Some emotions – sadness and despair for example – are unpleasant to experience. We avoid circumstances that might occasion them when we can. But we do not always avoid some works of art, for instance, King Lear and Rigoletto, even when we know in advance that these are prone to elicit emotional reactions of the kind we normally shun (Levinson Reference Levinson2013).
This is widely discussed as the paradox of tragedy, and I use that term in the following. It is, however, worth noting that artworks that provoke horror (Carroll Reference Carroll1990a) and disgust (Korsmeyer Reference Korsmeyer2011) fall in the same category. This is distinct from the paradox of fiction, which puzzles over the fact that we respond emotionally to characters that we know to have never existed (or that are long dead) (Davies Reference Davies2009).
There are two main responses to the paradox of tragedy. They are different but not mutually exclusive.
The first argues that some benefit compensates us by outweighing the negative feelings we undergo. In its strongest form, this reply argues that the benefit could not be derived without our experiencing the negative; it depends on that experience. The benefit could be cognitive (e.g., Carroll Reference Carroll1990a) or affective (e.g., Aristotle Reference Aristotle and Lucas1972; Feagin Reference Feagin1983) or could come in the form of aesthetic pleasure.
The second response adopts a deflationary approach to the negativity of emotions aroused in the art setting. Berys Gaut (Reference Gaut1993), for instance, argues that what is unpleasant about fear lies more in the actions it requires and in the consequences of those actions than in the way it feels as such. Where neither actions nor consequences follow for the audience engaged with a fiction, their negative response need not feel unpleasant. The somatic accompaniments of the response, such as the rush of adrenalin, can be enjoyed for the focus and alertness they bring on.
A particularly strong version of the deflationary view was presented by David Hume (Reference Hume and Miller1987). According to him, our interest in the story converts what would normally be an unpleasant reaction into a positive one. By way of explanation he appeals to what are supposed to be analogous processes –distance makes the heart grow fonder, we love the sick child more, nothing becomes a friend so much as his death. But on inspection these cases are far from similar and the comparison is unhelpful.
The authors of the target article do not locate their model within these approaches until the close of the article, and they seem to reject all of the options.
They deny that their model relies on compensatory mechanisms (sect. 4.6). Despite this, they catalog (sect. 2) how sad artworks produce easily recalled, vivid aesthetic experiences. “These emotional responses can be considered prime examples of high emotional intensity, high levels of aesthetic enjoyment, and high memorability as associated with artworks, the processing of which, includes marked levels of negative affect” (sect. 2, para. 7), a claim that strongly implies a mechanism of compensation. Moreover, the second factor of their model – “Embracing the distanced negative emotions for pleasurable purposes” (sect 4.6) – surely amounts to compensation.
The authors also explicitly deny that theirs is a conversionary account (sect. 4.6). (But notice, then, how careless the labeling of Figure 1 is: “Solid rectangles indicate the processing components that are always involved in making negative emotions enjoyable.”)
On its face, the favored model is deflationary (which, as noted earlier, is consistent with and facilitates compensation). The first factor in the model, the distancing of the negative emotion, is supposed to take the sting out of the emotion's negativity. Distance “open[s] experiential spaces in which negative emotions are not inevitably incompatible with art-specific expectations of hedonic reward” (sect. 3, para. 1).
Now, though, how convincing is the notion of “psychological distance” as an element in aesthetic experience? The notion was introduced into aesthetics in 1912 by Edward Bullough. He argued that the percipient had to psychically distance herself from the artwork to be in a position to appreciate it appropriately. With too little distance, her feelings could be overwhelmed; whereas too much would lead to indifference.
The authors of the Distancing-Embracing model appear to be committed to the centrality of psychological distance to aesthetic experience. They describe its mechanisms as involving situational awareness of one's separateness from the world of the artwork (sect. 3.1), and/or of the temporal and spatial discontinuity of its world with the real world (sect. 3.2), and/or of the fictionality of its contents (sect. 3.3).
I don't deny our awareness of such factors. Nor do I doubt that they can be relevant to our emotional responses to artworks, though the suggestion that these are less intense and more ephemeral than emotional reactions to real-world events is patently false in some cases. My worry is that the metaphor of “distance” is asked to carry the explanatory heft in the Distancing-Embracing model. Given that we do respond to what we know are not here-and-now situations, including to what we know to be fictions, it is not obvious that we are “distanced” from what we feel in a way that could solve the paradox of tragedy.
Beginning in the 1960s, philosophers of art (Cohen Reference Cohen and Black1965; Dickie Reference Dickie1964) argued strongly against the idea that aesthetic experience involves a psychologically distinctive attitude of distancing. What was needed, George Dickie argued, was attention of the regular kind, plus knowledge of the conventions, history, and practices of the institutions within which art is made, presented, and appreciated. Despite some pushback (for example, see Hanfling Reference Hanfling2000; Pandit Reference Pandit1976; Price Reference Price1977), these arguments succeeded in undermining the idea that aesthetic experience depended on an act of psychological distancing. Philosophers of art are not inclined these days to talk of psychological distance, except perhaps as a weak metaphor that could not perform the heavy lifting that the authors of the Distancing-Embracing model require of it.
