Titlu: Mimesis and physis in Aristotle’s thinking. Human’s mimetic nature

Abstract: The double account on human nature as discursive and social being (zoon logon echon and zoon politikon), both occurring in Aristotle’s Politics, is one of the most talked about common places in the history of philosophy. The link between human’s sociality and rationality became so strong over the ages that, eventually, merged the two Aristotelian definitions into one main paradigm of understanding man’s most essential traits. But, in this way, the original philosophical thought got displaced from its own context and falsified.

I will argue that the original Aristotelian thought cannot be understood properly without also taking into consideration, along with the two features already mentioned, a third one, which occurs in Aristotle’s treatise on art – the Poetics. There, the Greek philosopher states that a mimetic impulse is common to all man and that the ability to imitate others is also given by nature. Mimesis is, thus, a symphyton, and is viewed as the most important essential human trait because, without the power to imitate others, the human being can develop neither rationality, nor sociability. So, mimesis is viewed as the most basic, constitutional, character of human’s psyche. If the soul is the human being’s principle of motion, then this is only because it has a tendency towards imitation or, in other words, the soul is dynamic just because the mimesis as a symphyton sets it in motion.

Keywords: Aristotle, ontology, aesthetics,phenomenology, physis

Rostită la: Conferința internațională „Aristotle 2400”

Locația: Facultatea de filosofie, București

Data: 25 Noiembrie 2016