manner, namely we are used to imagining certain scenario about ourselves from the deep inside. In the first-person manner imagination, one is usually the protagonist of one’s own imaginings. There are six paradigms of imaginings, including spontaneous imaginings, deliberate imaginings, occurent imaginings, nonocurrent imaginings, social imaginings and solitary imaginings. Imagination about oneself plays a crucial role during the game of make-believe, helping players engage in the fictional conditions. Secondly, the stipulation of make-believe game is decided by players or the designer. It prescripts the basic roles of the game and the way to play these roles. On the one hand, with certain stipulation, the application of playing becomes possible and accessible. On the other hand, players have to obey the rules willingly and cooperatively, for the stipulation made by players is actually the joint fantasy, which combines wishes, demands and ideals of all the members. As a result, the stipulation has to be described on the foundation of social imaginings, and followed by all the participants from the very beginning to the end. The prescriptions in the game of make-believe are often constituted by authorities approbated by the majority of the society, especially in religious affairs, children’s games and other daily life activities. Similarly, in the aesthetic appreciation of representational artworks, also as a kind of make-believe game, the stipulation namely the method to comprehend the intention, meaning and value of the work is decided by the artists and writers, and interpreted by the critics and collectors. Moreover, the so-called props are things that are able to carry meanings and generate fictional truth. As the prompter of imagining, a prop stimulates imagination about the given fictional worlds, guiding appreciators to imagine certain contents. Sometimes the props also have fictional identities in the game to play roles together with other fictional entities. As to the aesthetic appreciation of representational art, the artwork is the prop in the game of make-believe, which shows the appreciators as players what is going on in the fictional world.There are two types of props, ad hoc props and given props. Once entering the fictional circumstances of make-believe game, the original and real identities of objects that are going to be used as props would be hid temporarily. The fictional prop identities of them would come forward to the front stage, which are the only admitted identities for them to exist in the fictional world, meaning that the fictional identity of the object is the only true identity that can be used by the players. According to the meaning signified by the prop and its role in the fictional world, games of make-believe appear as two different kinds of make-believe, including prop-oriented make-believe and content-oriented make-believe. In fact, there is no sharp line between prop-oriented make-believe and content-oriented make-believe. On the contrary, they cooperate with each other during playing from time to time. It is related to some aspects, such as the stipulation and stages of the game. The rules that props follow to generate fictional truth are the reality principle and the mutual belief principle. The two principles of generating fictional truth indicate that the mind state of make-believe not merely depends on social understandings of facts in the fictional world, but also on the free will of appreciators. On the one hand, people are likely to pretend to’believe’fictional truth, because those facts are to some extent correlated to reality. On the other hand, it’s not hard for them to pretend, because to believe those facts or not is up to themselves.To expound the question about how remote fictional worlds are from the real world, Walton explored further in the psychological foundation of the game of make-believe and put forward the theory of mental simulation and quasi-emotion. The septum between fictional worlds and the real world cannot be diminished by physical resolutions. It’s impossile for the audience to interfere the process of fictional events, or change the destiny of the protagonist, since the audience is in the real world instead of being in the same fictional world with the fictitious entity. However, we are often touched by the fiction, feeling worried about the character, praying with him to hope things get better, and being eager to save him out of the tragedy. It seems that psychological connection is the only way for the audience to break through this septum and get into the world on the stage or in the movie. Walton described the phenomena prevalently exist in the aesthetic appreciation of representational artworks via constructing two representative modes that illustrate two audiences named Henry and Charles. Henry tries to step onto the stage to save the trapped heroine played by the actress, while Charles feels terrified when watching the horror movie about the green slime flowing towards the audience. By the reference of the term’mental simulation’borrowed from cognitive science, Walton studied the emotional state of the audience when appreciating fictions, and named it the’quasi-emotion’, which is essentially distinct from the real emotion activated by the real stimulations in reality. Simulators always put themselves in the center of the imagination, which means all the events occurring in the fictional world of one’s imagining are about oneself. People do not have to imitate the mental