Aristotle's Use Research Articles

La mesure et l'exemple: l'exemplarité morale dans l'éthique d'Aristote

In this article, it is argued that: 1) Aristotle's use of moral exemplars is not a mere practical empiricism;; 2) moral exemplarity counts as a legitimate tool for practical knowledge. At first glance, the moral exemplar looks like a mere empirical substitute for a scientific knowledge of the Good, which, strictly speaking, would be impossible. In that respect, the exemplar looks like a particular case, by contrast with real practical norms. Consequently, Aristotle's exemplarism seems, at best, to lead to a sort of relativistic particularism. However, Aristotle's use of examples and exemplars have a significant part in moral conduct, where the virtuous person stands for the human standard of good action. Moreover, Aristotle puts the emphasis on the notion of "measure" (metron). By doing so, he constructs a consistent conception of moral exemplarity. The wise person is the ‘measure' of moral conduct, and this means that he is neither an absolute model to be imitated, nor a mere particular case to be consider.

Комментарий Александра к «Метафизике» и некоторые схоластические представления об автоматах

In this article, I argue that Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas read a certain passage of Aristotle's Metaphysics on the nature of metaphysical curiosity in a way that is inconsistent with the earlier reading of the same passage by Alexander of Aphrodisias. The passage has to do with Aristotle's use of mechanical automata as a metaphor for kinetic mimesis in his metaphysics. The result of the variant reading of the passage in question is that these Scholastic readings emphasize universal causality as a vehicle of “wonder banishment” in metaphysics at the expense of recognizing the key metaphysical principle that Aristotle is suggesting. Such readings actually turn out to be difficult to maintain with the example of mechanical automata that Aristotle employs. I argue that the absence of the availability of Alexander's commentary to Albert and Aquinas contributes to their variant and inconsistent reading. There are three main parts and a conclusion. Part I discusses the passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics in question, which I call the thaumata passage, as well as Alexander's commentary on it. Part II discusses the unavailability of Alexander's commentary to Albert, Aquinas and their predecessors. Part III discusses the variant scholastic readings of the thaumata passage and how these readings, which take Aristotle's mechanical automata as chance occurrences result in an emphasis on wonder banishment through universal causal reasoning that is inconsistent with the example Aristotle uses in the thaumata passage. By way of conclusion I suggest that even had Alexander's commentary been available to Aquinas, he would have understood the passage as more akin to remarks on magic than to metaphysics.

Ancient Greek Tragedy as Performance: the Literature–Performance Problematic

In this article Mario Frendo engages with the idea of ancient Greek tragedy as a performance phenomenon, questioning critiques that approach it exclusively via literary–dramatic methodologies. Based on the premise that ancient Greek tragedy developed within the predominantly oral context of fifth-century BCE Greece, he draws on Hans-Thies Lehmann's study of tragedy and its relation to dramatic theatre, where it is argued that the genre is essentially ‘predramatic’. Considered as such, ancient Greek tragedy cannot be fully investigated using dramatic theories developed since early modernity. In view of this, Walter J. Ong's caution with respect to the rational processes produced by generations of literate culture will be acknowledged and alternative critiques sought, including performance criticism and performance-oriented frameworks such as orality, via which Frendo traces possible critical trajectories that would allow contemporary scholarship to deal with ancient tragedy as a performance rather than literary phenomenon. Reference will be made to Aristotle's use of the term ‘poetry’, and how performance criticism may provide new insight into how the Poetics deals with one of the earliest performance phenomena in the West. Mario Frendo is lecturer of theatre and performance and Head of the Department of Theatre Studies at the School of Performing Arts, University of Malta, where he is director of CaP, a research group focusing on links between culture and performance. His research interests include musicality in theatre, ancient tragedy, and relations between philosophical thought and performance.

