This book offers a resolution of the paradox posed by the pleasure of tragedy by returning to its earliest articulations in archaic Greek poetry and its subsequent emergence as a philosophical problem in Plato's Republic. Socrates' claim that tragic poetry satisfies our 'hunger for tears' hearkens back to archaic conceptions of both poetry and mourning that suggest a common source of pleasure in the human appetite for heightened forms of emotional distress. By unearthing a psychosomatic model of aesthetic engagement implicit in archaic poetry and philosophically elaborated by Plato, this volume not only sheds new light on the Republic's notorious indictment of poetry, but also identifies rationally and ethically disinterested sources of value in our pursuit of aesthetic states. In doing so the book resolves an intractable paradox in aesthetic theory and human psychology: the appeal of painful emotions.

Tragic Pleasure from Homer to Plato

What is art's relationship to play? Those interested in this question tend to look to modern philosophy for answers, but, as this book shows, the question was already debated in antiquity by luminaries like Plato and Aristotle. Over the course of eight chapters, this book contextualizes those debates, and demonstrates their significance for theoretical problems today. Topics include the ancient child psychology at the root of the ancient Greek word for 'play' (paidia), the numerous toys that have survived from antiquity, and the meaning of play's conceptual opposite, the 'serious' (spoudaios). What emerges is a concept of play markedly different from the one we have inherited from modernity. Play is not a certain set of activities which unleashes a certain feeling of pleasure; it is rather a certain feeling of pleasure that unleashes the activities we think of as 'play'. As such, it offers a new set of theoretical challenges.

Play and Aesthetics in Ancient Greece

What is poetry? Why do human beings produce and consume it? What effects does it have on them? Can it give them insight into truth, or is it dangerously misleading? This book is a wide-ranging study of the very varied answers which ancient philosophers gave to such questions. An extended discussion of Plato's Republic shows how the two discussions of poetry are integrated with each other and with the dialogue's central themes. Aristotle's Poetics is read in the context of his understanding of poetry as a natural human behaviour and an intrinsically valuable component of a good human life. Two chapters trace the development of the later Platonist tradition from Plutarch to Plotinus, Longinus and Porphyry, exploring its intellectual debts to Epicurean, allegorical and Stoic approaches to poetry. It will be essential reading for classicists as well as ancient philosophers and modern philosophers of art and aesthetics.

Ancient Philosophical Poetics

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ejop.12325

Catharsis and vicarious fear

What Do Pleasure-Objects Do? An Inquiry into Toys

Against the consensus that Aristotle in the Poetics sets out to give tragedy a role in exercising or improving the mature citizen's moral sensibilities, I argue that his aim is rather to analyse what makes a work of literature successful in its own terms, and in particular how a tragic drama can achieve the effect of suspense. The proper pleasure of tragedy is produced by the plotting and eventual dispelling of the play's suspense. Aristotle claims that poetry 'says what is universal' not in order to suggest that poetry achieves anything of the effect of philosophy, but to explain how in creating his plots the poet takes into consideration what, in general, could be expected to happen. Chapter 4 of the Poetics is not a theory of mimesis but an analysis of the lowest common denominator of the pleasure we take in fictions. The inevitability or likelihood by which events in the tragic plot are to be connected has an aesthetic rather than a moral function. Doing away with the irrationality of chance and increasing the human intelligibility of the action is not its point; the point is to furnish the plot with the second half of the formula for successful suspense: that events in the plot should happen 'against expectation because of one another'. The first half of the formula is examined under the rubric of peripety or reversal. The formula as a whole describes the pivotal moment when the pieces of the plot suddenly fit with a configuration that only in retrospect can we see to have been falling into place all along. Pity and fear are the emotions on which Aristotle focusses because they are the emotions engaged by the tightening-towards-release of literary suspense. And the pleasure of catharsis is the pleasure of that release.

Aristotle's Literary Aesthetics

Introduction: An important research avenue on flourishing is to understand the predictors and mechanisms associated with flourishing. Most evidence has been reported from western countries. However, little is known about whether the relationship between self-compassion and flourishing could be explained through mindfulness in a non-western country. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the mediating role of mindfulness in the association between self-compassion and flourishing in a sample of Arabic speaking adults. Methods: A cross-sectional research design was used to collect data from 396 (50% females) Arab adults recruited from general public. Participants ranged in age between 19 and 59 years with a mean age of 30.7 years (SD = 10.3). Participants completed online versions of the Self-Compassion Scale – Short Form, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, the Flourishing Scale. Results: The results of correlation analysis indicated significant positive correlations among selfcompassion, mindfulness, and flourishing. The results of mediation analysis showed that selfcompassion significantly predicted mindfulness and flourishing. Mindfulness also significantly predicted flourishing. Mediation analysis supported the hypothesis that mindfulness played a mediating role between self-compassion and flourishing. Discussion: The results suggest the importance of mindfulness in understanding the association between self-compassion and flourishing. Intervention efforts aimed at improving flourishing may benefit from increased mindfulness and self-compassion. Take-home message: In this study, individuals with high levels of self-compassion experienced more mindfulness and flourishing in their lives.

Ferrari

Papers

Aristotle's Literary Aesthetics

Self-compassion mediates the relationship between mindfulness and flourishing