Fiction, imagination, and cognition

The dissertation examines human imaginative involvement with fictions. It begins by considering problems concerning the "paradox of fiction". The paradox arises from three premises about our emotional responses to real-life situations and to fictions. First, emotions, such as fear and pity, seem to require that we believe in the existence of the object of the emotion and in the occurrence of the relevant events. Second, we are often genuinely moved by the fates of fictional characters. However, we do not believe that fictional characters exist or that fictional events occur.; I first argue against two prevailing misconceptions concerning fiction and imagination. I suggest that original arguments about the "inconsistency" of our emotional responses to fictions are underspecified, and they do not support the claim that such responses are inconsistent. I also argue that the paradox of fiction is based on an implausible theory of emotions, and once that theory of emotions is abandoned, the paradox can also be eliminated.; The dissertation then focuses on recent theories of fiction and imagination. On the one hand, I argue that versions of the make-believe/simulation theory face a number of difficulties both as philosophical explanations and as cognitive theories of fiction and imagination. On the other hand, I suggest that although the core proposal of the mental representation theory of fiction is plausible, it is, nevertheless, a very "thin" account, and its success depends on the plausibility of its cognitive psychological peer theory. I examine and criticize a recent mental representation theory based cognitive account, and I suggest a mental representation theory based cognitive architecture that explains the cognitive mechanisms and processes subserving our imaginative involvement with fictions.; The dissertation ends with examining how my account of fiction and imagination may be applied to resolve problems concerning pictorial representations and pictorial fictions. I argue that the disputes about the "transparency" of photographic images and the arguments concerning imagining seeing versus perceptual imagining become mainly terminological, once the specific perceptual and cognitive mechanisms and processes involved in looking and photographs and attending to fiction films are explicitly described.