Mimesis is a fundamental and pervasive human concept, but has attracted little attention from Johannine scholarship. This is unsurprising, since Johannine ethics, of which mimesis is a part, has only recently become a fruitful area of research. Bennema contends that scholars have not yet identified the centre of Johannine ethics, admittedly due to the fact that mimesis is not immediately evident in the Johannine text because the usual terminology for mimesis is missing. This volume is the (...) first organized study on the concept of mimesis in the Johannine literature. The aim of the study is to establish that mimesis is a genuine Johannine concept, to explain its particulars and to show that mimesis is integral to Johannine ethics. Bennema argues that Johannine mimesis is a cognitive, creative process that shapes the believer's identity and behaviour within the context of the divine family. Besides being instrumental in people's moral transformation, mimesis is also a vital mechanism for mediating the divine reality to people. (shrink)

Are emotions, feelings, sentiments not the stuff of literature? There it is where they project their inner logic of aesthetic transmutation; there, beyond the instrument of language that they command. This collection explores how the lyrical virtualities of life-experience and the elegiac style in literature share a common core, lifting the human significance of life from abysmal vitality to esoteric heights, from abysmal grief to a serene reconciliation with destiny. The elegiac sequence in the play of emotions, feelings (...) and sentiments brings together life and literary creativity in its transformatory power. (shrink)

Abstract:In the prologue to the Rhetorica ad Herennium Book 4, the author boldly departs from tradition and explains that he will create his own examples, rather than drawing from poets and orators. This methodological discussion portrays itself as an exemplum and hence carries a meta-literary and mimetic dimension. In particular, this prologue anticipates and illustrates the precept propounded in Book 4; its fine style and rhythm amount to a defense of rhetoric itself; and this defense must be considered in the (...) political and cultural context of the time. (shrink)

The main objective of my article is to investigate the ways in which contemporary Anglophone drama and theatre actively employ diegetic and narrative forms, setting them in conflict with the mimetic action. The mode of telling seems to be at odds with the conviction not only about the mimetic nature of performance and theatre but also about the growing visuality of contemporary theatre. Many contemporary performances and dramatic texts expose the tensions between the reduction of visual representations and the expansion (...) of the narrative space. This space offers various possibilities of exploring the distance between the performers and spectators, tensions between narrative time and place and the present time of performance, the real and the imagined/inauthentic/fake, traumatic memory and imagination. The active foregrounding of the diegetic elements of performance will be exemplified with reference to several contemporary plays and performances: my focus will be on the uses of epic forms in what can be called post-epic theatre, illustrated by Kieran Hurley’s Rantin ; the foregrounding of the diegetic and the undecidability of the fictional and the real, instantiated by Forced Entertainment’s performances and Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman ; and the narrative density and traumatic aporia of Pornography by Simon Stephens. (shrink)

Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the (...) complex and shifting meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Molière, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts. (shrink)

Mimesis as Make-Believe is important reading for everyone interested in the workings of representational art.

