Gina’s Blog

An example of artwork that would fit Aristotle’s definition of tragedy would be Oedipus Rex. Antigone is also considered a tragedy, but I am going to focus on analyzing how the play Oedipus Rex fits into Aristotle’s definition.

Oedipus Rex is a classic Ancient Greek tragedy. It is considered to be the ultimate tragedy according to Aristotle’s definition because he actually used this play to create his definition. I read this play in high school, and although I normally did not enjoy the books my teachers made us read, this one struck me. It is a story many cannot forget, and considering it was written in the fifth century B.C.E. and is still considered a great now, it must be a pretty tragic story.

“Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality- namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song”- Aristotle

Aristotle wrote that all the other points are less important than the plot, since they all come from it. A tragedy must have a complex plot, not a simple one. A tragedy must be centered around the tragic hero, who has a tragic flaw or tragically falls from grace. Oedipus is the tragic hero in this story. His tragic flaw is that he is so focused on avoiding an oracle’s words about his future, that he directly runs into it because he is ignorant and does not know who he is. An oracle proclaimed to Oedipus’s father that Oedipus would one day kill him, so he left his child outside in the country to die. Oedipus was saved and raised by a king and queen in a nearby land. Oedipus grew up believing these were his real parents, and he received an oracle saying he would kill his father and marry his mother. He fled his “homeland” to escape his horrible fate, and along the road he killed his father, the King. He saved the kingdom he was originally born in and won his actual mothers hand in marriage. His kingdom then suffers from a plague and an oracle claims that only if they catch the killer of the old king, their kingdom would be saved. Once Oedipus discovers that it was him, he gouges out his own eyes and weeps, realizing he never escaped his faith, he went towards it. Oedipus is the main character who has a tragic story and tragic harmartia. His downfall was his own ignorance. This doesn’t make him an evil character, just a tragically flawed one, this is what Aristotle defines the tragic hero as. The tragic hero is someone that the audience pities. The story also has a very complex, tragic plot. My summary was short and sweet, but the play in its entirety is very complex and detailed. The language or diction, spectacle and sound in the play leads the audience to feel how deeply Oedipus feels.

This play, Oedipus Rex, was the groundwork for Aristotles’ definition of a tragedy, and Oedipus was the groundwork for the tragic hero.

”But to say of someone under some one description (‘The prisoner of the Chateau d’If’) that he is the same person as someone characterized quite differently (‘The Count of Monte Cristo’) is precisely to say that it makes sense to ask him to give an intelligible narrative account enabling us to understand how he could at different times and different places be one and the same person yet be so differently characterized”

I chose this passage from MacIntyre’s writings because The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite movie of all time, and it made the most sense to me. In The Count of Monte Cristo, the main character Edmond Dantes receives a letter from Napoleon after landing on his island to rescue his captain. Young and naive, he takes this letter back to France unknowing that it contains plans for Napoleons escape. His jealous best friend betrays him and tells the authorities, even though he knows Edmond is innocent. Edmond is sent to the Chateau D’If, an extremely treacherous prison in France. He stays there for 13 years and suffers the extreme cruelties of the prison. After befriending a priest that accidentally dug a tunnel into his room, they begin working together to dig themselves out, but Edmond only agrees if the Priest teaches him how to read, write, and sword fight. Over the next five years, Edmond grows into a much less naive person, since he has been taught many lessons and knows much more. The priest dies when their tunnels collapses on top of him. Edmond thinks quickly and gets into the burial cloth meant for the priest. The prison guards carry him out of the prison and throw him over the edge of a cliff into the water. From that point forward, Edmond begins his plan of revenge. He received a map from the priest of buried treasure. He finds the treasure and becomes rich so he can be wealthier than his enemies. He calls himself the “Count of Monte Cristo” and is respected by everyone for his great wealth, charisma, and knowledge.

I gave this summary of the story so that the passage from The Story Telling Animal could be put into perspective. MacIntyre is saying that it is reasonable to ask Edmond Dantes how exactly he could be the prisoner and the count, two very different narratives, and yet still be the same person inside and out. Our lives change dramatically over time. Different situations arise that change our narrative entirely. We may at one time be a simple, happy, kind Edmond Dantes, then the next we are thrown into an entire new narrative due to outside events that change our lives. We can become the vengeful, calculated Edmond Dantes without even realizing how much our life narrative has changed.

