Aristotle
Aristotle-the Founder of European Aesthetic Thought
In On Aristotle's Poetics, Chernyshevski said, "Poetics is the first most important aesthetic paper, and it is also the basis of all aesthetic concepts until the end of the last century", adding that "Aristotle was the first person to elaborate aesthetic concepts in an independent system, and his concepts ruled for more than two thousand years". (1) If you study the development history of European literary thoughts from Greece to19th century, you will understand that Chernyshevski's evaluation is not exaggerated at all. The earliest Greek philosophers, such as Pythagoras School and Heraclitus, all looked at aesthetic problems from the perspective of natural science, and only Socrates and Plato turned to look at aesthetic problems from the perspective of social science. Aristotle can be said to have achieved the unity of natural science and social science on the basis of relatively developed natural science. He is a master of pre-Greek aesthetic thoughts, not only the direct successor of Socrates and Plato, but also influenced by the early Pythagorean school and materialists Heraclitus and democritus Park Rongsu. In the era when Greek literature and art reached its peak and turned into decline, he made a detailed analysis and summary of the brilliant achievements of Greek literature and art with scientific methods, and thus wrote two scientific and systematic aesthetic thought monographs, Poetics and Lexical Revision. In addition to these two monographs, he has talked about some important issues in many works, such as Metaphysics (involving art and science, form and materials, and the objective basis of beauty). ), physics (involving art and nature, art and form), ethics (involving artistic creativity, art and understanding, artist's cultivation, etc. ) and political science (involving art education). His theoretical works have the authority of "code" in the later European literary and art circles, and have been playing a far-reaching influence as the key to exploring the brilliant achievements of Greek literature and art.
Aristotle is a high-legged disciple of Plato. Compared with Plato, he criticized and inherited what the teacher said, and the critical part was far more important than the inherited part. Aristotle marked a great turning point in the development of Greek thought. The key to this turning point is that Aristotle was first and foremost a natural scientist and logician. He gave up the subjective and even mysterious philosophical speculation in the past and made a calm and objective scientific analysis of the objective world. This is a change in method. Aristotle realized the importance of methods for scientific research, and he wrote the first European Logic (on tools). In "On Poetry" and "Lexical Revision", he distinguished the object he studied from other related objects by very strict logical methods, found out their similarities and differences, and then gradually classified the object itself from class to farming, gradually discovered the law and defined it. For example, he first distinguished art from theoretical science and practical science to find out its characteristics in creation, and then separated what we know as beautiful art from art (including craft), which is what he called "imitation art", and found out their characteristics in imitation, so he used imitation "means" or "media", "object" and "way". In this analysis process, Aristotle often
Related to this, Aristotle applied other scientific viewpoints and methods to the field of literary theory. The most famous one is that he brought the concept of organic whole from biology, two important viewpoints from psychology, namely, the psychological root of art and the psychological influence of art on the audience, and the viewpoint of the origin, development and transformation of art types from history. The application of these related scientific viewpoints and methods has had a great influence on the formation of Aristotle's many literary views. In the later European literary criticism, the so-called "natural science school", "psychological school" and "historical school" appeared. All these schools should find their ancestors from Aristotle's Poetics.
The change related to the method but more fundamental than the method is the change of philosophical viewpoint. Aristotle showed profound contradictions in his philosophical thoughts, but compared with Plato, Aristotle took a big step in the process of transforming from idealism to materialism, although this transformation was not complete. First of all, it should be pointed out that he realized the dialectical unity of universality and particularity, that is, "reason" is in "things" and there is no reason except "things", thus overthrowing Plato's eternal "reason" in the extrasensory world and the foundation of the whole objective idealism philosophy. He affirmed that the world we live in is the real world, not the shadow or copy of "theory". Lenin said in Notes on the History of Hegel's Philosophy: Aristotle's criticism of Plato's "rationalism" is the criticism of general idealism itself. He added: Aristotle's idealism "is often equivalent to materialism in natural philosophy". When this basic materialism principle is applied to literature and art, it should be concluded that the object imitated by literature and art is real, and it should be real itself, which affirms the rationality and cognitive function of literature and art.
