Averroes's Aesthetics. The Pleasure of Philosophy and the Pleasure of Poetry

Abstract

The theme of the pleasure of knowledge is central in Averroes’ aesthetical reflection of Aristotle’s Poetics, regardless whether we side with the logical or with the moral interpretation. The first one stresses the continuity between Averroes and previous commentators in his attempt to reconstruct the Poetics as an integral part of the Logic itself, whereby poetic discourse is conceived as a form of reasoning based on syllogisms. According to the latter perspective, however, pleasure is central in that poetry is a tool towards the pursuit of happiness: in this perspective it is necessary to bear in mind some common themes present in other works by Averroes (particularly in the commentaries on the Aristotelian Organon – and especially the commentary on the Rhetoric –, in the commentaries on Plato’s Republic, and, last but not least, in the Decisive Treatise). The pleasure of contemplative knowledge must go hand in hand with the pursuit of communal happiness and therefore with the good and proper order of community and society. Poetry represents a central tool towards this aim in that it expresses moral truths which cannot not be communicated (to everybody) by means of logic and philosophy alone.