ART AS MIMESIS IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE: A HERMENEUTIC APPROACH
ART AS MIMESIS IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE: A HERMENEUTIC APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: The traditional reading of the problem of mimesis in Plato and Aristotle has been dominated by the image of an almost perfect opposition. On the one hand, Plato would represent the paradigm of suspicion towards art. On the other hand, Aristotle would inaugurate the tradition of legitimizing aesthetic experience. The problem from which this study starts can be formulated as follows: to what extent is the traditional opposition between Platonic criticism and the Aristotelian valorization of mimesis supported by the texts themselves? The hypothesis from which I start is that a hermeneutic reading can nuance this opposition, interpreting the texts not as simple repositories of aesthetic doctrines, but as answers to distinct philosophical questions. In this sense, the difference between Plato and Aristotle can be reconstructed starting from the function that the term mimesis fulfills in each of the two.

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