Some emotions – sadness and despair for example – are unpleasant to experience. We avoid circumstances that might occasion them when we can. But we do not always avoid some works of art, for instance, King Lear and Rigoletto, even when we know in advance that these are prone to elicit emotional reactions of the kind we normally shun (Levinson Reference Levinson2013).
This is widely discussed as the paradox of tragedy, and I use that term in the following. It is, however, worth noting that artworks that provoke horror (Carroll Reference Carroll1990a) and disgust (Korsmeyer Reference Korsmeyer2011) fall in the same category. This is distinct from the paradox of fiction, which puzzles over the fact that we respond emotionally to characters that we know to have never existed (or that are long dead) (Davies Reference Davies2009).
There are two main responses to the paradox of tragedy. They are different but not mutually exclusive.
The first argues that some benefit compensates us by outweighing the negative feelings we undergo. In its strongest form, this reply argues that the benefit could not be derived without our experiencing the negative; it depends on that experience. The benefit could be cognitive (e.g., Carroll Reference Carroll1990a) or affective (e.g., Aristotle Reference Aristotle and Lucas1972; Feagin Reference Feagin1983) or could come in the form of aesthetic pleasure.
The second response adopts a deflationary approach to the negativity of emotions aroused in the art setting. Berys Gaut (Reference Gaut1993), for instance, argues that what is unpleasant about fear lies more in the actions it requires and in the consequences of those actions than in the way it feels as such. Where neither actions nor consequences follow for the audience engaged with a fiction, their negative response need not feel unpleasant. The somatic accompaniments of the response, such as the rush of adrenalin, can be enjoyed for the focus and alertness they bring on.
A particularly strong version of the deflationary view was presented by David Hume (Reference Hume and Miller1987). According to him, our interest in the story converts what would normally be an unpleasant reaction into a positive one. By way of explanation he appeals to what are supposed to be analogous processes –distance makes the heart grow fonder, we love the sick child more, nothing becomes a friend so much as his death. But on inspection these cases are far from similar and the comparison is unhelpful.
The authors of the target article do not locate their model within these approaches until the close of the article, and they seem to reject all of the options.
They deny that their model relies on compensatory mechanisms (sect. 4.6). Despite this, they catalog (sect. 2) how sad artworks produce easily recalled, vivid aesthetic experiences. “These emotional responses can be considered prime examples of high emotional intensity, high levels of aesthetic enjoyment, and high memorability as associated with artworks, the processing of which, includes marked levels of negative affect” (sect. 2, para. 7), a claim that strongly implies a mechanism of compensation. Moreover, the second factor of their model – “Embracing the distanced negative emotions for pleasurable purposes” (sect 4.6) – surely amounts to compensation.
The authors also explicitly deny that theirs is a conversionary account (sect. 4.6). (But notice, then, how careless the labeling of Figure 1 is: “Solid rectangles indicate the processing components that are always involved in making negative emotions enjoyable.”)
On its face, the favored model is deflationary (which, as noted earlier, is consistent with and facilitates compensation). The first factor in the model, the distancing of the negative emotion, is supposed to take the sting out of the emotion's negativity. Distance “open[s] experiential spaces in which negative emotions are not inevitably incompatible with art-specific expectations of hedonic reward” (sect. 3, para. 1).
Now, though, how convincing is the notion of “psychological distance” as an element in aesthetic experience? The notion was introduced into aesthetics in 1912 by Edward Bullough. He argued that the percipient had to psychically distance herself from the artwork to be in a position to appreciate it appropriately. With too little distance, her feelings could be overwhelmed; whereas too much would lead to indifference.
The authors of the Distancing-Embracing model appear to be committed to the centrality of psychological distance to aesthetic experience. They describe its mechanisms as involving situational awareness of one's separateness from the world of the artwork (sect. 3.1), and/or of the temporal and spatial discontinuity of its world with the real world (sect. 3.2), and/or of the fictionality of its contents (sect. 3.3).
I don't deny our awareness of such factors. Nor do I doubt that they can be relevant to our emotional responses to artworks, though the suggestion that these are less intense and more ephemeral than emotional reactions to real-world events is patently false in some cases. My worry is that the metaphor of “distance” is asked to carry the explanatory heft in the Distancing-Embracing model. Given that we do respond to what we know are not here-and-now situations, including to what we know to be fictions, it is not obvious that we are “distanced” from what we feel in a way that could solve the paradox of tragedy.
Beginning in the 1960s, philosophers of art (Cohen Reference Cohen and Black1965; Dickie Reference Dickie1964) argued strongly against the idea that aesthetic experience involves a psychologically distinctive attitude of distancing. What was needed, George Dickie argued, was attention of the regular kind, plus knowledge of the conventions, history, and practices of the institutions within which art is made, presented, and appreciated. Despite some pushback (for example, see Hanfling Reference Hanfling2000; Pandit Reference Pandit1976; Price Reference Price1977), these arguments succeeded in undermining the idea that aesthetic experience depended on an act of psychological distancing. Philosophers of art are not inclined these days to talk of psychological distance, except perhaps as a weak metaphor that could not perform the heavy lifting that the authors of the Distancing-Embracing model require of it.