To understand human emotions we need, alongside appraisal, the concept of emergence (derivation from the expectations of relationships) and the concept of unfolding (of sequences that can be expressed as narratives). These processes can be seen in resentment, which has not been studied extensively in psychology. It is associated with envy, and it can be thought of as a kind of destructive anger. Such issues can be studied in works of literature: simulations of the social world in which emotions can (...) be experienced by means of empathy. Shakespeare's Othello enables us to understand the emergence and unfolding of resentment in Iago, who is passed over for promotion and improvises a plan to destroy Othello. Iago's resentment is difficult to empathize with, and the play raises the question of whether we need to recognize in ourselves the capacity for reprehensible emotions. (shrink)

This paper takes a detailed look at the Republic’s Divided Line analogy and considers how we should respond to its most contentious implication: that pistis and dianoia have the same degree of ‘clarity’ (σαφήνεια). It argues that we must take this implication at face value and that doing so allows us to better understand both the analogy and the nature of dianoia.

Plato’s most infamous discussions of poetry in the Republic, in which he both develops original distinctions in narratology and advocates some form of censorship, raises numerous philosophical and philological questions. Foremost among them, perhaps, is the puzzle of why he returns to poetry in Book X after having dealt with it thoroughly in Books II–III, particularly because his accounts of the “mimetic” aspect of poetry are, on their face, quite different. How are we to understand this double treatment? Here I (...) will focus on a single aspect of this question, the compatibility of the notion of μίμησις and its cognates in the two books. As Nickolas Pappas has said, “Whether Books 3 and 10 offer compatible accounts of mimêsis, and how one might make them compatible, remains the most controversial question about Plato’s aesthetics”.2 I will show that there is a single notion of μίμησις operative throughout, namely that of representation by resemblance. I will take an unusual tack. I will not begin with the most problematic part of Book III for this interpretation about poetic, linguistic μίμησις, but with the later sections on musical μίμησις. Once we have an account of this, I claim, it is easier to see how narrative μίμησις is also a kind of representation by resemblance. (shrink)

Recognizing yourself in literature cannot only help you to get a clearer grasp of what you already think and feel. It can also deeply unsettle your vision of yourself. This article examines a hitherto neglected mechanism to this effect: learning by way of seeing yourself in others’ blindness. I show that In Search of Lost Time epitomizes this phenomenon. Confronting characters oblivious to their old age makes the protagonist realize that he, too, has aged without noticing it, and invites readers (...) to analogous insights. The paper contributes to the discussion on how you can learn from literature and adds a twist to Proust’s claim that the purpose of literature is that readers recognize themselves in it. (shrink)

Nietzsche is known for his penetrating critique of Mitleid. He seems to be critical of all compassion but at times also seems to praise a different form of compassion, which he refers to as “our compassion” and contrasts it with “your compassion”. Some commentators have interpreted this to mean that Nietzsche’s criticism is not as unconditional as it may seem – that he does not condemn compassion entirely. I disagree and contend that even though Nietzsche appears to speak favorably of (...) some forms of compassion, he regards the nature of all compassion to be fundamentally bad. Furthermore, I suggest that Nietzsche’s discussion on different forms of compassion have significant implications for achieving greatness and meaning in life. More specifically, I argue that, for Nietzsche, “our compassion,” however regrettable qua compassion it is, may give occasion for a rare and peculiar insight into “co-suffering” with others, which in turn results in overcoming compassion entirely. I also argue that although Nietzsche objects to compassion, he approves of a form of what feminist theorists might now call “anticipatory empathy.” Even though a large body of literature has evolved over Nietzsche’s critical evaluation of compassion, his understanding of a non-compassionate response to suffering is, in my view, rather overlooked and should receive more attention. (shrink)

Tomando como eje la noción de mímesis aristotélica, en este trabajo me interesa mostrar que es posible distinguir los intereses que animan la reapropiación de dicha noción en la filosofía de Paul Ricœur y que, cada uno de ellos, le otorga a la mímesis un papel diferente en la construcción de la teoría de la narratividad. Siguiendo un esquema triádico, analizaré la irrupción de la mímesis en La metáfora viva, Tiempo y Narración I y La memoria, la historia, el olvido, (...) en un intento por señalar la pluralidad de sentidos que confluyen en la recuperación de Ricoeur. (shrink)