MacIntyre asks us what stories we are a part of. He says that “human beings are characters in enacted narratives. ‘Unpredictability and theology [ends or goals] therefore coexist as part of our lives’, ‘like characters in a fictional narrative we do not know what will happen next, but none the less, our lives have a certain form which projects itself towards our future’”.

We are all apart of a complexity of intertwined stories. We each have our own story, where we are the main character. While others are just side characters in our life, adding and taking away from our story. But it is important to remember everyone has their own story. Our actions may sometimes be irrelevant to us, but can impact someone else’s story significantly. We are just story characters in this life. Things get thrown at us from every which way, and how we deal with them and grow is our character development. We are unknowing of our fate and future, yet we go through it anyways, just like when you read a story book. The character follows through with his story.

Here is my example of how change greatly affected my story, and I had no knowledge of it beforehand, and no way to stop it or avoid it:

In my personal life, my narrative has changed many times. Some changes are more noticeable than others. In high school, for example, I came in as a freshman confident of my body, my personality, and all around confident in who I was. It hadn’t yet crossed my mind to think so negatively of myself or of anyone for that matter. I was trusting and happy. Over the year, a false rumor made by a boy who was upset that I did not feel the same way towards him led to multiple accounts of bullying. At the time I did not realize it was bullying since I still had a lot of friends and support. Still, this time in my life hurt me and taught me to be less trusting. My reputation was ruined and it hurt for awhile because I wanted people to know the truth, but everything I tried led to no avail. Over the next three years, I learned to stop caring what people said about me, because I knew my truth, and my loved ones knew my truth. And honestly, people leave you alone once they realize you do not care about them. By the end of high school, a few of the boys involved even had approached me to apologize for some of the things they did. I knew I really changed in high school, I could feel how different it was. I could see how not only me but everyone involved changed in some way. High school is a huge time for young people in changing their narratives, changing how they appear to others and how they feel inside. It is a time of growth. Of course, once I graduated I thought I had an idea of how my life would turn out. I didn’t realize how deep and complex life could be after high school, even by removing all the drama of friends knowing your personal business at all times.

The weekend after Valentines Day, 2020, my parents left to go up to Shasta for a weekend getaway. They were supposed to be gone for the weekend, return home, then we were all supposed to fly to Washington DC for my mom’s long-awaited business trip. Every time my parents would leave for the weekend, I was so excited. I got to chill out, sleep in, watch movies all day if I wanted. I was having a great time until my oldest sister came over and told us that mom was in the hospital. We were all scrambling to find out why, it was a very scary moment in my life. My mom had suffered from a seizure while out of town with my dad. She came home and was sent straight to the ER. Over the next week she was put through many different tests and scans, and she had to have brain surgery. She recovered very fast and well from the surgery, but a week later the test results came back, she had GBM, a very serious form of brain cancer. It was devastating news for my family. My boyfriend’s dad had died two years earlier from the same type of cancer.

Suddenly my narrative, and the narrative of my whole entire family and our lives together was changed. I used to imagine if none of this ever happened, we would have gone on that Washington DC trip together and had a great time. I think about how I would have felt on that trip, and the only thing I can come up with is that I was so naive. I had never lost a family member close to me, and I have never faced something so scary ever before. Before all of this, it felt like I was just going through the motions with my parents. I loved them dearly, but I didn’t cherish all the times we had. Now my mom’s life has changed forever and so has mine. I can feel myself growing into an adult during this quarantine. I am learning how to cook since my mom is now on a new diet and my dad needs help. I am learning how to clean more since my mom can no longer help. These tasks are no longer dreadful tasks, just a part of life. Things I have to do. I am now daily taking care of my mom and making sure she is always comfortable. These are not the only things changing about me. Inside I’m changing. I’m changing into the latter version of Edmond Dantes. The less naive to the cruelties of this world version. But I also hope that I am becoming more graceful, and more loving as well.

