Similarities and differences between Plato and Aristotle's literary thoughts

Erudite; First, the theory of imitation; (1) imitation imitation; Plato is the most severe person who condemns literature and artists in the history of literature and art; Plato inherited the ancient Greek saying that "art imitates nature" and thought that literature; (2) the authenticity of art; As a student of Plato, Aristotle did not fully accept the teacher's point of view; Second, the theory of literary function; (a) the effectiveness of literature and art on the country and life; Attacking literature and art is not because Plato doesn't understand literature and art, on the contrary; Plato attached great importance to it.

Plato and Aristotle, who lived in slavery in ancient Greece and Athens, were not only famous great figures in ancient Greece, but also had a great and indelible influence on later generations. For more than two thousand years, they have played an important role in guiding western thoughts. They put forward the viewpoint of multi-angle research on beauty and art within the scope of philosophy, and systematically pointed out the philosophical significance and ontological elements of "beauty" for the first time in western history. Although the relationship between master and apprentice is different, Aristotle summed up all the previous knowledge and founded a new philosophical system, which has a much greater influence on later generations than Plato. But Aristotle could not continue without Plato's thought as a link between the past and the future. Their literary and artistic thoughts also have groundbreaking historical value and significance. Explore the correlation between artistic noumenon and other factors, and gradually improve the construction of artistic ideological system. Their literary and artistic thoughts are more comparable. Later generations mostly discussed the essence of literature and art, that is, imitation, which is of course the biggest difference between their views on literature and art.

First, imitation theory.

(A) imitation of imitation

Plato is the most severe critic of literature and artists in the history of literature and art, and his "representative theory" will inevitably lead to the denial of literature and art. He believes that there are three worlds: the conceptual world, the real world and the artistic world. The real world is an imitation of the conceptual world, and the artistic world is an imitation of the real world, so literature and art are "replicas of replicas". On the other hand, Plato believes that literature and art have a great infectious effect, that is, "infiltrating the soul" and calling it "the magic of poetry". Therefore, although he dismissed "imitating poetry" as "the shadow of a shadow", he still advocated keeping some "poems praising God and good people" in the utopia. Generally speaking, his views are idealistic.

Plato inherited the ancient Greek saying that "art imitates nature", holding that literature and art imitate the objective world, and pointed out that this is the essential feature of literature and art: "All poets have been imitators since Homer". Plato, like other ancient Greek philosophers, paid special attention to "truth" in the "truth, goodness and beauty" of art, and advocated that literature and art should reflect life like looking in a mirror, otherwise it would distort nature, society and life. But Plato disagreed with Socrates that "beauty is useful". Plato thinks that idea is the root, essence and law of all realistic things. It is created by God, eternal and universal, so it is true. Plato still believes that imitation is human nature, especially for children, young people and women, when their reason has not been fully developed.

(B) the authenticity of art

As a student of Plato, Aristotle did not fully accept the teacher's point of view, but objectively discussed the relationship between art and reality, and formed his own complete and systematic "imitation theory". Aristotle's view of literature and art affirms the authenticity of the real world, which is different from Plato's theory of ideas. He not only affirmed the authenticity of art, but also affirmed that art is more real than the real world. Art imitates the inevitability and universality of the real world, that is, the inherent essence and laws of things, not just the appearance of the real world as Plato said. Relatively speaking, Aristotle's view of literature and art is more objective and positive.

Second, the theory of literary function

(A) the effectiveness of literature and art to the country and life

The attack on literature and art is not because Plato doesn't understand literature and art, on the contrary, Plato has profound artistic accomplishment, he has a profound understanding of literature and art, and he has many original opinions on literature and art. He demanded literature and art from a specific historical perspective and put forward the famous "utilitarianism".

Plato attached great importance to the social utility of literature and art, and put forward the aesthetic requirements that literature and art can not only cause pleasure, but also effectively serve the country and life.

Plato was deeply aware of the problems in the field of literature and art and inspected the popular literary works at that time.

Plato advocates utilitarianism in the function of literature and art. He believes that literature and art can only be praised and can only be the handmaid of politics and morality: "We should force poets to describe only beautiful images in their poems."

(2) The cognitive function and pleasure function of literature and art..

