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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
2 occurrences of Ancients and Moderns in the Eighteenth Century
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2 occurrences of Ancients and Moderns in the Eighteenth Century
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II. ARISTOTLE

Much that is at most implied in Plato is made explicit
by Aristotle. There is a shift in the underlying meta-
physical presuppositions and these yield a theory that
is at once richer, more accessible and comfortable, and
more “realistic.”

The main points of departure lie in two develop-
ments of Platonic positions by Aristotle: imitation and
the ultimate objectives of human existence. Imitation
is broadened so that its validity is not constrained
within the limits of the “real”; and one key concept
introduced by Aristotle to vindicate man's existence
is “leisure” (schole).

We are told in the Poetics that art imitates not only
what is (as in Plato), but what “ought to be” and what
“might be.” The latter two liberate the Platonic theory
from its offensive literalness and dogmatism. What
ought to be represents the morally ideal and only
incidentally concerns us here; but what might be refers
directly to our theme. Imagination is not bound by
the actual, but is free to range over the possible and
the plausible. The latter is given even more significance
than the former, because the mind may grant credence
to something factually impossible, but accepted as
plausible for the sake of some argument the value of
which does not rest on factual truth. Here (Poetics, Ch.
26) Aristotle relies, as Plato does (Theaetetus 191B,
Republic IX, 588C ff.) on the ability of the mind to
juxtapose images disparately drawn from experience
in order to construct monsters and other imaginary
beings and situations, sometimes for some immediate
further purpose (if only to frighten children), but not
necessarily so. Aristotle draws attention to the power
of creating metaphors as a sign of genius, “the one
thing that cannot be taught.”

This position does not differ significantly from the
Kantian notion of the free play of the imagination, and
it also anticipates a further element of great impor-
tance in later thought. This is the balance between
factual (or logical) and aesthetic truth. The former is
“objective” and serious; the latter “subjective” and
playful. Yet if the latter is to be redeemed of frivolity
and childishness some connection with factual truth
must be maintained. In Aristotle the connection is
somewhat stronger than Coleridge's “willing suspen-
sion of disbelief.” It was Aristotle who first drew atten-
tion to the confusion between the two, as illustrated
by the yokel in the audience who rushes on stage to
prevent one character from killing another. This in-
volves the inability to follow out all the implications
of a situation allowed ex hypothesi; or to follow a set
of self-imposed rules or conventions not sanctioned by
external reality: yet these are features of play at every
level.

The interrelation of art and play in drama is illus-
trated by two senses of vicarious experience: (1) what
can I learn from what has happened to another, and
(2) what can be learned from the imaginable alterna-
tives to any given situation. Both senses rely on the
assumption that art is justified by its indirect service
to knowledge and individual resource in facing future
situations; and as such may be seen as a development
of the propaedeutic justification for children's play and
the adult agon. The manner of art, i.e., the depiction
of universals, further enhances its usefulness for these
ends. By stripping away the fortuitous and accidental
circumstances in which individual occurrences arise,
“poetry is more universal than history” because it can
crystallize the essence of a situation. We are thus
exposed to all the advantages of the widest conceivable
range of experience without exposure to dangers that


102

might rather crush than edify. The notable difference
between Greek and Roman sports and plays supports
this view: Greek games were never bloody, nor was
bloodshed ever directly shown in the Greek theater.

The doctrine of catharsis may be viewed in the same
context as applicable to the emotions aroused by ideal
situations. Pity edifies though terror crushes, and the
two together perform the function of play—serious but
harmless. Pity or compassion is the emotion by which
we empathize with the tragic hero, seeing ourselves
in him. We use him as surrogate for what we dare not
do ourselves. He carries out in a postulated reality all
our secret desires, our blasphemies, our impossible
quests. Our elation is intensified by his temporary
successes: almost we could wish to follow him, but our
fascination is no less morbid and we as much desire
his failure. His daring is a reproach to our mediocrity,
and so the inevitability of his doom reflects our con-
sciousness of human limitations as much as the jealousy
of the gods.

The play element lies in a series of “as if” proposi-
tions pursued with logical rigor to an inevitable con-
clusion: let there be a hero nobler by birth and breed-
ing than any member of the audience; let him be wiser,
stronger, shrewder, prideful as befits these qualities, but
still recognizably human; let him challenge the peace
of the gods; and let the gods prove the power of their
sanctions. We are content with the thought that if the
hero, preeminently possessed of all human virtues,
cannot succeed, then how much less can we expect
of ourselves. We are thus reconciled to the governance
of the cosmos and of our lowly role in its economy.

Aristotle seems to be the originator of, or at least
the first to write about, leisure as the basis of culture.
The discussion in Politics II is long, but a few major
points should be presented. A truly human nature can
be fulfilled only on the assumption that an environment
can be created within which the individual can actu-
alize all his potentialities. But an individual who is
obliged to satisfy his needs by his own resources alone
would be forced to function at a very limited level
of activity, living from hand to mouth with no respite
from those activities needed merely to sustain life. The
division of labor serves the dual function of enabling
the individual to confine his activities to what he can
do best, and of furnishing leisure for some individuals
in a society to think of matters that transcend the
exigencies of the moment. There will be many ways
in which such thought accrues to the benefit of the
society; only some of these, of course, will bear directly
on play and art.

There is a typology of human nature in Aristotle,
not unlike the class structure of the Republic: some
people will be content with practical and productive
activities, and for these the value of art and play lies
largely in recreation and entertainment, the restoration
of energies exhausted in labor, or the dissipation of
excess energy when no purposive activity is needed,
as in the interval between seeding and harvesting crops,
or for simple variety or change of pace, or to keep
physical and mental capacities sharpened. But other
individuals have superior needs: theoretical and
mythopoetic; and these point to the stationing of some
men in Aristotle's hierarchy of being above common
men and below the gods, though following his advice
“to be as divine as they can be” (Nicomachean Ethics
X. vii). For these the object of all lower activities is
to provide the leisure needed for contemplation and
those modes of creation appropriate to such men: both
part of and operating upon nature. The relationship
in Aristotle between activities instrumental for some
higher ends and those intrinsically good in themselves
is not always clear—nor, perhaps, can it be, in view
of his well-known antipathy to infinite regress. At the
end of the line, as concerns human activity, are found
such notions as happiness and leisure. The latter he
mostly (e.g., Ethics X. vii) speaks of as instrumental,
enabling further happiness-inducing activities distin-
guished by their not being engaged in under the duress
of need (and thus sharing a key aspect of play); indeed,
leisure comes close to being an end itself and a goal
of human existence, which in its moments of leisure
enjoys the highest felicity. Aristotle quotes with ap-
proval (Ethics X. vi) “The maxim of Anacharsis, 'Play
so that you may be serious.'”