Simply by formulating a question about the nature of ancient Greek poetry or music, any modern English speaker is already risking anachronism. In recent years especially, scholars have reminded one another that the words ‘music’ and ‘poetry’ denote concepts with no easy counterpart in Greek. μουσική in its broadest sense evokes not only innumerable kinds of structured movement and sound but also the political, psychological and cosmic order of which song, verse and dance are supposed to be perceptible manifestations. Likewise, (...) ποίησις and the ποιητικὴ τέχνη can encompass all kinds of ‘making’, from the assembly of a table to the construction of a rhetorical argument. Of course, there were specifically artistic usages of these terms—according to Plato, ‘musical and metrical production’ was the default meaning of ποίησις in everyday speech. But even in discussions which restrict themselves to the sphere of human art, we find nothing like the neat compartmentalization of harmonized rhythmic melody on the one hand, and stylized verbal composition on the other, which is often casually implied or expressly formulated in modern comparisons of ‘music’ with ‘poetry’. For many ancient theorists the City Dionysia, a dithyrambic festival and a recitation of Homer all featured different versions of one and the same form of composition, a μουσική or ποιητική to which λόγοι, γράμματα and συλλαβαί were just as essential as ἁρμονία, φθόγγοι, ῥυθμός and χρόνοι. (shrink)

The Republic’s ban on poetry is a major reason for the prominent place that liberal critics assign to Plato among the enemies of the open society, Friedrich Nietzsche's description of Plato as “the greatest enemy of art Europe has yet produced” being often cited. In this article, I argue that, while Plato's ethical stance remains unacceptable for most readers today, his understanding of aesthetic experience in the Republic appears highly perceptive when seen in the light of cognitive studies and can (...) be thought‐provoking for current debates. As I try to show in the first half of the article, Plato's assessment of responses to poetry and theater resonate with embodied and enactive views of cognition. To corroborate this thesis, I point out in the second half that while theory has been blind to the significance of Plato's aesthetics, its major ideas are substantiated in practice. Contemporary psychotherapy and its increasing deployment of virtual reality unknowingly and with the opposite intent realize Plato's approach to the cognitive dynamics and ethical potential of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

A significant strand of the ethical psychology, aesthetics and politics of Plato's Republic revolves around the concept of poikilia, ‘fascinating variety’. Plato uses the concept to caution against harmful appetitive pleasures purveyed by democracy and such artistic or cultural practices as mimetic poetry. His aim, this article shows, is to contest a prominent conceptual connection between poikilia and beauty (kallos, to kalon). Exploiting tensions in the archaic and classical Greek concept, Plato associates poikilia with dangerous pleasures to redirect admiration toward (...) a distinctly philosophical pursuit of the nature of beauty. This is to displace a prominent and problematic cultural sensibility—the aesthetics of poikilia—not to deny that fascinating variety, even in mimetic poetry, may be beautiful. Rather, Plato's cultural critique lays bare an epistemological problem in the ethical psychology of beauty: since they cannot be distinguished from what seems beautiful, how should one respond to fascinating yet dangerous attractions? (shrink)

This paper takes Plato's metaphor of poetic transmission as magnetic charge in the Ion as a central trope for thinking through the various relationships between philosophy and literature; between poetry, interpretation, and truth; and between erotic affects and the material, corporeal, queer dimensions of reception. The affective dimensions of the Platonic text in the Ion, Republic, Symposium, and Phaedrus are examined at length, and the explicit accounts of ascent to philosophical truth are shown to be complicated by the persistence of (...) tropes of corporeal and affective downgoing, with particular attention afforded to the figures of Eros, Hermes, and shame. The paper argues for an unbroken connection between these scenes of classical philosophy and the emergence of homosexuality in relation to the study of the classics in Victorian England. (shrink)

The Stoa might be not the first philosophical school that comes to mind when considering the most important ancient contributions to aesthetics, yet multiple extant fragments show that the Stoics had a non-marginal theoretical interest in aesthetic properties. Probably the most important piece of evidence for the Stoic attempts to theorize beauty is the definition of beauty as summetria of parts with each other and with the whole. In the first half of this article, I present and analyse the main (...) evidence for this definition. Then I discuss Plotinus' critique of the definition and argue that it contains some pertinent remarks that, with support of additional evidence, lead to the conclusion that the Stoics conceptualized aesthetic properties as supervening on functional composition. (shrink)

