Ancient Philosophy | Aristotle and the Peripatetic School | Philosophy Core Concepts - Aristotle, The Poetics | Plot, Structure, and Unity | Philosophy Core Concepts

Check out my Substack - https://gregorybsadler.substack.com/ Request personal videos on Cameo - https://www.cameo.com/gregorybsadler Get Aristotle's Poetics - https://amzn.to/3OT443D Support my work here - https://www.patreon.com/sadler or here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/a4quydwom Philosophy tutorials - https://reasonio.wordpress.com/tutorials/ Take classes with me - https://reasonio.teachable.com/ This is a video in my new Core Concepts series -- designed to provide students and lifelong learners a brief discussion focused on one main concept from a classic philosophical text and thinker. This Core Concept video focuses on Aristotle's work, The Poetics and examines his discussions of what he considers to be the most important part or aspect of tragedy, namely plot or story (mythos). Aristotle stresses that a good plot is complex, but forms a unity. He writes: "We have stipulated that tragedy is mimesis of an action that is complete, whole, and of magnitude (for one can have a whole which lacks magnitude). A whole is that which has a beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that which does not itself fallow necessarily from something else, but after which a further event or process naturally occurs. An end, by contrast, is that which itself naturally occurs, whether necessarily or usually, after a preceding event, but need not be followed by anything else. A middle is that which both follows a preceding event and has further consequences. Well-constructed plots, therefore, should neither begin nor end at an arbitrary point, but should make use of the patterns stated. . . . So just as with our bodies and with animals beauty requires magnitude, but magnitude that allows coherent perception, likewise plots require length, but length that can be coherently remembered. A limit of length refer­ring to competitions and powers of attention is extrinsic to the art: for if it were necessary for a hundred tragedies to compete, they would perform them by water clocks, as they say happened once before. But the limit that con­forms to the actual nature of the matter is that greater size, provided clear coherence remains, means finer beauty of magnitude. To state the definition plainly: the size which permits a transformation to occur, in a proba­ble or necessary sequence of events, from adversity to prosperity or prosperity to adversity, c is a sufficient limit of magnitude. A plot is not unified, as some think, if built round an individual. Any entity has inumerable features, not all of which cohere into a unity; likewise, an individual per­forms many actions which yield no unitary action. So all those poets are clearly at fault who have composed a Her­acleid, a Theseid, and similar poems: they think that, since Heracles was an individual, the plot too must be unitary. But Homer, in keeping with his general superior­ity, evidently grasped well, whether by art or nature, this point too: for though composing an Odyssey, he did not include every feature of the hero's life . . . where events lacked necessary or probable connections; but he structured the Odyssey round a unitary action of the kind I mean, and likewise with the Iliad. Just as, therefore, in the other mimetic arts a unitary mimesis has a unitary object, so too the plot, since it is mimesis of an action, should be of a unitary and indeed whole action; and the component events should be so structured that if any is displaced or removed, the sense of the whole is dis­turbed and dislocated: since that whose presence or absence has no clear significance is not an integral part of the whole." If you'd like to support my work producing videos like this, become a Patreon supporter! Here's the link to find out more - including the rewards I offer backers: https://www.patreon.com/sadler You can also make a direct contribution to help fund my ongoing educational projects, by clicking here: https://www.paypal.me/ReasonIO If you're interested in philosophy tutorial sessions with me - especially on Aristotle's thought and works - click here: https://reasonio.wordpress.com/tutorials/ You can find the copy of the text I am using for this sequence on Aristotle's Poetics here - https://amzn.to/3OT443D My videos are used by students, lifelong learners, other professors, and professionals to learn more about topics, texts, and thinkers in philosophy, religious studies, literature, social-political theory, critical thinking, and communications. These include college and university classes, British A-levels preparation, and Indian civil service (IAS) examination preparation #philosophy #Aristotle #mimesis #Poetics #Tragedy #Drama #Ancient #Plays (Amazon links are associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)