Rationality in Drama & Fiction.

 

ABSTRACTS
{in order of appearance}

 

Steven Brams, Anger in Fiction: Springboard to Reconciliation or Tragedy?
I develop game theory models, based on the theory of moves, that show why a character, out of frustration, may find it rational to depart from a Nash-equilibrium outcome in a game. The resulting anger that this character expresses, and the crisis that ensues, may end in either reconciliation (illustrated by Aristophanes' Lysistrata) or tragedy (illustrated by Shakespeare's Macbeth). Or it may result in endless cycling, with no resolution (illustrated by Joseph Heller's Catch-22).

Paisley Livingston, Hot and Cold Irrationality in the Films of Ingmar Bergman
In its overarching emphasis on motivated irrationality, the art film in the modernist tradition would appear to be out of step with the emphasis on ‘cold’ bias and error within contemporary psychological research. The work of Ingmar Bergman is a rather notorious case in point. His characterizations and plots seem to focus entirely on hot forms of irrationality, the main thought being that it is primarily desires, moods, and emotions that precipitate catastrophic errors and conflicts. In this regard Bergman may have been influenced by Eino Kaila, a Finnish philosopher whose 1934 treatise in philosophical psychology is a veritable catalogue of the forms of motivated irrationality.
In this talk I will explore what I take to be some of the more insightful fictional depictions of irrationality to be found in the films of Ingmar Bergman. I will also discuss the basis and significance of the apparent overemphasis on hot as opposed to cold irrationality. Is there something about cinematic story-telling that makes the (modernist) fiction film an inefficient vehicle for certain psychological findings? Or is there in fact a due attention given to the species of irrationality? How and why are spectators of these films led to make attributions of irrationality to fictional characters? And what, if anything, can we learn about irrationality and rationality from such fictions?

Marion Ledwig, Rational Emotional Responses to Art
In order to evaluate whether it is rational to respond emotionally to art, it is first necessary to agree upon what art is. Originality is the central feature of art, with the different subject matters or materials used to determine which form in particular that work of art takes. The paradox of fiction is solved by claiming that people have beliefs in the existence and features of objects, even if known to be completely fictional, for seeing means believing. An emotional response to art is rational, if the agent has good reasons for his emotional response with regard to the particular piece of art. Hence, many different emotional responses to art become rational.

Keith Oatley, Characters in Dialogue and Literary Emotions: Routes to Rationality in Julius Caesar and The Seagull
Depictions of character that go beyond the necessities of a plot enable an approach to rationality that can be thought of in terms of Aristotelian dialectic. Here, as Bakhtin has discussed, audience members can take part empathetically with characters in mental dialogues that enable rational participation in the vicissitudes and dilemmas in a play or novel. For emotions, an important source is Indian poetics, in which are described rasas: aesthetic or literary emotions, which are experienced by audience members. Each rasa is related to an everyday emotion (love, anger, fear, etc.) but each is more rational because it can be less caught up in the egoism that can blind us to significance in its everyday counterpart. The active principle in Indian poetics is dhvani, or suggestiveness: so within a frame summoned by any one rasa (think genre, such as love story, revenge story, thriller, etc.) the function of words of a writer and actions of an actor is to suggest moods and understandings within a rational social structure. These processes are illustrated by discussion of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Chekhov's The Seagull.

Stephen Rowland, Rationality and the Young Child
This paper draws upon my research conducted 25 years ago in UK into the intellectual life of a group of nine year old children in a primary school classroom. At that time, primary education was much less constrained by government requirements and targets, and I was fortunate enough to identify a school which valued open forms of enquiry amongst the children. Working alongside a classroom teacher I would at times join in activities which the children had devised for themselves, or observe them pursuing the suggestions of their teacher, or offer them my own ideas to consider.
This context provided privileged access to the children’s thinking over a year. I had considerable experience as a primary school teacher, but during this study I also worked like an ethnologist observing and playing a part with those I observed. I kept detailed field notes recording their activities, conversations, stories, paintings and so forth. These field notes enabled an appreciation of their work and the quality of their thinking. Analysis was qualitative and hermeneutic in style.
Underlying this approach was an assumption that young children’s activity is best interpreted if we assume them to act rationally. This assumption served two purposes: it was effective pedagogically in that when children are responded to as if they were rational, then this tends to enhance their reasoning capabilities; and it was effective methodologically as a research stance, in that it enabled plausible explanations of the decisions they made. This approach will be illustrated through a close account of three children discussing the existence of God, recorded in my field notes.
Changes in primary school education policy over the last 20 years – which have resulted in a more centralized and prescribed curriculum - have made it difficult to envisage this kind of enquiry and approach to the analysis of children’s thinking.

Jenny Davidson, Emma's Choices
A consideration of how Austen presents decision-making and concealment in a novel that foregrounds questions of knowledge and information.

Bertram Schefold, The Good Life, the Theory and the Reality of Capitalism: Economists in the Circle Around the German Poet Stefan George
Stefan George was the first modern poet in Germany; he adopted symbolism in Paris from Mallarmé and transformed the poetic language by writing full-sounding verses; a form of German lyric resulted which was stronger in form than what was known among the epigones of Goethe. He founded a journal and created a circle of friends to whom beauty seemed important. They reacted to the Bourgois character and the power policy of imperial Germany. At the same time they were proud of the German cultural heritage which they hoped to renew. The Circle attracted, apart from a number of other important personalities (poets, artists and scholars in various fields of the humanities), also some economists later of renown. They were thus confronted with the problem of how to reconcile the ideals of a good life, based on aesthetic principles, with the necessity to confront the economic, social and political problems of the day, torn between the influences of German conservatism, Marxism and new currents such as Max Weber's sociology. Some of these economists would keep their artistic and professional lives strictly apart. Others took up the intellectual challenge and enriched their discipline with new departures, especially regarding economic sociology, economic history and methodology. Special emphasis will be given in the paper to Edgar Salin with his conception of Anschauliche Theorie (Intuitive Theory). At the surface this was developed out of a critique of Sombart, but it has deeper roots in ideas emanating from the Circle.

Sarah Churchwell, Love Crazy

Steffen Huck, Why Elsa Asks from Whence He Came: An Epistemological Analysis of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin
Elsa knows she's innocent and so does Lohengrin. But does Elsa know that Lohengrin knows? In this paper I analyse the belief structure in Wagner's Lohengrin. Particular attention is paid to the trial-by-battle scene in act one. The analysis makes use of so-called agreement theorems developed in game theory and allows for a new and, as I argue, psychologically more convincing explanation for why Elsa asks the forbidden question.

Ronald de Sousa, Fictional Possibilities
No belief or decisions is rational or irrational except in the light of alternative possibilities constituting what William James called “live options”. But what counts as possible for a fictional character? Fiction, like art, is able to depict impossibilities. But not just any impossibilities: different genres presuppose different ranges of possible actions and outcomes. Polygamous marriage is a live option for biblical characters, but not for the protagonists of Jane Austen novels; by contrast, refusing to sacrifice Isaac is perhaps not a live option for Abraham. Yet one can imagine a postmodern, satirical or parodic bible in which Abraham makes God a counteroffer he can't refuse. Thus different genres presuppose different ranges of possibilities, and hence of rational action. Furthermore, the phenomenon known as “imaginative resistance” appears to illustrate certain other constraints on fictional possibilities. Does this, in turn, constrain fictional rationality? In hopes of shedding some light on these questions, this paper will sketch two ways of classifying different sorts of possibilities and their application to fiction.