However, Aristotle's transformation of materialism is incomplete and full of contradictions, vacillating between materialism and idealism. His contradiction is first manifested in his views on the cause of things. In his view, everything has four reasons: material reasons, formal reasons, creative reasons and ultimate reasons. Take himself as an example, the house must first have material reasons, that is, bricks and civil works. These materials only create the potential of the house, and if we want to change the potential into reality, we must have the form of the house, that is, its graphics or appearance, which is the form cause of the house. In order to make materials have form, they must go through the creative activities of architects, who are the creative reasons for houses. In addition, in the process of realizing the potential, the house has always tended to a specific internal purpose, that is, the material finally obtains the form and the house is completed, which is the ultimate reason of the house. Aristotle's so-called "matter" includes what we usually call "matter" and everything except "matter" that can cause a thing, such as the actions of characters and specific situations written in poems. As far as affirming material supremacy is concerned, there are materialistic factors here. But Aristotle thought that matter had no form, and form was added later. Matter is potential (such as bud), and only when it is developed can it have a form (such as tree). On the one hand, it contains the concept of development; On the other hand, form and content are separated. Aristotle did not see the unity of the two. He didn't see that if it is a substance, it must have a form. As matter develops, forms will develop accordingly. In addition, it must be pointed out that Aristotle believes that form is the more basic of matter and form. All these show his idealistic tendency. If we apply the concept of "creative cause" to the material world, we must assume that there is a creator. Therefore, Aristotle did not give up the concept of "God", and God is still a "formal form". Aristotle's "purpose" also refers to the purpose of the creator (God); The purpose of a house is not to live by people, but to realize the purpose of the house itself. He didn't see that it was the internal law or internal cause that promoted the development of things, but thought that only the external cause of God could give material form and determine the purpose (final cause) of things. This is obviously idealistic. This view of the causes of things should of course be applied to literature and art. In fact, Aristotle regarded "nature" or "God" as an artist and regarded the formation of anything as artistic creation. Even if matter is a complete form, art itself is so much. This teleology had a far-reaching influence on the rationalist aesthetics represented by the aesthetics of Bunitz, Baum Tong Jia and Kant in modern times. This view will inevitably affect Aristotle's view of artistic imitation. If artists imitate nature, nature is only a material reason. The form of a work is the formal reason, and the artist is the creative reason. His imitation activity is actually a creative activity. His imitation of nature is not just to copy the shape of nature as Plato knew, but to create by imitating nature, giving matter a form, or, according to the inherent law of things, from potential to reality.
Secondly, Aristotle's contradiction is also manifested in his view of human activities and the division of all sciences according to this view. He believes that there are only three kinds of human activities: cognition or observation, practical action and creation. Among the three, he regards knowledge or meditation as the highest, because only through this kind of activity can man face the highest truth, show his wisdom and enjoy the highest happiness. At this point, Aristotle clearly reveals the remnants of his aristocratic outlook on life and Plato's idealism philosophy. Plato also believes that the highest happiness in life lies in observing the absolute real world (see Federico and drinking). Aristotle's "practical activities" refer to the obligations of citizens of the city-state, that is, ethical and political activities. As for "creation", it is an artistic activity. Here, "art" includes all things made artificially, not just the art we know. For this broad sense of "art", Aristotle defined it in Ethics:
Art is a state of creative ability, including the process of real reasoning. All the tasks of art are in production, that is, trying to plan how to make something that can or cannot exist exist. The source of this kind of thing lies in the creator, not in the object itself, because art is neither responsible for what already exists according to the inevitable truth nor what must exist according to nature-because these two things have their sources in themselves. Creation and action are two different things, and art must be creation rather than action. (2)
Simply put, a house (art) is different from a tree. A tree is naturally produced and exists, and it has its own reasons for its inevitable production and existence, while a house may or may not exist, so it has no reasons for its inevitable existence. The reason for its existence should be traced back to the architect. In this sense, it is somewhat accidental. One thing here is basically materialism, that is, nature itself will have its inevitable existence, but this correct view is contradictory to the concept of "creation reason" or "creator" in terms of art. Aristotle isolated the creator from the whole social and historical situation and believed that the formation of art depends entirely on the individual artist, and art itself has no reason for inevitable production and existence. This is also a metaphysical idealism view. On the issue of distinguishing human activities, Aristotle's most basic problem is, of course, to regard cognition, practice and creation as three independent activities, without seeing the close relationship between cognition and practice or the so-called "creation". Aristotle made such a distinction, pointing out the difference between art and science (cognitive or theoretical activities) on the one hand and between art and ethics and politics (practical activities) on the other. The difference between them does exist. Aristotle did not see that literature and art are the unity of cognitive activities and practical activities, and creative activities are not outside of cognition and practice.
