A Plan of Operations for a Von Neumann – Bracewell Probe (Part 2: Emissary)

June 6, 2026 – 11:26 am

Consider the case that a VN-B Probe has determined from preflight observations that the target system falls under Cases 4, 5, or 6 and involves contact with known technological ETI

Mission Operations

Preflight (Continued)

  • Continue observing the ETI in order to
    • Gather data relevant to maximising the possibility of successful communication
    • Determine threat potentials to humanity, the ETI, and the probe
  • Send a signal to the ETI when it is determined that
    • Observation has gathered adequate data relevant to maximising the possibility of successful communication, and
    • The threat potentials are acceptable
  • Via the signal
    • Reveal to the ETI the existence of a signalling intelligence
    • Inform the ETI that the signalling intelligence is aware of their existence
    • Establish a language of communication
    • Seek permission for the despatch of an emissary probe
      • Outline the communicative and collaborative intentions of the mission
      • Give notice of the resource exploitation requirements of the emissary
      • Require that physical isolation be maintained
      • Propose an arrival procedure
    • Indicate that the probe will be despatched if no response refusing same is received by a certain time.
      • Give relevant ETAs
    • Await a response
      • If invited (and the conditions are agreed to,) or if there is no response, prepare and send a probe to follow the nominated arrival procedures
      • If refused (or the conditions are not agreed to,) or if there are contradictory responses, do not send a probe
    • Continue sending and receiving messages
      • In the case of a refusal or contradictory responses, continue to request an invitation

Notes

  1. The procedural delay in sending the probe to the target system is justified by the importance of ensuring successful establishment of relations with an advanced (spacefaring) ETI.
    1. Long distance observation of the target ETI may need to continue for several years before the conditions are met for a signal to be sent
    2. Even if the ETI is at 5cy distance, a reply may take longer than 10 years. Time is required for the ETI to interpret the signal, decide on their answer, and construct the signalling device required to transmit the answer.
  2. Failure to respond is an anomalous condition. It may mean that
    1. The signal was not detected
      • Very unlikely for Case 5 or 6 ETI
    2. The ETI could not properly interpret the signal
      • Unlikely, given that the signal will be designed to be interpreted by any reasonably intelligent and interested receiver
    3. No decision could be reached by the ETI
      • Although given that no response will result in the probe being despatched, it is likely that some response – even if only a ‘Please hold’ – would be forthcoming
    4. No capacity to send a signal could be developed
      • Very unlikely, given the level of technology required for Case 5 or 6
    5. The society/civilisation of the ETI has been disrupted
      • This should have other observable effects
    6. Receiving contradictory responses indicates no consensus amongst the ETI.
      1. Disregarding the faction that refuses would constitute active interference in ETI affairs.
      2. Deferring the invitation and not sending a probe merely preserves the status quo and allows a consensus to develop
    7. Volunteering information concerning ETA and Arrival Procedures makes the probe more vulnerable to unwelcome actions taken by a hostile ETI
      1. The suggested arrival procedure is designed
        • to ensure the security of the probe from hostile actions by the ETI even under conditions of full information
        • to demonstrate that the probe is not an obvious direct threat
      2. It will be apparent to the ETI that this is the intention of the Arrival Procedures
      3. This behaviour will demonstrate that the probe is serious about preserving its independence and integrity
      4. The ETI will be aware as well that their behaviour is being monitored and evaluated and reported to the probe’s origin. This should moderate any tendency to aggression
        • For fear of what the response from the probe’s origin might be
        • In hope of establishing a productive ongoing relationship with obvious potential to benefit the ETI

Arrival

  • Assume an initial station far outside the system
    • Far from any larger bodies identified in the pre-flight observations that are likely to attract ET activity
    • Off the plane of the system
  • Conduct scans
    • To determine ETI compliance with security requests
    • To revise the case assignment of the system
    • To locate outer system resources
  • If
    • ETI have violated the arrival procedures agreement in a way that seems intended to exploit probe vulnerabilities
    • There are other indications that ETI will exploit probe vulnerabilities

Then

    • Depart the system immediately
  • Initiate contact
  • If
    • ETI indicate they will exploit probe vulnerabilities
    • ETI indicate that the probe’s presence is unwelcome

Then

    • Depart the system immediately
  • Proceed towards the most convenient site at which to establish a construction facility as far from the star as practicable.

Notes

  1. The details of these procedures are sensitive to the specifics of the probe’s propulsion system.
    1. The ability to immediately depart from the system requires special preparations at the pre-flight stage – perhaps to include modifications to the transit form of the probe to include an escape system, or coordination with an associated independent vehicle bringing an escape system, etc.
    2. An alternative is to have a fly-through vehicle precede the probe’s full deceleration into the system to conduct the necessary reconnaissance.
  2. The location of the initial station is intended to make the probe inaccessible to the ETI. Given the size of the relevant space, it is impossible for the probe to be intercepted by an ETI at the reasonably expected state of advancement – even given the observation of the probe throughout its deceleration phase
  3. Where the ETI has responded and has made suggestions that would not violate the Part 1: Lurker– Mission Constraints adopt them as a matter of courtesy.

