Aristotle

1
Aristotles Aesthetics (382-322 BC)

• Welcome to Aristotle!
• Western thoughts
• first structural
• textual critic of
• the Fine Arts!

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Aristotles Aesthetics (382-322 BC)All men by
nature to desire to know.the human race lives
also by art and reasonings Metaphysics 11.

• Aristotle produced the first
• extended study of an art form.
• The Poetics is the primary
• resource for Aristotles view
• of art.
• Poetics is a reply to Platos
• condemnation of Poetry.

3
Introduction

• In terms of literary analysis, in the
• Poetics, Aristotle moves back
• Forth between criticism and theory.
• He wrote Poetics in our after 334.
• We only have Book I Book II on
• comedy is lost.

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Introduction

• The Poetics can be somewhat perplexing.
  Therefore, it is helpful to keeping in mind the
  following guiding questions
• What is poetry?
• What kind of poetry is tragedy?
• What are tragedys essential elements?

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Discourse Outline of Aristotles Poetics
Unifying theme is Mimesis Imitation is
representation

• I. Introduction (Poetics 1-5)
• A. General Notion of Artistic imitation (1)
• B. Different Species of Artistic Imitation (2-3)
• C. The Development of Poetry (4-5)
• II. Tragedy (Poetics 6-22)
• A. Definition and description (6)
• B. Discussion of Plot (7-18)
• C. Discussion on thought (19)
• D. Discussion on diction (20-22)
• III. Epic (Poetics 23-24)
• A. Discussion of Merits of Tragedy Epic
  (26).

6
Introduction

• If you recall, Plato wanted to ban poetry for the
  following reasons
• No knowledge undergirds poetry for poets are
  ignorant (Apology 22b-c on 543a)
• Poetry relies on inspiration (Ion 534b-e
  Phaedrus, 245a) rather than reason
• Poetry propagates falsehoods (Republic 337-391)

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Introduction

• Poetry arouses irrational passions that displaces
  reason it is intoxicating with its seductive
  charms of rhythm, meter, and harmony (Book 10)
• Poetry imitates appearance and not reality
  it is a lower-level metaphysic (mimesis) (Book
  10)
• Poetry imitates the souls worst impulses from
  its better ones (Republic 605)
• Poetry should be banned if it cannot be justified
  by reason (Republic 2-4 10)

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Pertinent Statement 1449b24-28

• The fundamental aspects of Aristotles argument
  appears in his definition of tragedy
• A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action
  that is serious and also, as having magnitude,
  complete in itself in language with pleasurable
  accessories, each kind brought in separately in
  the parts of the work in a dramatic, not in a
  narrative form with incidences arousing pity and
  fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of
  such emotions. Here, by language with
  pleasurable accessories I mean that with rhythm
  and harmony and by the kinds separately I mean
  that some portions are worked out with verse
  only, and others in turn with song. Poetics,
  1449b24-28.

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Important Words to Consider from 1449b24-28I am
indebted to Nickolas Pappas article, Aristotle
in The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, 15-26
for this discussion.

• We will now proceed to consider some of the more
  weighty words of that statement which will be
  used to present the thesis of this book
• Catharsis
• Mimesis
• Action
• Seriousness.
• Lets proceed to consider all four words!

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First Word is Catharsis

• This word occurs twice in what we have of the
  Poetics.
• No definition is given of the word.
• Closing place for stating a purpose or goal is at
  the end of a sentence that is where catharsis
  is located in 1449b24-28
• wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such
  emotions.

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Catharsis

• Three possible definitions with the first two
  being psychological and the last being literary
• Catharsis refers to the purging the emotions
• Catharsis refers to the clarification or
  calibration of the emotions
• Catharsis refers to the incidents in the drama
  (coherent and significant plot structures in the
  goal of tragedy).

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Catharsis Three interpretations

• Word also occurs in Politics VIII where mentions
  the catharsis that music and poetry deliver.
• Interpreters of Catharsis have extensively
  debated this word.
• Before Aristotles use catharsis was used in a
  number of ways including the following
• Medical catharsis was a purgation (e.g, laxative
  or enema cleaning out the digestive system)
• Clean up or clarification.