On pp. 47-51, "Fifth Scenario: The Nazi and His Jew", discusses Adorno's theory of mimesis applied to the phenomenon of Nazi antisemitism. Influenced by Freud's theory, Adorno discussed in "Dialektik der Aufklärung" (1947) the Nazi phobic and distorted image of the Jew. In Adorno's interpretation, the imaginary portrait of the Jew created by the Nazis is in fact their self-portrait, expressing their longing for unlimited power and identification with an imaginary aggressor in order to be themselves the real aggressor.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MIMESIS AND SCAPEGOATING IN THE WORKS OF HOBBES, ROUSSEAU, AND KANT Wolfgang Palaver Universität Innsbruck i: "ntellectual fashion in our academic world forces us towards -originality. Searching for mimetic desire or traces of scape-goating in literature or philosophical texts gets therefore some applause because it has not been done before. It has become fashionable in the humanities to have your own special French intellectual to be innovative (...) and conquer new fields. For many ofus Girard's mimetic theory might be of some help to better our standings in originality. But what seems to be an easy game at first sight has its disadvantages, too. Applying mimetic theory gets at least as much criticism as it earns applause. What is praised as an original contribution by some might atthe same time be debased as something quite idiosyncratic by many others. I still remember the reaction of a quite reputable political scientist from Berkeley to a paper of Girard given at a little seminar at Stanford, in which he reflected on the origin of human culture in the scapegoat mechanism. The political scientist welcomed the paper in a friendly way, asking us, however, ifby taking Girard's thesis for granted one might not as well be allowed to say that culture is based on jellybeans. This strange joke is in a way a typical reaction to the mimetic theory ifwe remember how often people do not understand at all why it is of any importance to deal with mimetic desire and scapegoating. Mimetic theory seems to be either one of those fashions which are caused by the necessity to be original or a strange obsession of a small sect following a Wolfgang Palaver127 guru who at least understood that you just have to insist on some bizarre ideas long enough to get some recognition in the end. My paper will try to show that such a critique ofthe mimetic theory is definitely wrong. Whatever major work in political philosophy I read I often came across exactlythose questionsthat are addressed by the mimetic theory. I think the collaboration of some scholars in mimetic theory would allow it to write a history of political philosophy by focusing on mimesis and scapegoating without excluding any ofthe major authors. I will try to do this today by the examples ofHobbes, Rousseau and Kant. In a first step I will show you how these three founding fathers of modern political philosophy were all concerned with mimetic desire. The rise ofthe modem world forced them to view human beings as mimetic competitors. In a second, more difficult step I will focus on traces of the scapegoat mechanism in the works ofthese three authors. Although scapegoating is less visible than mimetic desire it is nevertheless possible to see how this relates to the violent origin of human culture. A third part will address the differences between Girard's view on mimetic desire and scapegoating and the comparable views taken by Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant. These differences are caused by the respective relationships to the biblical revelation. Whereas Girard's theory emphasizes the importance of the Bible to understand mimesis and scapegoating, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant are representatives of the modern neglect of the biblical revelation. A comparison ofthese three authors with an Augustinian perspective helps to understand the way, in which they differ from Girard's mimetic theory. 1. Mimesis in the works of Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant A. Hobbes Hobbes's anthropology describes human beings as genuinely mimetic (Achterhuis 23f; Palaver 1991, 40-45). In Hobbes's early treatise The Elements ofLaw Natural andPolitic this is most explicitly visible. Human beings desire according to the other by always comparing themselves with one another. "All joy and grief of mind" consists "in a contention for precedence to them with whom they compare themselves" (Hobbes 1994, 163f; see also 50-60; 1991, 119). Human life with all its passions is paralleled in this book to a race, which has "no other goal...but being foremost" (Hobbes 1994, 59). It is a race in which "Continually to be out-gone is misery. Continually to out-go the next before is felicity. 128 Mimesis and Scapegoating in Hobbes, Rousseau, & Kant And... (shrink)

Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde explores the relationship between art and philosophy. Andrew Benjamin argues for a reworking of the task of philosophy in terms of the centrality of ontology. It is in relation to this centrality, understood through the differences between modes of being, that art, mimesis, and the avant-garde come to be presented. A fundamental part of this book is the original interpretations of important contemporary painters and their themes: Lucian Freud's self-portraits, Francis Bacon 's use (...) of mirrors, R. B. Kitaj and Jewish identity, Anselm Kiefer and iconoclasm. Apart from painting, Benjamin considers architecture, literature, and the philosophical writings of Walter Benjamin and Descartes in elaborating the various aspects of ontological difference. Benjamin develops the theory of the avant-garde as a philosophical category rather than a historical marker, thus bringing the worlds of contemporary art criticism and contemporary philosophy closer together. (shrink)

Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the (...) complex and shifting meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Molière, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts. (shrink)

Philosopher, literary critic, translator (of Nietzsche and Benjamin), Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe is one of the leading intellectual figures in France. This volume of six essays deals with the relation between philosophy and aesthetics, particularly the role of mimesis in a metaphysics of representation, and is introduced by Jacques Derrida.

