The word `` mimesis '' ( `` imitation '' ) is usually associated with Plato and Aristotle.

But Aristotle kept the principle of levels and even augmented it by describing in the Poetics what kinds of character and action must be imitated if the play is to be a vehicle of serious and important human truths.

For both Plato and Aristotle artistic mimesis, in contrast to the power of dialectic, is relatively incapable of expressing the character of fundamental reality.

The Chicago contingent of modern critics follow Aristotle so far in this direction that it is hard to see how they can compare one poem with another for the purpose of evaluation.

In his study Samuel Johnson, Joseph Wood Krutch takes this line when he says that what Aristotle really means by his theory of catharsis is that our evil passions may be so purged by the dramatic ritual that it is `` less likely that we shall indulge them through our own acts ''.

Together with Plato and Socrates ( Plato's teacher ), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy.

Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues ( Cicero described his literary style as " a river of gold "), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.

It is during this period in Athens from 335 to 323 BC when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works.

A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence for this.

With the Prior Analytics, Aristotle is credited with the earliest study of formal logic, and his conception of it was the dominant form of Western logic until 19th century advances in mathematical logic.

It is Martin Heidegger, not Nietzsche, who elaborated a new interpretation of Aristotle, intended to warrant his deconstruction of scholastic and philosophical tradition.

The secondary literature on Aristotle is vast.

Aristotle ( 384-322 BC ) understood that sound consisted of contractions and expansions of the air " falling upon and striking the air which is next to it ...", a very good expression of the nature of wave motion.

On the Soul ( De anima ) is a treatise on the soul written along the lines suggested by Aristotle in his own De anima.

The work is a discussion of ethical issues based on Aristotle, and contains responses to questions and problems deriving from Alexander's school.

It is noteworthy that Socrates ( Plato, Phaedo, 98 B ) accuses Anaxagoras of failing to differentiate between nous and psyche, while Aristotle ( Metaphysics, Book I ) objects that his nous is merely a deus ex machina to which he refuses to attribute design and knowledge.

We know little more of the life of Andronicus, but he is of special interest in the history of philosophy, from the statement of Plutarch, that he published a new edition of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, which formerly belonged to the library of Apellicon, and were brought to Rome by Sulla with the rest of Apellicon's library in 84 BC.

Payment for jurors was introduced around 462 BC and is ascribed to Pericles, a feature described by Aristotle as fundamental to radical democracy ( Politics 1294a37 ).

In Aristotle this is categorized as the difference between ' arithmetic ' and ' geometric ' ( i. e. proportional ) equality.

The challenge to the assumption that beauty was central to art and aesthetics, thought to be original, is actually continuous with older aesthetic theory ; Aristotle was the first in the Western tradition to classify " beauty " into types as in his theory of drama, and Kant made a distinction between beauty and the sublime.

Aristotle is also quite frequently quoted in Alexander's works.

By the 6th century Alexander's commentaries on Aristotle were considered so useful that he was referred to as " the commentator " ().

However, Aristotle himself did not call the subject of these books " Metaphysics ": he referred to it as " first philosophy.

The first theory dealt with " seeds " ( which Aristotle referred to as " homeomeries ") of the various substances.

Already in 400 BCE, Aristotle referred to a similar Greek concept in talking about household economics.

When Aristotle referred to " the logical " ( hē logikē ), he was referring more broadly to rational thought.

In Greek, " first principles " are archai, " starting points ", and the faculty used to perceive them is sometimes referred to in Aristotle and Plato as nous which was close in meaning to awareness " or " consciousness.

When the fallacy of begging the question is committed in more than one step, it is sometimes referred to as circulus in probando or reasoning in a circle but incorrectly so, if this fallacy is considered under the definition Aristotle gave in Prior Analytics.

He is referred to in the works of Aristotle, Stobaeus, Strabo, Hesychius, Photius, and Theano.

By the " Metaphysical " phase, he referred not to the Metaphysics of Aristotle or other ancient Greek philosophers.

Aristotle used the word frequently in his philosophy, both to describe the organs of plants or animals ( e. g. the roots of a tree, the heart or liver of an animal ), and to describe more absract " parts " of an interconnected whole ( e. g. his philosophical works, taken as a whole, are referred to as the " organon ").

Aristotle referred to pulling strings to control heads, hands and eyes, shoulders and legs.

He may very well, in accordance with this, have regarded the point as a merely subjectively admissible presupposition, and a passage of Aristotle respecting this assumption should perhaps be referred to him.

Thomas respectfully referred to Aristotle simply as " the Philosopher.

Primum movens ( Latin ), usually referred to as the Prime mover or first cause in English, is a term used in the philosophy of Aristotle, in the theological cosmological argument for the existence of God, and in cosmogony, the source of the cosmos or " all-being ".

* Chapter 18-Erotēsis, also known as interrogation referred to asking and demanding responses in trials during Aristotle ’ s time.

His poem had a certain notoriety among readers in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE: it was referred to by the comic poet Antiphanes, by Lynceus of Samos and by the philosophers Aristotle, Chrysippus and Clearchus of Soli.

He is referred to by Aristotle in Poetics and Rhetoric.

For example the motion of building is the energeia of the dunamis of the building materials as building materials as opposed to anything else they might become, and this potential in the unbuilt materials is referred to be Aristotle as " the buildable ".

Within the Aristotelian corpus itself, the metaphysical treatises are referred to as ( literally, " the concerning first philosophy "); " first philosophy " was what Aristotle called the subjects of metaphysics.

Famous scholastics such as Aquinas believed him to be so important they did not refer to him by name, simply calling him " The Commentator " and calling Aristotle " The Philosopher.

Khayyam, for example, tried to derive it from an equivalent postulate he formulated from " the principles of the Philosopher " ( Aristotle ): " Two convergent straight lines intersect and it is impossible for two convergent straight lines to diverge in the direction in which they converge.

Unlike many commentators on Euclid before and after him ( including of course Saccheri ), Khayyám was not trying to prove the parallel postulate as such but to derive it from an equivalent postulate he formulated from " the principles of the Philosopher " ( Aristotle ):

It appears that the Greek Philosopher Aristotle had something like the Renaissance meaning of the term ( that is, a serious action with a happy ending ) in mind when, in Poetics, he discusses tragedy with a dual ending.

* Ackrill, J. L. ( 1981 ) Aristotle the Philosopher.

While various philosophers had influenced Christendom since its earliest times, in Western Europe Aristotle became " the Philosopher " under the influence of the Spanish Moslem philosopher Averroes.

From the Angelic Doctor ( the honorary title of St. Aquinas ), he was led to " The Philosopher ", as St. Thomas called Aristotle.

A frequent instance of antonomasia in the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance was the use of the term " the Philosopher " to refer to Aristotle.

* " The Stagirite " or " The Philosopher " for Aristotle

" The Philosopher " that he refers here to is Aristotle.