ARISTOTLE: THE PHILOSOPHIC EDUCATION THROUGH TRAGEDY

Aristotle, like Nietzsche, defends tragedy, but he does so in the name of the life of reason. His key thesis is that tragedy — that is, the best tragedy — does not present its tragic heroes as exemplary human beings.^[120] They are impressive, but flawed.

Aristotle claims that the pleasure of all poetry, including tragic poetry, originates in the philosophic pleasure of learning. For we human beings learn, and enjoy learning, by contemplating the imita­tion or representation of things. “For we rejoice in contemplating the especially accurate likenesses of things that, in themselves, we see with pain, such as the shapes of the most ignoble wild beasts and corpses. The cause of this, again, is that to learn is most pleasant, not only to the philosophers, but also to the others alike, though they share in this a little. For it is because of this that they rejoice in seeing a likeness, that, by contemplating, it is possible to learn and to calculate, what each one is, for example, that this one is that one” (1448b1θ- 17). Aristotle suggests here not only that the pleasure of poetry is a theoretical or philosophic pleasure, a pleasure in knowing, but also that poetry offers indispensable assistance to philosophy. For through poetry - especially, presumably, tragic poetry - one can contemplate with pleasure what one would otherwise view with pain and revulsion, and therefore one can think clearly and deeply about matters that one otherwise would shrink from contemplating.^[121] For example, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to view a corpse in person without being overwhelmed by grief or fear or disgust.

Aristotle then goes on to explain that tragedy also helps us to contemplate the world free of the passions that cloud our vision. For tragedy is a form of poetry that, “through pity and fear,” carries out “the purgation of such passions” (144^27—8). Tragedy, then, is the form of poetry that helps us to learn by helping to remove or weaken such passions, which are obstacles to learning, which prevent us from thinking and seeing the world clearly. Tragedy helps us to learn, not only by helping us to contemplate such painful truths as the truth of our mortality, but also by helping us to free ourselves from such pas­sions as pity and fear, which may lead us to flee or deny such painful truths. Moreover, insofar as pity for the sufferings of tragic heroes and fear that we may suffer as they do inspire in us pious fears of the gods and pious hopes for their assistance, the liberation of our hearts from such passions would seem to constitute the liberation of our minds from religious passion. Aristotle suggests here, then, in contrast to Socrates, that tragedy provides an invaluable education for the philosophic soul by liberating that soul from those passions that most suggest to us that human happiness is unattainable in this life, that we cannot live well by

observation of plants and animals... to say nothing of the remote ecstasies of first philosophy” (1986, 303).

¹⁸ For the connection between deaths on stage and tragedy, see 1452b11-13, 1453b14- 1454a34. Almost all of Aristotle’s examples here of those actions that inspire pity and fear involve death. See Davis 1992, 28. our own lights, and therefore that our only hope for happiness lies with the mysterious and fearsome gods.^[122]

But how does tragedy arouse our pity and fear? How does it purge them? And, perhaps most importantly, does tragedy, according to Aristotle, purge pity and fear from our souls entirely or only in part? Does tragedy aim at leading us to become purely dispassionate, con­templative beings? Or does tragedy free us from pity and fear only to the extent that pity and fear are unreasonable?^[123]

Aristotle suggests here that the experience of tragedy takes place in two stages. First we see great human beings — human beings who are “better” than we are now (1448a1o- 12, 16—18) — suffer “misfortune” (1451a14), within the course of a single day (1449b11- 14). We pity them because of the sudden collapse of their good fortune and we fear that we too may suffer a comparably cruel fate. For if such grand, larger- than-life human beings could not avoid swift, unforeseen disaster, how can we hope to do so (see Rhetoric 1383a1o-15)? Then — perhaps upon reflection, after studying the play or thinking back on it — we come to see that our pity for the heroes and fear for ourselves are unreasonable. In this way, it would seem, tragedy first arouses our pity and fear and then purges it from our hearts.