state of others, but to make their own decisions and options with clear consciousness in order to respond to fictional circumstances. That’s the characteristic that mental simulation differs from empathy and hallucination. Thus, mental simulation centered on the imaginer per se is the psychological foundation of the make-believe behavior.First of all, mental simulation does not equal to illusions caused by drugs. Imaginers respond to the fictional situation under the mind state of clear consciousness. The behavior of simulating fictional situations in mind probably takes place in daydreams, aesthetic appreciation and composition of literature and artworks. Secondly, mental simulation is not exactly the same with empathy. The subject of empathy transfers her own personality and emotional feelings to the object that she’s empathetic with, via imagining it and getting familiar with it, aiming at understandings of the empathized thing or person. The subject and object of empathy would combine into one during the process. However, the subject of mental simulation takes fictional situations of others as her own, in which she’s the protagonist and the center of all perceptions about the fictional world, aiming at acquaintance with herself, instead of adapting to emotions and feelings of others. As a result, simulators do not have to match themselves with the targets, to be the same with the given psychological state, who could gain more freedom than ones in the process of empathy. Moreover, mental simulation is not physical imitation. The objects of physical imitation are something that really exist, which are concrete and easy to be perceived by all the sensibilities, namely people can touch, smell, see, taste and hear them, whereas due to the imaginative quality, it’s possible for the subject of mental simulation to observe fictional objects, which do not exist in the real world at all, in a fantastic way. As a consequence, the behavior of mental simulation does not require the subjects to match with the represented objects, neither to resemble nor keep accordance with them.The aesthetic activities of representational artworks, especially the performance and appreciation of the theater, are full of elements related to mental simulation. When watching the performance, the audience play in the game of make-believe based on the work world and characters, whose experience engenders such kind of emotion like the real feelings but not so real. Charles did not leave the seat even if the green slime was running to him fictionally, which made him really nervous and terrified. The intense mental state of Charles is almost as real as the daily emotion stimulated in the true environment, yet not that kind of real emotion, for it’s generated by fictional conditions. Walton preferred calling it the’quasi-emotion’, in order to distinguish it from the real feelings with active responses. During the process of appreciating a drama performance, the quasi-emotion of the audience will go through three stages. In the first stage, the audience is immersed in the fictional situation, being stimulated with multiple intense feelings stuck inside himself, which cannot be released by any physical ways. In the next stage after that, the audience tries to figure out the channel to release his quasi-emotions. In the last period, the audience finally realizes that he can imagine himself to be one of the characters on stage, but to change the tragic destiny into the expected one in his own fantasy, which might be distinct from the performing one. In these stages of appreciating the drama, the quasi-emotion can be caused by the contradiction between being helpless stuck in the real world and being eager to interfere with the fictional world.The generation and the relief of quasi-emotion could be sufficient to illustrate the catharsis effect proposed by Aristotle, namely to release, to purify and to nurture the daily emotion and sensibilities of the citizens in the aesthetic appreciation of the tragic drama performance. When the rational control to stay sitting in his seat is overwhelmed by the impulsion to save the heroine trapped by the villains, Henry rushes up onto the stage to carry her out of the danger. Henry does not save her though, since they are in two different worlds. The catharsis effect represented by Henry thereby remains in the primary relief of quasi-emotion. On the contrary, when the rational control that commands to stay seated overwhelms the implusion of escaping away from the green slime flowing to him, Charles still sits there instead of running out of the cinema, although he’s sweating and shivering, terrified by the fictional situation represented on the screen. Since Charles will certainly not be harmed by the green slime, he not merely releases his terror of the monster but also gets it purified. After watching the movie or the play over and over again for many times, it’s possible that Henry and Charles would react to the fictional situation more rationally and calmly, who have reached the final destination of catharsis effect as to promote oneself via practising and nurturing in the fictional world. It depends on the aesthetic properties and the faculties of understanding and psychological state of make-believe within different individuals that which aspects of catharsis effects appear in each appreciation experience. To participate more times in games of make-believe generated by the movies or the theaters would be helpful to exercise those faculties