Plato is commonly considered a metaphysical dualist conceiving of a world of Forms separate from the world of particulars in which we live. This paper explores the motivation for postulating that second world as opposed to making do with the one we have. The main objective is to demonstrate that and how everything, Forms and all, can instead fit into the same world. The approach is exploratory, as there can be no proof in the standard sense. The debate between explaining (...) Plato’s ontology with a single world and requiring a two-world model to make sense of the same thing is typically about scouring the Platonic corpus for evidence and turning to Aristotle for help where we need it. The aim here is to dig deeper than what either of them, or anyone else, has said or implied about the number or worlds, searching instead for any insight that might be gained from the way Forms are supposed to exist versus what we ourselves might understand by existence. Although the paper is, at its most basic level, about the existence of the Forms, the intention is not to prove that they exist, nor to evaluate the proofs and objections already on record, but to consider how they might exist and what follows if they do. Dialogue toward consensus on why we think the Forms exist, and why we think they do not, could perhaps provide a smoother “second sailing” in waters where we have been unable to agree whether they do and where they would if they did. (shrink)

A commentary on the Symposium as a challenge and a gift to Athens. I begin with a reflection on three dates: 416 bce, the date of Agathon’s victory party, c. 400, the approximate date of Apollodorus’ retelling of the party, and c. 375, the approximate date of the ‘publication’ of the dialogue, and I argue that Plato reminds his contemporary Athens both of its great poetic and legal and scientific traditions and of the historical fact that the way late fourth (...) century Athens appropriated them in some way led to the city’s demise at the turn of the century; thus the dialogue is Plato’s challenge to his contemporary Athens to recognize and overcome its flawed relation to its cultural resources. Heard in this way, the key moments are Aristophanes’ implied critique of Pausanias and Eryximachus and Socrates’ implied critique of Aristophanes and Agathon. Proceeding by a close reading, I argue that Plato exposes, for those moved to rise to his challenge, the failure of his great predecessors to conceive the divine in a way that, worthy of the height and otherness divinity requires, can provide substantive orientation for the burgeoning new reason that animates the city’s culture. (shrink)

This paper disputes the notion, endorsed by much of narrative theory, that the reading of literary narrative is functionally analogous to an act of communication, where communication stands for the transfer of thought and conceptual information. The paper offers a basic typology of the sensorimotor effects of reading, which fall outside such a narrowly communication-based model of literary narrative. A main typological distinction is drawn between those sensorimotor effects pertaining to the narrative qua verbal utterance (verbal presence) and those sensorimotor (...) effects pertaining to the imaginary physical world(s) of the story (direct presence). While verbal presence refers to the reader's vicarious perception of the voices of narrators and characters, direct presence refers to the emulated sensorimotor experience of the imaginary worlds that the narrators' and characters' utterances refer to. The paper further elaborates on how, by which kinds of narrative content and structure, direct presence may be prompted. The final section addresses some of the observational and historical caveats that must be attached to any theoretical inquiry made into the sensorimotor effects of reading. As a preliminary for further research, a few ideas about the model's potential for empirical validation are put forward. A brief, tentative history of the sensorimotor benefits of literary narrative reading is then outlined. (shrink)

This paper attempts to reconcile two apparently opposed ways of thinking about the imagination and its relationship to literature, one which casts it as essentially concerned with fiction-making and the other with culture-making. The literary imagination’s power to create fictions is what gives it its most obvious claim to “autonomy”, as Kant would have it: its freedom to venture out in often wild and spectacular excess of reality. The argument of this paper is that we can locate the literary imagination’s (...) complementary power of cultural articulation in this fictional activity. The suggestion is that we should conceive of the literary imagination as expressing its interests in culture not mimetically but by producing a certain kind of meaning. This meaning is irreducibly narratological, and understanding it helps us to see the role of narrative in bringing into harmony the literary imagination’s interests in both the imaginary and the real. (shrink)

