SOURCE: "The Conditions of Aesthetic Feeling in Aristotle's Poetics," in British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring, 1984, pp. 138-48.

[In the following essay, Packer argues that the 'formal and psychological requirements of good tragedy "outlined by Aristotle in Poetics cannot be thought of as a definition of tragedy. Rather, Packer maintains, Aristotle intends them as "the premises and conclusion of a demonstration" that identifies the causal relationship between the formal features of tragedy and the psychological response of the audience or reader.]

An important question raised by Aristotle's analysis of tragic art concerns the relative significance of, and relation between, two sets of requirements for good tragedy stipulated in Chapter VI of the Poetics. The first, which I shall call the 'formal requirement', lists several rules of composition and form the text itself must exhibit in order to have value as tragic poetry, such as its length and the kinds of actions it must present;¹ and the second, which hereafter shall be referred to as the 'psychological requirement', specifies pity and fear as the most appropriate emotional responses the reader or spectator of good tragedy should experience. To which requirement, if either, Aristotle gives priority, and how, if at all, Aristotle believes the formal characteristics of a text can elicit these particular emotions are questions that the argument of the Poetics does not answer clearly or thoroughly.

One's immediate impression of Poetics VI is that Aristotle is providing a comprehensive and exhaustive definition of tragedy that includes among its defining elements its imitative function, the kinds of incidents tragedy must imitate, its specific magnitude, use of language, form, and finally its effects on the mind of the reader or audience.² Brief reflection reveals, however, that this last point, concerning the psychological experience of pity and fear, does not seem to belong to this list along with the other requirements mentioned. Pity and fear, as emotional experiences, are not species or properties of the art work, as they do not follow from the essential divisions and characteristics of art developed earlier in the Poetics. Some commentators, such as Golden, Telford, and Srivastava, have concluded that Aristotle does not mean that pity and fear should be experienced emotionally, but that the concepts of these feelings are formal features of tragedy that are intellectually clarified by the text.³ Brunius and others, in contrast, have been led to the opposite view, and have argued that the formal characteristics of the text are links in a psychological chain of communication between the poet and the audience, and are therefore completely subordinate to the emotional effects tragedy should produce.⁴ Skulsky and Schaper, on the other hand, have claimed that both conditions, the formal and psychological, are equally important, but their arguments in general fail to explain just how they are connected either logically or aesthetically.⁵

The origin of this confusion and disagreement can be traced, I believe, to a specific mistaken assumption about the purpose served by Aristotle's stipulation of these requirements. Most commentators seem to believe that both these conditions are intended as parts of a unified definition of tragedy that Aristotle is developing at this point in his argument, and are therefore puzzled by the fact that the formal elements of a text and psychological states of the soul do not exhibit the obvious logical connections the components of a definition should have. In this paper, I will argue that the conjunction of the formal and psychological requirements of good tragedy discussed by Aristotle in Poetics VI does not constitute a definition at all, but these conditions serve respectively as the premises and conclusion of a demonstration that establishes a causal relation between the formal defining characteristics of a text on the one hand, and the responses of its reader or audience on the other. Although it has been argued before that some causal relation holds between them,⁶ I do not believe that the connection has been explicated thoroughly or accurately. I will show that it is by means of a practical syllogism reasoned by the reader or spectator that pity and fear can follow as effects from the recognition of a tragedy's formal features, but that this point is a suppressed premise in the argument of the Poetics, which has led so many commentators to confuse this enthymeme with a definition. Although the results of this discussion have strong bearing on the meaning of katharsis in Aristotle's theory of art, I regard that as a separate issue and will focus instead on how pity and fear are elicited in the first place by tragic poetry according to the thesis of the Poetics.

I

In a very thorough and illuminating paper on the construction of the definition of tragedy in Poetics VI,⁷ M. Pabst Battin shows that each element in this definition is derived by a method of division developed in the Posterior Analytics, diaeresis, which requires that the essence of the object under investigation be located through the methodic differentiation of its genus. It is stated explicitly in the Posterior Analytics that a definition constructed by this method must conform to three specific conditions: (1) the division should admit only those elements in the definable form; (2) these elements should be arranged in the proper order; and (3) no such elements should be omitted.⁸ In the Poetics, Aristotle employs the method of diaeresis to distinguish the various arts from one another by noting the essential differences in their means, objects and manner,⁹ and these differences appear to be exhausted by the formal characteristics of tragedy mentioned in Chapter VI prior to the introduction of pity and fear. By attaching these psychological references to an already exhaustive classification of tragedy's defining elements, it appears that Aristotle has violated the first condition of definition by division, viz., that only those elements essential to the defining form be admitted into the construction. Battin concludes that the pity and fear clause is a mere 'tag' to the definition of tragedy, and thereby renders defective what is otherwise a well-formulated definition.

This argument is clearly correct on at least one point, that pity and fear do not figure in the definition of tragedy developed through diaeresis. But it does not follow from this that the pity and fear clause is either superfluous or deleterious to the thesis of Poetics VI. What Aristotle is establishing at this point is that some connection holds between the incidents properly presented by tragedy and the experience of pity and fear. However, because a connection is suggested here by Aristotle does not imply that it is one of differentiation or division within a defining formula. Rather, in so far as the connection is not established by diaeresis, the link between the formal features and psychological effects of tragedy is of some kind other than the relation among defining elements, and must therefore be exhibited by some means other than definition, which, I will show, is demonstration.

Aristotle remarks in the Posterior Analytics¹⁰ that there is an important distinction between proving essential nature on the one hand, and proving the fact of a connection on the other. It is the purpose of definition, he claims, to reveal essential nature, whereas it is for demonstration to show that there is or is not an attachment between a particular attribute and a specific subject.¹¹ A definition, in other words, signifies a subject's essence,¹² and thus establishes a relation of numerical, specific, or generic sameness between the subject and its defining terms.¹³ Aristotle concludes that if two things can be shown not to be the same in any of these three senses, they cannot be conjoined in a definition.¹⁴ Pity and fear are affects and movements of the soul, not species or divisions of artistic imitation. The relation between these emotions and the formal characteristics of tragedy, therefore, is not one of sameness as specified above, which implies that pity and fear do not belong with the formal elements in a definition of tragic art. Whatever connection holds between the defining formula of tragedy and these passions is one that is accidental or coincidental,¹⁵ and therefore requires a demonstration for its proof.

However, the demonstration that would establish or exhibit this relation is articulated by Aristotle neither in Poetics VI nor anywhere else in the text where pity and fear are discussed. There is evidence for the claim that the relation is for Aristotle causal, as there are several passages in the Poetics where pity and fear are mentioned as the effects tragedy has on the reader or audience.¹⁶ The problem thus concerns the discovery of the missing premises that would explicate or complete the demonstration of a causal relation between the defining elements of tragedy and its psychological effects, which requires looking beyond the text of the Poetics to Aristotle's writings on psychology and ethics, where the passions of the soul and their causes are discussed in greater detail. I realize that since the publication of Else's commentary in 1957¹⁷ many researchers have felt obliged to interpret the Poetics exclusively 'out of itself, but I don't believe the text is sufficient for the completion of the inquiry into this essential demonstration.

II

Roman Ingarden has observed that in the Poetics 'Aristotle dispenses completely with psychological terminology. Nowhere is there any mention of anything such as the experience of the author or reader, as somehow part of the work.' Aristotle thereby 'excludes, almost inadvertently and somewhat naively, the literary work from the sphere of everything psychical …',¹⁸ Though his point may be stated too strongly, Ingarden's remark does express the observation that an important omission occurs in the Poetics that results in difficulties for understanding the relation of the audience's emotional responses to the formal characteristics of the tragedy's text. Ingarden proceeds to fill in some of the gaps by noting two essential points: first, the 'ultimate purpose to be achieved through the realization of unity of action and other principles of composition is always the production of a greater effect on the spectator or reader';¹⁹ and second, that some act of cognition is required for the reader to be affected by the tragedy's literary qualities.²⁰ Ingarden is thus suggesting that the tragedy's formal elements and its psychological effects are brought into relation with one another by the soul of the reader or spectator, who grasps the text's formal qualities through a cognitive mental act which then produces the specific emotional effects pity and fear.

There are, however, two questions left unanswered by Ingarden's analysis, which require more thorough treatment if Aristotle's demonstration is to be explicated fully. First, how for Aristotle does cognition affect the emotions? And second, what specific kind of cognition does Aristotle believe is necessary in aesthetic experience to elicit or occasion the particular feelings pity and fear? In the remainder of this section, I will be concerned only with the first question, reserving discussion of the second question for Section III.

Aristotle's writings on the nature of the soul and moral psychology leave no doubt that he believes very strongly that the intellect has a major influence on the emotions. The soul, for Aristotle, has both rational and irrational faculties: the former comprises the capacity for theoretical contemplation and practical deliberation, and the latter is rooted in the vegetative and appetitive dispositions. This distinction, however, is not exclusive, for it is Aristotle's firmest conviction that the appetitive and desiring elements of the soul can and do obey reason,²¹ which is evidenced, he believes, by receiving advice, exhortation and reprimand,²² as well as by the ability of the continent man to subject his appetites and desires to the control of reason.²³ More specifically, of the two parts of the rational soul, the contemplative and the calculative, it is the latter that has the most compelling and direct influence on the irrational faculty. In fact, the cultivation of a virtuous disposition and the very possibility of moral education depend in large measure for Aristotle on the influence exercised by reason on desire (orexis).²⁴ It is desire that follows from opinion, rather than opinion from desire,²⁵ for it is only by means of perception, imagination or conception that desire can arise in the first place,²⁶ and is transformed into rational wish (boulesis) when the object of desire is judged by correct reasoning.

It is with this last point in mind that Aristotle develops his theory of practical syllogism, the purpose of which is to formulate the means by which correct judgement occasions the desire most appropriate for the realization of a particular end.²⁷ Although Aristotle never thoroughly schematizes the form of the practical syllogism, its construction and composition may be surmised as follows²⁸: the major premise expresses a universal judgement concerning the kind of object, situation, or person that is good or valuable; the minor premise is a particular judgement expressing either that an instance of the universal rule articulated by the major premise is at hand, or else describes the means available for the realization of the good or end under consideration; and the conclusion is the desire necessary to originate the appropriate movement or action.²⁹ The specific movement or action need not be the actual result of the deliberating process. All that need follow as the conclusion of a practical syllogism is the resolution to perform the action,³⁰ or in other words, the appropriate wish.

The passions and desires are understood by Aristotle to be natural motions of the soul,³¹ the efficient causes of which are judgements concerning the goodness or desirability of the objects to be pursued or avoided.³² Cognition of this practical variety is seen by Aristotle as indispensable for the very possibility of choice, which he describes as 'either desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire'.³³ If the reasoning process involved in practical syllogism occurs according to the rules specified above, then one particular feeling or another will be produced, depending on the specific value or disvalue expressed in the major premise, and the information provided about particular objects and means-ends relations by the minor. When pity and fear are experienced by the reader or spectator of tragedy, a similar practical reasoning process is at work, in this case one that concerns the moral qualities displayed by the characters and their actions. But in order to understand just how pity and fear are produced by the reader's cognition of a tragedy's incidents and characters, it is first necessary to examine the specific kinds of judgement necessary to elicit them.

III

The facts of moral experience may appear to contradict Aristotle's claims concerning the production of feeling by practical judgement. It seems that emotional responses to persons or situations often occur too quickly and spontaneously to include a well-defined process of deliberation among their causes. Aristotle is perfectly aware of this fact, as is evidenced by his remarks in De Motu Animalium that desires and the actions they produce can arise with such spontaneity that the mind does not actively deliberate the premises.³⁴ This does not preclude, however, the process of judgement from the production of feeling, but indicates the facility with which the reasoning process occurs in the experienced and morally mature mind. This spontaneity is most evident in the act of perception that provides the premises of the practical syllogism. What is apprehended by sense is not merely the individual Alcibiades, but a universal content as well, such as 'man', or in the case of a moral judgement, 'magnanimous man'.³⁵ It is true that for Aristotle sensation by itself is of the particular, but when sensation is accompanied by knowledge, as it is in most cases, a universal is apprehended at the same time,³⁶ and it is only by a deliberate act of reflection that the two may be distinguished and expressed separately.

Although Aristotle never says so directly, it can be reasonably assumed that a practical syllogism will most likely be articulated explicitly only when the spontaneity conditioned by earlier training and experience somehow fails, requiring in its place conscious and deliberate consideration of the issue at hand; or when justification is demanded for a choice made or an action committed, and the agent wishes to show the choice or action to have been reasonable. When spontaneity does prevail, however, feeling is still the product of a judgement, though one that may be enthymematic or habitual.

The situation is similar in the case of aesthetic experience. Presented by tragedy are individual characters, such as Hecuba, Orestes or Antigone, but individuals who express through their speech and action several universal qualities and characteristics. In Chapter VI of the Poetics and the passage immediately following, Aristotle discusses in detail the general rules a good tragedy is to display, and among them are types of universal traits and characteristics that must be exhibited by the actions of the tragic personages. The characters, we are told, reveal not the particular actions performed by the historical figures after whom they are named, but the kinds of actions people of a certain character type might probably or necessarily do.³⁷ The statements expressed by poetry, Aristotle remarks, are therefore universal, as they show not particular facts, but possibilities.

Similarly, the moral qualities of the characters are not the traits and habits of actual persons, but reveal the features of a certain moral type Aristotle describes as 'the intermediate kind of personage', who is neither primarily just nor exclusively depraved.³⁸ The speech and actions of these characters must also exhibit certain universal features, such as the general rules Aristotle discusses for the construction of the Discovery and Peripeteia, and for the unification of action. A tragic poem that does not reveal these universal structures and characteristics would not be poetry at all for Aristotle, but history, the purpose of which is to describe only individuals and their deeds by means of singular statements.³⁹

The reader or spectator of good tragedy is thus presented with the information necessary to formulate the major and minor premises of a practical syllogism. As in moral judgement, an individual is perceived or imagined who is an instance of a universal rule or category of moral value. In the case of tragedy, the specific personage is one who suffers great pains and losses, but one who is judged as underserving of such misfortune in virtue of the general moral type he or she represents. Both the universal and particular judgements may occur together in a single act of aesthetic perception, but the truths they express are distinguishable by reflection and can be articulated respectively as the major and minor premise of a practical syllogism. Recognition of an individual character who exhibits the general moral qualities mentioned above will be sufficient, Aristotle suggests, to occasion the experience of pity, which is caused, he claims in the Rhetoric and Poetics, by the sight of someone of this kind suffering underserved misfortune.⁴⁰ In virtue of the intermediate moral traits displayed by the tragic personage, Aristotle infers that the character will be 'one like ourselves', which he claims is sufficient to elicit the experience of fear, a feeling he describes as the expectation for one-self of some imminent pain or evil.⁴¹

Pity, then, is the result of a judgement concerning the possession by the tragic character of certain general moral features, and fear is conditioned by the realization that these general moral qualities are attributable to oneself as well. In both cases, the specific emotions experienced are caused by a reasoning process, no matter how subtle or spontaneous, performed by the reader or spectator that is closely similar to the deliberation by practical syllogism that occurs in moral experience. In moral as well as aesthetic reasoning, a specific person or character is judged to be an instance of a general type or rule, and a particular feeling is thereby produced as a result of this judgement. The similarity between the two is facilitated further by the fact that tragic poetry, as a species of art, is an imitation, and what is imitated by tragedy is human character and its moral capabilities.⁴²

IV

The articulation of the practical syllogism reasoned by the spectator or reader of tragedy explicates the premise missing from the demonstration presupposed by Poetics VI of the causal relation connecting the text's formal characteristics and psychological effects. Pity and fear follow from the fulfilment of the formal requirements because these conditions furnish the general qualities that must be exhibited by tragic characters and their actions in order for the major premise of the practical syllogism to be thought or assumed; and visual perception of the characters displaying these qualities, or their presence to the aesthetic imagination, furnish the instantiation necessary for the minor premise. From the reader's cognition of the conjunction of these features and characteristics, all of which are specified by the formal definition of tragedy, the appropriate psychological effects follow as the conclusion conditioned by these premises.⁴³

Although the similarities between the reasoning processes involved in moral and aesthetic judgement are very striking, there are some significant differences as well. Aristotle believes that if desire and purpose are to initiate action, the agent must be affected by objects apprehended either through sensation or imagination.⁴⁴ The calculative imagination may be sufficient by itself to stimulate desire and appetite,⁴⁵ but this faculty alone does not provide the deliberating agent with the true opinions necessary for sound moral reasoning.⁴⁶ For imagination to serve its function in moral deliberation, perception or sensation of the relevant moral facts is also required.⁴⁷

The case of aesthetic judgement, however, is quite different. Although sensation and perception are involved when the spectator of tragedy apprehends the actions presented on stage, what is perceived is merely an imitation or representation (mimesis) of possible action, rather than actual persons and events. The imitative or imaginary nature of the events depicted in aesthetic presentation is what prevents action by the spectator from following as the result of his or her practical reasonings about the characters and events being perceived. Although action is not the proper effect of practical reasoning in aesthetic experience, the emotions that do occur in these circumstances are none the less similar in strength and quality to the feelings that precipitate action in moral situations.

Aristotle observes in De Anima that the soul employs images in the thinking process as though they were the contents of perception, and so judges them to be good or bad which in turn is sufficient to stimulate desire or aversion, respectively.⁴⁸ But a further judgement is obviously necessary to distinguish imaginary or aesthetic images on the one hand, from those based on actual moral facts and existing situations on the other. Without this additional judgement, the distinction between the moral and aesthetic employments of practical syllogism would be overlooked, and hence the effects proper to these separate uses of the syllogism might be confused. The result would be one of two types of madness, depending on which application of the practical reasoning process was required at the moment: either the spectator of tragedy will be moved to act by the events depicted on the stage and will thus be ushered out of the theatre for disturbing the performance; or else the moral agent, instead of performing the actions necessitated by the circumstances, will merely applaud or hiss at the events or persons constituting the moral situation in which he or she is engaged. Here too there is rarely any need for an explicit articulation of this judgement, but it is none the less assumed by every sane and rational employment of practical syllogism.

These distinctions are clarified further by Aristotle's claim in De Motu Animalium about the two kinds of premises a practical syllogism may express, one concerning the good, the other the possible.⁴⁹ Although either kind of premise may occur in a moral or aesthetic judgement, each employment of the practical syllogism will place a stronger emphasis on one or the other depending on whether the judgement is about an actual good to be realized in action, or one that is merely possible as an object of aesthetic imagination.⁵⁰ It is this last point that I believe ultimately measures the essential difference between moral and aesthetic judgement. Knowledge of moral values is certainly required for the cognition of a tragedy's formal characteristics, but it is the mark of practical wisdom to translate this knowledge into action.⁵¹ It may be the case that for Aristotle, katharsis serves the mediating function of transforming aesthetic judgement into practical wisdom, but any such claim would at this point be merely tentative and conjectural.

A consequence of this interpretation of the Poetics that is even more significant concerns the stronger emphasis we now see Aristotle placing on the formal conditions and intellectual antecedents of aesthetic experience. I suspect that many reconstructions and interpretations of the theory have been motivated by the interest in diminishing this cognitive stress, either to defend Aristotle against the traditional charge of formalism, or to correct the intellectualism that many aestheticians believe constitutes the major flaw of the Poetics. This latter motive appears to me to have some merit, but its execution must be tempered with the appropriate caution; for Aristotle's theory of art is undoubtedly formalist to the highest degree, and this point must be preserved in exegesis and analysis of the Poetics regardless of the philosophic contentions one may have with its thesis.

Of course this raises once again the essential question concerning the adequacy of Aristotle's exclusive emphasis on form and intellectual cognition for the appreciation of aesthetic value. Omitted by the theory is any allowance for intuition or empathy as the source of aesthetic feeling, and in its place we find a bald reduction of the aesthetic emotions to functions of judgement and discursive reasoning. There can be no doubt that cognition and judgement make some contribution to the experience of the emotions relevant to art, especially tragedy, but one question must be raised about Aristotle's treatment of the intellect's aesthetic importance, viz., is judgement by itself sufficient to occasion the aesthetic emotions? Though it may be true that deliberate reflection can articulate the causes of tragic pity and fear as moral judgements, this constitutes, it seems, a post hoc reconstruction and analysis of an experience that is conditioned primarily by the feeling of intuitive empathy a reader or spectator of tragedy is likely to feel for a tragic personage whose character is developed by the poet with the appropriate sensitivity and craftsmanship.⁵² It is important to distinguish, here as elsewhere, a description of an aesthetic response from a reflective evaluation or justification of that response as appropriate or inappropriate. Intuition and empathy are frequently occasioned by a direct and immediate apprehension of character traits that appeal primarily to the emotions in unmediated spontaneity. Reflection executed subsequent to this experience may reveal that the empathy was misdirected, which may then undergo some modification or perhaps even be transformed into contempt for the character initially evaluated so sympathetically. Arguments and analyses of art works certainly can and do have these effects, but only when deliberation and reflection are required.

It may not have been Aristotle's intention to formulate a description of the spectator's spontaneous responses to the art work, but this does not imply that the distinction between description on the one hand and the canons of reflective evaluation provided by the Poetics on the other should not be observed. To overlook the essential differences between the two imports an intention into Aristotle's theory that is inappropriate, and thereby generates unnecessary objections and criticisms.

Notes

¹ By 'formal' characteristics of a text I understand those elements of its structure or design that are predicable universally of all pieces of tragic poetry.

² Here, as elsewhere, Aristotle does not distinguish a definition from a normative criterion. When he stipulates in the Poetics the requirements for tragedy, Aristotle is at the same time providing a standard with which to judge good instances of tragic art.

³ Leon Golden, 'The Purgation Theory of Catharsis' in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 31, pp. 473-9; 'Catharsis' in Transactions of the American Philological Association XCIII, pp. 51-61. K. G. Srivastava, 'A New Look at the "Catharsis" Clause of Aristotle's Poetics' in British Journal of Aesthetics 12, pp. 258-75; 'How Does Tragedy Achieve Catharsis?' in ibid., 15, pp. 131-41. Kenneth Telford, Aristotle's Poetics: Translation and Analysis (Gateway, Chicago, 1961).

⁴ Teddy Brunius, Inspiration and Katharsis (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Upsala, 1966). See also W. Hamilton Fyfe, Aristotle's Art of Poetry: A Greek View of Poetry and Drama (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1940).

⁵ Harold Skulsky, 'Aristotle's Poetics Revisited' in Journal of the History of Ideas 19, pp. 147-60. Eva Schaper, 'Aristotle's Catharsis and Aesthetic Pleasure' in Philosophical Quarterly 18, pp. 131-43.

⁶ Lane Cooper, 'Introduction' to Aristotle on the Art of Poetry (Ginn and Co., Boston, 1913). Telford, op. cit. Schaper, op. cit.

⁷ 'Aristotle's Definition of Tragedy in the Poetics, Part I', in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33, pp. 155-70; 'Part II', pp. 293-302.

⁸ An. Post., 97a23-25.

⁹ Poet., 1447al6-18.

¹⁰ 90b39-9la3.

¹¹ See An. Post., 91a9-12 for further distinctions between definition and demonstration.