Aristotle not only inherited Plato's utilitarianism, but also affirmed the cognitive function and pleasure function of literature and art in a tit-for-tat way. Aristotle believes that art can bring happiness. In addition to the pleasure of seeking knowledge from imitation, there is also the pleasure of aesthetic interest.

Third, the theory of literary creation.

(A) inspiration theory

Plato believes that the world of ideas is not only real, but also sacred and knowable. Before the human soul came to the earth to be reborn, it belonged to the world of ideas. There, the human soul gains wisdom and knowledge. But the real world is unreal, unknowable and filthy.

Plato hates sophists who represent slave-owner democracy politically. This school strongly advocates the art and rhetorical skills in debate. Plato also strongly opposed this point. Plato believes that literary creation depends not on skill, but on inspiration. Without inspiration, no matter how skillful you are, you will never become a great poet.

The basic idea of Plato's theory of inspiration is mysterious anti-rationalism.

(B) Tragedy theory

Aristotle's imitation theory is rich in connotation and contains profound philosophy, which is the basic principle of his poetics. Starting from this basic principle, he further discussed the artistic creation principle represented by tragedy.

Aristotle gave a definition of tragedy: tragedy is the imitation of a serious, complete and long action; It uses all kinds of pleasant and beautiful language in every part of the play; It does not express the object of imitation in a narrative way, but in the actions of the characters; It achieves this goal of emotional purification by causing pity and fear through events.

Aristotle believes that the quality of tragic characters is determined by their personality, and their personality is determined by their choice of action. Tragedy is to write that good people who are similar to ordinary people suffer undue bad luck, and the characters it shows also have specific personalities. The tragic characters in his mind have their social moral standards and aesthetic standards based on imitation to describe their characters.

Generally speaking, Plato reformed the imitation of literature and art to nature on the basis of rationalism to demonstrate the relationship between literature and art and reality and reveal the essence of literature and art. Plato's literary thoughts include the theory of literary essence based on objective idealism, the theory of literary function characterized by extreme utilitarianism and the theory of literary creation with religious mysticism. His literary thoughts are based on his philosophical thoughts and social and political thoughts. Its completeness and richness far exceeded those of previous ancient Greek thinkers, which laid a solid foundation for the development of western literary theory. Aristotle's view of literature and art affirms the authenticity of the real world, which is different from Plato's theory of ideas. He not only affirmed the authenticity of art, but also affirmed that art is more real than the real world. Art imitates the inevitability and universality of the real world, that is, the inherent essence and laws of things, not just the appearance of the real world as Plato said. Aristotle's view of literature and art is more objective and positive. Plato's and Aristotle's literary theories have exerted great influence since their birth. Until today, the academic development of modern and post-modern society is inseparable from their thinking center on human society, but only in different times and different historical conditions for new thinking and re-expression.

Socrates is a bit like Confucius in China. He likes to teach young people, but his writings are not circulated. Today, we all know their thoughts through their students' narratives.

Socrates believes that "heart" is supreme, and only "heart" can grasp the true form and idealization. And sensory objects just have a tendency to approach this form.

For example, we can consider real triangles and abstract triangles. Real triangles refer to those concrete individuals who are close to abstract triangles in our experience. Abstract triangle is an idealized object and the object of "mind" thinking.

Socrates is the representative of the so-called idealism philosophy. Before being framed and imprisoned by the powerful people in Athens, he got the news that he had a chance to escape, but he did not choose to escape, but voluntarily stayed for trial. In prison, Socrates took this as an example to refute the mechanical materialism at that time:

Because the Athenians think it's best to convict me, I also think it's best to sit here and accept the punishment they set, because I can swear that if I didn't think it was a more just and decent way to accept any trial given to me by this city than to escape, my bones and muscles would have gone to Megara or Piocia in the best way as some people say.

Socrates believes that everything is created and arranged by God, which embodies the wisdom and purpose of God. It is pointed out that the most knowledgeable person is God, and knowledge ultimately comes from God. True knowledge is obedience to God. Later Christian apologists often used Socrates as an example to illustrate that Greek philosophy was an ally of Christian theology.

Plato is a student of Socrates and the greatest representative of idealism philosophy. Plato's view of nature is derived a priori from people's needs and intentions. For example, God is good and the ball is the most perfect form, so the universe must be spherical.