Establishment of Primary Infrastructure

  • Follow Part 1: Lurker– Mission Operations/Establishment of Primary Infrastructure
  • Offer to locate monitoring devices constructed and operated by the ETI at any point in the system.

Notes

  1. These operations were approved through the Preflight communications.
    1. Construction and deployment of in-system probes is optional; possibly dependent upon gaining the consent of the ETI
  2. The monitoring devices and their maximal independence of the probe are intended to assure the ETI that nothing being done by the probe or its agents poses a threat to the ETI.

Spawning

  • Follow Part 1: Lurker– Mission Operations/Spawning

Notes

  1. These operations were also approved through the Preflight communications.

Main Probe Operations

  • Continue communications with ETI
  • Continue reports to parent probe (and eventually to the Origin point)
    • Requests and updates are continually received from all probe ancestors and cousins
  • At the point that adequate trust and a modus vivendi has been established the probe may remove from the outer system and position itself more conveniently for communication with the ETI

Notes

  1. It is expected at that final point that the ETI will appreciate the fact that an unmolested probe poses no threat and gives them quick and convenient access to an interstellar culture.
    1. All the more so if the probes join to other probe networks derived from other origins.

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A Plan of Operations for a Von Neumann – Bracewell Probe (Part 1: Lurker)

June 5, 2026 – 11:06 am

Mission Goal

Establish communications with technologically capable ETI           

Mission Profile

  1. Arrive in a star system with the potential for ETI
  2. Replicate and dispatch probes to neighbouring star systems with the potential for ETI
  3. Investigate the system to identify an ETI
    1. Monitor the system until an ETI is identified
  4. Study the ETI to establish the potential for communication
    1. Monitor the ETI until the conditions for communication are met
  5. Initiate communication – achieving the Mission Goal

Mission Constraints

  1. Do nothing to jeopardise humanity
    1. Do not present as an imminent threat to any possible ETI
    2. Do not reveal the location of Earth to any ETI or allow it to be discovered before a satisfactory degree of trust has been established
    3. Remain concealed and make no contact with any ETI until any possibility of a consequent threat to humanity is thoroughly evaluated and dismissed
    4. Limit the content of any communication with ETI accordingly
  2. Do nothing to harm actual or potential ETI
    1. Do not present as an imminent threat to any possible ETI
    2. Make no environmental changes or exploitations that will significantly adversely affect actual or potential ETI
    3. Remain concealed and make no contact with any ETI until any possibility of a consequent adverse effect on ETI is thoroughly evaluated and dismissed
    4. Limit the content of any communication with ETI accordingly
  3. Do nothing to jeopardise the probe
    1. Do not send the probe anywhere where it is likely to be destroyed
    2. Do not make the probe vulnerable to any ETI not yet trusted
    3. Do not send the probe to any destination from which it cannot leave

Notes concerning Constraints

  1. Assuming that the use of most forms of communication would be detectable by sufficiently advanced ETI, progress results are sent not to Earth but to the parent of the current probe.
    1. At worst, this would give an indication of the celestial hemisphere in which the point of the probe’s origin is to be found, though more convoluted routings are possible.
    2. This same information would in any case be available to any ETI that had noted the probe’s arrival. It is hard to imagine a mode of interstellar travel involving interception that would not be so detectable.
    3. We can assume that the first probes sent to neighbours of Earth will not face the problem of communicating (or arriving) in the presence of a possibly hostile ETI. We have found no evidence of technological ETI in those systems.
  2. In all the probe’s operations it will make every effort to leave no trace that could be recognised as evidence of its presence by an ETI that has not reached the stage at which it could satisfy the conditions for contact.
    1. Even if no such ETI is existent at the time of operation it must be considered a possibility that one will eventually arise and precautions should be taken accordingly.
    2. It is accepted that no concealment is possible from arbitrarily advanced ETI
  3. Each probe is an intelligent autonomous entity with value in itself and with its own interests
  4. Defence of the probe from ETI control (constraint and exploitation) is also required to satisfy Mission Constraint 1

Mission Operations

Preflight

  • The target system is observed before the probe’s departure.
    • The planetary system of the target star is identified and characterized
    • Potential resource sites are identified – asteroid belts, dust rings, far outer planets, etc
    • Potential sites of ETI are identified and closely observed for evidence of life, intelligence, and technological competences and activities
      • Case 1: no biosignatures are detected
      • Case 2: no technosignatures are detected, but there are strong biosignatures
      • Case 3: low technosignatures of ETI are detected indicating some environmental effects of ETI activities but not that they are harnessing dense energy sources
      • Case 4: advanced technosignatures of ETI are detected indicating usage of dense energy sources suitable for industry, but no interplanetary activity
      • Case 5: limited interplanetary activities of ETI are detected
      • Case 6: activities of ETI are detected throughout the system

Notes

  1. The cases distinguish the degree of threat that the probe might face from inhabitants of the target system as far as those threats can be determined from outside the system.
    1. As generalised technology indicators, they can also be used as a rough guide to the ability of the inhabitants of the target system to detect the arrival or presence of a probe in their system.
    2. It is highly likely that communication signals (notably, radio) will be detected from ETI falling into cases 4, 5 and 6
    3. Cases 4, 5, and 6 require special preflight, arrival, and establishment procedures that will not be covered here.
  2. Assume that the probe travels at .1c
    1. Since the average distance between stars is ~5cy, the average transit time is about ~50y
  3. Assume that between probe departure and arrival the conditions of the target system might alter so that a system that was determined to be Case 2 to 5 at probe departure might be Case 3 to 6 at arrival.
  4. Assume that the possibility of observation of the target is limited while the probe is in flight.