We humans are remarkably interested in and skilled at games of make believe, games whose rules make what we are called on to imagine depend on what’s actually perceivably true about things and people that have what it takes to assume various fictional roles and that thereby function in the games as props. For the most part we play these games on an improvised pickup basis, working out the rules we play by in the very act of playing by them. (...) Part of what makes this coordinative feat possible are signals to the effect that as the speaker sees things, the rules and available props are such that this or that role is assumed by this or that prop, or props of this or that kind. Metaphors are make believe signals put to ambitious prop-characterizing use outside the game they serve to initiate, sustain, or otherwise regulate. Metaphoric competence is one manifestation of make believe competence. (shrink)

The concept ofmimēsiswas ‘shared by most authors, philosophers and educated audiences in the classical period, in antiquity as a whole, and even later’, although it has probably never been developed into a well-articulated theory. As far as we can judge from the extant evidence, the meaning of the expressions μίμησις and μιμέομαι differs from author to author and sometimes even from passage to passage. Ancient Greek views onmimēsishave often been discussed in modern scholarship, mainly within the field of history of (...) art, and it has been demonstrated repeatedly that the traditional English translation ‘imitation’ is not always appropriate for the ancient texts and that in many contexts it is rather misleading. In the following study I aim to focus on this concept as it was employed in the oldest Greek cosmological and philosophical theories. As a rule, the study of these theories is complicated by their fragmentary state of preservation and by their distortion through the specifically Platonic views that were dominant among the later doxographers. I shall suggest that the Platonizing tendency still prevalent today, which tends to translate and interpretmimēsisas ‘imitation’ or ‘copy’, should be carefully revised in the light of the Hippocratic evidence and specifically in view ofDe victu, probably the oldest authentic, non-fragmentary, and non-Platonic document attesting the concept ofmimēsis. (shrink)

In the twenty-fourth aporia of Theophrastus' Metaphysics, there appears an important, if ‘bafflingly elliptical’, ascription to Plato and the ‘Pythagoreans’ of a theory of reduction to the first principles via ‘imitation’. Very little attention has been paid to the idea of Platonic and ‘Pythagorean’ reduction through the operation of ‘imitation’ as presented by Theophrastus in his Metaphysics. This article interrogates the concepts of ‘reduction’ and ‘imitation’ as described in the extant fragments of Theophrastus’ writings – with special attention to his (...) Metaphysics – in an attempt to make sense of how, precisely, Theophrastus characterizes the metaphysical systems of Plato and the ‘Pythagoreans’. A fuller examination of Aporia 24 produces important new understandings of the nature of the Early Academy in the mid fourth century B.C.E. Specifically, by ascribing the concept of reduction via ‘imitation’ to Plato and the ‘Pythagoreans’, Theophrastus is actually describing theories about the structure of the universe held by an important Platonist competitor and the contemporary head of the Academy in Athens, Xenocrates of Chalcedon (396/5–314/13 B.C.E.), who (a) took it upon himself to establish a Platonic doctrine that could be associated with his master’s writings and (b) coordinated that doctrine with the philosophical precepts of the Pythagoreans. As a consequence, we are prompted to question Aristotle’s famous ascription of a theory of ‘imitation’ to the metaphysics of the genuine contemporary or recently deceased Pythagoreans (such as Philolaus of Croton or Archytas of Tarentum) and consider how Xenocrates’ writings on Plato and the ‘Pythagoreans’ might be informing both Theophrastus’ and Aristotle’s descriptions of the Platonic and Pythagorean philosophical system(s). (shrink)

Este trabajo se ocupa de la crítica de Platón a oradores, poetas y sofistas. Su propósito es mostrar que independientemente de las características que singularizan una batalla de vasto alcance librada por el filósofo en tres frentes distintos, la noción de imitación (mimesis) proporciona un hilo conductor que permite vincular esos diferentes enfrentamientos y arrojar luz sobre la reacción de Platón ante quienes identifica, peyorativamente, como imitadores. La práctica adulatoria del orador en Gorgias, no menos que el quehacer del poeta (...) puesto en tela de juicio en República y el del sofista en el diálogo homónimo tendrían, en efecto, una naturaleza mimética. Esto no impide reconocer, junto a los puntos de continuidad, diferencias significativas en los tratamientos de la mimesis que ofrecen los tres diálogos aquí considerados. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

