| Title | Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on the Poetics, or the Ethical Education |
| Type | Article |
| Language | undefined |
| Date | 2024 |
| Journal | Journal of Islamic Ethics |
| Pages | 1 - 25 |
| Categories | Poetics, Ethics, Logic |
| Author(s) | Frédérique Woerther |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| In his Talkhīṣ Kitāb Arisṭūṭālīs fī l-Shiʿr (“Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics”) Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595/1198) strictly defines poetic statements (al-aqāwīl al-shiʿriyya) as imaginative (mutakhayyila) statements that imitate the good and the evil, and aim at inciting people to virtue and deterring them from vice. Yet the traces of the Aristotelian ethical doctrine in this Commentary are not restricted to this link to virtue ethics, as the entire text follows at different levels the division between virtue/vice and good/evil. Ibn Rushd also refers to the teaching of ethics when discussing the object of poetic imitation (al-tashbīh wa-l-muḥākāt), the different natures he distinguishes among poets, and the genres of panegyric (madīḥ) and satire (hijāʾ). However, recent scholarship tends to view the Poetics in the Islamic context as a fundamentally logical treatise. Following the Alexandrian tradition, the falāsifa sought, at least since al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), to justify and explain the position of the Poetics in the Organon by defining, for example, the logical and psychological mechanisms of the poetical syllogism. More specifically, philosophers drew parallels between the role of imagination (takhayyul) in the poetical context and the role of assent or conviction (taṣdīq) in the other logical arts, and in particular in the Rhetoric (al-Khiṭāba). The purpose of this contribution is to demonstrate that the Poetics, according to Ibn Rushd, is a treatise that combines logic and ethics and determines in that respect the conditions and the rules of a practical education of the citizens. Like the rhetoric whose political value was already determined, poetics also plays a role in defining the nature and the content of the poetical statements that are to be employed in order to encourage people to virtuous actions – that is, the very condition for a virtuous political, and thus, a happy life. Straddling between logic and ethics, poetry is therefore fundamentally political. |
{"_index":"bib","_type":"_doc","_id":"5839","_score":null,"_source":{"id":5839,"authors_free":[{"id":6778,"entry_id":5839,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":1286,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Woerther","free_first_name":"","free_last_name":"","norm_person":{"id":1286,"first_name":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique","last_name":"Woerther","full_name":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Woerther","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":0,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/13670932X","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":1,"link":"bib?authors[]=Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Woerther"}}],"entry_title":"Ibn Rushd\u2019s Middle Commentary on the Poetics, or the Ethical Education","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","main_title":{"title":"Ibn Rushd\u2019s Middle Commentary on the Poetics, or the Ethical Education"},"abstract":"In his Talkh\u012b\u1e63 Kit\u0101b Aris\u1e6d\u016b\u1e6d\u0101l\u012bs f\u012b l-Shi\u02bfr (\u201cMiddle Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Poetics\u201d) Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595\/1198) strictly defines poetic statements (al-aq\u0101w\u012bl al-shi\u02bfriyya) as imaginative (mutakhayyila) statements that imitate the good and the evil, and aim at inciting people to virtue and deterring them from vice. Yet the traces of the Aristotelian ethical doctrine in this Commentary are not restricted to this link to virtue ethics, as the entire text follows at different levels the division between virtue\/vice and good\/evil. Ibn Rushd also refers to the teaching of ethics when discussing the object of poetic imitation (al-tashb\u012bh wa-l-mu\u1e25\u0101k\u0101t), the different natures he distinguishes among poets, and the genres of panegyric (mad\u012b\u1e25) and satire (hij\u0101\u02be). However, recent scholarship tends to view the Poetics in the Islamic context as a fundamentally logical treatise. Following the Alexandrian tradition, the fal\u0101sifa sought, at least since al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b (d. 339\/950), to justify and explain the position of the Poetics in the Organon by defining, for example, the logical and psychological mechanisms of the poetical syllogism. More specifically, philosophers drew parallels between the role of imagination (takhayyul) in the poetical context and the role of assent or conviction (ta\u1e63d\u012bq) in the other logical arts, and in particular in the Rhetoric (al-Khi\u1e6d\u0101ba).\r\n\r\nThe purpose of this contribution is to demonstrate that the Poetics, according to Ibn Rushd, is a treatise that combines logic and ethics and determines in that respect the conditions and the rules of a practical education of the citizens. Like the rhetoric whose political value was already determined, poetics also plays a role in defining the nature and the content of the poetical statements that are to be employed in order to encourage people to virtuous actions \u2013 that is, the very condition for a virtuous political, and thus, a happy life. Straddling between logic and ethics, poetry is therefore fundamentally political.","btype":3,"date":"2024","language":null,"online_url":"","doi_url":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1163\/24685542-20240011","ti_url":"","categories":[{"id":44,"category_name":"Poetics","link":"bib?categories[]=Poetics"},{"id":22,"category_name":"Ethics","link":"bib?categories[]=Ethics"},{"id":27,"category_name":"Logic","link":"bib?categories[]=Logic"}],"authors":[{"id":1286,"full_name":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Woerther","role":1}],"works":[],"republication_of":null,"translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":5839,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Journal of Islamic Ethics","volume":"","issue":"","pages":"1 - 25"}},"sort":[2024]}
