Aristotle study notes 2

materials

background & overview

Studied for 2.5wks, in Aachen. At my mum’s flat and in University Library RWTH.

  1. Paragraph-by-paragraph summarization of Metaphysics
  2. Part-by-part summarization of some of Organon. Then speech-to-text reading, then I skipped the end of Topics and Sophistical Refutations because I was getting sick of the dry parts of Aristotle.
  3. Part-by-part summarization of Poetics

    takeaways

metaphysics

The “x and not x can’t be true” part that sets the basis of rationality really reminded me of Wittgenstein. I repeatedly had the feeling, “well yes, but it doesn’t completely work that way”. But the more I read, the more I realized that they way it isn’t that way (“x and not x can’t be true”) is not compatible with existence/non-existence or words. It can’t be directly said, but it can be pointed at.

His investigations of movement was strange to me. The concept of becoming is also strange. Probably just not well-explored in modern society, or expressed in a different way.

Aristotle seems much more open to debate about his views. And lots of theology was built on top of his views. And the structures built on top don’t seem to share the “open to debate” sentiments. It seems like he treats “god” the same way that Plato, Pythagoras, etc. treat different divine entities. He talks about their versions of the divine as if they can be proven/disproven. That suggests to me that he’s comfortable with his version of the divine to be argued against and picked apart in the same way.

organon

Things that don’t conform to aristotle’s views on logic, you can’t really describe them using a system of language that is so deeply influenced by aristotle’s views on logic.

On the different kinds of “sameness”: numerically, specifically, or generically. Specifically/generically seem to be on some sort of spectrum. I can imagine having more or fewer kinds of “sameness” on that spectrum. I think great ideas and premises for stories come from identifying these spectra which lie at the foundation of our assumptions about the world, then showing what it would mean for us to be at a different point. So, for there to be no such thing as “specifically the same” - eliminating the same degree of granularity of individuality.

poetics

I really liked the thought of a literary piece of work being a “unity of parts” like a “living organism”. And I’m curious why Aristotle applies that way of thinking to literature and not other things (like metaphysics, logic, etc). Not that things themselves should be anthropomorphized, but perhaps our individual and shared conceptions of things should be treated as if they are unavoidably anthropomorphized.

reading notes

metaphysics

book 1 (alpha)

p1

ALL men by nature desire to know

We focus on senses and senses make us know. Visual senses provide the most “knowing” of all the senses, and we prefer our visual senses.

from memory experience is produced in men

Experience is necessary to produce and consume art. Memory is needed to generate experience or art.

Experience > theory. Wisdom > experience. Artists can teach, but “doers” can’t.

Senses are not wisdom - they say “the fire is hot”, not why it is hot.

Leisurely art is regarded as more wise than necessary art because the branch of knowledge doesn’t aim at utility.

Wisdom is knowledge about certain principles and causes.

p2

Wisdom has to do with understanding things so well that things are predicted and the ways of prediction can be taught.

The most universal is the hardest to know because it is furthest from the senses. The closer to first principles, the more exact the science.

Wisdom is not a science of production. The earliest thinkers pursued science to know, not for any utilitarian ends. Such knowledge is sought only after comfort and recreation is secured.

All the sciences are more necessary than metaphysics, but none is better.

p3

To understand things, we have to acquire knowledge of their original causes. There are four causes:

When things lose or gain properties, they continue to exist, therefore there’s something underlying their existence. Substance.

The ancients thought that 1-4 base elements underly existence. But they didn’t consider how base elements underly things like “goodness”

p4

the cause of all goods is the good itself

Aristotle criticizes inconsistent use of reason in previous philosophers.

p5

Pythagoreans saw numbers underlying all things.

Parmenides saw there being the existent and non-existent.

p6

Plato was influenced by thinkers who thought everything was in flux, with no knowledge obtainable from them. He was influenced by Socrates, who sought the universals through ethics and fixed definitions. He used Ideas as the fixed definitions of things in constant flux. He focused on two causes: essence and material cause. Good and evil were ascribed to the elements.

p7

None of the historical thinkers describe all four causes. Some of them hint at essence. Some of them talk about things related to change.

p8

Those who say the universe is one, say the one kind of thing is “matter” and “corporeal matter” has “spatial magnitude”. They mention the elements of bodies but not incorporeal things. When they explain creation and destruction physically, they do away with the cause of movement/change.

