Maybe I should just relax and let it go. Who cares WHY things are, they just ARE...right? Just go wherever my senses lead me... Sorry...it's not enough to know that Bubblicious tastes good, I need to know WHY it tastes good (childhood flashbacks? Specific flavour that is NOT in Hubba Bubba? Present chewing location?).

Last week while watching Murder, She Wrote -- the early seasons are great because Lansbury was willing to let her annoying character have the piss taken out of her by other characters -- oh yeah...so been reading a lot of Greek philosophy and turns out that Plato and Aristotle were saying some things about art and one of my sortofpals recommended Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy. I decided there and then -- while watching Jessica Fletcher -- that I would try to find out just what ART is.

Plato's Take
Okay I'm back. It's a day later. While I was gone I finished the rest of Plato's Republic and wouldn't ya know he's got a few not so mild things to say about art. Plato was quite a moral fellow and believed in a divine order to the universe. The pursuit of wisdom and knowledge was for him the ULTIMATE goal. So he pretty much shunned art because it is imitative and the only works to be permitted in his ideal state would be those that honoured the gods or famous guys. Why? Well because imitative art produces merely a semblance of reality. As such it is false -- see NATURE was itself a semblance of the DIVINE reality (or for us non-believers...we could say that NATURE is the reality and HUMAN nature a COPY and then Art a copy of that copy) -- so if I paint a picture of a man -- it is 2 notches below reality/truth -- whereas if you paint a nice fine picture of the big man you're I guess a notch from truth and that's better for everyone.

But no cold chump he, Plato breaks down and admits that he'd still allow imitative art in his ideal state because of its charm and sensual pleasure -- now hold on -- doesn't this upset the WHOLE damn book since Plato is constructing an ideal state and if you start letting a few bozos in -- sorry that's for another time.

Hey...speaking of the senses, I'm being overwhelmed by Jerry Lee Lewis: Mercury Years, Volume Two 1969-72, some scorching country/gospel/rock tunes that are imitative of no one but the devil himself. Check it out.

-- so yeah...Plato's view of art is limited but he clearly allows that there are two aims of art: emotional and intellectual. So that's good news for you Hollywood fans.

Aristotle Has Some Ideas...
Okay. Next. Aristotle.

Another day has passed. I finished Aristotle's Poetics and an overview of the man in Coppleston's History of Philosophy Vol. 1 (you should be reading THIS nine volume series instead of that damn hotel drawer fairy tale). Aristotle's got a bit more to say about art than Plato, but again I guess it's important to remember that these are less theories of art then reflections on the art of the time, as such the Poetics is MOSTLY just a "How To Make Poetry/Drama/Comedy" (the comedy part was lost) book. Outside of a few bits on the origin of poetry and the idea of universality, Poetics don't help me much at this stage of the game 'cause I'm trying to figure out what ART is and why we do it.

Aristotle touches on some good stuff in Poetics about the origins of mimesis (imitation) and expands that in Metaphysics. Buddy boy says that we long to KNOW. As children we learn (via our senses) through imitation. This is indicated through the reaction of our senses. The eyes (especially) produce recognition and recognition helps us to differentiate between things (e.g. trees from water). Through repetition we become familiar with the world. Familiarity brings pleasure 'cause we ain't so out to lunch no more. The key to this is memory. We learn from memory. From memory comes experience. Experience CAN produce knowledge and skill. Skill comes from many experiences. A general assumption is formed. For example, I have a headache. Experience tells me that by taking an aspirin I will relieve myself of the headache. However I do not possess the skill to explain WHY the aspirin achieves this effect. Skill involves knowing WHY. In short...experience knows THAT but not the BECAUSE. Skill or tekhnê (Greek for craft or art) grasps the BECAUSE.