Annie’s Song by John Denver

“Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them” -Tolstoy

Tolstoy defines art as a condition of human life, not just a means of pleasure. Art is an expression of feelings from the artist to the audience. If the audience can receive feelings from an work of art, it is considered to be good art. I agree with this idea of art because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If we put rules on what art should be, or what it should look/sound like, the people making these rules would exclude beautiful art to others that might not be beautiful to them. That is why we as humans vary in different tastes in music, not everyone shares the same tastes and everyone finds different styles and sounds beautiful to them, while others not.

I find this song to be art because it does evoke emotion in me. The imagery provided in this song allows me to paint a picture in my head of the feelings John Denver is expressing. My parents would always play John Denver growing up, so his music already has a special place in my heart. My dream is to fall in love with one person and be with that person forever, and Annie’s Song puts those feelings into art.

Individuality: John Denver is using imagery (“like a night in the forest” “like a sleepy blue ocean”) that makes his lyrics very different from any other artists. This imagery is specific to this song only. Personally, I am a Taurus and have always felt a deeper connection to the earth and nature, this song really paints a beautiful picture in my head of what I want my lifelong love to feel like.

Clearness: The song has a clear message about his love for Annie. Her love fills him up entirely, fulfilling him.

Sincerity: This song bleeds sincerity because he is writing about his wife, and he named it after her. He is singing this song directly to her. He is using images to express the emotions he feels from his love for her.

Tolstoy’s standard for art is that an artist must convey a feeling to their audience for it to be considered art. In these terms, a feeling is when the artist uses expression and the audience is infected by what is being expressed. Expression is when an artist creates something that comes from inside themselves, and makes it acceptable and obtainable for others to hear, see, etc. Infection in simple terms means understanding. The person perceiving the art is infected when they understand what was being expressed. This process creates a feeling in the individuals perceiving the art. Maybe the art brings the perceiver back to a time when they felt a feeling the art is expressing to them, so they understand how the artist was feeling as well. This understanding is the what makes Art really Art to Tolstoy.

“Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them.”

I agree with Tolstoy’s definition of art, and I think his standard is an effective way to evaluate whether or not art is considered to be good. Art has always been the way that Tolstoy describes. Artist are deep thinkers who know how to make feelings tangible by putting them onto paper, into words, or music. Artists don’t always create sad feelings. Even happy, upbeat music is still creating a feeling, whether or not its light-hearted, its still a feeling. For me personally, the best songs in my life have always caused me to feel something, not just breeze past my ears with no emotion. Anytime a song that doesn’t cause me to really connect with it in some way pops up on my playlist, I hit skip. I think this is true for most individuals.

I watched an interview of Juice WRLD after he died and he mentioned how people tend to blame rap music and hip hop culture on the violence happening in communities, they claim that the music is creating a culture of violence. I thought he made a good point by saying that violence has always been around, rap music is just a way for artists to express their feelings surrounding the culture they grew up in. It’s a way for them to express and release their emotions, so the listeners can understand and be infected as well. If you don’t like rap music, maybe you just can’t understand. And that goes for all music types and art in general. People are attracted to different genres because of who they are and what they’ve experienced in life.

Aristotle describes the three differences between artistic imitation as medium of imitation, object of imitation, and manner of imitation. Medium of imitation is poetry by song or language, using rhythm, melody, and harmony. Object of imitation refers to men in action. Finally, manner of imitation is described as narration, meaning a poet can present characters and a story in a way as if they are living and breathing. Aristotle conveys imitation in a positive way because he states that the art of imitation is what sets humans apart from from other animals. Humans learn lessons by imitation. I think this is a positive view on imitation because we use imitation in everyday life to learn lessons and experience life. We are taught by our own imitation and the imitation of others. Art imitates essence. It is deeper than just a reflection as Plato describes. Art gives an insight to the human heart and human creativity. We learn the most through art. Solving a long math problem on a board in front of school children is art just the same as a painter painting a self-portrait. Everything we do and learn is imitation from others. Humans have passed down traditions through generations, this too is a form of art.