Se exponen las prácticas docentes de las educadoras de párvulos, que cumplen una función reproductora del nacionalismo que es internalizado en las niñas y niños como la ciudadanía chilena. Para ello, configuran un escenario lúdico que ritualiza la conducta cívica y patriótica, por medio de conmemoraciones cívicas fundadas en el belicismo de la guerra del Pacífico, sin considerar la realidad cosmopolita y de diversidad cultural presente en las aulas nortinas. A partir de esto, proponemos una nueva perspectiva respecto de la (...) realización de actos cívicos en la educación parvularia, para hacerlos más inclusivos y acordes a la realidad cultural de la región de Tarapacá, la más multicultural de Chile. This paper describes the teaching practices of pre-school teachers who play a reproductive role of nationalism internalized in children as Chilean citizenships. This happens as the result of a ludic scenario that ritualizes civic and patriotic conduct, through civic commemorations based on the Pacific war, regardless both the cosmopolitan reality and cultural diversity present in classrooms in the Northern part of Chile. Considering this, we propose a new perspective on conducting civic events in early childhood education, to make them more inclusive and consistent with the cultural reality of the region of Tarapacá, Chile's most multicultural region. (shrink)

In Romantic theories of art and literature, the notion of mimesis—defined as art’s reflection of the external world—became introspective and self-reflexive as poets and artists sought to represent the act of creativity itself. Frederick Burwick seeks to elucidate this Romantic aesthetic, first by offering an understanding of key Romantic mimetic concepts and then by analyzing manifestations of the mimetic process in literary works of the period. Burwick explores the mimetic concepts of "art for art's sake," "Idem et Alter," (...) and "palingenesis of mind as art" by drawing on the theories of Philo of Alexandria, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Friederich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Thomas De Quincey, and Germaine de Staël. Having established the philosophical bases of these key mimetic concepts, Burwick analyzes manifestations of mimesis in the literature of the period, including ekphrasis in the work of Thomas De Quincey, mirrored images in the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, and the twice-told tale in the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and James Hogg. Although artists of this period have traditionally been dismissed in discussions of mimesis, Burwick demonstrates that mimetic concepts comprised a major component of the Romantic aesthetic. (shrink)

In Romantic theories of art and literature, the notion of mimesis—defined as art’s reflection of the external world—became introspective and self-reflexive as poets and artists sought to represent the act of creativity itself. Frederick Burwick seeks to elucidate this Romantic aesthetic, first by offering an understanding of key Romantic mimetic concepts and then by analyzing manifestations of the mimetic process in literary works of the period. Burwick explores the mimetic concepts of "art for art's sake," "Idem et Alter," (...) and "palingenesis of mind as art" by drawing on the theories of Philo of Alexandria, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Friederich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Thomas De Quincey, and Germaine de Staël. Having established the philosophical bases of these key mimetic concepts, Burwick analyzes manifestations of mimesis in the literature of the period, including ekphrasis in the work of Thomas De Quincey, mirrored images in the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, and the twice-told tale in the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and James Hogg. Although artists of this period have traditionally been dismissed in discussions of mimesis, Burwick demonstrates that mimetic concepts comprised a major component of the Romantic aesthetic. (shrink)

Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the (...) complex and shifting meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Molière, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts. (shrink)

This absorbing study of Plato's criticism of poetry offers a new interpretation based upon central features of both the pre-Platonic conception of poetry and previously neglected features of Plato's various discussions of poetry and the poets. Professor Mitscherling's analysis is unique in that he concentrates on the philosophical significance of Plato's distinction between dramatic and nondramatic sorts of poetry. Mitscherling shows that this distinction proves in fact to be central to the conception of poetry that Plato consistently elaborates throughout his (...) dialogues. Mitscherling also makes a unique contribution by outlining a possible Platonic aesthetics, which draws on current work in phenomenology and hermeneutics in such a way as to promise an entirely new direction for current work in continental aesthetics. The author employs Gadamer's analyses of the ontology of the work of art, in conjunction with a phenomenological analysis of the aesthetic experience, in the construction of a foundation for aesthetics that is consistently Platonic. Mitscherling concludes with the hypothesis that Plato's criticism of poetry did not apply to poetry itself, nor was it directed to art in general or the educational system, or the Sophists. Rather, Plato was specifically against the techn? of mim'sis, that is, the technique of persuading by appearing to be what one is not, or by merely appearing to speak the truth. (shrink)