Those that talk about the four base elements (fire/water/air/earth) have trouble explaining how one turns into another or where those base elements come from.

Anaxagoras says there are two things that get mixed, but how they got mixed in the first place is unclear. Otherwise, his views are “modern”.

All those thinkers are talking about movement and creation and destruction.

p9

The concept of forms introduces a new idea that must be explained, for each form introduced. It’s unclear where those things come from, they are not explained.

The boundaries of forms are way too unclear. Sometimes they have to be solid and sometimes the same ones have to be flexible.

The forms don’t seem to be especially useful. They don’t directly cause movement or change in the things they represent.

Forms aren’t good at explaining how things come into being. How can one form come from many forms? If forms are numbers how can they be causes?

Forms can’t explain all things being one, because it causes recursion.

If we understand a thing, we should be able to know the objects of a sense without having the sense.

p10

They’re all seeking causes in the name of physics. But they’ve all sought without rigour.

book 3 (beta)

Elaborating on the 4 causes:

p1

It’s useful to hear all the different problems that come up in a domain before trying to tackle the domain.

p2

Is there one or more sciences that cover the 4 causes?

Each cause is partly Wisdom. Each cause could be across sciences. The final purpose guides how other causes are approached.

It’s important to know what a thing is, rather than its quantity, quality, utility.

the science of substance must be of the nature of Wisdom

There should be just one science that covers the four causes, but it’s debatable. One science can’t cover everything, so the sciences around causes should be kept a bit limited. They will inevitably spill into other sciences a bit.

Are there things other than substance? Like forms?

What is the nature of the relationship between a form and an instance of a form? Does that have a form? And does that form relationship have a form relationship? etc.

p3

There are arguments for and against having some base elements. They make sense in things like geometrical proofs and sound. But the definition of genera will affect the thing they are used to define in undesirable ways.

things that are more universal must be supposed to be more of the nature of principles

p4

Some generality is necessary, otherwise there would be infinite things that would have to be known to understand anything. Too much generality runs into problems too.

There appears to be something other than the substance itself, or knowledge wouldn’t be possible. Nothing is eternal or unmovable, but it also doesn’t make sense for there to be a process things are created, because something would have to be created from nothing. If generation and movement exist, there has to be a limit so they don’t happen infinitely. Etc.

There being one thing or more than one thing - both have problems.

Why are some things perishable and other things not?

Are being and unity substances? If they aren’t then there must be more than one substance.

p5

Lines, points, surfaces, and “now” don’t come into being or perish. So they seem to not be substances.

p6

People consider forms because each of them is a substance and none of them are accidental. There can’t be a limited number of first principles.

book 4 (gamma)

p1

Mathematics explores the attributes of being. We want to explore the causes of being.

p2

There are lots of ways to “be”. Those different ways aren’t accidentally related to being - they are a “way to be” for a reason. There are lots of ways of sensing being, and all of them refer to some shared starting point. So there is one science of being.

There are many concepts that belong in this science. Concepts that are assumed or axiomatic by other sciences, like even/odd, equality, solidness, motionlessness, etc.

All contraries are reducible to being/not being or unity/plurality.

p3

Should axioms and substance belong to one or many sciences? It is up to the philosopher to study the nature of all substance and inquire the principles of sylologism.

important: The starting point, starting axiom of all further beliefs is that the same attribute can’t both belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect. “x and not x” can’t be true.

This is the basis of rationality.

p4

Arguments of why “x and not x” can’t be true. If someone says anything, x, and “x and not x” is true, then they’ve said nothing. Therefore someone can’t believe both “x and not x” can be true AND say anything. And someone who says nothing can’t argue or say “x and not x”.

You can argue about the “being” of x, but those arguments are lame and missing the point.

They would do away with substance and essence and say all attributes are accidental, then accidental must be accidental, but that doesn’t make sense.

If all contradictory statements are true of the same subject at the same time, then everything will be one. All things mix together and nothing really exists.

People who thing “x and not x” can not function believing that in the real world. They can’t make judgements.

