Dante, Plato, Aristotle Essay

The assignment is metrical composition v. philosophy. Plato speaks of a dustup b/t poem and philosophy. He dismisses the liberal humanities bandage Aristotle defends them. DO we fulfil traces of this quarrel in later traditions? If so, where? And how is it contend out there? For this essay, in addition to Plato and Aristotle, focus on Dantes Inferno. (Please fashion to give away if my thesis is clear and strong, my separate is all relevant, and whether this whole essay persuades you) passim his life, Plato strongly believed that the arts and philosophy presently opposed each early(a).On the other hand, Aristotle defended poetry as an aid to philosophy. Dante, a philosophical poet, success amplyy synthesises Plato and Aristotles views in the Divine Comedy of the Inferno without agree either school of thought. He acknowledges the incident that while the arts ingest its uses indoors the veridical world and philosophy its uses in the ghostly, both need the other to be complete. two Plato and Aristotle agree that poetry brings just about great emotion which has a enduring impact on the individual and society. However, they protest on poetrys mad effects.In Meno, Plato believes it results in harm while Aristotle argues that it leads to improvement in Poetics. Upon closer inspection, we see that Dantes Inferno contains a philosophical signifi ceasece underlying its poetic style. rime and philosophy work towards the selfsame(prenominal) end, b atomic blunter 18ly in different ways. There is no doubt that poetry is an simulated. What Aristotle and Plato dispute oer is the source of that imitation. Plato strongly states that the arts argon mimetic, twice removed from the truth. They are an imitation of the exaltation entities in the commonwealth of the forms, in which all things are perfect.For instance, calamity presents ninefold possibilities and situations or else than a single essence. In Meno, Platos Socrates discusses the differen ce between doxa and episteme. Poets, politicians and priests put on doxa, a type of knowledge that is non mediated d sensation any adroit curtilageing. This further demonstrates the composition of the material realm. reform ruling, or doxa, flees from the heading just as the materialistic body quickly perishes. Socrates says opinion is not worth much until it is laced with reasoning of cause and effect (Plato 65). He is alluding to episteme, line up knowledge that remains in the brain.This is accomplished by understandingual interrogation in the ideal realm. Throughout the dialogue, Menon insults Socrates by saying he looks like a stingray, alluding to a type of numbing-drug. However, Menon proves to have put on knowledge as Socrates shows how anamnesis occurs via the Socratic method acting. Only when he experiences aporia, the state of disorderliness and realization of unitys ignorance, nooky he seduce true knowledge. The pen to the drug, pharmakon, symbolizes ho w Menon became numb to the treasonably, material world in order to transition to the predict realm where all things originate. art object Plato asserts that imitation espouses from the true essence of things, Aristotle believes it has its roots in tender-hearted action. In Poetics, he examines how hu art objects have an instinct for imitation, harmony and rhythm. We often go with our earliest lessons from mimesis. Aristotle asserts that the only way to make believe the ideal is finished action. He views it as a horizontal developmental rather than a vertical one, as Plato did. By the treat of energia, we move from potential to actuality. This is in any case analogous to the concept of the material to the ideal. We come out of the cave and into the sun through with(predicate) our own activities.As the arts exceed represent action, calamity contains knowledge because it presents psychological possibilities and universal truths about ourselves. Each mathematical reality may be the ideal essence. Tragedy, after all, is an imitation of action and of life, not men. The stage externalizes whats indoors our reasons. The actors come across out the meaning of life which the hearing can safely inspect without endangering themselves. This locating is extremely human beingskind-centric compared to Platos divine ideal. For instance, tragedy contains while that is action-centric and based on the bodily structure of incidents.Unlike a story, a plots events can be resequenced in any fashion. This is like an experiment in which the stage is our lab. A plot can furthermore be split in two ways complex or simple. A complex plot contains peripetia and anagnorisis. The latter, similar to Platos Meno, shows the progression from ignorance to knowledge. still the characters on stage, even after fashioning decisions, are still susceptible to mints allow. Thus peripeteia occurs, alluding to paragon and the divine realm we ultimately mountain chain with the aid of anagnorisis. There are some things people cant control.However, what we do imitate and control are our actions within the material world. For Aristotle, action was the most solid aim to focus on. In Dantes Inferno, the poet Virgil guides Dante into Hell. Poetry arrives to act as a gentler remedy compared to philosophy. It is more relat open-bodied to the human reason and physical world. Through catharsis, Dante must(prenominal) abolish all emotional tumult to suffer enlightened. This process of catharsis is similar to the gesture from the material to spiritual realm. Paradiso, the highest realm, is where true instinct exists and where we become one with perfection.In the punt canto, Dante demonstrates the wickedness of emotions and the materialistic realm when Virgil tells him Your soul has been assailed by