If we try to arrive at the simplest and most universally valid definition of the representation of reality in literature, we may dispense with grammatical features such as verisimilitude or with genres such as realism, since these are not universal categories. Their applicability depends on historical circumstances or authorial intent. The most economic and general definition, however, must at least include the following two features. First, any representation presupposes the existence of its object outside of the text and preexistent (...) to it. Readers feel, and critics pronounce, that the text’s significance depends on this objective exteriority, even though this significance may entail destroying the commonplace acceptance of the object; indeed, negating something still presupposes that something. Second, the reader’s response to the mimesis consists in a rationalization tending to verify and complete the mimesis and to expand on it sensory terms . The metalanguage of criticism accordingly prolongs and continues the text’s mimetic discourse, and critics evaluate representation in terms of its precision and suggestive power. Both processes—presupposition and rationalization alike—assume that referentiality is the basic semantic mechanism of the literary mimesis.There are, however, literary representations almost devoid of descriptive content, or so vague and so skimpy that their object cannot be analyzed or rationalized in sensory terms. Criticism is hard put to explain why readers feel compelled to evaluate them. And yet these texts not only lend themselves to interpretation but they are especially apt to trigger and control the reader’s hermeneutic behavior. In short, the represented object eschews referentiality yet refuses to vanish altogether, becoming instead the verbal vehicle of an interpretive activity that ends up by making the object subservient to the subject.1 1. See Roland Barthes et al., Littérature et réalité , esp. my paper, pp. 81-118, on the referential fallacy. Michael Riffaterre, University Professor at Columbia University, is the editor of Romantic Review. He is presently working on a book about Anthony Trollope . His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, “Syllepsis,” appeared in the Summer 1980 issue. (shrink)

In this article, I relate the demand that Paul Ricoeur suggests mimesis places on the way we think about truth to the idea that the work of art is a model for thinking about testimony. By attributing a work’s epoché of reality to the work of imagination, I resolve the impasse that arises from attributing music, literature, and art’s distance from the real to their social emancipation. Examining the conjunction, in aesthetic experience, of the communicability and the exemplarity (...) of a work reveals how Ricoeur’s definition of mimesis as refiguration relates to the “rule” that the work summons. This “rule” constitutes the solution to a problem or question for which the work is the answer. In conclusion, as a model for thinking about testimony, the claims that works make have a counterpart in the injunctions that issue from exemplary moral and political acts.  . (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo tiene como objetivo indagar si la mímesis ―o imitación― tal como la entiende René Girard (1923-2015), afecta el juicio ético ―o evaluación moral― de una acción que el ejecutivo realiza en la empresa. En la primera parte, se caracteriza el juicio ético de acuerdo con una revisión de la literatura de ética empresarial (2010-2020). En la segunda parte, se sintetiza cómo Girard explica la conformación de la sociedad a partir de la mímesis, una fuerza impulsora ambivalente que (...) se manifiesta en el deseo de ser como el otro y de diferenciarse del otro, el deseo de apropiarse de lo del otro y la rivalidad. En la tercera, se ilustran las ideas de Girard con ejemplos de la dinámica organizacional. En la cuarta y última parte, se realiza la discusión a fin de responder la pregunta de investigación. Se concluye que, si el sujeto decide no ejercer su capacidad de discernimiento, la mímesis ofrece elementos y oportunidades o bien para el autoengaño respecto de la moralidad y responsabilidad de una acción, o bien para la omisión del juicio ético individual. Abstract: This article aims to investigate whether mimesis ―or imitation― as understood by René Girard (1923-2015), affects the ethical judgment ―or moral evaluation― of an action that the executive performs in the company. First, this text offers a characterization of the ethical judgment according to the business ethics literature review (2010-2020). Second, this article provides a synthesis of Girard´s theory of mimetic desire. Girard conceived the mimesis as a main social driving force from which emerge both, the desire to be like the other and to differentiate from the other. This ambivalent and paradoxical force leads human beings to order and union, or to rivalry and revenge. Third, this inquiry illustrates Girard's ideas with examples of organizational dynamics. In the fourth and last part, the discussion leads to answering the research question. Study’s limitations are pointed out. This inquiry concludes that if the decision-making subject decides not to exercise his/her discernment and rather to remain in the mimesis' blindness, the executive will find elements and opportunities for self-deception or substitution of his/her own ethical judgment with others imitation. (shrink)