“more” and “less” and “may” apply to this too.

p5

People can argue that “x and not x” is true through making bad arguments.

Some people might use the senses in their argument. That some people might think the same fruit is bitter while others thing it’s sweet. So one person shouldn’t decide on the truth in things. This argumentation requires thinking that knowledge is sensation.

You could say that you can’t step into the same river twice. That nothing is permanent. But you can’t talk about things if we treat the universe as if that is the case. There appears to be some kind of permanence to things, and that’s what we can talk about.

p6

the starting point of demonstration is not demonstration

Some people want a judge for everything and reason given to everything. The starting point of “x and not x” doesn’t need to exist.

p7

There can’t be an intermediate between “x” or “not x”. Affirmations or denials must either be true or false. If intermediates exist, there would be an infinite regress.

Some people arrive at the existence of intermediates because when they can’t refute an argument, then they agree that the conclusion is true. They shouldn’t behave this way, because an incorrect argument that can’t be disproven yet is not true - it’s just uncertain.

p8

“Everything is true” leads to absurd implications and paradoxes.

“Everything is false” leads to self-contradiction.

Statements must have meaning, there must be a distinction between true and false.

If all things were in motion or rest, then everything would be true or everything would be false.

book 6 (epsilon)

p1

He wants to explore the concept of “being”. And not the being of particular entities or instances. He wants to explore the essential elements of “being”.

Natural sciences is about one class of being - with principles of movement and where the principles are contained in the things themselves.

Physics and mathematics are sciences, but neither of them deal with things which both exist separately and are immovable. Theology is the “higher” discipline because it deals with eternal things which both exist separately and are immovable, and those things necessarily have to do with the divine.

p2

No science bothers with qualifying the term, ‘being’. Or the term, ‘accidental’. Sciences can’t deal with things that deviate from the usual laws.

p3

There must be some original cause in the past, of any given event. That original cause does not have a cause beyond itself. So maybe matter and purpose don’t need a starting point, in this manner.

p4

Truth and Falsity only exist in thought and don’t apply to simple concepts. Being does not apply to true or false or accidental, because they are not things in themselves.

book 7 (zeta)

p1

Substance is “what-ness”, the underlying essence of a thing. Substance is first in every sense - in time, definition, order of knowledge. Being is a question of substance. Debate about whether being is one or many, limited or umlimited, etc. revolves around conceptions of substance.

p2

There’s obviously physical substance. But there’s also the limits of things (line, point, surface) that are substance.

p3

There’s four main objects of substance: essence, universal, genus, and substratum.

Substratum is that of which everything is predicated (and itself not predicated of anything else).

Matter seems to be substance, but matter lacks the properties of separability and “thisness”, which substance definitely has.

p4

The primary sense of essence is “what a thing is.” The secondary sense is properties like quality or quantity.

There isn’t really essence in recursive definitions.

p5

Only substance is definable.

p6

The thing and its essence are the same. If they weren’t it would suggest another substance existing before them.

p7

When something is produced from matter, it is often described as not being that matter, but as being made of it. Ex: golden.

p8

When we create, we don’t create the matter or the substratum. We create the form. Making a brass sphere doesn’t involve creating brass or creating the concept of a sphere. Form is indivisible.

p9

Some things are produced spontaneously (ex: health) and some things are not (ex: house). All of the primary classes don’t come to be (substance, quantity, quality, etc.)

p10

The whole is prior to the parts.

The parts of substance: matter, form, compound.

p12

There is nothing in the definition except the first-named and the differentiae.

p13

Substance encompasses the substratum, essence, compound, and the universal.

Substances cannot be composed of substances present in it in complete reality because two complete realities can’t be one. But then how do composites work? Can anything be defined at all? Are there limitations?

p14

There can’t be forms of sensible things. If “animal” exists in “horse” and “man”, then how can it still be just one. If each species has a different form, then there would be an infinite number of “animal” substances.

p15

Substances and ideas can’t be boiled down to a definition or straightforward combination of parts.

p16

The things we may believe to be substances are actually potencies. Forms exist in that they separate existence, but they don’t because the one substance is a form too, but it can’t be.

book 8 (eta)

p1

Matter is present in all changes. It has three senses: potentiality, form, and the complex of both. The complex is what undergoes generation/destruction, and can exist separately.

p2

“Is” has many meanings.

p3

Is the essence of a thing linked to its form or actuality. The composite substance is not merely the sum of its parts and juxtaposition.

p4

p5

It seems like things can be more than one thing at the same time. Ex: wine and vinegar.

p6

What is the cause of unity in substances? What makes a whole human a human? How can there be separate forms for different parts of a human?