According to the distinction of human activities, Aristotle divided science into three categories to accommodate his works, namely theoretical science, including "mathematics", "physics" and "metaphysics"; Practical science, including "politics" and "ethics"; Creative science includes poetics and lexicography. Since they are all called "science", they have the same task: seeking knowledge. However, according to Aristotle's view that theory and practice are separated, theoretical science only knows for the sake of knowledge, and the other two sciences have external purposes. Practical scientific knowledge should guide action, and creative scientific knowledge should guide creation. From the arrangement of this scientific system, we can see that in Aristotle's mind, "poetics" and "lexicography" involving aesthetic issues should occupy the position and role in this system. He built art on knowledge. Artists should not only have knowledge of the materials used, but also have knowledge of the law of creation. This point can only be seen more clearly by studying the relationship between his art and reality.
Second, the relationship between imitation art and reality
When Aristotle used the word "Tekhne", he still used its popular meaning at that time, that is, all production, including professional technology. As for our modern so-called "beautiful art" such as poetry, music, pictures, sculpture and so on. In Aristotle's works, it is called "mimicry" or "mimicry art" It can be seen from this name that he regards "imitation" as the same function of these arts. On the surface, this is Plato's view, but in essence Aristotle saw a new and far-reaching significance in the word "imitation". Plato thinks that the object of artistic imitation is not real, it just imitates the shape of this illusory object, and it is even more unreal, "separated from the truth by three layers", which constitutes one of the two major crimes he accused the poet of. Aristotle saw the dialectical unity of universality and particularity, abandoned Plato's "formula" and affirmed the authenticity of the real world, thus affirming the authenticity of the art of imitating it. We have talked about this above, but there is a more important point: Aristotle not only affirmed the authenticity of art, but also affirmed that art is more real than the phenomenon world, and art imitates more than just the appearance (phenomenon) of the real world mentioned by Plato. It is the inevitability and universality of the real world, that is, its inherent essence and law. This basic idea is a red line running through poetics, the most powerful defense of poetry and art, and a basic principle of realism, so it is also one of Aristotle's most valuable contributions to aesthetic thought. But here we can see the contradiction between Aristotle's aesthetic view and philosophy view, which he ignored, and in his aesthetic view he admitted that the real world developed according to the internal laws.
Regarding the high authenticity of poetry, Aristotle made it most clear when comparing poetry with history in Chapter 9 of Poetics:
The poet's duty is not to describe what has happened, but to describe what may happen, that is, what is possible according to the law of possibility or inevitability (3). The difference between poets and historians is not that poets use verse, but that historians use prose-Herodotus' historical works can be rewritten into verse, but it will still be a kind of history, whether it is verse or prose. The real difference is that historians describe what has happened, while poets describe what may happen. Therefore, poetry is more philosophical and serious than history, because poetry is mostly universal, while history is individual. The so-called universality refers to what a certain kind of people will say and do according to the law of possibility or inevitability on a certain occasion-this is the purpose of poetry, although it gives names to the characters it writes, as for the so-called special things, such as what Alsi Budd did or what happened to him. (4)
To put it simply, what history has written is only a few things that have happened, and there is not necessarily inevitability between the succession of things; Although poetry is written by individual people with names, what they say and do is not only individual, but universal, which conforms to the law of possibility or inevitability, so poetry shows higher authenticity than history. Aristotle's understanding of history is still limited to chronicles. If he doesn't see history, he will reveal the law of things' development, but his intention of comparing poetry with history is clear, that is, poetry should not only imitate accidental phenomena but reveal the essence and law of phenomena, and see inevitability and universality in the deeds of individual characters. This is the unity of universality and particularity. This is the most subtle meaning of "typical figure" and the most subtle meaning of realism.