División, definición y diferencia en los "Tópicos"

In the Topics Aristotle makes large use of division and constantly presupposes familiarity with this method on the part of the reader. But he never provides either an official presentation or a direct discussion of division. The author would like to focus on Aristotle's use of division in order to show how it can be exploited to shed some light on the particular method of division which Aristotle implicitly accepts, and relies on, in the Topics in order to get clearer about certain basic rules governing the choice of the differentia in a division.

The Problem of Authority in Arendt and Aristotle

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Justice refers to the ethical category of the existing, virtue the ethical category of the demanded.-Walter Benjamin, Notes to a Work on the Category of JusticeIf there is a predicament, one in which 'we' are-one in which this 'we' is understood as designating a relationship between forms of experience and therefore both subjectivity and a sense of historical time, where time is there to be thought philosophically-then what arises as a concern to be addressed pertains to the categories or concepts in which this predicament is to be thought.1 The present demands to be thought. What is central to the philosophical project is how to distinguish between differing and conflicting correlations. However, it is the ineliminability of thought that generates the following opening question: What are the categories, the modes of thought appropriate to the predicament in which 'we' are and thus in which 'we' take a stand? Though it should always be noted that this 'we' is itself the site of an already present asymmetrical relation between the 'we' that is held as a yet-to-be determined potentiality and the 'we' whose overdetermined presence is assumed as simply given by a certain conception of both law and politics. The latter is the 'we' of a posited and then naturalized normativity, while the former is the 'we' that is always there as the sense of collectivity-community and subjectivity-resulting both from this exposure and the undoing of processes of naturalization; hence, the undoing of normativity in the name of an-other possibility. Within the present predicament in which predicament as praedicamentum names the state or the condition, thus the categories in terms of which what is, is presented and constrains thought, that constraint, thus the constrained, involves, at the same time, as much an appeal to the logical and to reason as it does to the understanding. There is, moreover, an inevitable link to praedicare and thus to stating or declaring. The predicament can be stated. There is a condition which in conditioning leads to forms of utterance and thus to speech. Without understating the predicament, in other words, without thinking thinking's own predicament, thought is refused an address; equally, thought would have failed to address. As a point of departure therefore it becomes possible to ask the question of the predicament within which Aristotle may have responded to the demand to think; questions of this nature pertain, equally, to Arendt. While she may have engaged with Aristotle and thus with Ancient thought more generally, that engagement was set by the predicament constraining thought. Borrowings and engagements will have always been determined in advance by their own predicament.1Life as understood by Aristotle bequeaths a number of problems. The one that is of direct concern in this instance is the relationship between 'life' and 'the good life.' How is such a distinction to be understood? What type of distinction is it? These questions are to be approached here initially in terms of the temporality of eudaimonia and thus, equally, of the position of the eudaimon. Once this position can be generalised it indicates the presence of a founding reciprocity between time, and the ontology of being a subject. This point arises in Arendt's engagement with Aristotle's use of the terms 'eudaimon' and 'eudaimonia.' In this regard she argues the following:To be eudaimon and to have been eudaimon, according to Aristotle, are the same, just as to live well (...) and to have 'lived well' are the same as long as life lasts; they are not states or activities which change a person's quality, such as learning and having learned, which indicates two altogether different attributes of the same person at different times.2'Learning' and'having learned' have beginnings and ends. If there is a capacity to learn then its actualization is'having learned. …

Ética tau y utopía en Aristóteles

“Ethos” and “ethos”, roots of the word “ethic”, are written with the consonant “theta” (Th). “Etos”, written with the consonant “tau” (T), means “year”. The aim of this paper is to highlight the presence of what I have called “tau ethic” in Greek political thought. To paraphrase Nietzsche, I perceive the birth of ethics out of the spirit of “ethos/ethos/etos”. To start with, Solon was one of the seven sages. Nobody could deny his influence in Archaic and Classical Greece. He was considered in those days a kind of founding father. His division of human life into periods of seven years was the canonical way of thinking about it in ancient times. In addition, Plato and Aristotle use to quote Solon as an indisputable authority. Finally, I show that Aristotle’s utopia is built on Solonian cornerstones. On the one hand, I emphasize the importance of Solonian anthropological thought in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. On the other hand, I show how ideal society is designed according to the age group into Aristotle´s utopia. To put the problem succinctly, an essential element of Aristotle’s practical philosophy is what I have called “tau ethic”, an issue not sufficiently researched.