| Title | Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on the Poetics, or the Ethical Education |
| Type | Article |
| Language | undefined |
| Date | 2024 |
| Journal | Journal of Islamic Ethics |
| Pages | 1 - 25 |
| Categories | Poetics, Ethics, Logic |
| Author(s) | Frédérique Woerther |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| In his Talkhīṣ Kitāb Arisṭūṭālīs fī l-Shiʿr (“Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics”) Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595/1198) strictly defines poetic statements (al-aqāwīl al-shiʿriyya) as imaginative (mutakhayyila) statements that imitate the good and the evil, and aim at inciting people to virtue and deterring them from vice. Yet the traces of the Aristotelian ethical doctrine in this Commentary are not restricted to this link to virtue ethics, as the entire text follows at different levels the division between virtue/vice and good/evil. Ibn Rushd also refers to the teaching of ethics when discussing the object of poetic imitation (al-tashbīh wa-l-muḥākāt), the different natures he distinguishes among poets, and the genres of panegyric (madīḥ) and satire (hijāʾ). However, recent scholarship tends to view the Poetics in the Islamic context as a fundamentally logical treatise. Following the Alexandrian tradition, the falāsifa sought, at least since al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), to justify and explain the position of the Poetics in the Organon by defining, for example, the logical and psychological mechanisms of the poetical syllogism. More specifically, philosophers drew parallels between the role of imagination (takhayyul) in the poetical context and the role of assent or conviction (taṣdīq) in the other logical arts, and in particular in the Rhetoric (al-Khiṭāba). The purpose of this contribution is to demonstrate that the Poetics, according to Ibn Rushd, is a treatise that combines logic and ethics and determines in that respect the conditions and the rules of a practical education of the citizens. Like the rhetoric whose political value was already determined, poetics also plays a role in defining the nature and the content of the poetical statements that are to be employed in order to encourage people to virtuous actions – that is, the very condition for a virtuous political, and thus, a happy life. Straddling between logic and ethics, poetry is therefore fundamentally political. |
{"_index":"bib","_type":"_doc","_id":"5839","_score":null,"_source":{"id":5839,"authors_free":[{"id":6778,"entry_id":5839,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":1286,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Woerther","free_first_name":"","free_last_name":"","norm_person":{"id":1286,"first_name":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique","last_name":"Woerther","full_name":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Woerther","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":0,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/13670932X","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":1,"link":"bib?authors[]=Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Woerther"}}],"entry_title":"Ibn Rushd\u2019s Middle Commentary on the Poetics, or the Ethical Education","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","main_title":{"title":"Ibn Rushd\u2019s Middle Commentary on the Poetics, or the Ethical Education"},"abstract":"In his Talkh\u012b\u1e63 Kit\u0101b Aris\u1e6d\u016b\u1e6d\u0101l\u012bs f\u012b l-Shi\u02bfr (\u201cMiddle Commentary on Aristotle\u2019s Poetics\u201d) Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595\/1198) strictly defines poetic statements (al-aq\u0101w\u012bl al-shi\u02bfriyya) as imaginative (mutakhayyila) statements that imitate the good and the evil, and aim at inciting people to virtue and deterring them from vice. Yet the traces of the Aristotelian ethical doctrine in this Commentary are not restricted to this link to virtue ethics, as the entire text follows at different levels the division between virtue\/vice and good\/evil. Ibn Rushd also refers to the teaching of ethics when discussing the object of poetic imitation (al-tashb\u012bh wa-l-mu\u1e25\u0101k\u0101t), the different natures he distinguishes among poets, and the genres of panegyric (mad\u012b\u1e25) and satire (hij\u0101\u02be). However, recent scholarship tends to view the Poetics in the Islamic context as a fundamentally logical treatise. Following the Alexandrian tradition, the fal\u0101sifa sought, at least since al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b (d. 339\/950), to justify and explain the position of the Poetics in the Organon by defining, for example, the logical and psychological mechanisms of the poetical syllogism. More specifically, philosophers drew parallels between the role of imagination (takhayyul) in the poetical context and the role of assent or conviction (ta\u1e63d\u012bq) in the other logical arts, and in particular in the Rhetoric (al-Khi\u1e6d\u0101ba).\r\n\r\nThe purpose of this contribution is to demonstrate that the Poetics, according to Ibn Rushd, is a treatise that combines logic and ethics and determines in that respect the conditions and the rules of a practical education of the citizens. Like the rhetoric whose political value was already determined, poetics also plays a role in defining the nature and the content of the poetical statements that are to be employed in order to encourage people to virtuous actions \u2013 that is, the very condition for a virtuous political, and thus, a happy life. Straddling between logic and ethics, poetry is therefore fundamentally political.","btype":3,"date":"2024","language":null,"online_url":"","doi_url":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1163\/24685542-20240011","ti_url":"","categories":[{"id":44,"category_name":"Poetics","link":"bib?categories[]=Poetics"},{"id":22,"category_name":"Ethics","link":"bib?categories[]=Ethics"},{"id":27,"category_name":"Logic","link":"bib?categories[]=Logic"}],"authors":[{"id":1286,"full_name":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Woerther","role":1}],"works":[],"republication_of":null,"translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":5839,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Journal of Islamic Ethics","volume":"","issue":"","pages":"1 - 25"}},"sort":["Ibn Rushd\u2019s Middle Commentary on the Poetics, or the Ethical Education"]}