Transcendentalism means knowledge that can be acquired without experience, such as: God is good and human nature is good in essence.

Plato despised experiment and technology, but attached importance to deductive science such as mathematics, and opened a large number of mathematics courses in his academy.

Plato believes that the sensory objects are constantly changing, and only the object "class" (* * * phase) of the heart is unchanged. Therefore, the concept is the only reality, and the individual is the shadow. Before the "mind" discovered "classes", they were not real. Plato's view is called realism.

Aristotle is a master of ancient world knowledge and has made important contributions in many fields. Plato's student Aristotle has a famous saying: "I love my teacher, especially the truth."

In philosophy, he put forward the so-called nominalism, that is, he recognized the reality of sensory objects and the reality of "mind" objects at the same time. But Aristotle thinks that the individual is the only reality, and "class" is a name or psychological concept.

Aristotle attaches importance to individual learning and experiment, while his teacher Plato attaches importance to the study of abstract concepts. From this perspective, Aristotle's thought is more conducive to the emergence of modern experimental science.

Plato believes that behind the material world, there must be a reality, which he calls a "rational" world, which contains eternal patterns behind various phenomena in nature.

Aristotle disagreed with this view. He believes that the real world is made up of all kinds of things, whose forms are in harmony with matter, which is the material of things, and whose forms are the individual characteristics of everything.

Plato

(Plato, π λ? τ ω ν (about 427- 347 BC), a great philosopher in ancient Greece, is also one of the greatest philosophers and thinkers in the whole western philosophy and even the whole western culture. He, Socrates, a teacher, Aristotle, a student, is also known as the three sages of Greece. Other concepts of its emergence or development include Plato's thought, Platonism, Platonic love and so on. Plato's main work is Dialogues, in which Socrates appears in most dialogues. However, it is generally believed in academic circles that the image of Socrates is not entirely Socrates in history.

In addition to Homer, Plato was also influenced by many writers and thinkers before this, including the concept of "harmony" put forward by Pythagoras, and Anaxagoras's teaching that Socrates should take mind or reason as the basis for judging anything; Parmenides's theory of connecting everything may also have influenced Plato's concept of soul.

Aristotle

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Aristotle (384 ~ 322 BC), an ancient philosopher and ancient Greek, is one of the great philosophers, scientists and educators in the ancient history of the world, and can be called a master of Greek philosophy. He is Plato's student and Alexander's teacher.

In 335 BC, he established a school in Athens called Lv Keang, called Minstrel. Marx once called Aristotle the most learned figure among ancient Greek philosophers, and Engels called him "the ancient Hegel".

As an encyclopedic scientist, he has contributed to almost every subject. His works cover ethics, metaphysics, psychology, economics, theology, politics, rhetoric, natural science, education, poetry, customs and Athenian law. Aristotle's works constructed the first extensive system of western philosophy, including morality, aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.

Aristotle put forward a completely different view from Plato's "Poetry prospers from the outside" in the cognition of the source of poetry. He believes that the origin of poetry lies not in God, but in man. On the origin of poetic art, Aristotle put forward the famous theory of "imitation". He believes that there is an imitation instinct in human nature, and we can get pleasure from this imitation instinct. [2] Therefore, Aristotle believes that in the origin and development of poetry, people are by no means idle, but participate in it with a positive and dynamic attitude. For example, the original poem may be a group of primitive people carrying big trees. In the process of resisting the tree, they heard a group of birds chirping very rhythmically, so they curiously learned the sound of "yo-ho-ho" from the chirping of these birds, and they got a kind of catharsis and relaxation from this sound symbol. This kind of pleasure urges people to learn and imitate more voices, and then integrate with society. Therefore, Aristotle insisted on the active position of man in poetry creation. He thinks that poetry is an artistic way to express people's hearts, not just as a "mouthpiece of the gods' will"/question/497871815869057324.html? qbl = relate _ question _ 1 & amp； word = % B0 % D8 % C0 % AD % CD % BC % BA % CD % d 1% C7 % C0 % EF % CA % BF % B6 % E0 % B5 % C2 % CE % C4 % D2 % D5 % CB % BC % CF % EB % B5 % C4 % D2 % EC % CD % AC