EL PAPEL DE LA OPINIÓN DE LOS PREDECESORES EN LA CONCEPCIÓN ARISTOTÉLICA DE FILOSOFÍA EN ESPECIAL EN LOS PRIMEROS LIBROS DE LA METAFÍSICA

En el segundo libro de la Metafísica (II 1, 993b, 11-15), al hablar de la investigación sobre la verdad, Aristóteles menciona el valor del aporte de sus predecesores. Allí, Aristóteles enfatiza que aun aquellos que han estudiado superficialmente la naturaleza de las cosas han hecho una contribución en esa búsqueda. En este libro, la filosofía parece ser concebida como un quehacer cooperativo en el cual participa, de alguna manera, toda la tradición filosófica. Por tal motivo, en el presente trabajo intentaremos indagar entorno a esta concepción de la filosofía, poniendo énfasis en el uso que hace Aristóteles de la opinión de sus predecesores. Una de las nociones en la que nos centraremos es la de éndoxa y el papel que esta juega en la epistemología aristotélica

Greek Literature

In Cosmology and the Polis Richard Seaford carries forward the trajectory of Reciprocity and Ritual (1994) and Money and the Early Greek Mind (2004), extending his analytical resources with (not exactly Bakhtinian) chronotopes – socially constructed cognitive models, in which space and time are congruently conceived (i.e. as ‘the same’ in certain respects: 22, 39). He distinguishes three chronotopes: reciprocal, as found in Homer; aetiological, related to ritual and the emergent polis (and containing an ‘antideterminate’ sub-chronotope, which expresses the space–time from which the aetiological transition is made); and monetized (4–5). ‘In the genesis of drama at the City Dionysia the reciprocal chronotope has been replaced by the aetiological’ (75). Monetization then contributes to tragedy's content by isolating powerful individuals from the collective: ‘tragedy frequently ends with the demise of the powerful individual(s)’ (113), and ‘tragic isolation derives in part from the self-sufficiency imposed on the individual by the new phenomenon of monetisation’ (169). Monetization ‘contributes also to its form’, since ‘the establishment of the second actor…may have arisen out of tension – between Dionysos and autocrat at Athens’ (111). The slide from indicative (‘contributes’) to hypothetical (‘may have’), with its long train of speculative attendants (‘it is tempting…hypothesise…seems likely…it is possible…may well have…’, 111) is, despite the desperately optimistic adverb, an index of the fragility of the construction. What is the exegetical pay-off? Seaford is capable, it must be said, of pure fantasy. He detects an allusion to incest in Aristotle's use of the phrase ‘currency from currency’ in Pol. 1258b1–8 (333). Aristotle objects to profit from purely financial transactions, not because it resembles incest (which would be silly), but because it has become disconnected from the real economy. In any case, ‘X from X’ has nothing to do with incest. The formula sums up an obvious feature of the natural course of reproduction (horses come from horses, and so on: Ph. 191b20–21, 193b8, 12; Gen. Corr. 333b7–8; Metaph. 1034b2, 1049b25–6; Pol. 1255b1–2; Pr. 878a27), and is applied to currency in a parenthetic explanation of the metaphorical use of tokos for interest. Aristotle is not the only victim of exegetical extravagance. The gold-changer to whom Aeschylus compares Ares (Ag. 438–9) exchanges gold dust for goods; Seaford knows this (200 n. 43, 247) but still assimilates the passage to currency exchange and monetized commercial transactions (200). Though his claims for the unique powers of monetization ought to make the importance of the distinction salient to him, mentions of silver are treated indiscriminately as references to money (201, on Aesch. Ag. 949, 959). Similarly, it is Seaford who associates insatiable prosperity with monetization (201), not Aeschylus’ text (Ag. 1331–42); and when Antigone speaks of death as kerdos (Soph. Ant. 461–4), it is Seaford who insists that Creon's single mention of coined silver (296) makes ‘the association of kerdos with monetary gain…inevitable’ (328). Why should our understanding of Antigone's patently non-monetized gain be determined by Creon's ‘obsession’? If it is an obsession, what marks it as such is its irrelevance: his grounds for complaint would be just as strong if a guard were suborned by non-monetary incentives. No other character has reason to share Creon's irrationality; nor has the audience; nor have we. This is a dazzlingly clever book; but its foundations are unstable, and its superstructure fragile.