The concept of mimesis has been central to philosophical aesthetics from Aristotle to Kendall Walton: in plain terms, it highlights the links between a fictional world or a representational practice on the one hand and the real world on the other. The present collection of essays includes discussions of its general viability and pertinence and of its historical origins, as well as detailed analyses of various relevant issues regarding literature, film, theatre, images and computer games. The individual papers (...) offer new arguments for the specialist, yet in their sum also provide a solid and helpful survey of the current state of the debate. Contributions by P. Alward, G. Currie, D. Davies, L. Dole el, J. Hamilton, T. Kobli ek, P. Kot'atko, A. Kuzmicova, J. Levinson, A. Meskin, A. Pettersson, M. Pokorny, J. Robson, G. Rossholm, R. M. Sainsbury, F. Stjernberg, E. Terrone, K. Thein, A. Voltolini. (shrink)

Mimesis is one of the root words of Ancient Philosophy and again plays an important role in contemporary French thought. In this essay, an original interpretation of mimesis is given which throws new light on art and literature, reading and writing, the mirror and the example, identity and difference, and last but not least on the traditional opposition between reality and illusion, between appearing and being.

The concept of mimesis is not very often used in the contemporary semiotic dialogue. This article introduces several views on this concept, and on the basis of these, mimesis is comprehended as a phenomenon of communication. By highlighting different semantic dimensions of the concept, mimesis is seen as being composed of phases of communication and as such, it is connected with imitation, representation, iconicity and other semiotic concepts.

The mirror analogy in Republic X (596c-e) helps Socrates formulate the conception of mimesis used to make the argument that the painter is an imitator and his works are inferior, being thrice-removed from reality (596a-598d). The painter is classified as an impostor by an unfair assimilation with the sophistic mirror-holder. The mirror analogy and its imaging-devices give Socrates a dialectical advantage that he would not otherwise have. If Socrates succeeds with Glaucon in showing that painters are imitators, his success (...) is due primarily to the mirror analogy and its metaphorical imagery. (shrink)

Since the beginning of history humans have attempted to represent nature and culture through mimesis. This article focuses on the teleologicalaspects of mimesis and offers a different perspective that transcends the notion of sustainability into an eco-humanistic metamorphosis of culture and nature.Drawing from semiotics, phenomenology and architectural design the article challenges the polarization of mimetic representations of nature and culture,which are inclusive and homomorphic phenomena, and offers insight into the mutual mimesis of nature and culture. Two different (...) empirical observationssubstantiate the theoretical perspective: 1) a tradition advanced by the Egyptians’ stylization of visual representations of the mimicry of nature and culture; and 2) acurrent architectural design activity that integrates the mimesis of nature and culture. The article makes the case for a theoretical approach that integratesmimetic principles in creating a sustainable environment and an authentic ecoliving. The article concludes with ethical implications on the way we perceive themutual resemblances in nature and culture, and on our semiotic understanding of the teleological aspects of mimesis. (shrink)

