ABSTRACT
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2705-8459" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2705-8459
Chapter 4 starts with a brief treatment of the philosophical paradox of fictional emotions. How may we be moved by fictional characters and their vicissitudes, feeling actual emotions for the fictional representations of fictional human beings? The chapter reformulates the philosophical questions about the cognitive value of fictional narratives, by attempting to demonstrate that the complex and meaningful accounts that literary sources give of our emotional world may be of great utility for the social sciences. By making reference to philosophical arguments, literary criticism and the neurosciences Chapter 4 suggests a strong interconnection between fictional and everyday emotions. As neuroscientists have demonstrated, when reading fiction and feeling compassion (or fear, or excitement) the same parts of our brain are stimulated as when we experience the real thing. The methodological assumption is that, once the distinction between literary narratives and sociological analysis has been clearly drawn, one may turn to literary fiction as a resource for the social sciences.
