I have been considering how Walton's theories tie into Aesthetics for a while, and I finally concluded much of what you all concluded; Walton presumes that art is fictional, and aesthetic responses cannot contain true emotional content. I would certainly argue that Walton's theory depreciates the value of art (if true of course), attempting to drive a wedge in aesthetic theory. Much of aesthetics relates to the communicated emotions or aesthetic responses between the artist and the observer, using the art as the medium. However, in Walton's theory, since the art is only as real as the materials it is made of (and not it's representational of perceptual content), then the art is fictional, and little to nothing is communicated.
Accepting the principle that we must play "make-believe" during a movie is arguably not deliberate. Sure, plenty of people will subconsciously allow themselves to be absorbed by the material, somewhere down the line forgetting that the content is superficial, allowing them to have true emotional reactions. This is deliberate. But in the case we argued that a little child views a scary movie, they do not deliberately make the decision to "make-believe" (and therefore experience true emotional responses) because they themselves cannot distinguish that the movie's content is false from the beginning. Childhood naivete allows them to have true emotional responses without deliberately playing into Walton's game.
Do you think that Walton's theory holds true when adolescence is considered?
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