Abstract

The paper argues that our emotions in response to fictional representations are best explained, not as requiring a suspension of disbelief, but as resembling the emotions we feel when we propound a hypothetical case to ourselves, such as the imagined happiness or suffering of ourselves or another. In reading fiction we voluntarily participate in a hypothesis represented by the work. If this explanation is accepted, we can retain the view that beliefs always entail commitment to the reality of what is believed.