Aristotle: Aristotle too focuses on the imitative role of art, but unlike Plato, who had his eye on the transcendent realm of Forms, Aristotle has his eye on the here-and-now, and how art can help to improve us and build character. There is a famous painting by Raphael called The School of Athens, which shows Plato and Aristotle walking together, each with a book under his arm (Plato has the Timaeus, and Aristotle has the Ethics): Plato is pointing to the heavens, and Aristotle is gesturing toward the earth. Characterizes their approaches to philosophy nicely. Aristotle spends a good deal of time outlining the various parts and features of the best tragedies, and then turns to a discussion of the effect that a tragedy should have, or in other words, what it should do to us and teach us. As is typical of Aristotle, he does the first (outlining the various parts of tragedy) by looking at what tragedians have actually done, how they’ve constructed their plays, and then at what it is about the best and most successful tragedians that has made them so successful. Aristotle’s approach, then, is “bottom up”—he starts with what people actually have said and done and then tries to generalize based on that experience. His conclusions about tragedy and drawn in that vein. As to the second (the effect of tragedy), since Aristotle believes that all learning occurs through imitation (we initially and importantly learn to be human beings by following the examples of our elders and teachers, and those around us generally), he believes that the imitation at the heart of tragedy has something to teach us and can be character forming. The bottom line is that in a tragedy, if it is done well (and that depends on its having the right parts), we will identify with the hero and go through an experience much like the one the hero goes through—experiencing and purging the emotion of pity and fear. The upside is that by experiencing the well done tragedy, we don’t have to actually suffer the same things the hero suffers in order to get the character forming benefits. It would be awful if we could only learn the lessons Oedipus has to teach us if we stabbed out our own eyes, as Oedipus does. He tore the golden brooches that upheld Her queenly robes, upraised them high and smote Full on his eye-balls, uttering words like these: “No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, Deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; Henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see Those ye should ne’er have seen; now blind to those Whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know.” Such was the burden of his moan, whereto, Not once but oft, he struck with his hand uplift His eyes, and at each stroke the ensanguined orbs Bedewed his beard, not oozing drop by drop, But one black gory downpour, thick as hail. (Oedipus the King, by Sophocles) .