Arrival

  • Assume an initial station in the outer system
    • Far from any larger bodies identified in the pre-flight observations that are likely to attract ET activity
    • On the plane of the system
  • Conduct scans
    • To confirm or revise the case assignment of the system
    • To locate outer system resources

Notes

  1. It is almost certain that the deceleration phase would be observable by Case 4 ETI – depending on the type of system that the probe uses.
    1. It is unlikely that it would be identified as a probe arrival, but it might attract attention
    2. It is unlikely that the ETI’s observational capabilities would be adequate to detect operations of the probe in the outer system
  2. Do not conduct a fly-through of the system at this stage. The case assignment of the system has not yet been confirmed and caution is necessary.
  3. It is highly implausible that a Case 3 assessment (equivalent to pre-18th C level on Earth) will need to be revised to Case 5 or 6 (post 20th C,) thus a capacity for immediate departure upon arrival is not judged necessary.

Establishment of Primary Infrastructure

  • Proceed towards a convenient resource site in the outer system.
  • Extract resources and set up a construction and coordination facility nearby.
  • Construct a deep space observation system for investigation of neighbouring potential target stars for the next probe
  • Construct and deploy in-system probes, energy farms, communications relays, etc.
  • Make preparations for an immediate departure

Notes

  1. Any construction programme will be hierarchically ordered. First raw materials need to be collected, then simple structures need to be built, then facilities for more complex fabrications, etc. This has been studied elsewhere by others. The time required to achieve the necessary final stages is probably The initial steps will be very slow, but progress will accelerate as the capabilities are expanded.
  2. The infrastructure created in the outer system will be extensive
  3. The details of the construction required for the preparation for immediate departure and the preparations for launch of the next generation of probes depends on the particular mode of interstellar transfer used. It may require hydrogen mining for fusion engines, or construction of sails and laser generators for laser launch, or any number of other possibilities.
  4. The probe does not attempt inner system operations until it has reached the stage that immediate departure is possible – together with the necessary clean-up operations to conceal its passage – maintaining maximum discretion until that time.

Spawning

  • Replicate the main probe and whatever is required for its launch
  • Conduct preflight operations for the new probes
  • Launch the next generation probes whenever conditions are judged optimal

Notes

  1. The launch of next generation probes is likely to be detectable by Case 4 ETI
    1. It is unlikely to be identified as a probe (at that time)
  2. The launch of a next generation probe is dependent upon its preflight operations concluding with a decision to depart. (See the operations listed above in Preflight and see also the special operations and options listed in Part 2: Emissary – Mission Operations/Preflight where the target system falls under Cases 4-6)
    1. Because the spawning operation includes the possibility of indefinitely delayed launch it is allowed to overlap with the conduct of the in-system operations described below

Initial Probe Operations

Case 4

  • Send several asteroids of appropriate sizes through the inner star system on close-approach trajectories to the target planet(s) to form an estimate of minimal safe distances of approach
  • After an initial estimate of minimal safe distance of approach is formed establish a regime of probes disguised in asteroidal bodies to fly-by TPs at minimal safe distances

Notes

  1. The asteroid close approaches are tests of the response capabilities of any ETIs that may be in system.
    1. An interception by ETI is highly unlikely, but would be harmless in the test case
    2. It is unlikely to be identified as a probe (at that time)
  2. Minimal safe distance estimates are constantly reviewed
  3. A suitable regime would be a sufficient number of asteroids in highly eccentric orbits so that there are always stealthy probes relatively close to the TP.

Case 3

  • Distribute in-system probes in low orbit about the planet of interest

Case 2

  • Distribute in-system probes in low orbit about the planet of interest
  • Distribute planetary probes about the surface of the planet of interest if they can be discreet and fully secured from pre-technological ETI

Notes

  1. The assessment of the possibility of planet surface probes is done only after extensive inspection through orbital probes.