and make the nurture more efficient. The fictional truth generated by artworks acting as props of the make-believe game ought to be about fictitious entities in question, which is true and merely true in fictional worlds, instead of in the real world. Fictional truth can be primary, namely directly generated by the work, or indirectly implied by the primary ones.’The primary fictional truth’being organized into groups in order to generate more complicated’implied fictional truth’is the first step to creat a fictional world. Thus, the construction of the fictional world relies on the connection and implication of fictional truth. The breeding process of fictional truth also presents characteristics in generating process of fictional truth, in accordance with the reality principle and the mutual belief principle.The theory of possible worlds can be applied to elaborate this question, as the transition and medium between pure fictional worlds and the real world. A possible world is such kind of potential situation that can transform into reality once the conditions needed are fulfilled, whereas a fictional world is less connected with the real world than possible worlds, which might not always have counterparts in reality. Possible worlds cannot exist without the real world. On the contrary, fictional worlds can perform just as well even if not being related to reality, for fantasies and imaginings are as important as, or even more crucial than reality for the construction of fictional worlds. In case of that, the independence and fictionality of representational arts deserve respects, which even work for historical novels, epics, plays and movies with counterparts in accordance. Fictional worlds are not possible worlds in respect of relations with reality. However, as to the mind state of make-believe they may contain, there could be similarities between fictional worlds and possible worlds. The concept of possible worlds emphasizes logical possibilities, which can become reality when conditions are ready; whereas fictional worlds are based on psychological possibilities, which do not need any proof or permission from reality and logic to exist legitimately. The only source of legitimization for fictional worlds and fictional truth is up to the belief of appreciators, which means the mind state of make-believe could decide whether fictional worlds are believable (in the fictional sense) to the audience. The generation of fictional truth not only makes the construction of magnificent possible, but also builds up connections among solitary fictional worlds, nesting them into a huge system, during the process of which, the extent of’believe’has been deepened while the extent of’disbelieve’been diminished. since after being nested and proved by other fictional worlds, the fictional truth with similar contents becomes more convincing.Based on the reflection of the psychological dimension of fictional worlds, Walton proposed the concepts of work worlds and game worlds. The work world is completely built up on the foundation of the artwork per se, which has close connection with all the fictional truth generated by the work. The game world does not absolutely rely on fictional truth generated by the work, which also absorbs imagined facts created by appreciators, as players in the game of make-believe. Both work worlds and game worlds are fictional worlds with elements of make-believe. With the help of imagination and make-believe, aesthetic pleasure that cannot be fulfilled in work worlds that lack of artistic acqierement would be fulfilled in game worlds. In the game of make-believe, multiple work worlds could be nested on each other to build a larger game world, without questioning about the legitimate identity of existence, which reveals a kind of aesthetic freedom provided by imagination. Walton applied the pair of concepts to explain the aesthetic appreciation of absolute music, aiming at whether it could be qualified as representational arts. According to Walton, absolute music is non-representational by itself in the realm of work worlds. However, it becomes representational after being appreciated by the listener in an aesthetic way, adding imagined fictional truth and vivid images to the work. As a consequence, non-representational absolute music become representational in the game world. Imaginings bring lifeless absolute music into the game of make-believe. The objects represented by the music are created by the listener, instead of being composed by the musician. Accordingly, the imagined fictional truth of the listener performs as the prop in the game of make-believe, generating fictitious facts about the interaction between the listener and the work, instead of the work per se.There are multiple paradigms of representation, among which narrative representational works like novels, and depictive representational artworks like sketches are the most representative. The narrative representation like novels, epics and scripts of theaters is to represent events and circumstances with literary language, the linguistic nature of which always demands someone to narrate the development of the whole story, no matter whether this’someone’is implicit or explicit. Walton claims that narrators who tell the story are not authors, but characters as fictional as other figures in the work worlds, just like the fact that the apparent artists in depictive representation are not the artists who painted the work, but characters painted in the work as fictional