In the contemporary discussion of artifacts, philosophers grapple with what is known as the continuum problem – the problem of drawing a clear distinction between what is and what is not artificial. They begin with the standard definition of artifacts (rooted in Aristotle’s distinction between what exists by nature and what exists by what he calls technē found in the opening passage of Physics II.1) as “objects made intentionally, in order to accomplish something”. But this definition turns out to be (...) rather vague and not as useful as it first appears. For example, does it include nonhuman animal products or a political community? The aim of this paper is to explicate how Aristotle would address the continuum problem by examining what he means by the crucial phrase, ‘from technē’ (apo technēs) which is found at Phys II.1.192b18 (casting doubt that the standard definition of artifacts does not really capture Aristotle’s view) and to explain what truly counts as “artificial products” for Aristotle. (shrink)

Since the publication of Between Facts and Norms, Habermas’s concept of communicative power has been the topic of significant discussion. This article contributes to this conversation by examining Habermas’s account of what makes communication powerful. I argue that Habermas’s conception of communicative power describes a nonviolent and noninstrumental mode of acting and being with others in language. This mode of engagement underwrites a conception of power that is structurally different from willing, one that builds meaningful worlds and (trans-)forms those engaging (...) in communicative procedures. In drawing out this aspect of Habermas’s conception, I show that he is not a rationalist and proceduralist whose account of communicative procedures protects decision-making from irrational aesthetic powers. Rather, he presents communication as a mimetic achievement, a set of aesthetic practices and experiences that affectively alter its participants. With this position, Habermas makes an important contribution to and not just against the analysis of the aesthetic dimensions of political life. In casting communication as a mimetic achievement, Habermas presents an account of how communication opens worlds and forms subjects. Yet since these aspects of communication arrive in linguistic form, he can also examine affective and aesthetic experiences within discursive procedures. We can understand world-opening and aesthetic (trans-)formation as an essential part of democratic politics while also identifying the perspectives and resources by which actors can reflect on and critically evaluate whether an opinion is justified or whether a political project is worth pursuing. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the ways in which the engagement with Greek tragedy may contribute fruitfully to the unfolding of empathy in medical students and practitioners. To reappraise the general view that classical texts are remote from modern experience because of the long distance between the era they represent and today, I propose an approach to Greek tragedy viewed through the lens of historical empathy, and of the association between past situations and similar contemporary experiences, in (...) particular. After a brief examination of the concept of empathy, its links with literary reading, and the discussion of these interrelations within the training of narrative medicine, and narrative ethics in particular, the focus turns to selected parts of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, such as the disease scene—an ancient example of pathography. Here Neoptolemus’ empathy for Philoctetes’ situation and its consequences are explored with specific interest in the modern readers’ affective response in connection with their own experiences in medical practice. Neoptolemus’ ethical conflict, which is resolved by his decision to care for Philoctetes, and the problematic nature of this attitude are both indicative of the aim of Greek tragedy to problematize universal issues and thus to point towards the instability of human life and the fluidity of human nature. Realizing through historical empathy the precariousness of human existence may lead to a better understanding and hence better care for others and open new perspectives in the development of empathy within the context of contemporary medical education and practice. (shrink)

The paper starts with reflections on Plato’s critique of the poets and the preference many express for Aristotle’s view of poetry. The second part of the paper takes a case study of analytic treatments of ancient philosophy, including the ancient philosopher poets, to examine the poetics of analytic philosophy, diagnosing a preference in Analytic philosophy for a clean non-poetic style of presentation, and then develops this in considering how well historians of philosophy in the Analytic tradition can accommodate the contributions (...) of philosophers who wrote in verse. The final part of the paper reviews the current enthusiasm for decoding Empedocles’ vague and poetic descriptions of the cosmic cycle into a precise scientific periodicity on the basis of the recently discovered Byzantine scholia on Aristotle. I argue that this enthusiasm speaks to a desire for definite and clear numerical values in place of poetic motifs of give and take, and that this mathematical and scientific poetic is comparable to the preferred poetic of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Nowadays, although our aesthetic ideas are based on modern theories and perspectives that have pervaded the art, the root of western tradition of art dates back to Greek and Roman art tradition. Theory of form in art tries to emphasize the materiality of artistic object, though in later theories, it has been more flexible and proposes issues such as content and function, as well as attributing concepts such as composition, color, technique etc. to the artwork. Plato by proposing mimesis theory (...) and expanding its scope considered a pattern and framework for attitudes and thoughts in static arts such as painting, literature and dynamic performance arts such as drama and music, and managed to regulate and organize them. For Plato, in this process, ēthos functions as a determinant factor. This present study is an attempt to discuss this question with descriptive-analytical approach: “will artistic form in Plato's theories be important after proposing the representational attitude toward art?” The results demonstrated that Plato's samples of beauty, in addition to descriptions and implications about the features of artistic form in some conversations can be considered equal to artistic form and due to the reflective theory in its revolution process, artistic form development into transcendence ethical form. (shrink)