The Shield of Heracles by Hesiod and Homer’s Iliad, XVIII show how mimesis should be considered: it is a process that should be seen different according to the levels that it refers to. There is one object constructed by a craftsman (first level of representation), after that a poet may write about this object and its construction (second level of representation). Then yet another poet could write, on the model of the previous text, his poem with his personal idea.Explaining (...) first, the meaning of representation, arts and mimesis in Plato (Ion, Phaedrus, Cratylus, Sophist, Laws, Republic-Book X) and in Aristotle (Poetics, Nichomachean Ethics), I would like to explain how mimesis was considered according to the terms of form and representation. After that I would carry out atextual analysis of The Shield of Heracles and Iliad, to demonstrate that even if Hesiod’s text is quite similar to Homer’s, the context, the meaning, the backgroundof the authors and the narrative structures are different. The different levels of pertinence and the different points of view demonstrate that mimesis is not a process that produces hierarchy in retrospect, but it is something heading to the direction of what “it is not created yet”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NIETZSCHE AND MIMESIS by Mark P. Drost The phenomenon of imitation as it operates in Nietzsche's dieory of ecstasy is the central and most important element in his theory of tragedy and art in general. In Nietzsche's vision oftragedy we see diat this ecstasy is not limited to the individual artist, but it infects the tragic chorus and the spectators as well. Nietzsche's reinterpretation of the concept of (...) imitation is presented through the Apollonian and Dionysian artistic impulses which express themselves as distinct tendencies in die arts. In order to understand Nietzsche's concept of imitation one must trace the artwork back to the artist whose activity is an imitation of the Apollonian or die Dionysian state. The fusion of these artistic impulses in their highest development occurs in the chorus. The ecstatic impulse of the chorus results in a paradoxical act of self-displacement: a vision which exceeds the boundaries of the stage and diminishes die distance which is normally secured through the theatrical conventions of distance. We shall see how Nietzsche's vision oftragedy can be understood as a reinterpretation ofthe classical concept of imitation by contrasting it with Aristotle's theory. The classical concept ofart as imitation (mimesis) is best expressed in die Poetics ofAristotle. Under the term "mimesis" there is included an array of artistic activity, e.g., epic poetry, "the poetry of tragic drama, and, moreover comedy and dithyrambic poetry, and most flute-playing and lyre-playing" (1447al4). Since tragedy has its roots in poetry, the causes from which tragedy arises are similar to (if not identical with) the causes from which poetry arises. Poetic imitation itself appears to have two causes. First, imitation is natural to man from childhood (1448b2). Man is the most mimetic of creatures, and in childhood he learns by imitating the 309 310Philosophy and Literature people, diings, and events around him. Second, because he learns through them, man takes delight in seeing die images of things and recognizing that they are imitative. Since the pleasure of such recognition is so great, one can in fact take delight in seeing images ofthings which are painful to see in their original (1448b12). The former cause yields pleasure from the knowledge of the original while die second cause yields pleasure because one knows it is not an original. Thus the knowledge that what is being witnessed is an imitation is required for the mimetic pleasure to be experienced. Ifone has not seen the original, the pleasure one experiences is somediing different from die pleasure one takes in imitation (1448b6). It is not that imitation can never merely reproduce or copy its original in the manner of a perfect imitation, but artistic imitation requires that diere always be a sufficient difference between the representation and the original to allow for knowledge and die mimetic pleasure subsequent to it. The paradox of imitation is this: the more perfect the imitation is, the less it is known as a work ofimitation. In general, the greater die degree of the realism ofthe imitation, the greater is the need for some indication that it is art and not reality. With respect to this Arthur Danto says, "Mimesis itself, providing diat the conventions of dislocation are clear to the audience, in fact inhibits just those beliefs that would be activated widiout those conventions."1 The spectator could not obtain mimetic pleasure from the "perfect imitation" if the illusion it generated were so effective as to render the artistic medium completely transparent. The causes of mimetic pleasure are die fact diat one is presented widi an imitation and that one is aware of die difference (and/or similarity) between an object and its representation dirough an artistic medium which is never completely transparent. Although by perceiving an imitation we learn of the thing imitated, it is not essential to die concept ofimitation that there actually and empirically exist an original event or figure which explains the content of die imitation. Though the concept ofimitation is a relational concept, it is not so in the sense that there must be an originally existing personage or state ofaffairs against which we may measure the accuracy ofme mimetic representation. The... (shrink)

