In the Introduction to her recent translation of the Poetics, Miss Hubbard astutely recognizes the intellectual orientation of Aristotle's aesthetic theory. She observes that for Aristotle the concept of mimesis is intimately connected with that of mathesis and thus that the basic pleasure of art is the intellectual pleasure involved in learning. She then correctly identifies two levels of the learning process involved in mimesis: on a lower level it signifies the way in which children learn their first lessons but (...) on a much more sophisticated plane it denotes a process by which our understanding of ‘moral facts and moral possibilities’ is deepened. She perceptively concludes that if art is to achieve the goal set for it by Aristotle, it must have a significant relationship to ultimate truth. (shrink)

In the Introduction to her recent translation of the Poetics, Miss Hubbard astutely recognizes the intellectual orientation of Aristotle's aesthetic theory. She observes that for Aristotle the concept of mimesis is intimately connected with that of mathesis and thus that the basic pleasure of art is the intellectual pleasure involved in learning. She then correctly identifies two levels of the learning process involved in mimesis: on a lower level it signifies the way in which children learn their first lessons but (...) on a much more sophisticated plane it denotes a process by which our understanding of ‘moral facts and moral possibilities’ is deepened. She perceptively concludes that if art is to achieve the goal set for it by Aristotle, it must have a significant relationship to ultimate truth. (shrink)

Nearly fifteen years ago Nicev published a study entitled L'Enigme de La Catharsis Tragique dans Aristote, in which he argued for a new interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of tragic catharsis. This interpretation has, I believe, an important kernel of truth in it, although it is based on an eccentric and unpersuasive interpretation of Poetics 1452a1-11. It suggests that for Aristotle catharsis is the act of purging the audience of a false opinion concerning the apparent innocence of the hero and (...) of purging that audience of a directly related false opinion concerning the apparently arbitrarily unjust action of the divine forces which bring the hero to ruin. (shrink)