The cause of unity is tied to the process of actualization from potentiality.

book 9 (theta)

p1

all will be found to involve the concept of substance

potency and ‘can’ have several senses

two kinds of potency: potential in an object to undergo change and potential in an object to cause a change (in self or other). So potency resides in both the object and other things outside.

impotence is a lack of potency

p2

there are rational/non-rational potencies non-ration potencies only product one effect, like heat producing warmth rational potencies come with a rational formula and can produce contrary effects, like medicine producing both disease or health

p3

He critiques a view that a thing can act only when it is engaged in the action, like a builder only being a builder while they are building. He argues that nothing would have coldness or sweetness until someone is perceiving it in the moment. He argues that it undermines movement and becoming because you’d have to be engaged with an action to be able to do it, which is not how we experience things.

There’s a concept of actuality, which is the potential attributes existing in complete reality.

p4

IF: When A is real, B must be real. THEN: When A is possible, B must also be possible.

p5

Potencies are either innate, acquired by practice, or acquired by learning. Potencies acquired by practice or rational formula require prior exercise, while others imply passivity and don’t require prior exercise.

Potencies with rational formula are typically found in living beings.

p6

Infinite, void, and similar concepts exist potentially and actually in a different sense from many other things. The infinite exists potentially only for knowledge, not as a separate thing.

p7

Potential existence is gatekept by the agent’s will and the absence of external hindrances.

A thing is potentially all the things it will naturally become if nothing external obstructs it.

p8

Actuality is prior to potency in several senses: formulaically, temporally, and substantiality. Actuality is the fulfilment of potentiality, and the end is defined before the path to get there.

Formulaically: potency is defined in relation to actuality. Temporally: actuality is prior to potency. Every actualization is produced from something that already exists actually. Substantiality: actuality is prior to potency. Things that come into being later are prior in form and substance. “Animals have sight in order to see.” The actuality, “see” comes before “sight”.

p9

p10

“Be” and “being” are used:

book 10

p1

“one” has several meanings:

One is to be indivisible in a certain respect. The first of a kind/number. The starting point of measure.

p2

unity can not be a substance

p3

plurality is prior to the indivisible.

The same has several meanings:

p4

Contrary: the most extreme difference. The complete difference. Privation: lack of something.

p5

Something can not be contrary of two other things.

p6

p7

p8

p9

p10

Perishable vs. imperishable things are different in kind, not form.

book 11

book 12 (lambda)

p1

Philosophers have always sought to understand substances. There are three kinds of substance:

p2

Describing the “one-ness” of everything from others’ perspective:

all things were together potentially but not actually

p3

Neither matter nor form comes to be. Substances come into being from something that shares their name. Three kinds of substace: matter, nature, and particular substance composed of both matter and nature. ‘this’ is generally a particular substance composed of both matter and nature

p4

There is a first cause that moves all things.

p5

Substances exist independently, but modifications and movements need substances. The cause of substances: soul and body OR reason and desire and body. Some universal causes don’t exist - ex: man. But a given person has a father.

p6

Time and movement couldn’t have come into being.

p7

The first heaven must be eternal.

Circular motion.

The final cause:

We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.

there is a substance which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible things

This God substance produces movement through infinite time, is impassive and unalterable.

p8

since the first mover is unmovable and eternal, it must produce the primary eternal and single movement

p9

Therefore it must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.

p10

The good is not love because that would make it both the mover and the matter. Contraries as the fundemental principles of existence do not explain why some thing are perishable while other are imperishable. If sensible things are all that exist, then there would be no order, becoming, etc. And if forms or numbers exist, they would not be causes of anything.

book 13

book 14

organon

categories

Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or doing or being-affected.