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Catharsis Release of emotion

• Since 19th Century Aristotelian catharsis tended
  to receive a medical reading. Nickolas Pappas
  elaborates on this interpretation
• Tragedy flushes out unruly and undesirable
  passions by letting them flow freely until we
  return to an unemotional state. The terror
  aroused by a well-made tragedy lets us release
  the thousand little terrors we normally swallow
  back down (pg. 17).

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Catharsis Release of emotion

• A.E. Taylor states it this way
• Aristotle has a theory which is directly aimed
  against this overstrained Puritanism referring
  to Platos suppression of fine arts. He holds
  that the very exciting and sensational art which
  would be very bad as a daily food may be very
  useful as an occasional medicine for the soul.
  He would retain even the most sensational forms
  of music on the account for what he calls their
  purgative value. In the same spirit he asserts
  that the function of tragedy, with its
  sensational representations of the calamities of
  its heroes, is by the vehicle of fear and pity
  to purge our minds of those and similar
  emotions. The explanation of the theory is to be
  sought in the literal sense of the medical term
  purgative (Taylor, Aristotle, 109).

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Catharsis release of emotion

• This idea of release of emotion has been the
  traditional interpretation. Consider the
  following translation
• Some persons fall into a religious frenzy, and
  we see them restored as a result of the sacred
  melodies-when they used the melodies that excite
  the soul to mystic frenzy-as though they had
  found healing medical treatment and purgation
  katharsis. Those who are influenced by pity or
  fear, and every emotional nature, must have a
  like experience, and others in so far as each is
  susceptible to such emotions, and all are in a
  manner purged and their souls lightened and
  delighted. The melodies which purge the passion
  likewise give an innocent pleasure to mankind.
  Politics, Book VIII, 1342.6-15.

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Catharsis 3 Reasons Against Release of
emotion

• First, we know from Aristotles ethics that he
  does not call for the celebration or the
  suppression of emotions he argues for the
  regular and well ordered expressions (pg.
  18). In the Nicomachean Ethics (Book II 1103b18)
  
• Aristotle states

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Catharsis Reasons Against Release of emotion

• This, then, is the case with the excellences
  also by doing the acts that we do in our
  transactions with other men we become just or
  just, and by doing the acts that we do in the
  presence of danger, and being habituated to feel
  fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly.
  The same is true of appetites and feelings of
  anger some men become temperate and
  good-tempered, others self-indulgent and
  irascible, by behaving in one way or the other in
  the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one
  word, states arise out of like activities. This
  is why the activities we exhibit must be a
  certain kind it is because the states correspond
  to the differences between these. It makes no
  small difference, then, whether we form habits of
  one kind or of another from our very youth it
  makes a very great difference, or rather all the
  difference.

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Catharsis 3 reasons against Release of Emotion

• Second, music and poetry educates our emotions
  because songs contain images of anger, courage
  and other traits (Politics, Book VIII,
  1340a-1921. Consider the following excerpt
• Since then music is a pleasure, and excellence
  consists in rejoicing and loving and hating
  rightly, there is clearly nothing which we are so
  much concerned to acquire and to cultivate as the
  power of forming right judgments, and of taking
  delight in good dispositions and noble actions.
  Rhythm and melody supply imitations of anger and
  gentleness, and also of courage and temperance,
  and of all the qualities contrary to these, and
  of the other qualities of character, which hardly
  fall short of the actual affections, as we know
  from our own experience, for in listening to such
  strains our souls undergo a change. Politics,
  Book VIII, 1340a14-22.

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Catharsis Another Interpretation

• Aristotle later states
• Enough has been said to show that music has a
  power of forming the character, and should
  therefore be introduced into the education of the
  young. The study is suited to the stage of
  youth, for young persons will not, if they can
  help, endure anything which is not sweetened by
  pleasure, and music has a natural sweetness.
  There seems to be in us a sort of affinity to
  musical modes and rhythms, which makes some
  philosophers say that a soul is a harmony,
  others, that is possesses harmony.
• Politics, Book VIII, 1340b 11-19.