Yet, while it seems reasonably clear how tragedy arouses pity and fear, it is much less clear how tragedy frees us from those passions. How does this reversal of feeling, from pity and fear to their absence, occur? In the first place, and most simply, it would seem that tragedy weakens our pity and fear by exhausting our passions, for example, through provoking our tears.^[124] For example, in the Iliad, after hearing the heartrending speech of Priam and melting into tears, Achilles was able to reflect more dispassionately on the human condition because he “had satisfied himself through lamentation...

A true purgation of pity and fear, however, would presumably require us to grasp with our minds that our pity and fear are unwarranted. But how, or to what extent, does tragedy show that our powerful passions of pity and fear are not warranted? Aristotle’s first answer to this question seems to be that it is by recognizing the necessity of the hero’s suffering that we rid ourselves of pity for him and fear for ourselves. Aristotle stresses that “the work of the poet is not to speak of the things that have come to be but of such things as might come to be, as are possible, in accordance with the probable or the necessary.... For this reason poetry is more philosophic and more serious than history” (1451a37- 1451b6). Furthermore, Aristotle emphasizes repeatedly that, whereas in bad trag­edies events follow one another without probability or necessity, in the best tragedies events seem at first to occur in a wholly surprising and mysterious way, but then we recognize that they occur by necessity (1451b34-1452a24, 1454a33-36; see also 1450b28-35, 1451a11- 15, 1451b8-10). Indeed, according to Aristotle, there should be nothing irrational in a tragedy, nothing mysterious or miraculous (1454a37-b8, 1460a26-b2, 1461b19-24). In contrast to Nietzsche, Aristotle contends that the best tragic poets present a rational account of the world, a world governed not by mysterious forces or gods but by intelligible, natural necessity. The “myth” that the tragic poets invent, the “myth” that is the “soul” of tragedy, is not divinely revealed or inspired, is not fantastic or mysterious or miraculous, but is rather the product of human art and human nature and comprehensible and clear to human reason (145θa37-38; see also 1451a22-24, 1455a2^34; but consider 1459a30-31).^[125]

Aristotle might seem to suggest, then, that it is by understanding the necessity of the downfall of the tragic hero that we are purged of pity for him and fear for ourselves.

Aristotle now explains, however, that the hero of the finest tragedy is not a simply great or admirable human being. Even though the heroes are “better [βeλτioυς]" than the common man, they must not, Aristotle insists, be “decent [eπieiκeiς]" (compare 1448aι7-8 with 1452b30- 36). Aristotle goes so far as to claim that the spectacle of a decent man's going from good fortune to bad fortune is not even frightening or pitiable but simply abominable or even sacrilegious (μiapov — 1452b36). On the other hand, the spectacle of wicked men going from bad fortune to good fortune is “most untragic” of all, is not “philanthropic,” and inspires neither pity nor fear (1452b37-38). Aristotle suggests here that tragedy should not shock our sense of justice, that it should not push decent human beings to despair of justice on earth or to hope against hope that justice must somehow be done, if not in this life, then in the next. To do so would be misan­thropic rather than philanthropic, since philanthropy - loving that which is human - means assuring human beings that we can achieve justice on earth, on our own, without the assistance of superhuman beings (consider as well 1456a19-23).²⁴ Tragedy should arouse and

233; see 84-5, 89-92, 98-108, 165-7, 229-233). Consider as well Lord 1982, 172-4, 178-9.

²³ For a connection among fear, pity, and religious passion, consider Politics 134^2a4^-15.

²⁴1 therefore am inclined to disagree with Konstan’s argument that φιλavθpωπov means “commiseration” regardless of “the merits of the purge our sentiments of pity and fear, but it should also evidently avoid offending our sense of justice and inflaming our moral indignation by showing evil triumphant. Tragedy cannot free us from anger, and perhaps should not, since a measure of anger is necessary for decency (see Nicomachean Ethics Ii25b26-1126b10). But tragedy can and should free us from the fear and pity that encourage us to fear the gods and to look to the gods for help.