In book X of the Republic, Plato famously reports “a quarrel between poetry and philosophy.” The present essay examines this quarrel in book X, along with other relevant parts of the Republic, by understanding “philosophy” and “poetry” as rival ways of life and rival ways of discourse. The essay first explains why, in Plato’s view, poetic discourse weakens one’s power to reason and is at odds with philosophic discourse. Then it shows how poetic discourse is bound up with a way (...) of life that champions the value of freedom. Such a life forms a contrast with the philosophic life, which is marked more by stability and unity than by freedom. The quarrel, however, is not a simple antagonism. The essay hence concludes by discussing why, despite the opposition between the two, philosophy cannot do without poetry. (shrink)

La relación entre el arte y la naturaleza fue concebida a lo largo de más de veinte siglos en los términos que Aristóteles estableció mediante el principio téchne mimeîtai phúsin, el cual tradicionalmente se tradujo como “el arte imita a la naturaleza”. Mediante el presente artículo propongo reevaluar la formulación completa del principio aristotélico con el propósito de entender que éste no solo refiere a la similitud y/o analogía entre las habilidades humanas y la naturaleza, sino también al papel complementario (...) que estas desempeñan respecto de la naturaleza. En la primera parte del trabajo, examino las distintas enunciaciones del principio atestiguadas en el corpus. En la segunda, analizo la función que la política y su principal herramienta, la educación, cumplen respecto de la naturaleza. (shrink)

Argument“Deficit model” designates an outlook on the public understanding and communication of science that emphasizes scientific illiteracy and the need to educate the public. Though criticized, it is still widespread, especially among scientists. Its persistence is due not only to factors ranging from scientists’ training to policy design, but also to the continuance of realism as an aesthetic criterion. This article examines the link between realism and the deficit model through discussions of neurology and psychiatry in fiction film, as well (...) as through debates about historical movies and the cinematic adaptation of literature. It shows that different values and criteria tend to dominate the realist stance in different domains:accuracyfor movies concerning neurology and psychiatry,authenticityfor the historical film, andfidelityfor adaptations of literature. Finally, contrary to the deficit model, it argues that the cinema is better characterized by a surplus of meaning than by informational shortcomings. (shrink)

Hegel's theory of tragedy has polarized critics. In the past, many philosophers have claimed that Hegel's theory of tragedy removes Kant's critical insights and returns to pre-critical metaphysics. More recently, several have argued that Hegel does not break faith with tragic experience but allows philosophy to be transformed by tragedy. In this paper I examine the strength of this revised position. First I show that it identifies Hegel's insightful critique of Kant's theoretical assumptions. Yet I then argue that it fails (...) to note the practical importance of Kant's separation of knowledge and aesthetics. I propose an alternative approach to tragedy that builds from the revised view and yet maintains the autonomy of aesthetics. Tragedy represents an action, a set of events that are internally unified and yet cannot be reduced to theory. This is to say that tragedy confronts us with an aesthetic sphere of making and doing that, while constrained, is incessantly open and free. (shrink)

