This article aims at analysing Aristotle’s poetic conception of catharsis to assess whether it may be of help in enlightening the particular didactic challenges involved when training medical students to cope morally with complex or tragic situations of medical decision-making. A further aim of this investigation is to show that Aristotle’s criteria for distinguishing between history and tragedy may be employed to reshape authentic stories of sickness into tragic stories of sickness. Furthermore, the didactic potentials of tragic stories of sickness (...) will be tried out. The ultimate aim is to investigate whether the possibilities of developing a therapeutic conception of medical ethics researched in a previous article on catharsis and moral therapy in Plato may be strengthened through the hermeneutics of the Aristotelian conception of tragic catharsis. (shrink)

En el pasaje 1147b6-9 de la Ética Nicomáquea, Aristóteles subraya que el akratḗs es capaz de arrepentimiento sin indicar cómo, pues ello debe ser escuchado de los fisiólogos. Este trabajo, no obstante, sostiene que Aristóteles no deja este problema sin respuesta: dado que la educación es el marco en el que el hombre se ejercita, a lo largo de su vida, en el buen vivir, la construcción de la acción trágica en la Poética puede verse como una herramienta pedagógica que (...) permite una profundización en el conflicto entre la razón y las pasiones del akratḗs, y cuyo genuino aporte estriba en su capacidad de explotar sus páthē para él y encauzarlas hacia una reflexión, a través de un ejercicio deductivo, sobre su propia condición. (shrink)

I argue for a new construal of Aristotle’s definition of anagnorisis (recognition) in Poetics 11. Virtually all translators and interpreters of the definition have understood the phrase ton pros eutuchian e dustuchian horismenon as a subjective genitive characterizing the persons involved in the recognition. I argue that it should instead be taken as a partitive genitive characterizing the genus of changes (metabolon) of which recognitions are a species. In addition to being preferable on philogical grounds, the construal I recommend helps (...) illuminate the relation between recognition and reversal (peripeteia) and makes sense of Aristotle’s views about the relative values of various kinds of recognition. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to build a parallelism between Aristotle’s debate with Plato on the merits of poetry and the debate of Hume with Smith on the nature of sympathy. My arguments is that the Aristotelian concept of pity, as presented in the Poetics, presupposes a mechanism of sympathy which is akin to the Smithian one, as articulated in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. Accordingly, I reconstruct Aristotle’s debate with Plato on poetry as a debate on the operation (...) and value of sympathy, and I trace an intriguing contiguity on the way Plato and Hume understood the mechanism of sympathy. (shrink)

Aristotle's Rhetoric defines fear as a kind of pain or disturbance and pity as a kind of pain . In his Poetics, however, pity and fear are associated with pleasure: ‘ The poet must provide the pleasure that comes from pity and fear by means of imitation’ . The question of the relationship between pleasure and pain in Aristotle's aesthetics has been studied primarily in connection with catharsis. Catharsis, however, raises more problems than it solves. Aristotle says nothing at all (...) about the tragic catharsis in the Poetics except to state that tragedy accomplishes it. Though he gives a more complete account of catharsis in the Politics, the context of this passage is so different from that of the Poetics that its relevance is questionable. A more promising, but largely neglected, approach to Aristotle's theory of tragic pleasure and pain is through a study of his psychological works. Here, Aristotle describes a number of emotional and cognitive responses to kinds of objects that include works of art. These descriptions support an interpretation of the Poetics according to which a tragedy is pleasurable in one respect and painful in another, and pity and fear, though painful and not in themselves productive of pleasure, are nevertheless essential to the production of the oikeia hēdonē, ‘proper pleasure’, of tragedy. This interpretation has the advantage of not depending on a particular view of catharsis. It also makes much better sense than alternative views, once its seemingly paradoxical aspects are explained with the help of the psychological works. (shrink)

Aristotle'sRhetoricdefines fear as a kind of pain (lypē) or disturbance (tarachē) and pity as a kind of pain (2.5.1382 a 21 and 2.8.1385 b 13). In hisPoetics, however, pity and fear are associated with pleasure: ‘ The poet must provide the pleasure that comes from pity and fear by means of imitation’ (τ⋯ν ⋯π⋯ ⋯λέου κα⋯ ɸόβου δι⋯ μιμήσεως δεῖ ⋯δον⋯ν παρασκευάζειν14.1453 b 12–13). The question of the relationship between pleasure and pain in Aristotle's aesthetics has been studied primarily in (...) connection withcatharsis.Catharsis, however, raises more problems than it solves. Aristotle says nothing at all about the tragiccatharsisin thePoeticsexcept to state that tragedy accomplishes it. Though he gives a more complete account ofcatharsisin thePolitics, the context of this passage is so different from that of thePoeticsthat its relevance is questionable. A more promising, but largely neglected, approach to Aristotle's theory of tragic pleasure and pain is through a study of his psychological works. Here, Aristotle describes a number of emotional and cognitive responses to kinds of objects that include works of art. These descriptions support an interpretation of thePoeticsaccording to which (1) a tragedy is pleasurable in one respect and painful in another, and (2) pity and fear, though painful and not in themselves productive of pleasure, are nevertheless essential to the production of theoikeia hēdonē, ‘proper pleasure’, of tragedy. This interpretation has the advantage of not depending on a particular view ofcatharsis. It also makes much better sense than alternative views, once its seemingly paradoxical aspects are explained with the help of the psychological works. (shrink)

En Después del fin del arte, Danto se refiere a la mímesis como un estilo artístico y como la respuesta filosófica a la pregunta acerca de qué es el arte. En el panorama del arte contemporáneo, la mímesis se habría agotado y no tendría ningún papel activo que cumplir. El objetivo de mi trabajo será mostrar cómo Danto construye un relato legitimador en torno a la mímesis que le permite justificar su tesis sobre el fin del arte. Luego, señalaré los (...) problemas que implica dicho relato, haciendo hincapié en la pluralidad de sentidos que entraña la noción de mímesis desde sus primeras formulaciones griegas. Finalmente, expondré algunas razones que permiten seguir sosteniendo la vigencia de la noción de mímesis en la discusión contemporánea, sin invalidar la crítica que subyace a la controvertida tesis de Danto sobre el fin del arte. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar la relevancia de la máthesis para la concepción de la mimesis aristotélica. A partir de las observaciones de la Poética, delimitaré las características del aprendizaje tomando como eje su objeto, modalidad y consecuencias. Para ello analizaré, en primer lugar, el objeto sobre el que recae el aprendizaje mimético, esto es, los hombres que actúan. Luego examinaré la modalidad de presentación de sus acciones para que sea posible el aprendizaje, prestando especial atención al (...) papel que desempeña el error trágico o hamartía. Finalmente, resaltaré los aspectos por los que, a mi entender, la mímesis tiene consecuencias éticas y políticas relevantes en el marco del proyecto educativo de Aristóteles, y que permiten pasar de una consideración de la mímesis en el plano individual a una consideración sobre su función en el ámbito político.: The aim of this paper is to show the relevance of mathesis for the Aristotelian concept of mimesis. From the framework of Poetics, i try to demarcate the characteristics of learning, taking into account its object, modality, and consequences. In order to do this, I will analyze, first, the object of mimetic learning, that is, men who act. Then, I will examine the modality of presentation of their actions that make learning possible, paying special attention to the role played by tragic mistake or hamartía. Finally, I will highlight the aspects on account of which, in my opinion, mimesis has relevant ethical and political consequences in the framework of Aristotle's educational project, and which allow passing from a consideration of mimesis on an individual level to a political level. (shrink)