『詩学』における二重様相の問題
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In the Poetics, Aristotle explicitly insists that the events constituting tragic plots should follow one another according to probability (to eikos) or necessity (to anankaion) (1451a11-15, 36-38) However, in addition to this general rule of consistency, he also accepts that it is probable that some events in plots should happen contrary to the probability (1456a24-25, 1461b15) Moreover, he consents that a poet should choose impossible but probable things (adunata eikota) rather than possible but unbelievable ones (dunata apithana)in order to compose better plots (1460a26-27) I call this paradoxical modal feature of tragic plots 'double modality' In this paper I try to examine the contexts where the double modality is desirable, and to consider why Aristotle makes the paradoxical statement about tragic modality The purpose of this paper is to maintain that the double modality is an essential aspect of tragedy rather than a subsidiary one The first section of this paper examines how the tragic modal concepts in the Poetics (necessity, probability, chance) should be located in Aristotle's philosophy of modality as a whole As well as in the Rhetoric, the probable is plausible and believable (pithanon), and the probability of plots makes the audience believe the reality of tragic possible worlds by comparison with our real world The second section argues that even chance events are accepted in tragic plots on the condition that those events happen beyond one's expectation and by means of one another These chance events have a double-modal structure in the sense that (1)they are out of control and unpredictable, but (2) comprehensible ex post facto as intersections of plural causal chains The third section argues that epistemic structures of fear and pity aroused by tragic plots overlap with the double modality of tragedy We pity someone (1) who does not deserve to suffer that kind of destructive evil which we fear for ourselves, (2) when we can expect such a misfortune to happen to ourselves or someone belonging to ourselves It is true that living a real life is quite different from playing the role of Oedipus, and it is difficult for us to be in empathy with the person who killed his father and married his mother However, these results in this paper suggest that we can revise our understanding of modality about this world where we live, by wondering at and comprehending the double modality of tragic possible worlds
- 2005-03-08
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関連論文
- 『詩学』における二重様相の問題
- R. J. Hankinson, Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought., Pp.xvi+499, Oxford U. P., 1998.