as other images. Narrators live in the fictional worlds, who connect the real world with fictional worlds, namely to connect artists with appreciators as the medium. They act and speak of the fictional truth, in their own perspectives, for readers and the audience. Narrators speak for the author from time to time, filtering events taking place in the fictional worlds and describing them, to the readers, with special observation and position. Readers have to get to know the work worlds with the help of narrators, and observe events through perceptions of narrators, instead of understanding on their own. Therefore, it’s the narrator who helps readers to find their fictional identities in the work and play as this fictitious entity in the game of make-believe generated by the work world.Beyond literary works and other genres with narrative representational qualities, the narrative representation prevalently exists in daily life, especially linguistic communication like metaphors. Walton suggested that it would be more convenient for speakers and listeners to communicate by using metaphorical and make-believe methods to express the signified objects. Metaphors invent the game of make-believe about the implicated targets and the implicating tools, the relation between which generates fictional truth and sets up the fictional circumstance, inviting speakers and listeners to join the game in a linguistic way. Instead of the signified target, the emphasized point of the metaphor concentrates on the process of connecting with something that can imply it. The nature of metaphor is actually to stipulate one thing in frame of the imagination of the other thing. The objects signifying the targets have broadened the view of communicating into the more complicated new realm. The speaker intentionally omits copula in the expression, leaving merely the target and the symbolic medium. The omission of copula conceals the symbolic relation between the two, which indicates the stipulation that the speaker sets for her game of make-believe, to guide listeners to follow and imitate. The objects mentioned with symbolic meaning to signify the represented targets perform as props in the metaphor, which works as the game of make-believe. Consequently, metaphorical expression could be appropriately regarded as prop-oriented make-believe. It’s natural for listeners to understand the prescription in the game of make-believe proposed by the metaphor of the speaker, and creat new metaphors according to their own imaginings. The creation of new metaphors qualifies the listener as one of the players in the game of make-believe. Depictive representation and visual games of make-believe have been discussed in the fifth chapter. Depictions like oil paintings, sketches, etchings and watercolor paintings are such kind of representational artworks that represent objects with images and figures. Depictive representational artworks represent objects and events with two-dimensional and still images, which are more concrete and easier to be perceived directly by eyes than the linguistic representational method of narrative representations. However, the represented objects and events are three or four dimensional and dynamic in the real world. Some other objects to be represented in the paintings are even abstract or not existing, which thereby cannot be perceived in reality. It’s believed that the reason why spectators could recognize the images painted in the work, and find the counterparts of them in reality relies on the resemblance between the represented object and its image. Some scholars advocated the reason to be hallucination of human sights. And others like Gombrich tried to explain this visual experience on the basis of the substitute theory. Yet those misunderstandings of the depictive representation have been disproved by Walton according to his theory of visual games of make-believe. The reason why appreciators are able to recognize the images of those represented objects can be explained in terms of the theory on visual games of make-believe. Walton brought forward this concept to adjust the concept of’seeing-in’(seeing X in Y) claimed by Richard Wollheim, who believed to recognize something represented in the depiction is a kind of special visual experience of seeing the represented thing in the depiction. Walton considered the visual experience of seeing-in as playing in the visual game of make-believe, with the depictive representation as the prop. To depict something, thereby, is to creat the prop that would prompt imaginings of the audience about the represented objects in the visual game of make-believe. In the visual game of make-believe about the painting, it’s not two-dimensional of the fictional world inside. Spectators would imagine the world to be spatio-temporal, as dynamic as reality. Thus, appreciating the depictive representation is to see through the canvas into a broader fictional environment inside the work world, pretending to believe all that happens fictionally in the painting is true. Artists prefer applying mirrors, curtains, doorframes and windows to divide multiple layers of space for the world inside the painting, which successfully increase the depth of visual experience. There are several forms of organizing multiple layers of space inside the painting, including the obverse side-directed nesting, the reverse side-directed nesting, the reflection-directed nesting.The first and the most common paradigm to nest space inside and outside the painting