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The Radford’s Puzzle and the Prospect of Noncognitive Theories of Emotion

  • Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University
  • 2018, 75(1), pp.529-566
  • DOI : 10.17326/jhsnu.75.1.201802.529
  • Publisher : Institute of Humanities, Seoul National University
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : December 19, 2017
  • Accepted : January 31, 2018
  • Published : February 28, 2018

Choi Kunhong 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I critically examine the claim that Colin Radford’s real question in the Radford’s puzzle concerning our emotional response to fiction is the causal one, and investigate the prospect of an approach to this puzzle, which adopts a noncognitive theory of emotion. SeaHwa Kim has pointed out that Kendall Walton’s account, which treats the puzzle as the conceptual one, is not a satisfactory solution to it, and argued that the real question is the causal one. She has also claimed that the causal question is closely related to the conceptual one, and suggested a revision to the cognitive theory of emotion while construing this as showing, that the answer to the causal question can support the answer to the conceptual question. While finding her insight of great significance that Radford’s question is fundamentally the causal one, I demonstrate that Kim’s objection to Walton’s solution makes a fallacy of ambiguity by using the term ‘the causal question’ ambiguously. Furthermore, I do not think that the relation between the causal question and the conceptual question is as close as Kim regards it to be, and thereby argue that her revisionary suggestion does not show what it is supposed to do. Finally, considering the recent development of noncognitive theories of emotion, I think that the reasons the cognitivists give for blocking the noncognitive approach to the Radford’s puzzle, which include the problems of the individuation, rationality and intentionality of emotions, are not so much compelling any longer. In particular, I introduce as a good example Jesse Prinz’s theory of emotion, namely, the embodied appraisal theory, and evaluate the prospect of an attempt to understand our emotional response to fiction in terms of his noncognitive theory.

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