Kendall Walton

Kendall Lewis Walton (born 1939) is an American philosopher and Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. His academic career began after graduating from UC Berkeley in 1961 and pursuing postgraduate studies at Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1967. Walton's seminal contribution to philosophy is his 'make-believe theory' of representation, detailed in his 1990 book *Mimesis as Make-Believe*. This theory posits that representational art functions as props that prescribe imaginative engagement, drawing parallels with children's games of make-believe. The theory distinguishes between sensory depictions (paintings, sculptures) and verbal representations (novels, plays), and generates fictional truths that constitute fictional worlds. Walton's work also addresses the paradox of fiction, proposing 'quasi emotions' to explain our emotional responses to fictional scenarios. He further developed the theory to include 'content oriented' and 'prop oriented' make-believe, the latter explaining metaphors. Walton also advanced a 'transparency thesis' for photography, arguing that photographs allow us to 'see through' them to the depicted reality, akin to using a telescope. His influential ideas have been widely recognized and debated within the field of aesthetics.