cowardice, which often weighs so severely on a man- distracting him from honor adequate trails- as phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall. (lines 45-48) This is an extremely Platonian perspective. Partially right, Plato believed that tragedy produced cowardly leaders as it appealed to high temperature rather than logic and reason. Through Virgil, Dante demonstrates how the arts, ludicrously poetry, are effective in cleanse the soul of emotion by experiencing or contemplating it.Much like the Socratic Method in Meno, Dante must become numb to false knowledge via catharsis and begin with a clean slate. He accomplishes this by observing the damned in the nuthouse. When he passes through aporia, only then exit he become enlightened and curb truth. The shadows are a reference to Augustines visio corporals, the cave of unpolluted materiality, in which false knowledge resides. Dante says in canto one that man must come out of the louche forest (line 2) where he is so full of sleep (line 11).All this is accomplished through human action, represented through tragedy and poetry. Furthermore, Virgil symbolizes the approach path emer gence of Christian capital of Italy through Dante. He has already haven Aeneas to the Underworld, setting up the entire story. couple to this, poetry lays the necessary foundation for the coming age of philosophy. Dante uses typology of the inferno to paradiso. Like the Hebrew Bible, the inferno remains incomplete and auspicates whats to come. The New Testament completes the text, in the same way philosophy does to poetry. Each is mutually beneficial on the other.In the Inferno, Dante fails to read the inventory to the Gateway to Hell, demonstrating how the archaic style of emphasise no longer resounds in the bleak age of foregrounding. This method brings to light how the spirit reads and interprets with reason. Because the material realm is incomplete, Dante cannot move to this abstract, spiritual meaning without first going through the forest. In the third canto, Virgil describes to Dante how those in funny house have lost the good of the intellect (line 18). The mind c an never be fulfilled as it is a dainty sensory experience.This is proven when Virgil is only able to guide Dante so far. He cannot take Dante beyond the material realm because he is not a Christian. He represents the arts, the non-metaphysical. A higher entity, Beatrice, will lead him to paradiso. Virgil declares in canto one If you would then ascend as high as these / a soul more worthy than I am will guide you (lines 121-122). Likewise, we can guess of poetry, represented by Virgil, as a disguise to philosophy, the eventual remedy of Beatrice. While philosophy speaks of a thing itself, poetry uses metaphors as a transition to reach a philosophical conclusion.It is a fomite for truth in its own peculiar way, addressing our minds through imagination, sensibility and feelings. Dante can synthesize Plato and Aristotles views because they are working toward one common goal the divine, the cave of pure intellect. The mechanisms of philosophy are simply a more sophisticated turn on po etry. Traces of Plato are still seen in Dante, curiously when he states in the fifth canto Those who submit to this torment are damned because they sinned subjecting reason to the rule of lust (lines 37-39).However, in tragedy, what seems chimerical and absurd to the hearing becomes permeated with reason as it speaks the universal truth about ourselves. The arts show there is something beyond human thought and action as the audience learn how we cannot control everything. There is something beyond this human, materialistic world that we cannot begin to understand. This is God, which is just what philosophy aims at. It speaks the truth, not only of human action, but of the existence of the ultimate good. In this way, poetry consists of rational thought and intellect.Virgil tells Dante in canto eight Forget your fear, no one can hinder our passage adept so great has granted it (lines 104-105). We are turning inward to our souls to reach the divine. This withal speaks of Gods inf inite and unaccountable power. God makes the impossible possible. Dante had to go tear down into the deepest level of hell to see the divine. This jeering demonstrates catabasis and anagogy, the one single movement towards God. Furthermore, Cassius and Brutus foreshadow Judas betrayal. These three make up the material inversion of the Holy Trinity. We are able to see God in Lucifer.This demonstrates the typology from the inferno to paradiso as well as the process of recollection in Platos Meno and Aristotles Poetics. Just as Dante had to move through death to experience life, the reader must pass through poetry to aim philosophy. All thinking about God involves moving from the material to the realm of the forms. The divine uses metaphors, our language, to help us understand. We are able to indirectly talk to God through poetry as He determines our fate. It was his will to send Dante into Hell. Like poetrys catharsis and philosophys pharmakon, Dante engages his mind as he journey s through the inferno.By looking and contemplating the suffering of the damned, he becomes accommodate to aspects of his life which would otherwise be nonsensical. Both the poet and philosopher seek the existence of God and of the metaphysical. Although Dante recognizes that the arts have limited utility, he realizes how poetry helps lay the foundation for philosophy through the Aristotelian and Platonian method. It has a cognitive hightail it by helping to better esteem and complete philosophy. As Venantius Fortunatus wrote in his hymn Vexilla Regis, by death did life procure. Likewise, by poetry did philosophy come about.