Aristotle also mentions that art is the future, it isn’t history. Of course we can look back and see art from the 1800s and call that art history, but the art itself and the artist at the time was portraying the future. Art is an imitation of life, but I do not believe it is a perfect imitation. With new art comes new ideas and possibilities. People create art to change the future or to change how people see the world, not to portray the past. If art portrayed the past, I think it would lack emotion. The purpose of art is to evoke emotion.

Argument: A list of reasons given to support a claim.

Conclusion (of an argument): the claim that is intended to be supported by the argument.

Premises: the claims which are given as reasons for believing the conclusion of an argument to be true.

Validity: the conclusion of an argument necessarily follows from the premises. If the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true.

Soundness: validity + true premises.

Fallacies of Presumption: make unwarranted assumptions without evidence of truth but told to you as the truth.

Ad Populum: appeal to authority (bandwagoning).

Ad Hominem: attack against the person.

Tu Quoque: “you too”

Axiom: Every idea must come from an impression to the senses. It follows that we have no idea of self.

Determinism: Whatever happens is determined by events that lead up to this one. (Determined by prior events)

Avoidability condition: “I act freely only if I’m able to act otherwise”

Hard Determinism: Determinism rules out free will, so our experience of free will is an illusion.

Soft Determinism (Compatibilism): Free will and determinism are compatible with each other so both can be true.

First Order Desires: desires to do this or that. Can be expressed in the form : A wants to X, “to X” is referring to an action.

Effective First Order Desires: desires that have motivated, are motivating, or will motivate an agent to act.

Non-Effective First Order Desires: desires that are not effective. Desires that do not cause an agent to be motivated to act on said desire.

Second-order desires:

1. Desire for a first-order desire
2. Desire for a first-order desire to be effective, =second-order volition. For example: I want my desire to do my homework to be effective

Person-hood: “the type of entity for whom freedom of the may be a problem.”

The metaphor of the cave created by Plato is that we are chained up deep in a cave with only a lit fire. The lit fire creates shadows on the wall and those shadows we view as reality, since that it all was can see. We are unknowing of the bigger, broader world outside of the cave. It is possible that the physical world isn’t reality. Plato believes that the way out of this “cave” is through the mind.

The prisoners in Plato’s cave are like the people in a cinema because their heads are fixed towards a wall on the cave with shapes moving as shadows, while in a cinema, peoples heads are fixed towards the screen with objects moving like the shadows. This comparison is just a surface example. People in a cinema are like the people in a cave because people go to the movies to watch a false reality played out for them on a screen, and during that time we as humans allow ourselves believe the false reality. We watch horror films and allow ourselves to be scared over something fake, and just like the prisoners in plato’s cave, we can have real genuine emotions based off of a false reality. The people in the cave are like the people in a cinema because they believe what they are seeing before them even if it’s only for a short period of time. When the movie is over, we may snap back to reality, but during that time we escaped to a place similar to Plato’s cave. We have a limited perception of many things, like what death is really like. This limit of perception could be our fixed heads, just like the prisoners in Plato’s cave. I believe that what we see is reality, but a very limited amount of true reality. Humans cannot perceive the entirety of reality. Our heads are fixed forward until we reach a higher sense of enlightenment, whether you believe that comes with your religion or if you have no religion at all.

I think the film Existenz really proves how easily we can be tricked into believing what is reality versus what is false. The beginning of the movie starts out, and we believe we are watching the real world, but by the end of the movie, we realize the start was not real at all, the start was just the start of the game. The idea behind this movie is really confusing and mind boggling. “Reality” in the beginning of the movie, looked very real, but it was not actually reality. In fact, for me personally and I think for others, I really lost track on what was real and what was not by the end; I had no clue. This is because our brains are easily tricked by what our eyes are seeing.

Just because a man has a fixed belief, does not mean it is right.

A man has the duty to follow through with a choice of action regarding his convictions in case the opposite of his belief could still occur.

If a man does not follow through with a choice of action regarding his convictions, and the opposite does occur, he would not be right.