Yet Aristotle insists that tragedy should not simply flatter our sense of justice by presenting the spectacle of the wicked being punished (i453aι-5). Tragedy should not offend the just hope that the good will be rewarded and the wicked punished, but it should beware of lulling us into a thoughtlessly complacent belief that justice is always done in this world and that the human condition is free from suffering. Tragedy must draw our attention to the apparent evils of our condition and must thereby arouse our pity and our fear. But it must also, somehow, free us from those passions.

Aristotle says (i453a5-7) that pity is aroused by undeserved mis­fortune, and fear is aroused by the misfortune of a human being like ourselves. He then goes on to describe who the tragic hero should be: “Such is one who is not surpassing in virtue and justice, who does not come into misfortune on account of vice or wickedness but on account of a certain error [aμapτiav], and who is one of great repute and good fortune, such as Oedipus and Thyestes and illustrious men of such families. It is necessary that the noble myth be simple rather than double, as some say, and that he come not into good fortune out of misfortune but the opposite, out of good fortune into misfortune, and not on account of wickedness but on account of a great error [aμapτiav], and that he be such as has been said or rather better than worse” (i453a7-17). Tragedy, then, first creates the appearance that the hero who comes into misfortune does not deserve to suffer so, and resembles us. The hero at first must seem virtuous or at least decent. But then, on reflection, we see that the hero brings his misfortune upon himself. He is responsible for his misfortune. His misfortune is

sufferer,” though I would have to qualify the opposing claim that it simply means “morally satisfying” (Konstan 200I, 47; see also 2005, 46-7, 88).

avoidable. But how? Not through moral virtue, it seems, but through wisdom, the wisdom to avoid the error. For, as Aristotle makes clear in the Poetics as a whole, by the term dμapτia, he means a mistake in one's understanding.

The term dμapτia and its variants occur fifteen times in the Poetics.^[126] The first time error is mentioned in the Poetics is when Aristotle speaks of comic heroes, whose “error” is not woeful or destructive (144^33—36). More importantly, the second time the word appears, Aristotle criticizes all the poets who “err” (aμapτavεiv — 1451a19-20) because, he says twice, they “think” (oiovτai — 1451a16, 21) that the unity of a plot consists of the unity of the hero (1451a15-22).^[127] Then Aristotle uses the term twice in the course of explaining that the tragic hero comes into misfortune “not on account of wickedness but on account of a great error [aμapτiav]." In the remaining eleven times the word appears, it is used to describe the mistakes poets and their critics make in their understanding of poetry. Aristotle's account here indicates clearly that, according to him, the fundamental failing of the tragic hero is not moral but intellectual. The cause of the downfall of the hero is not a failure of justice or virtue, but a failure of understanding.

But why then does Aristotle insist that the tragic hero “is not surpassing in virtue and justice”? Why could the tragic hero not be superlatively just or virtuous but unwise? Aristotle suggests here that one who is not wise cannot be surpassing in justice and virtue. The downfall of the tragic hero is not an indication of the injustice of the world or of the fragility of all human happiness but rather a sign of the fragility of the good fortune of a man who may be somewhat virtuous but who is fundamentally unwise.

The recognition of the tragic hero's error is evidently the moment of true catharsis. First, the hero must seem undeserving of misfortune, a man without vice or wickedness, a man of considerable virtue and justice. The swift and terrible misfortune of so seemingly great a man arouses our pity for him and our fear for ourselves. But then we see that the hero brought on his own misfortune by committing a great error. Our pity is purged because we see that, in some sense, he did deserve his suffering. And our fear is purged because we see that he is not like us, at least insofar as we can attain the wisdom he lacks. Tragedy, then, points to wisdom as the cardinal virtue. The tragic hero suffers, it seems, because of his lack of wisdom. Tragedy at first seems to be an abominable story of a perfect man suffering undeserved misfortune, but then it is revealed to be the cautionary tale of a flawed man who, through his failure to be as wise as he could have been, brings about his misfortune.^[128]

But does tragedy, then, purge us entirely of our pity for the tragic hero and fear for ourselves? Is it reasonable to conclude that the lack of wisdom of the hero is responsible for all of his suffering? Is it reasonable to conclude that we can be immune to all of the sufferings of the hero, if only we are wise?