A close examination of the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanical Problems: The homology between mechanics and poetry as technē

The pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanical Problems is the earliest known ancient Greek text on mechanics, principally concerned with the explanation of a variety of mechanical phenomena using a particular construal of the principle of the lever. In the introduction, the author—thought to be an early Peripatetic—quotes the tragic poet Antiphon to summarise a discussion of the technē-physis (art-nature) relationship and the status of mechanics as a technē. I argue that this citation of a poet is an Aristotelian cultural signature, intended to guide its readers towards a better understanding of the nature of mechanics as expounded in the Mechanical Problems. By analysing several instances where Aristotle cites Antiphon (as well as other tragic poets) in the Aristotelian corpus, I propose that both the author of the Mechanical Problems and Aristotle use poets for the purpose of persuasion. This is in turn explained by understanding the homologous relationship between mechanics-as-technē (according to the author of the Mechanical Problems) and poetics-as-technē (according to Aristotle) in terms of their shared status as poiētikē technē (productive art) and claims to universal knowledge. A final facet of the proposed relationship between mechanics and poetry is hypothesised on the grounds of their mimetic nature.

Empirismo, conocimiento previo e inducción en Aristóteles, an. post. A 1

Abstract I reconstruct Aristotle's epistemology and scientific methodology avoiding some problems which, in my opinion, are attributed to them from inadequate interpretations in terms of foundationalism or coherentism. On the contrary, I credit Aristotle with a hybrid concept of empiricism in which our knowledge is made possible through the integration of two different but cooperative factors: observations and beliefs. By clarifying the implications of Aristotle's concept of experience and the basis for the elaboration of scientific knowledge, I try to give an alternative account of Aristotle's vindication of a positive use of dialectic in science, as well as to show that an integration between dialectical examination of beliefs and scientific analysis of facts is possible and it also gives a plausible methodological image of Aristotle's theory. According to my proposal, some opinions play a conceptual role in the empirical basis of knowledge. But, for Aristotle, this does not amount to any more than a kind of knowledge of the facts, not being equivalent to a scientific knowledge of the causes. Finally, I try to show that within this complex epistemological framework Aristotle's use of induction could also be given an adequate explanation.

Refiguring Mimesis: Representation in Early Modern Literature by Jonathan Holmes, Adrian Streete