p1 (s1)

equivocally naming: common name, different definition (ex: real man and mammal in picture are both ‘animal’)

univocally naming: common name and definition (ex: man and ox both ‘animal’)

derivatively naming: derived name differing in termination (ex: courageous man from ‘courage’)

p2

Predicable of a subject: affirmed/denied of an individual subject, but aren’t present in the subject. Ex: “man” Present in a subject, but not predicable. Ex: grammatical knowledge. Predicable of a subject and present in the subject. ex: knowledge Neither present in a subject nor predicable of a subject. Ex: individual man.

p3

predicable_1(predicable_2(subject)) -> predicable_1(subject) & predicable_2(subject)

p4

Many expressions must be composite to be true/false.

p5

Substance is neither predicable of a subject nor present in the subject. Ex: individual man.

Both name and definition of the species are predicable of the individual.

Everything is predicable of a primary substance or present in a primary substance.

Species and genus are secondary substance.

Substance and quantity and many things have no contrary.

There aren’t different degrees of substance.

One substance can admit contrary qualities. It does this by changing. Ex: the same individual can be white at one point and black at another.

Statements and opinions can’t be altered like that.

p6

Quantity is either discrete or continuous.

Quantities consist either of parts which bear a relative position each to each, or of parts which do not.

The most distinctive mark of quantity is that equality and inequality are predicated of it.

That which is not a quantity can by no means, it would seem, be termed equal or unequal to anything else.

p7 (s2)

Relative: explained by reference to another thing. Aristotle describes that things like “slave”, “wing”, and “rudder” can be understood relative terms.

All relatives have correlatives (the thing in reference to).

Sometimes reciprocity of correlation doesn’t seem to exist. That means it was expressed unclearly.

Apprehending a relative means you’ve apprehended the correlative.

p8

By ‘quality’ I mean that in virtue of which people are said to be such and such.

Disposition is a condition that is easily changed to give place to its opposite.

Inborn capacity/incapacity is another kind of quality.

Affective quality: produces a perception in the consumer.

Figure and shape is another quality.

p9 (s3)

p10

Opposites are used for:

p11

Contrary attributes must be present in the same species/genus.

p12

Senses in which one thing can be prior to another:

p13

Simultaneous: two things whose being involves that of the other.

p14

Sorts of movement: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, change of place.

p15

Senses of “to have”:

On Interpretation

p1 (s1)

Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.

Aristotle says we don’t share writing and speech. He says we share mental experiences and the things which those mental experiences come from.

p2

Noun: significant by convention, no reference to time, significant in part from the rest.

p3

Verb: in addition to its proper meaning, carries the notion of time. No part of it has any independent meaning, always said of something else.

p4

Sentence: significant portion of speech

p5

Two classes of simple propositions: simple affirmation and simple denial. All others are one by conjunction.

p6

Affirmation is a positive assertion, denial is a negative assertion.

p7

Some things are universal (predicated of many subjects) Some things are individual (not predicated)

p8

An affirmation or denial is single.

p9

“a xor not a”

p10

p11

prior analytics

p1

Premise: a sentence affirming or denying one thing or another. A premise is either universal, particular, or indefinite.

Term: that into which the premise is resolved.

Syllogism: statements which produce a consequence, and not further statements are needed for that consequence.

p2

Every premise states that something is or may be the attribute of something else.

p3

Premises can convert into other premises. Universal into particular, inverting the subject of a premise, etc.

p4

Demonstration is a sort of syllogism.

posterior analytics

book 1 p1

Meno dilemma: either a man will learn nothing or what he already knows. Knowledge is pre-existent or learned.

p2

Unqualified scientific knowledge:

when we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and, further, that the fact could not be other than it is.

Assertion: all events we do know by demonstration. Demonstration: a syllogism productive of scientific knowledge.

Premises of demonstrated knowledge must be true, primary, immediate, better know than- and prior to- the conclusion, and the conclusion is an effect to their cause.

Immediate proposition: one which has no other proposition prior to it. Dialectical proposition: one which assumes either opposing position in a syllogism indifferently. Contradiction: an opposition that excludes a middle by its own nature.

p3

Demonstration must be based on premises prior to and better known than the conclusions. Circular demonstration is not permissible.

p4

p7

Three elements in a demonstration:

p8

no attribute can be demonstrated nor known by strictly scientific knowledge to inhere in perishable things

You can’t demonstrate scientific knowledge about a particular person, only people in general.

p9

p10

Basic truths: can’t be proved, have to be assumed.