Aristotle suggests that such a conclusion would not be reasonable. For he proceeds to argue that a tragedy should not simply be a morality tale in which the good triumph and the wicked suffer. A tragedy that resembles the Odyssey, “one which ends in opposite ways for the better and worse,” seems best, he explains, not because of the excellence of the poem, but because of “the weakness of the spectators” (∑453a3θ-35). The pleasure of such happy endings, where those who are most hateful to one another become friends and no one kills or is killed, is proper to comedy, not tragedy (∑453a35-39). It is weak, then, especially weak- minded, to believe that the good and the bad suffer opposite fates. For all human beings must face the evils of their common mortal condition. All human beings must face the deaths of their loved ones, for example. A key feature of comedy, Aristotle indicates, is that it abstracts from death. But tragedy seems to be closer to philosophy than comedy because it faces and helps us to face the harsh truth about our human condition. Tragedy does not, it seems, give in to human weakness. Comedy invites us to believe that the good and the bad suffer opposite fates, but tragedy reminds us that all humans suffer the same mortal fate. Comedy tempts us to forget our mortality, but tragedy does not. The tragic hero's error leads him to suffer avoidable misfortune, but even a wise hero cannot avoid the ills attendant on mortal beings. Wisdom would enable him to avoid avoidable, but only avoidable, misfortune.

Aristotle suggests, then, that tragedy does not purge us entirely of pity and fear. Insofar as we come to recognize that the tragic hero erred, that he compounded the suffering of his life, we will not fear or pity his fate. But insofar as his suffering was truly due to the natural necessity of such mortal beings as ourselves, we will reasonably fear and pity his fate. Tragedy helps us to clarify which misfortunes are due to our avoidable errors and which are due to natural necessity. In this way, tragedy points to our need for wisdom. But it also brings into sharp relief the indelibly somber character of even the wisest human life.^[129]

If Aristotle is right, the greatest tragic poets were themselves philosophic. But is Aristotle right? For Aristotle, the most illumi­nating example of tragedy is Sophocles' Oedipus plays. Aristotle praises Oedipus the Tyrant nine times in the Poetics, and suggests three times that it is either the “finest” and “best” tragedy or among the very finest and best. (1452a24-26, 1452a32-33, 1453a7-12, 1453aι7-22, 1453b6, 1453b29-31, 1454b6-8, 1455aι6-18, 1460a27-32; 1452a32-33, 1453aι7-22, 1455aι6-18).

I have argued in this book that Sophocles' Theban plays do indeed confirm the thesis that this tragic poet, at least, was philosophic. Through our analysis of the magnificent heroes of these plays - from the anti-religious political rationalism of Oedipus the Tyrant and the religious anti-rationalism of Oedipus at Colonus to the pious heroism of Antigone and the cautious political rationalism of Theseus - we finally encounter the true model of rationalism in Sophocles himself, who exhibits a genuinely philosophic clarity, intransigence, and humanity. The outlook of Sophocles, then, is closer to the rationalism of Socrates than it first seems. But, as I have shown in this chapter, the outlook of the classical philosophers is less optimistic, more somber, and therefore closer to the outlook of the tragic poet Sophocles than it first seems. It is my hope that this study will substantially broaden and deepen our understanding of both classical rationalism and tragedy and that it will stimulate further political and philosophic studies of the great classical tragic poets.