Två seminarier om Aristoteles om medlidandets natur och djurs emotioner

kl. 14.15–16.00: Douglas Cairns, Homer, Aristotle, and the Nature of Compassion  

In this paper I focus, in the main, on just two authors, Homer and Aristotle, and proceed primarily by means of a confrontation between the representation of pity in the final book of the Iliad and the theorization of that emotion in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (and Poetics). I begin with Homer, but immediately bring the Homeric narrative into relation with Aristotle’s account of pity in the Rhetoric. This will lead to some thoughts on the nature of pity and compassion in Homer in general, before we return to the contrast between Homer and Aristotle (with a glance at the Poetics), a contrast that is in some ways underscored by certain differences between Aristotle and Plato on the emotional effects of epic and tragic poetry.

kl. 16.15–18.00 Pia Campeggiani, Beyond cognitivism: Aristotle on animal emotions.

In Book VIII of Historia Animalium, Aristotle attributes emotions to nonhuman animals, as well as the virtuous or vicious character traits connected with emotions. Cognitivist interpretations of Aristotle’s theory of emotion suggest that nonhuman animals cannot experience emotions, because they are incapable of forming beliefs: therefore Aristotle’s attribution of emotions to them must be interpreted metaphorically. In this paper, I shall reject this approach and argue that Aristotle’s examination of the physical basis of emotions and personal character types in De Partibus Animalium and his many illustrations of the principle of natural continuity support the view that the same character traits and affective dispositions exist at different levels of development in different animals.