Ontology and the Art of Tragedy: An Approach to Aristotle's Poetics

Chapter 1: APPROACH TO THE CORPUS AS A WHOLE

7 Chapter 1 APPROACH TO THE CORPUS AS A WHOLE 1.1 The Systematic, the Chronological, the Aporetic Approach One’s approach to any individual treatise presupposes an approach to the corpus as a whole, which should be made clear at the beginning. For scholars have understood Aristotle’s works, and so have understood what “Aristotelian” means, in different ways. The three main approaches have been the systematic, the chronological, and the aporetic. The systematic approach holds that all parts of the whole stand in ascertainable doctrinal relationships, which consist of pervasive substantive-methodological conceptual constants. The latter enable one to understand the works as a body of positive Aristotelian philosophy, which is not a mere aggregate of unconnected treatises but an understandable doctrinal plurality in unity. Scholars differ, however, on what those pervasive conceptual constants are, and so on what the positive philosophy is. The chronological approach holds that all parts of the whole stand in ascertainable chronological relationships of simultaneity and of earlier and later date. Chronology is usually linked with the notion of development, thus enabling one to understand the works as the record of Aristotle’s philosophical development. The works are not a mere aggregate of unconnected treatises but an understandable developmental plurality in unity. Scholars differ, however, as to the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of 8 ONTOLOGY AND THE ART OF TRAGEDY this development, and so as to what its nature and dynamics are. The aporetic approach has not been developed for the corpus as a whole but rather for individual treatises or parts of such treatises, particularly the Metaphysics. It is therefore not a holistic approach comparable to the other two, but it is distinct from them because it interprets treatises or parts of treatises considered aporetic not in terms of a positive doctrinal content or of a positive developmental stage. Whether it is capable of understanding the corpus as more than a mere aggregate of unconnected treatises seems doubtful.1 A choice among these three basic approaches cannot be avoided. They specify the most general parameters within which scholars must try to ascertain the meaning of the corpus as a whole and so of any individual treatise. Within each of these parameters, further choices must be made as to the nature of the doctrinal content, the nature and stages of Aristotle’s philosophical development, and the nature and function of aporiai. These choices must of course be argued. They normally grow out of and become explicit as a crystallization of a scholar’s personal engagement with the text. For the purposes of this study, I should like to present my own choices with a minimum of supporting argument. They can perhaps be accepted as hypotheses to be tested in terms of both their power and their limitations in illumining the Poetics. My basic choice among the three main approaches is the systematic. This does not mean that I reject the other two in the sense of holding that individual treatises do not stand in chronological and developmental relationships, or that no parts of treatises are aporetic. It means rather that I consider the systematic approach to be presupposed by the other two. For the notion of development is not purely chronological but involves a substantive, indeed a doctrinal, content. The terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem are not mere dates but positive philosophical positions. One needs a positive doctrinal notion of Aristotelian philosophy before one can map out its developmental direction and stages. Likewise, the aporetic approach presupposes a doctrinal context within which aporiai have significance and function. Aristotle makes this clear when he argues for an important but limited and preliminary function of aporiai at Met. III. 995a24–b4. Scholars have acknowledged this, and nobody to my knowledge has ever argued that his works are nothing but aporetic, or that aporiai are stated purely for their own sake. I suspect that such a notion would not only conflict with Aristotle’s own assessment of the role of aporiai in his philosophy, but would be inherently senseless. Aporiai cannot arise in a vacuum; they are prompted by specific difficulties that are embedded in a doctrinal context from which they derive their significance and possibility of resolution. 9 APPROACH TO THE CORPUS AS A WHOLE 1.2 The Pervasive Substantive-Methodological Conceptual Constants My basic choice therefore is to approach the corpus systematically in terms of...