The Shield of Heracles by Hesiod and Homer’s Iliad, XVIII show how mimesis should be considered: it is a process that should be seen different according to the levels that it refers to. There is one object constructed by a craftsman (first level of representation), after that a poet may write about this object and its construction (second level of representation). Then yet another poet could write, on the model of the previous text, his poem with his personal idea.Explaining (...) first, the meaning of representation, arts and mimesis in Plato (Ion, Phaedrus, Cratylus, Sophist, Laws, Republic-Book X) and in Aristotle (Poetics, Nichomachean Ethics), I would like to explain how mimesis was considered according to the terms of form and representation. After that I would carry out atextual analysis of The Shield of Heracles and Iliad, to demonstrate that even if Hesiod’s text is quite similar to Homer’s, the context, the meaning, the backgroundof the authors and the narrative structures are different. The different levels of pertinence and the different points of view demonstrate that mimesis is not a process that produces hierarchy in retrospect, but it is something heading to the direction of what “it is not created yet”. (shrink)

This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. While rejecting the traditional view that literature is important for the truths that it imparts, the authors also reject attempts to cut literature off altogether from real human concerns. Their detailed account of fictionality, mimesis, and cognitive value, founded (...) on the methods of analytical philosophy, restores to literature its distinctive status among cultural practices. The authors also explore metaphysical and skeptical views, prevalent in modern thought, according to which the world itself is a kind of fiction, and truth no more than a social construct. They identify different conceptions of fiction in science, logic, epistemology, and make-believe, and thereby challenge the idea that discourse per se is fictional and that different modes of discourse are at root indistinguishable. They offer rigorous analyses of the roles of narrative, imagination, metaphor, and "making" in human thought processes. Both in their methods and in their conclusions, Lamarque and Olsen aim to restore rigor and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide new, philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 29.1 (2005) 1-23 [Access article in PDF] Literature and Evolution: A Bio-Cultural Approach Brian Boyd University of Auckland Many now feel that the "theory" that has dominated academic literary studies over the last thirty years or so is dead, and that it is time for a return to texts.1 But many more outside literary studies—in fields as diverse as anthropology, economics, law, psychology, and (...) religion—have recently come to recognize that the deep past that shaped our species can help to explain our present and recent past. Since a bio-cultural model of the human can only be richer than a solely cultural model, and since it implies neither genetic determinism nor limitation to the status quo, I want to argue for a bio-cultural or evolutionary approach to literature, first in very general terms, and then through a few aspects of a single familiar example, Hamlet.2 Such an approach, I suggest, can offer both a more comprehensive theory of literature and a closer investigation of literary texts. I Traditional views of literature tended to see it as reflecting nature, especially human nature, all the way from Plato's discomfort with, or Aristotle's admiration for, mimesis to Shakespeare's or Stendhal's images of art as holding the mirror up to nature. Common-sense traditional views of art and literature have easily shaded into transcendental views, widespread because religious beliefs have been so pervasive and because both artists and their patrons in state or church benefit by nurturing a sense of awe at art's putatively divine origins and power.In the twentieth century, first in sociology, anthropology, and even [End Page 1] psychology, then by the 1960s in the combination of these with Saussurean linguistics that produced structuralism and its aftershocks, and therefore impacted on literature, there has been a rejection of human nature as a given and a stress on human nature as the product only of culture and convention. "Theory," or what the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism more pointedly calls cultural critique, rightly critiques traditional common-sense and transcendental views of art, pointing out that the nature, human nature, or supernature that art or literature was supposed to reflect was merely what was assumed of these things from within a local cultural perspective.3 Roland Barthes, for example, criticized "the mystification which transforms petit-bourgeois culture into a universal nature."4 Modern Theory also rejects the individual as another bourgeois or capitalist or Western notion, as when Fredric Jameson echoed Barthes's Death of the Author by announcing the Death of the Subject.5 Criticism since the 1960s "has denied, on theoretical grounds, the relevance of the single historically definable author."6However, as many have lately realized, there are problematic ethical consequences of both the denial of human nature and the denial of the individual. After such denials, on what basis do we then claim equal rights for all humans, and on what basis do we assign responsibility for particular actions?7 If there is no "single historically definable author," does that mean that someone penning a racist screed cannot be held accountable?A critique of unquestioned Western assumptions about human nature was needed, but the post-1960s critique was shortsighted: it has not looked nearly far enough. While structuralism and its more or less rebellious offspring were continuing the lineage of early twentieth-century social sciences, the natural sciences were moving in the opposite direction, towards the first comprehensive scientific attempt to understand human nature in the context of evolution and human, animal, and artificial cognition and behavior.In the humanities there has of late been widespread skepticism about science. Some postmodernists have what they deem "a sophisticated appreciation of the futility of proof and the relativity of all knowledge claims." But, as Daniel Dennett comments, "this opinion, far from being sophisticated, is the height of sheltered naïveté, made possible only by... ignorance of the proven methods of scientific truth-seeking and their power."8 Science does not generate only true answers: ideas proposed within it can of... (shrink)