In the Poetics of Aristotle there is a definition of the human being that perhaps has not yet been well considered in educational theory and practice. This definition calls into question a dynamism that according to Plato was unavoidable for an appropriate understanding of the educational process that turns a human being into a beautiful, good and just citizen: mimesis. The paper's intent is to reconsider the definition of the human being, centred on mimesis, presented by Aristotle in the Poetics (...) to demonstrate if, and how, it might establish new paradigms for human coexistence. Aristotle's anthropological statement is included in a much wider discourse concerning philosophy of art; but if isolated from the context, it is an essential definition of human beings that can be synthesised as follows: human beings are the mimetic animal par excellence, and their process of understanding has a fundamental connection with such excellence. Ignorance and/or negligence of how relevant mimesis might be in the educational process may have decisively contributed to separate human beings from this core aspect of their humanity and therefore produced painful consequences in human coexistence. As long as education does not pay attention to the pedagogical implications of the definition taken from the Poetics, how can human flourishing be safeguarded? I argue that recognition of the centrality of mimesis in the educational process allows human edification to proceed devoid of ideological basis, be it secular or confessional; and overcomes the risk of relativism. Mimesis, formerly recognised by Plato as a link between what is expressed and what really is, is masterfully reinterpreted by Aristotle. Aristotle recognised its positive pedagogic value in the Poetics, and nowadays we can recognise how it offers existential dynamics that restore the vital human relationship between self and other. The sense of this proposal lies in giving mimesis the role it deserves in education, by raising the significance of how coexistence might benefit from a vast human dimension, capable of recognising our humanity beyond our rational capacity. (shrink)

In this paper, I oppose the common assumption that visual descriptions in prose fiction are imageable by virtue of perceptual mimesis. Based on introspection as well as convergent support from cognitive science and other disciplines, I argue that visual description (and the mental imagery it elicits), unlike narrative (and the mental imagery it elicits), often stands in no positive relation to perceptual mimesis because it lacks a structural counterpart in perceptual experience. I present an alternative way of defining the kind (...) of mental imagery elicited by visual descriptions, and propose a number of text variables underlying the imageability or non-imageability of any such description. (shrink)

A passage in Plato’s Laws (719c) offers a fresh look at Plato’s theory of poetry and art. Only here does Plato call poetry both mimêsis “imitation, representation,” and the product of enthousiasmos “inspiration, possession.” The Republic and Sophist examine poetic imitation; the Ion and Phaedrus (with passages in Apology and Meno) develop a theory of artistic inspiration; but Plato does not confront the two descriptions together outside this paragraph. After all, mimêsis fuels an attack on poetry, while enthousiasmos is sometimes (...) used to attack it, sometimes to praise it. The explanation evidently lies in Plato’s understanding of drama, which in the Laws has grown more precise, from simply the presentation of characters to the presentation of multiple characters engaged in dramatic conflict. (shrink)

This article focuses on a set of problems involving a controversial portion of the HHA that describes the performance of the Delian chorus in a rare instance of early performance criticism. First, the two variants for a key noun in line 162, bambaliastus and krembaliastus, are discussed. Skepticism is expressed about the applicability to this scene of the first variant . On the contrary, krembaliastus—the suitability of which has not been discussed in detail, even by scholars who seem to have (...) favored it—can make good sense. Literary and iconographic evidence makes it plausible that krembaliastus denotes the act of generating through percussion devices called krembala rhythmic patterns meant to govern stylized movement, what the Greeks called schêmata. The marked term krembaliastus was probably employed to evoke a characteristic trait of the highly skilled Deliades. Furthermore, as vocal and kinetic activities were inextricably linked in choral practices, they are ultimately conceptualized as part of the same unified expressive mechanism . The author also questions the conventional interpretation of mimeisthai as “mimicking,” instead reading it as “representation,” involving the evocation of the essence of an entity but not necessarily exact reproduction of its formal details. Finally the essay argues that the Delian chorus' art of “knowing how to represent the voices and the rhythmic patterns of all people” designates the perfection of choral performance, as an all-inclusive enactment that forms a powerful trans-local bond. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Beauty and Goodness Patterns of Beautiful Poetry Human Excellence and the Standard of Poetic Beauty Moral Psychology Love of Beauty and Being Just Conclusion.