Case 1

  • Distribute in-system probes in low orbit about the planet of interest
  • Distribute planetary probes about the surface of the planet of interest

Continuing Probe Operations

  • Monitor the Detection Threat Level (DTL)
    • 0 No ETI – no threat
    • 1 Detection capabilities are limited to non-technological modes.
    • 2 Operations on-planet may be detected
    • 3 Operations in planetary orbit or nearby may be detected
    • 4 Operations in the inner system may be detected

Notes

  1. ‘Detection’ is observation and identification as anomalous. Such identification might then lead to further investigation and eventual discovery (identification as a possible probe.)
  2. DTLs are determined with reference to the particular forms that the probe’s activities take. For example, if radio signals are used in probe communication, then the ETI’s radio spectrum abilities are relevant; if the probe’s propulsion systems result in visible light signals (such as rocket flares,) then the ETI’s visible light detection abilities are relevant, etc.
  3. Changes in DTLs will be in single steps only

DTL:0

  • Operate in-system probes in low orbit about the planet of interest
  • Operate planetary probes on the surface of the planet of interest
  • Operate construction, power generation, communication infrastructure nearby (on the planet, as satellites of the planet, on satellites of the planet, or on or about neighbouring planets)

Raise DTL:0 to DTL:1

  • Planetary surface operations may continue on the condition that they are isolated from the ETI so that they are not affected by those operations and they may not detect them.

Raise DTL:1 to DTL:2

  • Planetary surface operations are ended.
  • Operation of construction, power generation, communication may continue off-planet where that is required.

Raise DTL:2 to DTL:3

  • All permanent operations on and in orbit of the planet are ended.
  • Infrastructure operations are moved beyond the zone of threat of detection to neighbouring planets, their moons, or local asteroids.
  • Probes of the planet are now restricted to close flyby probes concealed in asteroidal covers.
    • The asteroidal covers may be sourced from neighbouring infrastructure sites

Raise DTL:3 to DTL:4

  • All infrastructure operations are relocated outside the inner system
  • Planetary probes are now restricted to close flyby probes concealed in asteroidal covers.
    • The asteroidal covers are sourced from outer system infrastructure sites
    • The orbits of the asteroidal covers are disguised so that a common origin cannot be calculated

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Classification Scales for Extraterrestrial Intelligences

June 3, 2026 – 11:18 am

Scale                 Property (Variable, Units)                   Formula                              Earth’s Value  

  1. Kardashev          Energy Consumption (W, Watts)          K = Log10W – 6                  7.3
  2. Sagan                Information Content[1] (I, bits)          S = Log10I – 7                    7.0
  3. Spatial               Resource Zone (d, km)                       Z = Log10d                         4.1-5.6

[1] Adapted from Carl Sagan (1973) The Cosmic Connection c. 34 with his estimates for the comment.

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Towards a ‘Virtue Theory’ for Literature (1)

May 31, 2026 – 9:02 am

It is often asked why we should read; more specifically, why we should read the classics or ‘fine literature,’ by which is meant generally poetry, plays, and prose narratives of various kinds – these days especially, ‘serious’ novels. The question is motivated by the fact that reading this literature is claimed to be a good thing and that those who do so either are admired for it or should be admired, that the failure to do so is felt to be a personal fault, and that it is even argued that society should take an interest in encouraging such reading. In short, it is held to have real value, and the only question is, what is the value?

Bad Reasons to Read Literature

The usual range of answers to this question are pretty unconvincing. Consider this entirely representative list with attached brief critiques:

  1. They Provide Timeless Insights Into Human Nature
    • Notoriously, the ‘insights’ offered are banal (or absurd,) and authors have no particular qualifications to offer them anyway. Such insights would be better sourced from a psychology or anthropology textbook.
  2. Classic Literature Enhances Critical Thinking Skills
    • There is no good evidence for this. Some literature may require greater cognitive effort to appreciate, but it rarely involves the assessment of argument validity, statistical reasoning, or the identification of plausible causal relations.
  3. They Expand Your Vocabulary and Language Skills
    • Marginally, possibly, by giving examples of ‘good’ writing. Actual improvement in language competence comes mostly from practice at producing, not consuming, language; by writing and speaking, not reading and listening.
  4. Classic Books Offer Historical and Cultural Context
    • The context usually has to be provided by the Introduction to classic texts. Being set in foreign times and climes is rather a handicap to appreciation than an advantage. Nor does mere acquaintance with an alien context necessarily bring true comprehension.
  5. They Develop Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
    • This is highly unlikely. If anything, the connection goes the other way: people who are already interested in people are more likely to develop an interest in reading about other people. The ‘empathy’ and ‘EI,’ where they aren’t delusions, were there first.
  6. Classic Literature Provides Intellectual Stimulation and Mental Exercise
    • So do many things. That is not a particular quality of classic/fine literature.
  7. They Connect You to Literary Traditions and References
    • True, but trivial – and probably a bit circular.
  8. Classic Books Offer Escape from Modern Digital Overload
    • Any book can do this. So can a crossword or a walk in the country.
  9. They Tackle Universal Themes That Remain Relevant Today
    • But in what does this ‘tackling’ consist? And what does it matter that they do? Literary treatments of these universal themes (poverty, war, relations between the sexes, etc.) are rarely of great significance intellectually, they do not help us better understand them, they do not help us form wise policies to address them.
  10. Reading Classics Enhances Personal Growth and Self-Reflection
    • What evidence could there be for this? What does it even mean?

