Plato in all his works, and Aristotle in his "Metaphysics" share the same awareness of "beauty." Both would agree with these statements: "The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree." "The Good is the Beautiful." "It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from absolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of causality?" Aristotle espouses "forms, order, symmetry, definiteness, and the beauty of the mathematical sciences," in his "Metaphysics." These terms are consonant with Plato's Forms as Beautiful and Good. The key distinction is between Plato's "causality" etiology and Aristotle's "organic/this world" focus.
In terms of "art" then, rather than Beauty, Plato's instincts are different from Aristotle's. Plato finds much of human art to be psychologistic, whereas Aristotle seems to revel in the "beauty of tragedy, dead bodies, etc." in his "Poetics." (To be fair, Aristotle doesn't highly correlate beauty with tragedy, etc.)
Aristotle's position is a more "democratic" or laissez faire approach, whereas Plato's notion is that the mob or wisdom of the crowd cannot be trusted to provide the kind of leadership that a "Republic" ought have. Thus (artistic) imitation is for Plato is more of the lower awarenesses (Eikasia, Pistis), rather than the Beauty both he and Aristotle see in mathematics (Plato's Dianoia); Aristotle demurs from correlating Beauty with the causality of Plato's Noesis, and likewise instead focuses on imitation (Plato's Eikasia and Pistis) as the "beauty" of tragedy.
In essence, Plato is more like Confucius, with clear and functional roles. However, if and when the Philosopher-Kings, et al. become corrupt, then Aristotle's upwelling of crowd's art tragedies describes what happened again and again in the Chinese dynasties: corruption in Confucian merit-based exams leading in about 2 generations to a dynastic change.
Plato sees art as like a mirror reflection (and not as philosophy).
Since there isn't any philosophy in art, Plato would banish it from his state.
However, Aristotle sees art as like learning a step removed (and like philosophy).
Hence, Aristotle has a more positive view of art.
But in the Republic Plato places the Philosopher as the sole moral authority, not the poets.
Thus he critiques the Sophists claim with a description of what knowledge is and where he believes poetry fits in that structure.
"Not pleasure and pain, but law and reason shall rule in our state" (Plato, Book X).
Aristotle has taken Plato’s emotional point and altered it.
For Aristotle, art imitates life one step removed.
This gap between the real world and the dramatic portrayal allows us space to contemplate the ideas put before us.
This opportunity of detachment allows us to reflect on what we have just seen and to synthesise our responses so that we become emotionally richer for the experience.
It is here that we learn from experiencing art, not through the literal imitation of nature.
Aristotle treats the audience as emotionally mature and believes they have the ability to digest complex emotional states from a performance
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Plato in all his works, and Aristotle in his "Metaphysics" share the same awareness of "beauty." Both would agree with these statements: "The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree." "The Good is the Beautiful." "It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from absolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of causality?" Aristotle espouses "forms, order, symmetry, definiteness, and the beauty of the mathematical sciences," in his "Metaphysics." These terms are consonant with Plato's Forms as Beautiful and Good. The key distinction is between Plato's "causality" etiology and Aristotle's "organic/this world" focus.
In terms of "art" then, rather than Beauty, Plato's instincts are different from Aristotle's. Plato finds much of human art to be psychologistic, whereas Aristotle seems to revel in the "beauty of tragedy, dead bodies, etc." in his "Poetics." (To be fair, Aristotle doesn't highly correlate beauty with tragedy, etc.)
Aristotle's position is a more "democratic" or laissez faire approach, whereas Plato's notion is that the mob or wisdom of the crowd cannot be trusted to provide the kind of leadership that a "Republic" ought have. Thus (artistic) imitation is for Plato is more of the lower awarenesses (Eikasia, Pistis), rather than the Beauty both he and Aristotle see in mathematics (Plato's Dianoia); Aristotle demurs from correlating Beauty with the causality of Plato's Noesis, and likewise instead focuses on imitation (Plato's Eikasia and Pistis) as the "beauty" of tragedy.
In essence, Plato is more like Confucius, with clear and functional roles. However, if and when the Philosopher-Kings, et al. become corrupt, then Aristotle's upwelling of crowd's art tragedies describes what happened again and again in the Chinese dynasties: corruption in Confucian merit-based exams leading in about 2 generations to a dynastic change.
Both agree that art is imitation and learning.
Plato sees art as like a mirror reflection (and not as philosophy).
Since there isn't any philosophy in art, Plato would banish it from his state.
However, Aristotle sees art as like learning a step removed (and like philosophy).
Hence, Aristotle has a more positive view of art.
But in the Republic Plato places the Philosopher as the sole moral authority, not the poets.
Thus he critiques the Sophists claim with a description of what knowledge is and where he believes poetry fits in that structure.
"Not pleasure and pain, but law and reason shall rule in our state" (Plato, Book X).
Aristotle has taken Plato’s emotional point and altered it.
For Aristotle, art imitates life one step removed.
This gap between the real world and the dramatic portrayal allows us space to contemplate the ideas put before us.
This opportunity of detachment allows us to reflect on what we have just seen and to synthesise our responses so that we become emotionally richer for the experience.
It is here that we learn from experiencing art, not through the literal imitation of nature.
Aristotle treats the audience as emotionally mature and believes they have the ability to digest complex emotional states from a performance