Each science has some unique basic truths and some shared ones.

book 2 p1

Four kind of questions we ask and things we know:

topics

b1 p1

Reasoning: an argument where things are expressed, and something else comes about through them. Demonstrations are when the premises are true and primary. Reasoning is dialectical. Reasoning is contentious if it starts from opinions that seem to be generally accepted, but aren’t.

p4

Parts of an inquiry: arguments: how many, what kinds, what materials they start with.

p5

definition: phrase signifying a thing’s essence property: predicate that doesn’t indicate the essence of a thing, but belongs to that thing alone genus: category with an essence, has many things which are “different in kind”

what is predicated in the category of essence of a number of things exhibiting differences in kind

accident: something that belongs to a thing, but is not a definition or property or genus

p6

p7

Sameness:

p11

A thesis is a supposition that conflicts with the general opinion.

p13

means to acquire reasonings:

on sophistical refutations

sick of aristotle

poetics

p1 (s1)

Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy, music etc. are all modes of imitation. They’re different in the medium, the objects, and the mode of imitation. Imitation produced by rhythm, language, and harmony.

There’s no term to combine Socratic dialogues with poetic imitations. Maybe poet.

p2

People are depicted. They are often depicted as “good” or “bad”, often exaggerated in either direction. Tragedy represents people as better than irl, comedy represents people as worse.

p3

The poet can also imitate by “narration”, taking on the voice of another.

p4

Poetry comes from:

Instinct for harmony and rhythm.

Poetry diverges in two ways:

p5

Comedy is an imitation of the lower type.

p6

Tragedy is the imitation of an action, and an action implies personal agents. Agents have thought and/or character which drive action.

Plot is the arrangement of the incidents. Character is the qualities ascribed to the agents.

Tragedy has, in order of importance: plot, character, thought, diction, spectacle, and song.

The ending is the chief thing of all in a tragedy.

p7

A plot has a beginning, middle, and end.

A beautiful object must have an orderly arrangement of parts and be of a certain magnitude - not to big or too small.

p8

Unity of the plot consists around unity of the world, not necessarily unity of the hero. A thing’s presence or absence must have a visible difference to the whole.

p9

The poet should say what may happen, not what happened.

Poetry is more philosophical than history and tends to express the universal.

Episodic plots are the worst if they succeed one-another without probably or necessary sequence.

Coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design.

p10

Plots are simple or complex. Simple is where the climax happens without any major surprises or revelations.

p11

p12 (s2)

parts of tragedy: prologue, episode, exode, choric song (parode and stasimon)

p13

A well-constructed plot should be singular. The change of fortune should be from good to bad and come as a result of some great error or frailty.

p14

A plot should be so good that the outline has you hooked.

There must be some action that is terrible or pitiful. The action must be done consciously by a relatable person.

p15

For the character and the plot, the poet should aim at either the necessary or the probable.

p16

Recognitions:

The scene should take place before the eyes as much as possible.

p18

Tragedy has complication and unraveling/denouement. Identity exists where complication and unraveling are the same.

Kinds of tragedies:

Don’t try to make an epic into a tragedy.

p19

Incidents should speak for themselves without verbal introduction.

p20

p21 (s3)

Words are simple and double (compound).

Every word is either current, or strange, or metaphorical, or ornamental, or newly-coined, or lengthened, or contracted, or altered.

strange: from somewhere else (current there)

metaphor: application of an alien name by transference

p22

it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances

p23

A poetic imitation should be like a tragedy - resembling a living organism in all its unity with a beginning, middle, end.

p24

In epics, many narrative forms can take shape.

The poet should speak as little as possible in his own person, for it is not this that makes him an imitator.

The element of wonder is required in Tragedy. Wonder depends on irrationality. The secret lies in a fallacy, assuming one thing causes another thing to be true. But the first thing wasn’t true.

the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities

The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts. Everything irrational should, if possible, be excluded

p25

Poets imitate one of these:

p26

Tragedy is less refined than epic.

the art which imitates anything and everything is manifestly most unrefined

01 May 2024