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Catharsis is clarification of emotions

• And third, delight over the whole experience
  trains the soul to enjoy the sight of real-world
  virtue. Politics, Book VIII 1340a22-27.
• Therefore, on this view Pappas notes that
  catharsis is a clarification of emotion. This is
  the view held by L. Golden, R. Janko, and M.C.
  Nussbaum.
• Pappas states

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Catharsis is clarification of emotions

• Training emotions has nothing to do with
  releasing them. Training presupposes that the
  emotions are here to stay, and need to be
  calibrated to fit the real-world situations that
  call them forthBy rousing powerful emotions with
  a simpler train of events than life provides,
  tragedy teaches how fear and pity feel and where
  they are appropriate. That understanding forms
  part of the groundwork for ethical behavior,
  since Aristotle connect ethical behavior to
  well-trained emotions. Thus the clarification
  view helps harmonize Aristotles aesthetic with
  his ethics (pg. 18).

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Catharsis is clarification of emotions

• Nevertheless, this view has a glaring
  difficulty. While this view offers contextual
  support to Aristotles argument against Platos
  view of art, music, and poetry, in Politics Book
  VIII, 1342a7-15, Aristotle refers to catharsis as
  a relief, something that makes the soul settle
  down (pg. 18).

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Catharsis is incidents in the drama.

• According to Pappas, others still (e.g., Gerald
  Else) contend that catharsis does not mean
  purging of emotions or clarification of
  emotions. Rather, than being a psychological
  word, this word is a literary, narratological
  term since coherent and significant plot
  structure is the goal of tragedy (pg. 19).
• This is a minority view.
• It has the advantage of looking in the Poetics
  for an argument about what literature knows and
  how it says it.

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Catharsis is incidents in the drama.

• According to Beardsley, Professor Else, on the
  other hand, translates the passage as follows
  carrying to completion, through a course of
  events in involving pity and fear, the
  purification of those painful or fatal acts which
  have that quality. The purgation, in his
  reading, is a purification, and it is not
  something that takes place in the spectator at
  all, but something that takes place in the play.
  It is carried out by the plot itself, in virtue
  of the fact that the plot consists of events of a
  certain sort (Professor Else takes pathematon as
  tragic events, because pathos in later chapters
  means this) (pg. 65).

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Second Word Mimesis Image-Making.

• 1. Mimesis is natural to people from childhood
  (Poetics 1448b6) as opposed to Plato who saw
  image-making as a lower-level metaphysical
  perversion. Plato thought of mimesis two fold
  as (a) impersonating and the (b) mock up or
  production of a likeness of something.
• 2. Mimesis is a natural propensity and pleasant
  because it is a way of learning (Poetics 1448b13
  cf. 1448b8) as opposed to Plato who wants
  knowledge to come in the form of universal
  statements, the highest sort of learning.

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Second Word Mimesis Image-Making.

• 3. Humans love to learn (Metaphysics I.1) and
  mimesis brings determination and simplification
  to learning as opposed to Plato who finds it to
  be denigrating to a virtuous education.
  Aristotle saw mimesis can involve representation,
  it is not mimicry nor counterfeiting.
• 4. Aristotle argues that mimesis takes action as
  its object thus, tragedy communicates
  authentically philosophical knowledge as opposed
  to Plato who argued that mimesis is passive since
  it either involves putting on the mask (drama)
  and impersonating or the production of a likeness
  of something (poetry).

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Second Word Mimesis Image-Making of Reality.

• 5. Aristotle takes mimesis as imitating nature
  because of its orderly and purposeful forms fine
  arts take on these are productive purposes which
  are rational, consciously perceive by the mind of
  its maker (Metaphysics 7.7) as opposed to Plato
  who thought it displaced or even corrupted reason
  by arousing the non-rational part of the soul.
• 6. Only the mimetic arts have as their specific
  purpose to produce representations or fictional
  depictions of the world or reality. This is
  contrary to Plato because he saw mimesis as being
  an imitation of appearance, not reality.

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Second Word Mimesis Image-Making of Reality.

• Regarding the relationship between reality and
  the artwork, it is important to observe the
  following quote from Poetics 9
• Poetry is more philosophical and more serious
  than history, for it deals with universals, while
  history speaks of particulars.
• In other words, poetry is offering larger
  conceptions which structure human experience and
  understanding, bringing unity, wholeness, or
  completeness.

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Third Word Action.

• 1. Thus, mimesis is active mimesis communicates
  knowledge, it is not passive, inherently weak,
  corrupt, or based in ignorance.
• 2. Just as some consider photography as not being
  art because it is passive (Plato Republic 596d),
  Aristotle considers mimesis to be an active
  process of selective presentation because of
  being a composer of plots, a drawer of lines, etc.