The Two Roots of Literary Appreciation

A curious fact about these lists of reasons justifying the reading of fine or classic literature  – which are all essentially utilitarian or otherwise external to the literature itself – is that, even if we accept that they don’t succeed as justifications, we are no less inclined to defend the worth of reading such works. This will be true of any such external justification of literature, because such justifications are simply misguided: the only justification required for reading at all is that we enjoy it. The problem that remains is to explain how we justify valuing some literature above others by using only reasons or criteria of evaluation that are internal to the literature itself – but this is not an unusual problem in the arts, the same problem will be found in the visual arts or music, for example.

In this case, I propose that a possible solution requires that we begin by recognising two sources of pleasure that are universal amongst humans and that seem to be relevant to the question at hand: storytelling, and language-play.

  1. There now seems to be good evidence that we are in fact hard-wired to process information more effectively when it comes in the form of a narration: more brain areas are activated corresponding to a virtual experience of the narrated events, memories are more reliably and completely formed (Haven, 2007) (presumably, because the narration provides a coordinating context for the embedded facts,) oxytocin, a chemical related to empathetic identification, may be released (Zak, 20013,) mirror neurons are activated so that emotional engagement is enhanced (Iacoboni, 2009.)

    Explanations for this fact are generally offered in terms of evolutionary psychology and the advantages to be gained through such enhanced effectiveness of transmission (Boyd, 2009; Carroll, 2012; Gottschall, 2012,) but there are also explanations in terms of displays of creativity and competence and all that that might signal to potential mates and competitors about the storyteller’s fitness (something like an intellectual peacock’s tail.) For our purposes it doesn’t really matter, except that as a cultural response to an evolutionary strategy, we might expect there to be certain conditions and limits and characteristics imposed on that cultural response so that stories that violated them would be less well-rewarded by positive responses in the audience.

    Possible examples of such inherent requirements of a story are those elements identified as universal preferences: a plot structure of setup, conflict, and resolution (note that an unresolved conflict is known to create cognitive tension as an instance of the Zeigarnik Effect,) identifiable characters, a coherent emotional setting, etc. The fact that we cannot conceive of a successful story that violates these strictures may be a consequence of our evolved storytelling faculty, or it might simply be that they are objectively necessary elements of any narration. Again, it hardly matters why these strictures may apply, it only matters that they do apply.

  2. Storytelling, of course, requires language, which is also universal amongst humans. Language is, however, a skill that has to be developed and then perfected for real competence: it does not simply arrive at its full and final competence like sight or hearing or breathing. In this respect it is much like other motor, cognitive, and social skills that characterize normally competent humans. Like those other skills, the development of language in its early stages is marked by creative, rule-testing, rule-breaking, repetitive, competence-testing, etc. exercises that constitute what is called play (Gras,1901.) Children play at physical sports in order to hone physical competences; children play at language use in order to hone linguistic competence. (This, and much else of interest, is discussed in Benítez‐Burraco et al. 2025.) The evolutionarily derived motivation for all this is simply that play is experienced as enjoyable: play gives pleasure.

    The pleasure to be found in play does not disappear at the end of the developmental phase, though its expression and its forms of appreciation do alter. Adults still find enjoyment in play, even if for them the opportunities to indulge in play are fewer and social approval for such indulgence is limited. Some adults will, of course, continue to treat such play as worthwhile in itself – just as some adults continue to play children’s games like tennis or rugby – but adults in general are more inclined to find the pleasure in play in the appreciation of play by others: some will play and others will enjoy their playing. The significance of the play-element, in Western culture at least, is well covered in Huizinga’s (1950) Homo Ludens.

    The important point to note here is that not all non-standard usages of language can count as play, and not all are therefore going to be appreciated by whatever innate mechanisms are at work when we regard language play. Benitez-Burraco et al (op. cit. p. 4) make the relevant comment that:

Given that the concept of play is quite elusive, it is of course difficult to assess which uses of language involve some sort of play, not to say which structural aspects of language are motivated by such putative playing function. In general, language play concerns playing with linguistic forms, as well as the semantic and pragmatic aspects of language (Crystal 1998; Cook 1997, 2000). It therefore has a formal dimension, on the one hand, as well as a semantic and pragmatic dimension on the other hand. It is this formal side of playing with language that is captured when talking about the ‘aesthetic’ use of language, or, put differently, the formal dimension of language play is a form of ‘aesthetic action’ (Albuquerque and Emilee Moore 2024).

Recognising Excellence in Literature

Literature is a performance of language use (of a particular kind) and has natural elements of assessment as a performance of a certain kind. (They may not be the only elements of assessment, but they are the fundamentals.) In the particular case of fine literature as we are understanding it, those natural elements of assessment are exactly the elements of literature determined to be relevant to the two sources of pleasure in literature that we have identified: storytelling and language play. Excellence in literature will be judged by the degree to which excellence is displayed in those elements.

Two questions are immediately suggested by this claim. The first is how we might precisely identify the elements to be assessed, and the second is how we might specify the criteria according to which the excellence in each element of the literary performance might be judged. Consider these in turn.