Aristotle also said in Metaphysics:
Knowledge and understanding belong more to art and less to experience. We think artists are smarter than people with only experience ... because artists know why, and people with only experience don't know why. Only experienced people know what things are, and artists know what things are.
Comparing these words with a passage in Poetics quoted above, the meaning of art to reveal the essence and laws of things is more obvious.
This view is derived from summing up the experience of Greek literature and art. Chapter 25 of Poetics lists three different imitation objects, which are actually three different creative methods:
Like painters and other image creators, since a poet is an imitator, he must choose one of three ways to imitate things as they really are, what people say and think, or what things should be.
The first one here is simply imitating nature, the second one is based on myths and legends, and the third one is that "according to the law of possibility or inevitability" mentioned above means "possible things". In these three ways, Aristotle thinks the best is the third one, which can be seen from the words in the second half of chapter 25:
If you criticize the poet's description on the grounds of being unfaithful to the facts, the poet will reply: It is described as the way things should be-just like Sophocles said that he painted the characters as they should be, while euripides painted the figures at a cost.
Sophocles has always been Aristotle's ideal tragic poet in Poetics, but euripides is often condemned by him. It can be seen that it is Aristotle's ideal creative method to describe things or characters as they should be.
There may be two explanations for the sentence "describe things as they should be". One is the idealistic explanation, that is, the artist subjectively idealizes things. This view has a long history in western literary circles, and most people who hold this view cite Aristotle as a talisman. The other is the explanation of materialism, that is, to admit that this is an idealization, but this idealization is not simply the subjective product of the poet but formed according to the nature and laws of things. Chernyshevski's definition of beauty in life and aesthetics is as follows:
Everything we see in it should live like this according to our understanding, and that is beauty. (5) (focus on the introduction)
If we remember Chernyshevski's praise of poetics, it is not difficult to see Aristotle's influence here. From the author's aesthetic standpoint, he undoubtedly understands "should be so" according to the materialist explanation, and "should be so" is "objective essential law".
What a poet writes should be what is possible according to the truth. But the treasure house of Greek literature and art, myth, describes the impossible. The second of Aristotle's three ways of creation-"imitating what people say and think"-left a way out for myth. In this regard, he said in Chapter 25 of Poetics:
Generally speaking, to write the impossible, we must find reasons to defend it in the requirements of poetry, or better principles, or the beliefs of the public. Judging from the requirements of poetry, reasonable impossibility is better than unreasonable possibility. If the characters drawn by Jokshes are impossible, we should answer: Yes, they should be better than the real ones, because the artist wants to improve the original model.
The "impossible" here refers to what is actually impossible described in mythology. Thus, Aristotle affirmed the illusion of myth. But he distinguished between "reasonable impossibility" and "unreasonable possibility", and thought that the former was more in line with the requirements of poetry. The so-called "unreasonable possibility" refers to accidental accidents. Although it may happen, it has even happened, but it does not conform to the law and does not show the internal relationship of things. The so-called "reasonable impossibility" refers to the assumption that a certain situation is true. In that case, it is reasonable and credible for a certain person to do something and say something. For example, Homer's epic based on myth is not true in historical fact, but under his hypothesis, his description is true, "reasonable" and "in line with the law of possibility or inevitability", which shows the universality and inevitability of things. Aristotle himself explained this in Chapter 24 of Poetics:
Most importantly, Homer taught other poets the art of telling lies honestly. The secret lies in a specious logical reasoning. Assuming that A exists or occurs, B exists or occurs; Therefore, people think that if B exists, A will also exist-but this is a wrong reasoning. So, if A is untrue, and assuming A is true, B will be true, then just write the truth of B, because since we know B is true, we will mistakenly assume A is also true. (6)
This passage is the origin of the later theory of "artistic illusion", which contains profound meaning. The fidelity of art is not the truth of Bishop's phenomenon, but reveals the universality and inevitability of the phenomenon, so its premise may be hypothetical or fictional. In fact, it is impossible in history, but under this premise, if what is written is close to rationality and people see it, they will have the illusion of reality, which has been done best in art.