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Third Word Action.

• 3. Tragedy in poetry represents events and not
  passions just as painting is more a matter of
  line than of color (Poetics, 1450b2-3)
• 4. A good plot clearly represents an action it
  restricts itself to a unified action, even if
  that involves differing characters and their
  development. In fact a tragedy imitates a
  complete action a beginning, middle and an end
  (Poetics, 1450b26). The unity of ploy s derived
  from the fact that it is a single action.

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Third Word Action.

• 5. The unity consists in the right connections
  among the parts of a plot. Each even follows the
  other either by necessity or probably (Poetics
  1451a13, 38 1452a20).
• 6. Tragedy that represents action contains a
  general truth.
• 7. Composing, plot making, play writing, are
  constructions this is something musicians, story
  tellers, poets, and story tellers do. Hence a
  plot is an object that gets constructed.

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Third Word Action.

• Potential misreading of Plato
• A. Some have argued that Platos analogy of a
  mirror meant to capture not passive automatism,
  but superficiality.
• B. Plato may think that the perversity is
  misusing their talents to produce so little that
  is virtuous.
• C. Plato may have been concerned that
  characterization, not plot, was the problem of
  mimesis to duplicate an appearance is the issue
  when you are strive for the universal form.

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Third Word Action.

• - Even if this is the case, the Poetics assert
  that plot supremacy over character establishes a
  defense of the arts. The causal principle makes
  the story plausible and contains the tragedys
  general statement. Therefore, tragedy
  communicated knowledge.

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Fourth Word Seriousness

• The tragic character be good, serious, superior
  people (Poetics 1448a2 1454a17). These
  characters dignity and standing ensure the
  importance of what they undertake and undergo
  (pg. 22).
• Aristotle did not want tragedy to present
  meaningless suffering tragic effect is
  disgusting, Poetics 1452b36) where as
  appearance of purpose or order is fine (Poetics
  1452a6-10) (pg. 22-23).

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Fourth Word Seriousness

• Associates bad consequences to a characters
  hamartia (Poetics 1453a10) which simply means a
  mistake, error of judgment, foolishness, or
  self-deception in classical Greek. (pg. 23). It
  is not used as a defect of character but an
  action the misfortune of heroes depends on what
  they do.
• Tragic plots have strong causal connects whereby
  it instructs the audience on morality mimesis
  imparts knowledge (pg. 23).
• Luck is also involved things may not turn out
  the way one necessarily hopes this is the plight
  of the tragic hero does.
• Therefore, for Aristotle, there is value in the
  seriousness of tragedy (pg. 23).

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Aristotles View of Beauty

• Aristotle uses beauty (kalos) 19 times in
  Poetics as compliment for tragic plots, language,
  and character.
• Only once does Aristotle make beauty a defining
  criterion for tragedies, when he says they must
  be neither too long to surpass what the memory
  can hold, not too short to count as serious
  (Poetics 1451a4-15) (pg. 24).
• Beauty is defined in terms of size or proportion
  (Metaphysics 1078a31-b5)
• Beauty is a real property of things (Metaphysics
  1072b32-35). Aristotle writes

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Aristotles View of Beauty

• Beauty is defined in terms of size or proportion
  (Metaphysics 1078a31-b5). Consider Aristotles
  comment in Poetics 1450b35
• either a living creature of any structure made
  of parts, must have not only an orderly
  arrangement of these parts but a size which is
  not accidental-for beauty lies in size and
  arrangement

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Aristotles View of Beauty

• Beauty is a real property of things (Metaphysics
  1072b32-35). Aristotle writes
• Those who suppose, as the Pythagoreans and
  Speusippus do, that supreme beauty and goodness
  are not present in the beginning, because the
  beginnings both of plants and of animals are
  causes, but beauty and completeness are in the
  effects of these, are wrong in their opinion.
  For the seed comes from other individuals which
  are prior and complete, and the first thing is
  not seed but the complete being, e.g., we must
  say that before the seed there is a man,-not the
  man produced from the seed, but another from whom
  the seed is produced.

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Aristotles View of Beauty

• Moreover, in Parts of Animals, 645a23-25,
  Aristotle relates beauty to design
• Absence of haphazard and conduciveness of
  everything to an end are to be found in natures
  works in the highest degree, and the end for
  which those work are put together and produced is
  a form of the beautiful.
• So, while Aristotles view of beauty may be
  vague, it is clear that he believed beauty to be
  objective beauty is derived from the nature of
  the beautiful object it is related to size and
  proportion it is related to design.

