International Phenomenological Society

On Kendall Walton's Mimesis as Make-Believe

Memesis As Make-Believe by Kendall Walton
Review by: Noel Carroll
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jun., 1991), pp. 383-387
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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PhilosophyandPhenomenological
Research
Vol. LI,No. 2, June 1991

On Kendall Walton's Mimesis as

Make-Believe
NOEL CARROLL
CornellUniversity

KendallWalton'sMimesisAs Make-Believeis a systematicworkof aes-

theticsthatin manyways revises the frameworkof the field and thatis
likelyto be as provocativeas NelsonGoodman'sLanguagesof Art.Indeed,
if Walton'sbook sets the agendafor the philosophyof art in the coming
decade,we mightstopcallingthe areaaestheticsandstartreferringto it as
mimetics.By meansof his notionof make-believe, Waltonmanagesto make
ingeniouscontributions to manyof the presidingissues in the philosophy
of art, including:the natureof representation,
of fiction, and of our re-
sponsesto fiction,to musicandto whatis oftencalledthe abstractart.His
book is an immenseundertaking, carriedout with consistentlyadmirable
technicalexpertise.
One veryroughway to situateWalton'sbook in the historyof aesthet-
ics is to recall how, in his On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Schiller
transformed Kant'snotionof the aestheticfree play of our cognitiveand
perceptualfacultiesinto the idea thatthe realmof the aestheticcorrelates
with thatof play. Since Schiller,the metaphorof artas play has persisted
as a powerful,butvague,insight.We mightunderstand Walton'sprojectas
in
makingthatmetaphorliteralandprecise,albeit a mannerthatSchiller
mayhaveneveranticipated.
Of the manyissuesdiscussedin Walton'sbook,the one whichI would
like to focus on involves his conceptionof the audience'spsychological
participation with respectto worksof fiction.This topic figuresin many
partsof Walton's book, but is dealt with most intensively in Chapter
Seven.Oneof thecentralproblemsconcerningourpsychologicalresponses
to fictionis a paradox,viz., how can we be movedemotionallyby fictions,
sincein orderto appreciatea fictionwe mustknowthatthe charactersand
eventsportrayedthereindo notexist, while,at the sametime,beingmoved
emotionallyrequiresbelief in the existenceof the objectof the emotion?
For example,how can we fearKingKongin the movieof the samename

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when in order to remain in our seats appreciativelywe must know that the
ape rampagingbefore us does not exist, while, at the same time, really fear-
ing Kong would appearto require a belief in his existence? In brief, Wal-
ton's solution to this problem is to say that in consuming fictions, it is not
actually the case thatwe are moved emotionally, but, instead, when we, for
example, view King Kong, it is only fictional that we fear the eponymous
gorilla.
On Walton's view, a fiction is a prop that readers and viewers use in
games of make-believe. In order to understandwhat is involved in such
games of make-believe, it is helpful to think of certain children's games. A
group of childrenmay designate a given tree to be a bear;it becomes a prop
around which they organize their imaginative activities. Slowly and fear-
fully, they sneak up on it. When one of them hits it with a stick and the
branchrecoils, they run away screaming in order to avoid the sweep of its
"paw."The childrenuse the tree to develop their own fiction, their game of
"stalking the great bear." With children, such games tend toward being
very physical. But they have a psychological dimension as well. When, in
their game, they run from the recoiling branch, it is fictional that they fear
being clawed by the bear.
For adults, fictions are also to be understoodas props in games of make-
believe. These games rarely involve physical participation,though interac-
tive video may change that. Their emphasis is more a matterof psychologi-
cal participation-often a matter of, pretheoreticallyspeaking, responding
emotionally to fictions. Moreover, as props, our fictions are more determi-
nate than many children's games in terms of the imaginative participation
they are designed to encourage.That is, fictions standardlyauthorizecertain
games of make-believe ratherthan others. Or, alternatively, fictions man-
date certainimaginingson the partof the consumer.
When, to take Walton's favorite example, we are at a horrormovie and
the Green Slime turns toward the camera, we are authorizedto take it that
fictionally the Green Slime is after us. This, in turn, generates a state of
"quasi-fear"in us, a state comprised of the kinds of feelings and sensations
that normally attend states of actual fear. Since this state is generated by
our fictionally believing that the Green Slime endangers us, the overall
state of which it is a constituentcan be described as our fictionally fearing
the Green Slime. Ouroverall state, accompaniedby quasi-fear,is part of our
authorizedgame of make-believe. Our state here is analogous to the child,
caughtup in her game, cowering before the recoiling branch.
This conception of our emotional participationwith respect to fictions
nicely does away with the paradox alluded to above, for it is consistent
with our knowledge that the Green Slime does not exist that we are

