Analytic aesthetics and the paradox of fiction (with other appendices)

This paper discusses what is called "the paradox of fiction." The name will seem presumptuous to some readers accustomed to philosophy, on the grounds that there are surely other paradoxes of fiction. I propose that its presumptuousness goes beyond this: the term presumes to refer to a distinctive paradox, but does it? As on a previous occasion, I propose that it can be assimilated to Moore's paradox, with much greater elaboration of the proposal here. Given my elaboration, is that the end of rational interest in the paradox of fiction? I propose that we can pretend it is distinctive. The putatively distinctive paradox is that we have emotional reactions to fictions even though we don't believe that fictions are real, so these reactions are irrational; but we read fiction for these reactions, so they are surely rational. A pretend solution I consider is that we unconsciously experience fictions as representing something real. (This paper, excluding appendices, is a failed imitation, though perhaps better than some other attempts. “Of the other philosopher it most resembles”? The original aim was Professor Helen Beebee.)