This argument he makes is sound and valid. It is valid because the conclusion follows the premises. The premises are true and the conclusion is also true, making the argument sound. If a person makes the decision to send army troops into war for a cause, they must believe in that cause very much because they are taking into account the lives of many men. If the person has not done the proper research behind their cause, and it turns out they had wrong information, it does not matter how much they believe it. That person would still be very wrong for making a decision on their beliefs without taking the proper action to investigate if the opposite of their beliefs were true. A Netflix series titled “The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez” tells the story of a young boy who died at the hands of his parents due to severe long-term abuse. Three trials took place for this occurrence, one for the mom, the boyfriend, and for the social workers involved who failed him. It is a rarity for social workers to be charged for the death of one of the children in their caseload. This case specifically relates to Clifford’s argument because the social workers ignored obvious signs against their fixed belief that the child was not at risk of death. They took the word of Gabriel’s mother every time someone was sent out to check on the him, because it is a core belief for the department of social services to protect the family unit at all costs unless their is an extreme risk of death. They ignored the extreme signs of severe physical abuse and they did not go the extra mile to investigate because they were blinded by their own beliefs and ways. When Gabriel Fernandez passed away, the mother, the boyfriend, and the social workers involved were all charged with his death. The social workers had numerous opportunities to step in and save him, but they ignored the signs and the opposite of what they expected to happen came true, making them at fault.

We can all relate to the social workers at least in a less serious case. We have all made mistakes because we valued our own fixed belief so much we did not care to investigate further to make sure our belief is fair and equal. This happens often in politics. A lot of people hold such strong beliefs in politics that mask their ability to listen to other ideas. Of course, some people’s ideas are crap, and we do not have to agree with everything. But it is very important to allow yourself to have open ears so that you as an individual do not get yourself caught up in a situation similar to the social workers on Gabriel Fernandez’s case. Going the extra mile to ensure that something negative won’t turn out because of your decisions is what Clifford is trying to express. We all are held accountable for our shortfalls in the end, no matter how much we prepared for what we expected to happen. If the unexpected happens and we are not prepared, that could result in a grave mistake we are responsible for.

Valid Argument with a false conclusion:

If my pet has teeth, it is an carnivore. My pet has no teeth, he is not a carnivore.

Sound Argument:

If my dog eats only meat, he is an carnivore. My dog eats only meat therefore he is a carnivore.

Inductive Argument:

If I let go of a pen, gravity will cause it to fall to the floor. I dropped my pen and gravity caused it to fall to the floor.

Deductive Argument:

It’s sunny outside today. If its sunny outside, no one will be wearing a raincoat. It’s sunny outside so no one will be wearing a raincoat today.

Nativity plays a role in injustice on both sides; naive victims can be silenced by people of power, while people of power can be naive to their own discriminatory behavior. Good and bad people don’t often get what they deserve. Good and bad people hold power. People of power often are naive to their own discriminatory behavior and victims can be silenced by their trauma.

A kid in my class in high school was caught for buying nude pictures of underage girls off of their current/ex boyfriends. He created a whole private website where he kept these pictures with different albums titled as each girls name. He had pictures dating back to middle school. One by one girls were called in to be “questioned”. One of my friends was shown a picture of herself (15 years old) by a male dean and asked if the girl in the picture was her. She was humiliated and traumatized that a male adult staff member had her pictures and was showing them to her without parental notice. All of the girls wanted to press charges but the school silenced them by saying if the boy got in trouble, the girls would be in trouble too because they committed the same crime as the boy (so wrong). The boy was asked to leave the school but no expulsion was on his record so as not to ruin his chances of scholarship. This outcome was extremely unfair to the girls. In this case, the girls were the naive victims. The girls wanted to speak up for themselves but were shut down by people of authority who were just trying to make the whole situation disappear. No matter the intentions of the faculty members, they discriminated against the naive girls and used their power to silence them. The girls were traumatized and embarrassed so they just accepted what their authority figures were telling them. To this day I see how unfair and cruel the faculty was to not allow girls to seek further action against this predator. He is allowed to continue his actions and behavior because he was not correctly punished, and the girls will forever live with that trauma because they weren’t taken seriously and their feelings were not considered. The school acted as if everyone was equal in the situation and that the girls were deserving of what happened because they sent the pictures in the first place. The school could use their power over the girls because of their naivity, all the girls being 15 years old (sophomores in high school).