MLR, 102. I, 2007 207 of theSacrament get a total of two pages. As a result,while there ismuch to praise in this book, such as theway Biberman relates the divergent sexualities of Donne and Milton to the Jew-Devil and Jew-Sissy stereotypes, and his reading ofGothic fictionas representing the returnof the repressed Jew-Devil, itsbroader argument is somewhat letdown by the fact thathe at once attempts todo toomuch and too little. LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY TOM RUTTER RefiguringMimesis: Representation inEarly Modern Literature. Ed. by JONATHAN HOLMES and ADRIAN STREETE. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. 2005. XVi+22I Pp. ?25. ISBN 978-I-902806-35-8. Introduced by Peter Holland, with an afterword by JohnDrakakis, this is a collection of essays by younger academics designed to address what the two editors describe as 'a crisis of representational practice' in the early modern period and 'our own late capitalist crisis in representation, conveniently labelled by the umbrella terms post-structuralism and postmodernism' (pp. I-2). Taking a lead from recent pro nouncements by Robert Weimann, Jonathan Holmes and Adrian Streete highlight the resurgence of interest inmimesis as both a critical and a philosophical concept and thecurrent need toexplore 'the interconnecting valences' of the terms 'imitation' and 'representation' that itencompasses (pp. 2-3). They begin by unpicking Sidney's gloss on Aristotle's use of theword 'mimesis' as 'a representing, counterfeiting or figuring-forth' and note that the 'conceptual hybridity' of this definition has gener ally informed later discussion (pp. 3-4). The essays that follow indicate both 'the ongoing theoretical viability ofmimesis forearlymodern studies' (p. 4) and new lines of enquiry that such studies might pursue. Mirrors, as one might expect, receive a good deal of attention. Roger Starling examines the shattering of a looking-glass by Shakespeare's Richard II in a bid to discredit thewidespread critical preoccupation with issues of character in favour of a political reading of the king's histrionics as a ploy to expose 'the deliberately the atricalmachinations' of theusurper, Bolingbroke (p. 32). Vance Adair's speculations centre on key phrases and words in the same play, startingwith Bushy's invocation of 'perspectives, which, rightlygaz'd upon, I Show nothing but confusion' and later dwelling on 'the ubiquitous "re-" in re-presentation, re-production and re-flection that iscentral to allmimetologism' (p. 5 i). The psychology and technology ofmirrors figureprominently inChristian Billings's argument that the distorting properties of actual sixteenth-century mirrors complicate Hamlet's advice to the players and that themanipulation of themirror metaphor for prescriptive ideological purposes in printed texts licenses a rereading of The Roaring Girl as 'a grotesque transvestite satire' thatmocks 'not justMoll's but allwomen's supposed autocracy and indepen dence' (p. I47). Other contributors focus on various aspects ofmimesis: imitation and parody in earlymodern theatre, from playhouses modelled on Roman amphitheatres to the reworking ofmaterial by earlier writers (Gabriel Egan); differentdimensions of re presentation inJulius Caesar, a play which reproduces Romans on the stage for an Elizabethan audience 'split bymultiple viewing positions, multiple levels of educa tion and multiple social ranks' (p. 95) (Paul Innes); the impact ofWestern forms of mimetic realism, especially in performances of Shakespeare, on the dramatic art of colonial and postcolonial India (Poonam Trivedi); and the courtmasque as ameans of constructing the identity of the social elite by 'the constant juxtaposition of re presentations of popular and high culture' (p. 133) rather thanmerely reflectingand reinforcing its values (Monika Smialkowska). In his own individual essay, Adrian 2o8 Reviews Streete establishes that questions ofmimesis were an explicit ingredient in the re sistance theory and iconoclasm generated by Reformation theology and then shows how this 'mimetic inheritance' was manifested in the 'violent iconoclasm' of The Re venger's Tragedy (p. I70). His fellow editor rounds off this diverse and provocative volume with a demonstration thatDonne inhabited an emphatically 'aural universe' inwhich 'the most literalmimesis' was 'adirect and actual representation of themind ofGod and theworkings of the universe' (p. I99)-and thatmany of his poems may have been written with musical performance inmind. UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM ROBERT WILCHER Shakespearean Fantasy and Politics. By THOMAS BETTERIDGE. Hatfield: University ofHertfordshire Press. 2005. vii + 214 pp. CI 8.99. ISBN 978...