Inevitability and universality are the logic of the development of things, which can only be seen in the process of development, so Aristotle always says "characters in action" when referring to characters. Characters only see typicality in action. If we regard typicality as a static surface or a quantitative summary, we will not really understand typicality. It is in this sense that poetry reveals the universality and inevitability of characters' behavior through actions, and Aristotle draws the conclusion that "poetry is more philosophical and serious than history". The reality written in the poem is a refined reality, which is a higher level reality than the phenomenon world with contingency. So art can turn the ugliness of nature into artistic beauty. In the fourth chapter of Poetics, it is said that "things themselves make us feel pain when we see them, but after faithful description, they can make us feel happy when we see them in works of art, such as the most annoying images of animals and dead bodies". In addition, art can make things more beautiful than their original shapes. Chapter 15 of The Theory of Poetry says that the tragic poet "should imitate a good painter and reproduce the characteristics of the prototype of the character, which is realistic on the one hand and more beautiful than his original work on the other". The famous Greek painter's week mentioned in the quotation of Chapter 25 of The Theory of Poetry above once brought together beautiful women from Croton, Greece, and integrated the beauty of many beautiful women into his famous painting Queen Helen. This painting is based on reality and is far more beautiful than reality. (7)
Aristotle's comments on poetry and other arts often focus on the concept of organic whole. This is also inseparable from his basic view on the relationship between literature and reality: the organic whole in form is actually a reflection of the internal development law in content. The whole is the combination of parts, and the principle of combination is the internal logic between parts. Aristotle said in Politics (134a):
Beauty and non-beauty, works of art and real things lie in the combination of scattered factors in beautiful things and works of art respectively.
Scattered things must be accidental, and there is no necessary interdependence between them. After they are combined into a whole, they will be accidentally thrown away, and the remaining factors will see their inevitable interdependence, just like all parts of the human body. In the seventh chapter of Poetics, Aristotle gave a seemingly unchanging but truly profound definition of the whole:
The whole is something with a head, a tail and a middle. The head itself does not necessarily come from another thing, but after it, another thing naturally follows it, and the tail naturally follows another thing. Because of causality or habitual inheritance, there is no tail. The middle part is followed by one thing, and there are things to follow later. Therefore, a well-structured plot cannot start or end at will, and must follow the principles mentioned here.