  1. It might be thought that this is essentially an empirical question, since the elements involved are ultimately those determined to be so by observation of actual literary performance. In the case of storytelling, it has been observed that plot structure, characterization, tone, etc. are universally regarded as essential to an effective performance, while in the case of language use itself, considerations of play have indicated that structural innovation, rhythm, semantic sophistication and so on are universally recognised as aesthetically relevant. We might expect that further empirical research in this area would complete the list of relevant elements.

    We need not, however, outsource our critical facilities entirely to the laboratory, for a critic, being human, will have an innate sense of what will count as an element of assessment and what won’t. Moreover, in his audience, the critic has a mostly reliable guide to whether he has strayed from the path. If his audience come to a general agreement that some element of the performance that he has selected for consideration is not relevant as an assessment of a literary performance (quâ literary performance,) it will not be added to the list of elements that other critics will consider. The critic’s audience is itself the equivalent of a laboratory test of his hypothesis.

  2. As to the specific criteria of evaluation for any particular element of assessment, it is highly unlikely that there will be any fixed scale for judgement. What kind of scale would measure the excellence of a plot structure, of a characterization, or of a work’s tone? Against what scale would one measure the excellence of a grammatical innovation, of a semantic shift, or of a lexical rhythm? These are rather matters of taste – within certain hard to define bounds anyway, and the critic will have no better course than to appeal to his own taste to make such an assessment.

    This needn’t mean that every critic’s preferences are ‘mere taste’ and deserving of no more respect than any other person’s. Hume made the point long ago that we are not all alike in our ability to recognise the particular forms and qualities that are productive of that pleasant feeling, and that this recognition has several consequences: firstly, we accept that there are those who have an elevated sensibility and should be taken as experts in the matter; secondly, it is possible to train one’s sensibility so as to improve one’s taste. With luck or practice one may become a true critic with “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice.” We can see in all this that there is room for a good deal of discussion and argument, and even for reasonable claims of error in aesthetic judgement; thus, Hume’s proposal would be one way to square the circle of the ultimate subjectivity of aesthetic judgements coexisting with their disputability.

Albuquerque, D. L., and E. Emilee Moore. 2024. “Foregrounding Co‐Artistry in an Aesthetic and Plurilingual/Pluriliteracies Approach to Additional Language Teaching and Learning.” Frontiers in Education 8

Benítez‐Burraco, A., S. Hartmann, M. Pleyer (2026) ‘The Role of Play in Language Structure, Acquisition and Evolution’ Language and Linguistics Compass

Boyd Brian. 2009. On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Carroll Joseph. 2012. “The Truth About Fiction: Biological Reality and Imaginary Lives.” Style 46 (2): 129-60.

Cook, G. 1997. “Language Play, Language Learning.” ELT Journal 51, no. 3: 224–231.

    1. Language Play, Language Learning. Oxford University Press.

Crystal, D. 1998. Language Play. University of Chicago Press.

Gottschall Jonathan. 2012. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Groos, K. The Play of Man, Appleton, New York, 1901

Haven, K. (2007). Story proof: The science behind the startling power of story. Libraries Unlimited.

Huizinga, J. (1950) Homo Ludens  Boston, MA: Beacon Press

Iacoboni, M. (2009). Mirroring people: The new science of how we connect with others. Picador.

Zak, P. J. (2013). “Why your brain loves good storytelling”. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/10/why-your-brain-loves-good-storytelling

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Two Questions about the Truths We Can Know

May 28, 2026 – 3:47 am

1. Are there any truths that are just inaccessible to the human mind – that just could not be thought by the human mind?

I’m not wondering about truths that are incomprehensible because of some gross physical limit, like the names of every person on Earth (or choose your own example,) which is incomprehensible just because our brains aren’t large enough to hold that information. I’m talking about concepts that are too complex or not of the right kind – whatever that kind might be – for our particular mental structure to accommodate. We do not doubt that this is true for all other kinds of minds of which we are aware: no one doubts, for example, that there are limits to canine comprehension, and we may even doubt that their mental processes are reliable guides to the truth of the world.

We feel no need to wonder at this in the case of dogs because we accept that the minds/brains of dogs are the accidental product of evolutionary processes that are not necessarily truth or true comprehension respecting. In such a case it is a wonder requiring explanation that their minds are capable of understanding the world at all (which I actually accept that they do.) However, since we are in precisely the same situation with respect to the evolution of our own cognitive faculties, why should we be advantaged in the way that we feel certain that we are advantaged? And if we are perfectly competent comprehenders, how did that line get crossed and when?

2. Are the truths that we accept even true?

If asked to choose the truest of our true beliefs, we would probably choose something like the claim that 2+2=4, or that ‘I am me.’  Why do we think these truths are so certain? Because we can’t conceive of them not being true. We interpret that realisation as meaning that 2+2=4 is a truth that is independent of any facts about the universe, but we have no real warrant for believing that. We have no real warrant for thinking that our minds give us access to ultimate a priori necessary truths.