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fictionally afraid of the Green Slime in our game of make-believe. More-
over, we are motivatedto engage in such games of make-believe for a num-
ber of reasons, including those of gaining a sense of playing new roles and
of learning about ourselves and our responses when we confront imagined
situations.
Though Walton's account of our emotional response to fiction does
away with the preceding paradox, it is not clear to me that it doesn't raise
some problems of its own. For example, if we adopt Walton's picture, I
find it difficult to explain why so often we are not moved by fictions.
Most fictions are designed to engage us emotionally. In Walton's idiom,
this would appear to be a matterof being designed as props that authorize
certaingames of make-believe which, for instance,put us in position to take
it that fictionally the Green Slime endangersus, raising, in turn, a state of
quasi-fear in us, such that we can be described as fictionally fearing the
Green Slime, since the state of quasi-fear has been generated by our
fictionally believing that it endangersus.
But, as a matter of fact, quite frequently the works designed to autho-
rize such games fail to promote the anticipated emotional state (however
one wishes to describe that state) that the fiction was designed to promote.
With respect to Walton's preferred example of horror films, it is very
often the case that they fail to horrify. Indeed, in extreme instances, they
have an effect opposite to what they have been designed to elicit.
Plan 9 From Outer Space, a feature film shamelessly patched together
aroundsome footage of Bela Lugosi before he died, strikes many as ridicu-
lous rather than horrifying. But, even more importantly, there are many
horrorfilms which fail to horrify, not because they are ridiculous, but be-
cause they are altogether lackluster.Perhaps The Brain from Planet Arous
is an example here. Moreover, with respect to other genres, there are many
melodramas that we find emotionally inert and adventures that are not
suspenseful. That is, there are many fictions where the audience has a prop
and where what the prop has been designed for is evident, but where one
just doesn't get caught up in it. And, here, of course, I do not have in mind
cases where this is the idiosyncraticresponse of one or two audience mem-
bers, but the response of virtuallyeveryone.
But how, on Walton's view, can this happen-indeed, how can it happen
so frequently? Children's games of make-believe are supposed to illumi-
nate the kind of participationthat the appreciatorof the fiction mobilizes.
But for the child, as I seem to recall, the prop itself is not so very crucial
for a game of make-believe. A broken stick can be a gun and an old pot a
helmet. These are sufficient for a game of make-believe and enough on

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 which to pin our animosity to our supposed enemy. Rather,what is crucial
to the game is the inclination to play it, not the quality of the prop.
Now presumably,on Walton's view, when we open a novel or go to a
stage dramaor a movie, we are inclined to play a game of make-believe,per-
haps to try out some role or to secure some other of the purposes that Wal-
ton ascribes to the make-believe stance. However, if we are inclined to en-
gage in a make-believe game, why should the shortcomingsof the prop de-
ter us? They don't stop children. So why is it that if we are bent on playing
a make-believe game of horrorwhen we go to see Attack of the Fifty-Foot
Woman and we realize that fictionally the Fifty-Foot Woman is danger-
ous-i.e., that that is what we are authorizedto imagine with respect to the
fiction-then we just don't use our prop to play the game that we set out to
play?
Walton may wish to way that the quality of the prop may enhance the
game we play with it. But I don't understandhow in any principledway he
can explain how a lackluster prop should impede our game. Moreover, if
being moved by a fiction is simply a matterof playing a game, albeit an au-
thorized one, then we, like children at play, should be able to work our-
selves up imaginatively to be moved in the ways appropriateto the game
we elected to play when we choose a fiction of a certain sort (e.g., a horror
film).
However, it is a fact that very often we don't muster the emotion we
anticipated when we attend to a given fiction. At the very least, this sug-
gests a strong disanalogy between appreciatingfictions and participatingin
paradigmaticgames of make-believe.
Furthermore,it may also supply some groundfor considering a view ri-
val to Walton's about the nature of our emotional responses to fiction,
namely, that if and when we are moved by a fiction that is because we are
genuinely, not fictionally, moved by it. And, furthermore,when we are not
moved by a fiction, the explanationis that it is not genuinely moving.
For Walton, when I am horrifiedby the Green Slime, it is fictional that
I am so moved as a function of my larger game of make-believe and the
imaginings that it authorizes. But, then, it is hard to see why if I am in-
clined to play the game, the prop should fail me. Yet, it very often does. On
the other hand, if we suppose that the emotions we undergo with respect to
fictions are genuine-rather than artifacts of our own game of make-be-
lieve-then we will be prone to say that we fail to respond with the antic-
ipated emotion just because the work in question is not horrifying.
That we find something fictionally horrifying-as a function of the
game we are playing and the imaginings it authorizes-is to a certain ex-
tent underour control in the same way that we are able to induce sadness in

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ourselves by imagining the death of a loved one. But whetherwe find a film
horrifying or not does not seem up to us in the same way. And the reason
for this may be that such a state is a matterof being genuinely horrifiedor
not, ratherthan being in a state of fictional emotion, inducible by opting to
play certainauthorizedgames.
I have yet to be convinced that within Walton's system, the problem of
the failure of emotional responses can be answered in other than an ad hoc
fashion. Needless to say, however, even if Walton has a real problemhere, I
do not regardthe preceding considerationsas absolutely conclusive in the
debate about whether our emotions in response to fictions are genuine or
fictional. At best, these worries representa dialectical point in a larger and
more complicated controversywhose full discussion requirementsof space
prohibit.

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