is to depict the space according to our visual habit, namely to look in the direction right ahead. To represent the space inside the fictional world in the right direction obverse to the spectator would join the two parts of space together into one in the same direction. Figures in the painting of the obverse side directed space nesting are moving farther away from the audience. Therefore, the space of this nesting paradigm is endless and frameless. It seems to the appreciators that the painting opens a window to somewhere else, inviting them to walk in. The second most common paradigm to nest space inside and outside the painting is to depict the space against our visual habit, namely to represent the space inside the fictional world in the opposite direction to the spectator, which would also join the two parts of space together, but in two contrary directions. Figures in the painting of the reverse side directed space nesting are breaking through the frame, walking out of the depiction and moving closer to the audience. It looks like the painting shows them another world in the reverse direction to the space of reality where they are standing in. According to the way of how scenography works, some parts of the roomspace cannot be seen, for it’s blocked by other objects in front, which keep it out of the sight of the painter and the spectator. By drawing mirrors and the roomspace reflected in it, artists connect the scenery that can be seen with the one that cannot be seen. This kind of technique is the reflection-directed depictive nesting, which riches the arrangement of space in the limited scale of the canvas.The works of depictive representation with the camera and films are transparent, Walton claimed. Transparency is such kind of quality that helps the audience see what actually exists in front of the camera directly. The objects captured in the film show up again in the photo, which can be perceived directly by spectators, just like the visual experience of seeing something face to face with the naked eyes. As the prop in the visual game of make-believe, these photographs maintain the perceptual connection between spectators and the objects shot by the camera.Walton connected the foundation of representational arts with the behavior of make-believe to prove that all kinds of representational arts are basically games of make-believe, in which the artworks are props that generate fictional truth to establish fictional worlds and invite appreciators to come inside and play. Moreover, Walton proved the affirmations of the resemblance theory, the symbolic theory, the hallucination theory and the theory of substitutes, as well as perspectives on empathy limited and insufficient, via elaborating almost all of the representations are mental simulation in games of make-believe in the psychological dimension. Artists and appreciators mentally simulate the target objects to represent them in fictional worlds, and react to the fictional conditions with quasi-emotion, which differs from the actual emotion stimulated by the real affairs and physical environment elements. In conclusion, mimesis as make-believe is the foundation of representational arts and the aesthetic appreciation of the representational artworks.Kendall Walton has made significant contribution to western aesthetic study today by proposing the aesthetics of game of make-believe. It reveals the special psychological structure between belief and disbelief in aesthetic appreciation of representational arts, and opens up the new dimension of make-believe to solve the willing suspension of disbelief question proposed by Coleridge. It disconnects the relation between representational artworks and the represented objects authorized by traditional perspectives on representation, providing theoretical support for the interpretation of post-modern arts. It also points out that representational artworks do not stipulate the meaning by themselves, but to present possibilities of generating the meaning, by constructing models of fictional worlds as the aesthetic field of game of make-believe. Walton has realized sufficiently the independency of the audience in aesthetic appreciation, and taken it as the foundamental factor of representational arts. These perspectives of aesthetics of game of make-believe supplements the structure of four elements drew by M.H. Abrams in details, and also broaden the view of studies on aesthetic reception and aesthetic psychology.However, Walton has analyzed the phenomena of game of make-believe more than defining its concept. He concentrates on the limitations of the theories on representation and mimesis, without dialectically examing their achievements under certain historical and social circumstances. According to the whole structure of Walton’s aesthetics, it takes representational arts, especially visual arts as the main subject, whereas paying less attention to the literary works and linguistic game of make-believe to some extent. Besides, the study on Walton’s aesthetics of game of make-believe is also available for the interpretation of Chinese traditional aesthetic culture, which is probably helpful for the academic communication between western and China in the realm of aesthetics. Moreover, the reflections on the phenomena of game of make-believe in Chinese traditional aesthetic culture would definitely be enlightening for the study on game of make-believe in the whole world, via popularizing the aesthetic outlook of Chinese traditional aesthetic...