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Final Thoughts on Aristotles Aesthetics

• While Aristotle doesnt provide offer a robust
  account of philosophical aesthetics whereby he
  deals with the problems of defending aesthetic
  judgments, we are able to conclude the following
• Aesthetics involves objective reality it is
  cognitively perceived and can be imitated.
• Aesthetics is pedagogically valuable and serious.
• Beauty is a real property He is an empiricist
  who believed all knowledge begins in the senses.

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Final Thoughts on Aristotles Aesthetics

• Aesthetics involves aesthetic experiences he
  doesnt deny its impact on people. In fact, we
  take pleasure in imitation because it is a
  special case of learning. In fact, the unity of
  plot, etc. may be seen as an aesthetic predicate.
• Mimesis or imitation involves a special kind of
  representation it is a matter of representing
  an object. It can be the art of imitating visual
  appearances by means of color and drawing or the
  art of imitating human actions by means of dance
  and song.

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Final Thoughts on Aristotles Aesthetics

• Mimesis in poetry, in order to have its impact,
  must involve a real understanding of human
  nature for without this knowledge you cant have
  a very good play (Beardsley, 63). Therefore,
  psychological laws must be true one for dramatic
  development
• Aristotle is a structural and textual critic
  because he analyzes aspects of structure, chiefly
  concerned with plot. If catharsis is seen as a
  structural concept rather than a psychological
  one, then this description of Aristotle is
  appropriate. One can also say he is textual
  critic because he is concerned with analysis at
  the verbal level Rhetoric.

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Final Thoughts on Aristotles Aesthetics

• Beardsley makes two comments that are most
  interesting to consider. First
• What Plato feared most as a bad example for
  Athenian youth was the suggestion that good men
  are unhappy and that bad men prosper.
  Aristotles reply might be understood in this
  way there is no need to have a moral censorship
  of plays, but only an aesthetic one. For the
  play about the good man who becomes unhappy or
  the bad man who becomes happy will simply not be
  a very good tragedy other things being equal,
  morality and justice will coincide with aesthetic
  excellence (Aesthetics, pg. 67).

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Final Thoughts on Aristotles Aesthetics

• And secondly, Monroe Beardsley observes
• When Aristotle inquires into the nature of
  somethingHe asks what is the nature of the
  poetic art? And the answer is both normative and
  descriptive. For it involves a set of categories
  that play a fundament role in all of his
  thinking the four causes, or four types of
  explanation (see Physics II, vii). These are not
  mentioned in the Poetics itself, but it is
  interesting that in the Metaphysics (V ? , ii)
  when he distinguishes the four causes, his
  example of the material cause is the bronze of
  the statue the formal cause is the pattern,
  or formula of the essence the efficient cause
  is the productive agent (e.g., the sculptor and
  his activity) the final cause is the end,
  i.e., that for the sake of which a thing is
  (trans. Ross) (pp. 55-56).

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Final Thoughts on Aristotles Aesthetics
Four causes for the statue of Athena
2 intrinsic causes Material
Cause Bronze out of which it was
made. Formal Cause Pattern, form,
essence of which it was made.
2 External causes Efficient Cause
Artist by which it was made Final Cause
The purpose that for which it was made.
46
Postscript

• A.E. Taylor makes an interesting claim about the
  Poetics
• Poetics was meant to be a collection of rules
  by obeying which the craftsman might make sure of
  turning out a successful play. So far as
  Aristotle has a Philosophy of Fine Art at all, it
  forms part of his more general theory of
  education and must be looked for in the general
  discussion of the aims of education in his
  Politics. Aristotle, 20-21.

47
Bibliography

• Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, rev.
  Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes, 2
  Vols. (Princeton Princeton University Press,
  1984).
• Monroe Beardsley, Aesthetics From Classical
  Greek to the Present A Short History
  (Tuscaloosa The University of Alabama Press,
  1966).
• A Companion to Aesthetics (Malden, M.A.
  Blackwell, 1992, 1995).
• Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, edited by
  Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (London
  Routledge, 2001).
• A.E. Taylor, Aristotle, 3rd edition (Toronto,
  Ontario General Publishing 1955).