In der überarbeiteten Fassung seiner Wiener Dissertation von 1999 legt Rhoby (= R.) zunächst in einer sehr knappen Einleitung (19–23) eine Arbeitsdefinition des zentralen Begriffes einer geographischen ‚Reminiszenz‘ vor. Er gewinnt seine Definition primär aus dem ausgewerteten Material selbst. Bei Reminiszenzen handele es sich um „eine Erwähnung eines antiken Ortes, die innerhalb eines byzantinischen Textes nebenbei geschieht bzw. in einen längeren Handlungsablauf ergänzend eingearbeitet ist“ (19). Als bewußt hervorgeholte Erinnerung aus dem traditionellen literarischen Bildungsgut eines Autors hebt sich die Reminiszenz (...) von der Mimesis und dem Plagiat ab. Der Begriff bleibt jedoch bei R. etwas unbestimmt. Reminiszenz habe „eigentlich in jedem der folgenden Kapitel eine jeweils etwas andere Bedeutung“ (22). Auf die aktuelle Diskussion über Zitate, Anspielungen, Reminiszenzen und verwandte rhetorisch-stilistische Termini und Techniken in der Philologie, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft geht R. weder in seiner Einleitung (siehe 20 und Anm. 6) noch in der abschließenden Analyse (237–257) ausführlich ein. Für R.s Untersuchung bietet sich eine Vielzahl von Gattungen der mittel- und spätbyzantinischen Literatur als Textgrundlage an. Zu Recht schließt er Textsorten aus, in denen die Antike oder antike Themen ganz offen im Mittelpunkt stehen, z.B. Kommentare, Paraphrasen zu antiken Autoren, Progymnasmata und Übungsreden über antike Themen, auch den in der Antike spielenden byzantinischen Liebesroman. Denn in solchen Texten kann man offenkundig nicht von Reminiszenzen in R.s Verständnis sprechen. Es verbleiben aber weiterhin zahlreiche Werke aus verschiedenen Gattungen und von unterschiedlichen Autoren. Dies erschwert methodisch R.s Untersuchung. (shrink)

In this paper I pursue the influences of Jakob von Uexküll’s biosemiotics on the anthropology of Ernst Cassirer. I propose that Cassirer in his Philosophy of the Symbolic Forms has written a cultural semiotics which in certain core ideas is grounded on biosemiotic presuppositions, some explicit (as the “emotive basic ground” of experience), some more implicit. I try to trace the connecting lines to a biosemiotic approach with the goal of formulating a comprehensive semiotic anthropology which understands man as embodied (...) being and culture as a phenomenon of general semioses. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1100, Page 589-593, July 2021.