The Platonic and Aristotelian Mimetic Paradigms In Light of Gans and Heidegger

摘要

The creation of independent esthetic institutions reflects the emergence of the esthetic as adiscovery procedure for human self-understanding. The classical is the first historicalesthetic because it opens the history of art as an independent vehicle of anthropologicalknowledge. (132)Esthetic institutions do not, of course, emerge sui generis, but out of thecontext of pre-classical ritual culture, with its intricate interweaving of military, religious,political, and economic institutions. The question of the place of esthetic practices andinstitutions within the Greek polis becomes a contested issue in Plato and Aristotle, one thatis recognized in their work as raising fundamental questions for political and ethical life.What is more, art practices and traditions occupy cultural territory within which thepractice of philosophy must define and articulate itself as a form, at least in part, of estheticpractice in its generic function as reflection. That a dedicated discourse of reflection isneeded is one of the most persistent themes of Plato’s work, from the earliest to the latestdialogues. That this discourse of dedicated reflection and inquiry should receive the namephilosophy, the love of wisdom, rather than simply sophia, wisdom itself, is frequentlytouched on, for instance, at the conclusion of Phaedrus.