Aristotle's Views of Tragedy

Whether in his treatments of the physical cosmos or in such works as the Nichomachean Ethics, Politics, or Rhetoric, Aristotle clearly makes certain assumptions about his readership and the society in which he articulates his ideas. He assumes that man is a social being and that society is a serious enterprise, suffused with politics and a sense of purpose, as well as with a strong (though sometimes vague and sometimes suppressed) moral sense. The reason that seems important to point out is that Golden Age Greece was also beset by wars of conquest and massacre; Aristotle is famous not least as a tutor of Alexander the Great. The point is that only a rational, sometimes thoughtful society can recognize the difference between good and reason and their opposites, whether evil or chaos. While social structures not necessarily based on a community of reason might be able to produce a sense of the beautiful (music, visual arts, dance, ritual), only among generally rational people who share a stake in the maintenance of a civil society is tragedy possible. This whole line of thought informs a simple but critical element of Aristotle's view of tragedy, that it shows "men in action, and men who are necessarily either of good or of bad character." Aristotle continues: