Exam 9: Aristotle Tragedy

Thomasson tells us that "It seems that the generic term 'art' or 'work of art' is like 'gift' in this regard: 'work of art' appears not to be category-specifying, since it is applied indifferently to physical individuals, processes, performances, abstract works of music, and so on."

Bergson says, "To understand laughter, we must put it back into its natural environment, which is society, and above all must we determine the utility of its function, which is a social one."

Explain what Schopenhauer means when he says, "Every work of art accordingly really aims at showing us life and things as they are in truth, but cannot be directly discerned by every one through the mist of objective and subjective contingencies."

Explain what Aristotle means when he says, "tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear or pity."

Explain what Schopenhauer means when he says, "all the arts speak only the naive and childish language of perception, not the abstract and serious language of reflection; their answer is therefore a fleeting image: not permanent and general knowledge." Do you agree with Schopenhauer?

According to Bergson, "The first point to which attention should be called is that the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly ________. A landscape may be beautiful, charming and sublime, or insignificant and ugly; it will never be laughable."

Aristotle says, "Those who employ spectacular means to create a sense not of the terrible but only of the monstrous, are strangers to the purpose of tragedy; for we must not demand of tragedy any and every kind of pleasure, but only that which is proper to it." How does this relate to movies that rely heavily on computer-generated action sequences?

Santayana says, "Beauty exists for the same reason that the object which is beautiful exists, or the world in which that object lies, or we that look upon both. It is a mechanism: there is nothing more to say about it."

The following defines a sortal term: "A term that comes with some basic rules of use of two kinds; first, basic application conditions, laying out conceptually relevant conditions in which 'painting' may be successfully applied (thus yielding existence conditions for paintings), and second, basic co-application conditions that give rules for determining when the term may be re-applied to one and the same thing (yielding identity conditions for paintings)."

Explain what Schopenhauer means when he says, "Thus all the other arts hold up to the questioner a perceptible image, and say, 'Look here, this is life.' Their answer, however correct it may be, will yet always afford merely a temporary, not a complete and final, satisfaction. For they always give merely a fragment, an example instead of the rule, not the whole, which can only be given in the universality of the conception." Do you agree with Schopenhauer?

Thomasson says, "As I shall understand it here, the ___________________ of a work of art is fundamentally fixed by its existence, identity, and persistence conditions; these fix what category of object it is."

According to Aristotle, "But most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an image and of life."

According to Aristotle, "But most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life." Do you agree with Aristotle? Explain your answer.

Thomasson tells us that "Showing how works of art of ontologically new kinds can be introduced is itself revealing, as it once again will give support to the general idea that such facts as there are about the ontological status of works of art are, at bottom, determined by ..."

Explain what Thomasson means when she says, "In short, if the ontological status of the referent were really left completely ontologically indeterminate, the term couldn't function as a standard work-name at all."

According to Santayana, "Psychology attempts what is perhaps impossible, namely, the anatomy of ..."

According to Santayana, "If our spontaneous thoughts came to run in harmony with the course of nature, if our expectations were then continually fulfilled, the sense of mystery would ..."

Aristotle says, "It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what should happen, what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity."

Bergson says, "To understand laughter, we must put it back into its natural environment, which is ________, and above all must we determine the utility of its function, which is a social one."

Bergson says, "To understand laughter, we must put it back into its natural environment, which is society, and above all must we determine the utility of its function, which is a social one." Do you agree with Bergson? Explain your answer.