Are Fictional Emotions Genuine and Rational? Phenomenological Reflections on a Controversial Question In: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy XVII, 2019 Michela Summa Philosophy Institute, Würzburg University PENULTIMATE VERSION: Please refer to the published article Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discuss the status of so-called ‘fictional emo- tions’ and their relation to emotions in the face of what is real. Particularly, I consider whether we can take fictional emotions as genuine and rational. I begin with a discussion of a paradoxical characterization of fictional emotions, which introduces questions concerning their genuineness and rationality, and show how these questions are strictly tied to the problem of the existence of fictional objects, or of our disbelief in their existence. I then clarify in what sense emotions can arise independently of our belief in real existence and in what sense we can say that fic- tional objects ‘exist’ although they do not exist as real. Subsequently, I briefly address the normative implications of fictional experience. And finally, I consider how a phenomenological account of fictional emotions presupposes a discussion of the different modalities of our participation in imaginary and fictional context, and how these different modalities are correlated to different forms of self-consciousness. Keywords: imagination, fiction, fictional emotions, reality, irreality When we read a novel, watch a play or a movie, we are often emotionally touched. We experience sympathy, fear, anger, etc. for fictional characters or in the face of fictional situations and we differently react to such feelings: sometimes unremarkably and sometimes with overt behavior (like tears, laugh, fright, etc.). This very common and familiar phenomenon provoked a large and complex philosophical debate on the sta- tus of so-called ‘fictional emotions’. This concept designates all those emotions which are related to something fictional or imagined, i.e., to something that we do not take to really exist, to have really existed, and to really exist in the future. Characteristic of this debate is the formulation of puzzles concerning fictional emotions, which touch on both descriptive and normative aspects. The descriptive puzzles are related to the status of fictional emotions compared to emotions in the face of something real. Partic- ularly, they ask whether we can consider fictional emotions as genuine and rationally grounded, assuming that we do not believe in the real existence of what moves us. 1 1 Gregory Currie, The Nature of Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft, Recreative Minds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002); Tamar Szabó Gendler and Karson Kovakovich, “Genuine Rational Fictional Emotions,” in Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, ed. Matthew Kieran (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 241–253; Tamar Szabó Gendler, Intuition, Imagination, and Philosophical