Resumen En el presente artículo reflexiono sobre cómo el concepto de “obra” ha llegado a ocupar un lugar determinante en el pensamiento sobre el arte y en el modo de experimentarlo y comprenderlo. Presento igualmente algunos elementos de reflexión sobre la ontología de la “obra” para centrarme en el caso de las obras musicales, “mutantes ontológicos”, que han sido objeto de atención preferente de la filosofía analítica. Esta reflexión, sin embargo, al poner en primer término las consideraciones ontológicas relativas las (...) condiciones de identidad de la obra han acabado desarrollando tesis que renuncian a los componentes estéticos y atentan contra nuestras convicciones y prácticas más asentadas. Por ello, finalmente apelo a la conveniencia de privilegiar un enfoque histórico para comprender que hay más música que obras musicales.In this article I reflect on how the concept of "work" has come to occupy a determining place in our thinking about art and in the way we experience and understand it. I also present some elements of reflection on the ontology of the "work" in order to focus on the case of musical works, "ontological mutants", that have been the object of preferential attention of analytical philosophy. This reflection, however, by putting in the foreground the ontological considerations concerning the conditions of identity of the work, has ended up developing theses that forget the aesthetic components and go against our most established convictions and practices. For this reason, I finally appeal to the convenience of privileging a historical approach in order to understand that there is more to music than musical works. (shrink)

En este trabajo me interesa abordar la figura del poeta legislador Solón, a fin de examinar la influencia que sus escritos pudieron haber ejercido sobre la concepción de la poesía forjada por Platón en _Leyes_. No se trata tanto de la poesía de Solón en sí misma como de lo que Platón supo leer en ella en términos de posibilidad para la conformación de un nuevo linaje poético. Partiendo de un breve examen de la figura de Solón y de algunos (...) de sus escritos, procuro dar cuenta de la influencia que aquel célebre legislador pudo haber ejercido sobre la figura platónica del poeta legislador. (shrink)

Platon n’est pas sérieux lorsqu’il conduit Socrate à déduire que la poésie doit être essentiellement narrative avec juste un peu de dialogue. Non seulement cette argumentation est-elle intentionnellement fautive, mais Platon crée aussi un Socrate qui obscurcit à dessein une distinction fondamentale. Le Socrate de Platon fait ensuite semblant d’être confus par son propre obscurcissement. En nous obligeant à nous frayer un passage à travers les broussailles de son argumentation erronée, Platon nous donne l’occasion d’avoir une participation plus profonde aux (...) véritables problèmes sous-jacents et de découvrir son thème : une bonne personne est stoïquement indifférente à la fois au malheur et au bonheur. (shrink)

This essay defends that mimesis is an inherently agonistic and paradoxical human practice. The divergent views on mimesis by Plato and Aristotle, as well as by Adorno and Benjamin, are the philosophical manifestation of an agonistic tension of human mimesis that is not resolved in the exclusive truth of one of the positions, but remains as a permanent possibility to create alternative paths in history.

Nietzsche consistently valorizes artistic falsehoods. On standard interpretations, this is because art provides deceptive yet salutary fictions that help us affirm life. This reading conflicts, however, with Nietzsche’s insistence that life-affirmation requires untrammeled honesty. I present an alternative interpretation which navigates the interpretive impasse. With special attention to the influence of Friedrich Schiller, the paper argues for three claims: (1) Nietzsche does not hold that art is false because it “beautifies,” but because it produces mere semblances of, its objects; (2) (...) these semblances are essentially non-deceptive; (3) he values artistic illusions because they dispose us positively to illusion more generally. Such ‘evaluative reorientation,’ I argue, is not merely consistent with, but integral to, achieving Nietzsche’s ideal of honesty. (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)

This paper revisits Plato’s and Aristotle’s views on mimesis with a special emphasis on mythos as an integral part of it. I argue that the Republic ’s notorious “mirror argument” is in fact ad hominem : first, Plato likely has in mind Agathon’s mirror in Aristophanes’ Thesmoforiazusae, where tragedy is construed as mimesis ; second, the tongue-in-cheek claim that mirrors can reproduce invisible Hades, when read in combination with the following eschatological myth, suggests that Plato was not committed to a (...) mirror-like view of art; third, the very omission of mythos shows that the argument is a self-consciously one-sided one, designed to caricature the artists’ own pretensions of mirror-like realism. These points reinforce Stephen Halliwell’s claim that Western aesthetics has been haunted by a «ghostly misapprehension» of Plato’s mirror. Further evidence comes from Aristotle’s “literary” discussion: rather than to the “mirror argument”, the beginning of the Poetics points to the Phaedo as the best source of information about Plato’s views on poetry. (shrink)