Imitation or Mimesis as the Essence of Knowing - Essay Example

Imitation or mimesis as the essence of knowing This paper intends to give reasons as to why imitation or mimesis is the essence of knowing, according to Aristotle. To begin with, Aristotle maintains that nature comprises of truth. In truth, human beings acquire knowledge. Humans use art to perfect nature. This entails that nature by itself is imperfect and humans uses art to correct it (Prang 375). For Aristotle, art is a mimesis or an imitation filled with beautification. Therefore, when humans apply art, they are imitating an object with the aim of beautifying nature.

Artists try their level best to imitate nature by making it beautiful. As such, they make the world look better and beautiful. Aristotle acknowledges that artists are not only imitators, but also creators. To Aristotle, the world is not just an appearance with a mere ephemeral copy filled with changeless ideas, but holds the objective that change is a pragmatic process of nature (Francesco 62). In this case, he takes a position of creation that has a direction. Imitation is the essence of knowledge because, when it takes a form from nature, it reshapes nature in a different manner by use of a diverse medium and matter.

However, note that this matter or medium is a copy of slavish (Francesco 77). Hence, Aristotle is a believer of change. Change is a fundamental procedure of nature, which he refers as a creative force. Art is a particular way of improving nature. Art has come along with poets who in turn brought to completion that which nature is trying to complete. Therefore, through poem, a poet becomes both a creator and an imitator (Prang 378). Aristotle maintains that art revolves around human imitation of actions.

A poet involves an improbable subject matter, which in turn makes it a probable. Despite the fact that nature is incomplete, artists imitate it and at the same time change it to a complete phenomenon by use of reshaping and novelty (Bernadette 51). Imitation is also an essence of knowledge in that through it, humans get to understand the world. Imitation is a delightful human instinct and provides humans with source of building or extending their horizon of thought (Bernadette 80). Thus, it is deducible that, imitation or mimesis bears a concept of reality that which possess the power to think beyond the normal approach.

Through imitation, poets are able to come up with what they picture in their minds, what they consider desirable with regard to their imagination, and change nature in relation to perceptions (Prang 384). Aristotle holds that imitation relates to human instinct. With imitation, humans are in apposition to do things, as without instincts, doing anything would be impossible. Aristotle gives the impression that, even by birth, humans are imitating and they imitate things mainly because it gives them pleasure.

With that respect, Aristotle sees imitation as a vital means of learning and understanding the world that we live in. Understanding is similar to nature and both are essentials of imitation (Francesco 84). Additionally, in Poetics, Aristotle gives a description of tragedy and lyric poetry. These two are different from each another in three aspects. First, they have a different medium. Second, the object is dissimilar and third, their manner of imitation is different (Bernadette 101). Nevertheless, even though different, imitation is common in all respects.

Aristotle opines that, in tragedy, imitation has a serious subject matter with devotion towards human action. Analysis of Poetic points out that, imitation has the essence of knowledge in humans due to the trivial attention that it draws towards the aspect of human experience or life and nature. In this spectrum, Aristotle portrays the essence of knowledge in imitation as a factor that ascertains to the fact that men are worse than they are in reality through imitation. Imitation brings about a moderate form of art that is easily graspable by human minds.

To Aristotle, tragedy has no match hence the greatest type of art (Prang 388). With tragedy, an artist is able to imitate an action that is both noble and serious. All these sorts of imitation need grasping and cultivation of knowledge. Knowledge is mimetic in a number of ways. For example, artists imitate knowledge in terms of manner and matter (Francesco 97). They use a narrative technique in their hexameter. Aristotle asserts that knowledge is mimetic in that artists use their knowledge to bring out a subject matter that appears complete in spite of the fact that nature itself is not complete.

They try to paint minds and visions through their knowledge by reshaping things using novelty (Prang 390). Knowledge is mimetic through its fundamental aspect that it is continuous procedure and changeable. Knowledge revolves around an improbable respect that makes it imitative. As a result, Aristotle finds knowledge being mimetic since it has a notion of representation (Bernadette 132). In conclusion, knowledge is mimetic since it is a potent of copying. Knowledge is also mimetic because it tells a story to its appropriate length.

Furthermore, sustains tragedy, which is a fundamental aspect of mimesis and has a serious characteristic. Knowledge comes in a gradual tragedy that shifts to a contemporary dramatic state, which is mimetic. It assumes the perspective of a narrator and sometimes that of a performer. It gives an image of reality since it is a mimesis (Prang 394). Therefore, knowledge is mimetic as it gives the impression or appearance of nature through divinity or inspiration. Ideally, knowledge is mimetic because it takes the form of a critique, which is classical and solitary (Francesco 123).

It comes through performance, recitation, and/or listening hence, it is subject to apprehension or cultivation. Works Cited Bernadette, Vincent. The Artificial and the Natural: An Evolving Polarity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. Print. Francesco, Pellizzi. Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 47: Spring 2005. London: Harvard University Press, 2005. Print. Prang, Christophe. Semiomimesis: The influence of semiotics on the creation of literary texts. Peter Bichsel's Ein Tisch ist ein Tisch and Joseph Roth's Hotel Savoy. 2010. In: Semiotica. Vol. 2010, Issue 182, S. 375–96.