Consider, as above, that our minds are the products of our brains and thus the products of evolutionary processes that are guided only by the requirements of species continuation. That is admittedly a debatable way of phrasing it, but at the very least it is not obvious that evolutionary processes are going to necessarily preference truth-tracking. In these circumstances it would be a wonder if our minds really were tuned to the eternal truths of the universe – or worse, the truths of all possible universes. How could evolutionary processes possibly be invoked to explain that? Possible universes exert no actual evolutionary pressure. But if our minds are so unmoored from ultimate truth, then do we have to accept that it is really possible that 2+2 is not= 4? It’s a toss-up which option is the more alarming.

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Wrong Directions for AGI

May 24, 2026 – 11:41 am

One of my criteria for attributing understanding to a system is that the internal states of the system must be capable of deriving or corresponding to a partial model of that which they understand (to the degree that it is understood anyway.) LLMs are simply incapable of passing such a test since they don’t contain a model of the world at all, but only a model of the language corpus on which they are trained.

Against this it might be said that, in a certain sense, you could derive a model of the world from an LLM simply by asking it to describe the relevant world. Since the language produced is in some correspondence with the world – since someone receiving that description could use it to construct such a model – it follows that the internal states of the LLM can derive a correspondence with the world and my criterion of understanding would be satisfied.

In such a case, however, the LLM product has a correspondence only in so far as it is mediated by a natural language speaker (of the LLM’s base language) and therefore its appearance of ‘understanding’ can only be a projection/reflection of the understanding of that speaker. The point can be made clear to our intuitions using two examples that I’ve used in the same context previously (in conversation anyway.)

  • In the first place, consider a LLM created by exposure to the entire corpus of Chinese language text, but managed by only non-Chinese speakers. It would be impossible under any circumstances to derive a model of the world from the productions of such a LLM. This indicates that any supposedly derivable model is dependent upon the semantic capacities of the natural language producers and not of the LLM. or of the consumers.

  • In the second place, if there is lingering doubt about this – or if it is thought that the consumers of the LLM products could learn the language over time, given enough exposure to the LLM products (as people sometimes erroneously argue concerning the output of Searle’s Chinese Room, by entirely misunderstanding the claim of the CR experiment) – consider the case of a LLM created by exposure to the corpus of an unknown language such as Linear A. In such a case we know that no matter what the output of the LLM, there is no-one anywhere who could construct a world model from it. Moreover, there is no possibility that the LLM could be used to translate from the Linear A language to, say, English, from which a model could be derived.

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Observations on Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’

May 24, 2026 – 5:47 am

You might think that such a widely cited and referenced work had something significant to say about the nature and significance of reproduction, but I find that what is said is mostly trivial or just wrong-headed. In particular, I note that Benjamin is aware that mechanical production is not the same thing as reproduction – whatever that might be precisely – but then he doesn’t seem to keep that distinction in mind when he’s talking about the art forms in which mechanical production is the very condition of existence.

  • Much is made of the significance of an ‘aura’ which is merely a shorthand way of talking about everything that makes an object unique – and in the materialist universe that can only be such things as its history, accidents of production, precise relationship to other objects, and so on. All of this is to stand in for its quiddity or haecceity and much significance is attributed to this as justifying a distinction between the art object that possesses one particular aura against another object which as its reproduction must lack it. But in the age of mechanical production the aura simply attaches to the stage before the object itself: to the negative rather than the film, to the music performance rather than the recording (or to the recording rather than the playing;) to the musical score rather than the performance (or to the particular performance rather than the replaying;) and so on. None of this seems to be particularly significant: we’ve had the problem since woodblocks and printing, and since these have existed for a thousand years in China for example, without causing any notable sociological impairment of their artistic sense, it seems unlikely that it is that that has resulted in the difficulties of modern art in the West.

  • He also talks about the way that the rejection of the significance of the aura-possessing object goes hand in hand with the turn away from the ritual aspect of the artwork, but this has been going on for millennia rather than following on from the industrial revolution. Again, there is a failure to properly justify the large claims being made, or even to test them against clearly available control cases – like China and India, for example, in both of which cases we see different relations of ritual and art and no real relationship between these relationships and the mode of production (capitalist or feudal or ‘oriental.’)

  • There’s a lot of talk about how our perceptions are changed, but this is just an example of the standard continental habit of making profound-sounding statements whose significance vanishes like cotton-candy in water with the slightest inspection. All he is talking about is our style or representation of what we perceive: nothing that he describes is relevant to a claim that our perceptions have changed. That claim, on the other hand, could be made in some respects. The fact that we have a changed understanding of certain aspects of the sensed world or that we are familiarised with new ways of modifying our senses could mean that our perceptions have changed – not our sensations obviously which is a physiological fact about us that has no relationship to our culture, but our interpretations at the most basic level even before consciousness (if ‘perception’ can be allowed to include pre-conscious processing of sensations.) The ‘modularity’ (in Fodor’s sense) of the perceptual mechanisms makes this a bare possibility and would be an important discovery if true. Nothing Benjamin says here is at all relevant to that possibility.