Aristotle's Use of Examples in the Prior Analytics

AbstractThis paper examines the relevance and importance of the large number of examples which Aristotle uses in his Prior Analytics. In the first part of the paper three preliminary issues are raised: First, it investigates what counts as an example in Aristotle's syllogistic, and especially whether only examples expressed in concrete terms should be considered as examples or maybe also propositions and arguments with letters of the alphabet. The second issue concerns the kinds of examples Aristotle actually uses from everyday life as well as from various scientific and philosophical forms of discourse; among these, it seems that biological examples, rather than mathematical ones, have a predominant place. Finally, I discuss what Aristotle himself has to say about the use of examples, and in particular about the similarity between the use of an example and the use of induction. The second part of the paper focusses on the functions of Aristotle's logical examples. It is of course obvious that some of the examples in the Prior Analytics are used to illustrate, and thus to clarify, a definition, a logical rule, a type of argument. However, I think that Aristotle's logical examples have another function, which is philosophically more interesting, namely as integral parts of the procedure of proving something. To support this claim, I analyse three passages from the Prior Analytics in which examples are used either in order to prove that something is not the case, i.e. as counter-examples, or in order to prove positively that it is possible for something to be the case. At the end, I argue that for such uses of examples Aristotle uses the notion of 'ekthesis', which seems to have a wider sense than usually suggested; that is to say, it is used to refer to any proof by means of an example, and not only for the procedure which Aristotle uses to reduce imperfect to perfect syllogisms.

Kairos in Aristotle's Rhetoric

Many authorities have come to recognize the critical importance of the Greek notion of kairos (right timing and due measure) in contemporary rhetoric. But Aristotelian scholars have generally ignored or demeaned Aristotle's use of kairos in his rhetoric, often contrasting it especially to Plato's full treatment in the Phaedrus. This lack of attention has been partially due to faulty indexes or concordances, which have recently been corrected by Wartelle and programs like PERSEUS and IBICUS. Secondly, no one has hitherto attempted to go beyond the root kair- and examine the concept as expressed in other terms. This article will attempt to meet both of these concerns. It will first examine care-fully the 16 references to kairos in the Rhetoric and show that the term is an integral element in Aristotle's own act of writing, in his concept of the pathetic argument, and in his handling of maxims and integration. There are also important passages using kairos in his treatment of style, often in conjunction with his use of the notion of propriety or fitness (to prepon). Possibly the two most important indirect uses of the concept of kairos can be seen in Aristotle's definition of rhetoric and in his treatment of equity in both the Rhetoric and the Nichomachean Ethics, probably the two most important treatments of the concept in antiquity.

Plausibility in the Greek Orators

Todorov's tongue-in-cheek explanation refers to a concept which in Greek was called eixog. The word combines two aspects that modern logic differentiates: the objective meaning of probability (what is probable by the laws of nature) and the meaning of plausibility (what the addressee of a message considers plausible). Aristotle's use of the word shows that the Greek concept does not draw a sharp distinction between these two elements.1 Their intricate connection be? comes evident in, e.g., his Rhetoric (2.25 1402b 14-16) where he defines enthymemes. They are drawn from probability, he explains, when they are based upon things which occur regularly or are perceived to occur regularly (eoxi Se xa fxev ex xarv obg em xo no\v f ovxoov f Soxouvxoov ouvriY^ieva ev6u^ifpaxa ex xoav eixoxary). The same definition combines objective, purely statistical probability (xa obc; em xo noXv ovxa) and subjective plausibility (xa obg em xo no\v Soxouvxa). Ancient rhetorical theory in general highlighted the subjective as? pect, as is evident in the definition of eixog that Anaximenes (?) gives in his Rhetorica adAlexandrum (7.3.4 1428a27-35):

The ambiguous relation between hobbes’ rhetorical appeal to english history and his deductive method in A Dialogue1

Etude du paradoxe entre la reference rhetorique de Hobbes a l'histoire anglaise et la methode deductive developpee dans son «Entretien entre un philosophe et un etudiant en droit commun anglais». Examinant la defense hobbesienne du systeme constitutionnel de la souverainete absolue, ainsi que du contractualisme et du secularisme du «Leviathan», en conferant a ses idees politiques la legitimite de l'histoire, l'A. montre que la strategie rhetorique de Hobbes confirme la science politique developpee dans «Leviathan»: ainsi, la connaissance historique vient soutenir la revendication de l'application de la raison a la jurisprudence consideree comme science

Aristotle's Use of the Theory of the Mean: How Adaptable and Flexible is the Theory?