The parts are closely connected to see the order, that is, each part is not only an indispensable factor in the whole, but also the position where it stands is immovable. In this way, everything in a whole is inevitable and reasonable, and nothing accidental or unreasonable is involved. There is a passage in the eighth chapter of Poetics that makes this meaning very clear: "All parts of a perfect whole must be closely integrated. If any part is deleted or moved, it will break the whole. Because since a thing is dispensable, it is not a real part of the whole. "
This concept of organic whole is the most basic in Aristotle's aesthetic thought. Based on this concept, he came to the conclusion that tragedy is the highest form of Greek literature and art, because its structure is more rigorous than epic. That is, according to this concept, he draws the conclusion that the most important factor in narrative poetry and drama is the plot structure rather than the characters, because it is easy to see the inevitability of story development with the plot as the key link; Focus on the characters. Or that history takes the times as the key link, it is inevitable that there will be some accidental irrelevant factors. In the twenty-third chapter of Poetics, he pointed out the difference between narrative poetry and history: "It is different from history in structure. What history must write is not only the plot of someone, but what happened to someone or some people in a certain period, although these things may not be related to each other. " However, the structure of poetry should see the unity of a single and complete internal relationship. This is exactly the "unity of action or plot" required in the eighth chapter of Poetics. Aristotle only emphasized the unity of action. Later, neoclassicists added the unity of time and space to synthesize the so-called "three unifications". They regard the unity of action as only one plot in each poem, without any incidental plot. This is a unified view in form, which ignores the internal connection in content. Not only that, Aristotle talked about the chorus, music, language and other factors in the drama, but also demanded that everything should be subordinate to the whole. When it comes to music, he compares a piece of music to a city-state, in which both the ruler and the ruled have to weigh their views and get their own places. (8)
In Aristotle's aesthetic thought, the concept of harmony is based on the concept of organic whole: harmony can only be seen when the proportion and order of each part are arranged to form a coherent whole. Later, many aestheticians (such as Kant and Fechner of experimental aesthetics school) regarded harmony, symmetry and proportion as simple formal factors, as if they had nothing to do with the content. Aristotle is much better than them in this respect. He regards these factors as an organic whole related to internal logic, that is, determined by content. What can best explain his meaning is music, which he thinks is "the most imitative art". In chapter 19 of the article "Problems", he raised such a question: "Rhythm and melody are just sounds, why can they express moral quality but not color and fragrance?" His answer is: "Because rhythm and melody are movements, human movements are also movements." In other words, the rhythm and harmony (form) of music can reflect people's moral quality (content, action), because they are all sports. The movement form of music is a movement form that directly imitates people's actions (including inner emotional activities). For example, high-pitched sounds directly imitate passionate emotions, while low-pitched sounds directly imitate depressed emotions, unlike other arts, which indirectly imitate meaning or representation around a bend, so music is the most imitative art, because it is the most direct way to reflect emotions and also the most direct way to impress them, so its educational function is more profound than other arts. It can be seen that the rhythm and harmony of music can not be seen from the form, but should be seen in connection with its moral quality or artistic conception. Aristotle's view of the unity of content and form is profound and opposite to formalism.
There is another point worth mentioning about the relationship between literature and art and reality. Aristotle mainly looked at literary problems from a scientific point of view, demanding a reasonable explanation for everything, so he abandoned some mysterious concepts in the past. The most obvious example is that he talked about tragedy without mentioning fate and artistic creation, and he also gave up Plato's inspiration. As for the concept of fate, we will talk about it later. Now, we only talk about "inspiration". This term did not appear once in Poetics. It's just that when we were talking about the selection of words in the third volume of Xiuci, he inadvertently mentioned that "poetry is an inspiration". But from the context of this sentence, the term he used, as we use it now, refers to the glow of ideas in creative activities, without Plato's understanding of the meaning of becoming ecstatic because of his attachment to God. On the contrary, Aristotle asked the poet sober reason. This is clearly stated in Chapter 17 of Poetics:
When conceiving the plot and expressing it in appropriate language, the poet should try his best to put the scene in front of his eyes and see it vividly as if he had experienced it himself. Only in this way can he see what is appropriate and not ignore the inconsistency of the past.
From these remarks and those that emphasize internal logic and organic integrity, we can say that Aristotle's understanding of the word "imitation" used by the Greeks is far deeper than Plato's: it is not passive plagiarism, but exerting the creativity and subjective initiative of the poet, not reflecting superficial phenomena, but revealing the essence and internal relations. This literary thought basically conforms to realism.
Psychological basis and social function of literature and art
On the issue of literary function, Aristotle also made a big step forward than Plato. The difference lies in the ethical ideal. Plato believes that the ideal personality should make reason in an absolute dominant position, and all psychological functions except reason, such as instinct, emotion, desire and so on. Are regarded as "despicable parts" of human nature and should be suppressed mercilessly. Literature and art only want to appeal to these "despicable parts" of human nature to produce pleasure, so their influence on people is not good. This is obviously destroying most of the potential of human nature unilaterally asserting rational views. Aristotle's view is the opposite. His ideal personality is a personality with all-round and harmonious development. Psychological functions such as instinct, emotion and desire are inherent in human nature and have the right to demand satisfaction; give