According to the cognitive theory of emotion, cognitively impenetrable emotions more often an emotion occurs in the company of proposiin our responses to film rather than in our tional attitude toward the object of emotion. For responses to literary fiction. Such affective instance, when we feel fear toward a German responses do bear importance on the problem of Shepard, we believe that the dog is somehow how we engage with fiction or fiction film, not threatening to our well-being. Under this only because our response to film depends quite theory, then, emotions directed toward fiction a bit on the formal or stylistic features of the necessarily depend upon a certain type of film, but also because cognitively unmediated propositional attitude. So far, the debate on affective responses to film present important fiction-directed emotion in aesthetics has counterexamples to the cognitive theory of focused mainly on what might be the cognitive emotion in general. component of emotions directed toward fiction; whether we make-believe, or simulate, or entertain a thought about the situations depicted in I. FITS AND STARTLES fiction. However, if the main concern of philosophers Many blockbuster films such as Jurassic Park of art is to explain how we emotionally engage and Godzilla are examples of movies that depend with fiction, in general, the cognitive theory of heavily on reflexive affective responses. We are emotion falls short of capturing the wide range constantly startled at the sudden appearance or of responses directed toward fiction. First, the the size of monsters in films. In such cases, it cognitive approach neglects the role of the style would be difficult for the cognitivist to maintain of a work in evoking emotional responses in that the viewer's responses are mediated through the viewer or the reader. Second, and more strictly so-called. Before I address the importantly, there are cases where emotions significance that such responses bear on the elicited by fiction do not require any type of cognitive theory, I first need to clarify the term strictly called. Sometimes, emotions cognition. Even among the cognitivists, the are involved more with perception of an object term cognition varies in its scope, which in than with the significance or relevance of the turn gives rise to further disagreements as to object in question. For instance, when we watch whether is a necessary constituent for a Dracula movie, we are appalled by the idea of the occurrence of emotion. By cognition, Dracula as a creature who drinks the blood of I mean the transformation of information into sleeping people and who steals infants and kills a propositional form that is accessible to thoughts them. However, we are appalled more at the and beliefs. In addition, my criticism of the sight of Dracula. cognitive theory aims at the causal-cognitive In this essay, I propose a noncognitivist theory, which argues that propositional attitudes approach toward fiction-directed emotion by are constituent of emotion via causing physioconsidering cases where emotions do not require logical disturbances in us. 1 any type of propositional attitude. I will focus To be sure, the cognitivists do not argue that on emotional responses to film, since we find propositional attitude-the relevant belief or