Aristotle's Use of the Theory of the Mean: How Adaptable and Flexible is the Theory?

Kairos in Aristotle's Rhetoric

Many authorities have come to recognize the critical importance of the Greek notion of kairos (right timing and due measure) in contemporary rhetoric. But Aristotelian scholars have generally ignored or demeaned Aristotle's use of kairos in his rhetoric, often contrasting it especially to Plato's full treatment in the Phaedrus. This lack of attention has been partially due to faulty indexes or concordances, which have recently been corrected both by Wartelle and programs like PERSEUS and IBICUS. Secondly, no one has hitherto attempted to go beyond the root kair- and examine the concept as expressed in other terms. This article will attempt to meet both of these concerns. It will first examine carefully the 16 references to kairos in the Rhetoric and show that the term is an integral element in Aristotle's own act of writing, in his concept of the pathetic argument, and in his handling of maxims and integration. There are also important passages using kairos in his treatment of style, often in conjunction with his use of the notion of propriety or fitness (to prepon). Possibly the two most important indirect uses of the concept of kairos can be seen in his definition of rhetoric and in his treatment of equity in both the Rhetoric and in the Nicomachean Ethics, probably the two most important treatments of the concept in antiquity.

Rhetorical Balance in Aristotle's Definition of the Tragic Agent: Poetics 13

The most recent attempt to explain Aristotle's use of in Poetics 13 is that of T. C. W. Stinton (CQ N.S. 25 (1975), 221–54). Stinton insists that must not be restricted to any one definition, but should be understood to include a ‘range of applications’ embracing both moral error and ‘ignorance of fact’ (p. 221).

Mimesis and Katharsis

HE long and as yet unresolved debate T over the real meaning of Aristotle's doctrine of catharsis continues vigorously today. If ultimate truth has not yet been achieved, our understanding, at least, of important aesthetic problems has become sharper as we have debated the merits and flaws of the various interpretations of Aristotle's enigmatic doctrine that have been put forward. The present paper is a resumption of an argument presented in an earlier article in which Aristotle's use of catharsis in the Poetics was reinterpreted to mean clarification.' Subsequent to the writing of that article I found that a version of the intellectual interpretation of Aristotelian catharsis had been made by a German scholar, S. 0. Haupt, in a monograph published in 1915.2 Haupt associated some sound arguments with other rather eccentric ones, and his work, virtually unknown today, has had no effect on the mainstream of criticism of the Poetics. Also, in an article published in 1966, H. D. F. Kitto, who does not mention and

Aristotle's Use of Medicine as Model of Method in his Ethics

Philosophy, in general, moves in a sphere of abstraction, and its statements claim to be necessary and of universal validity. The reader therefore expects them to appeal directly to his reason, and he does not normally reflect much on the time and historical conditions that determined what the philosopher took for granted. It is only in this age of historical consciousness that we have come to appreciate these factors more readily, and the great thinkers of the past appear to us more or less closely related to the culture of their age. The writings of Plato and Aristotle in particular are for us an inexhaustible source of information about Greek society and civilisation. This is true also in regard to the relation of Greek philosophy to the science of its time, and this is of special importance for our understanding. That relation can be traced throughout Aristotle's logical, physical, and metaphysical works; but the influence of other sciences and arts is no less evident in his ethics. In this paper I propose to examine the numerous references to medicine that occur in the Nicomachean Ethics. They are mostly concerned with the question of the best method of treating this subject. The problem of the right method is always of the utmost importance for Aristotle. The discussion of it begins on the first page of the Ethics, where he tries to give a definition of the subject of this course of lectures and attributes it to a philosophical discipline that he calls ‘politics’. He does so in agreement with the Platonic tradition. We can trace it back to one of the dialogues of Plato's first period, the Gorgias, in which the Platonic Socrates for the first time pronounces his postulate of a new kind of philosophy, the object of which ought to be the care of the human soul (φυχῆς θεραπεία). He assigns this supreme task to ‘political art’, even though it does not fulfil this function at present.