¹² Top., 101b39.

¹³ Top., I, 7.

¹⁴ Top., 102al3-16.

¹⁵ An. Post., 73b4.

¹⁶ 1449b28, 1452a2, 1452b2, 1452b29, 1453al, 1453bl, 1453b5-12, 1453bl3-15, 1456a20-22, 1456a39, 1456b4.

¹⁷Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1957).

¹⁸ 'A Marginal Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics, Part I' in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 20, pp. 171-2.

¹⁹ Ibid., Part II, p. 276.

²⁰ Ibid., Part II, p. 278.

²¹ EN, 1102a29, 1102b30; Pol., 1260a5-8, 1333al6-25; EE, 1219b42, 1220b5-10, 1219b26-37.

²² EN, 1102b37.

²³ Ibid., 1102b20; EE, 1219b42; Pol., 1260a5-8, 1333al6-25, 1334bl8-24.

²⁴ See T. H. Irwin, 'Aristotle on Reason, Desire and Virtue' in Journal of Philosophy 72, pp. 567-578. W. W. Fortenbaugh, Aristotle on Emotion (Harper and Row, New York, 1975); 'Aristotle's Rhetoric on Emotion' in Archiv Für Geschichte Der Philosophie 52, pp. 40-70.

²⁵ Met., 1072a27-30.

²⁶ De Mot. An., 70la35-36.

²⁷ De An., 432b27-433a8.

²⁸ See David Wiggins, 'Deliberation and Practical Reason' in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. by Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1980), p. 230.

²⁹ De An., 434al6-22; De Mot. An., 701a23-24; EN, 1141bl4-16.

³⁰ See Richard Sorabji, 'Aristotle on the Role of Intellect in Virtue' in Rorty, ed., pp. 201-20.

³¹ An. Pr., 70b12.

³² EE, 1227a2-4.

³³ EN, 1139b4, tr. by W. D. Ross in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. by Richard McKeo n (Random House, Ne w York, 1941).

³⁴ 701a25-30.

³⁵ An. Post. 100a l 7-l OOb l.

³⁶ Joseph Owens remarks in connection with this point: 'The universal is there, as a datum. It is observable through reflection. To find in the Aristotelian treatises an adequate account of it in terms of its causes or grounds, however, becomes a disappointing endeavor.' 'The Grounds of Universality in Aristotle' in American Philosophical Quarterly 3, p. 169.

³⁷ 1451b8.

³⁸ 1453a7-9.

³⁹ 145lbS-7.

⁴⁰ Poet., 1453a5-6; Rhet., 1385bl3-16; See also EN, 1115a8-10.

⁴¹ Rhet., 1382a20-30.

⁴² Poet., 1448a l-5.

⁴³ It is difficult to articulate with any degree of precision the exact formulation of the practical syllogism relevant to aesthetic experience that would hold universally in all instances. In its most basic and general form, it would appear as something like the following:

All persons of moral type X are undeserving of great pain and misfortune.

Character A is a person of moral type X who is suffering such pain and misfortune.

Experience of pity.

The differences between the practical and theoretical syllogism are made apparent in this illustration by the fact that no mention of pity need be made in either of the premises as it would if some proposition about pity were being derived in a theoretical inference.

⁴⁴ De Mot. An., 701a4-6.

⁴⁵ De An., 433a20-21, 433b28-31; De Mot. An., 701bI7-22.

⁴⁶ EN, 1139a23-31.

⁴⁷ De An., 427bl5-25; EN, 1142a27-29, 1143b3-6.

⁴⁸ De An., 431al4-17, 431b2-5.

⁴⁹ 701a23-24.

⁵⁰ Cf. p. 144 above.

⁵¹ EN, 1143a8-10, 1144bl3, 1152a7-8.

⁵² For an interpretation of Aristotle's theory of tragedy that includes 'fellow-feeling' as a condition of the tragic emotions, see D. D. Raphael, The Paradox of Tragedy (Bloomington, University of Indiana Press, 1960).