Because I was curious about Benjamin’s high reputation, I looked at Clive James ‘Walter Benjamin’ in Cultural Amnesia (pp. 47-56,) and I see that James is rather of my own opinion. Of Benjamin’s most famous essay, James comments that of the productions of that sort of intellectual:

[it] is atypical for featuring a general point designed to be readily understood. Unfortunately, once understood, it is readily seen to be bogus.

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Against AI Art

May 24, 2026 – 3:10 am

There was recent kerfuffle online when a blogger posted an image of a real Monet and said that he had generated it using AI. 

Could his readers tell him, he asked, why it was inferior to this other image that was of a real Monet?

Of course, his replies were filled with people offering their artistic analyses demonstrating the technical failures of the first compared to the second – and those people should be properly chastened by their gulling – but amongst that dross were a couple of replies that seemed to get at the real difference. In particular, Jon Gomm observed that

People hate AI art *because it’s AI* So it doesn’t actually matter what the art is. The point of art is the making. Not the object, which is merely the conduit of connection to the person who made it

Another interesting observation – not precisely relevant to the point I’m going to make – was made by Gina Choy

Monet, along with the Impressionists, radically transformed how light, colour, atmosphere, and nature itself were perceived, shifting perception at a collective and cognitive level. What feels visually familiar to us now was once a profound rupture in the history of seeing. While AI generated imitation has been an important catalyst for thought and discussion, this particular work offers little that is new or perceptually transformative. AI’s capacity to replicate styles, aesthetics, and techniques has already been well established. For that reason, an AI image made in the style of Monet holds far less value than Monet’s original work, which fundamentally altered visual consciousness rather than simply reproducing an existing language.

The point they are straining for is that AI is not an artist, and that what it produces should not be thought about in the way that we think of what artists (quâ artists) produce. There was a similar discussion pursuant to a post on Althouse’s blog concerning an AI poem generator. The worth of such poems was dismissed for various reasons, and Anne Althouse commented @ 9:08 that “If I know a poem is written by a machine, I don’t want to read it. There’s no person behind it!”

I think that’s exactly correct, and the reason we think that is because much of the value that we give to an art work depends upon it being a work of ‘art,’ which is to say, something made deliberately and with intention – not to mention with skill – and a machine can have no intention (at least, no machine yet created.) Moreover, our appreciation of an artwork is in large part bound up in our search for the significance of the work, which is to say in some intention that can be read into it. Now, there are those who claim that the artwork, after it has left the artist’s hands, has an independent aesthetic existence and the intentions of the artist in creating it are not determinative or even relevant to the intentions that can be read into it. I think our hesitation in appreciating an AI work gives the lie to this hypothesis. We clearly believe that something that was made with no motivating intentions is not properly appreciated in the same intentional way that ‘real’ artworks may be. The artist is not dead. Even if we were to ignore his intentions, they would have to have been there for us to accept the work as an artwork and therefore it is reasonable to say that the artist’s intentions are essential to the interpretation of the work.

I wonder how this might be affected by our understanding of how the AI works. For most people, there is a naive refusal to attribute intentionality to a machine because of a number of faulty assumptions concerning the mind – people who make this refusal are basically dualists who think that there is something special about our chemically organic brains that allows sentience that non-organic brains cannot possess: and when pressed on this they’ll generally retreat into a lot of talk about originality, creativity, emotions (what about love?,) etc. which are simply declared to be non-mechanical .

I, on the other hand, embrace my mechanical nature, and accept the intentional capacity of constructed machines in theory, but deny that the machines that we have constructed to perform AI tasks have the right function or structure to have intentions in our own deep sense. The poems mentioned for example are produced by a device that has drawn statistical generalisations from large samples of input data – data that has of course been properly formatted so that certain generalities are available to the purely syntactic pattern-recognition process. There is no construction of an inner world or model of perceived reality, much less of the perceiving device, which are the very least that we’d expect of a sentient being. Much less is there any sort of semantic or pseudo-semantic relationship between the machine and the real world – some sort of interaction probably has to be present in order for the syntax to become semantic in even the most etiolated sense.

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Western Love

May 23, 2026 – 1:33 pm

In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes presents a theory of love fitting a comic poet. Ignoring the details included to explain/excuse homosexuality, the story is roughly that humans were originally spherical beings with no distinction of sexes, then the gods divided us, forming a male and a female out of each divided person, and ever since we have each sought to reunite with our estranged other half. The impulse to love in such a system is an impulse to completeness.  

This idea that love is a striving for completion has had a significant afterlife, quite independent of its comic origin. In fact, in a seminar I recently attended the claim was made, with some support, that this idea was the ‘mainstream’ view. I  had to disagree. I think that the mainstream idea of love (by which, I think, is really meant the mainstream of learned opinion) actually follows from the theory that Socrates, responding to Aristophanes and others in that same dialogue, said that he had learned from the philosopher Diotima. I also think that none of those philosophical ideas of love have had much effect on the way that people who are not actually philosophizing think about love.

According to Diotima (210a–212b,) since we desire only what we do not have, as mortals we must desire immortality. This we cannot achieve; indeed, even if we were to live forever, it would not be us living forever, for we, as we are now, are ever in a state of change. Therefore, seeking the closest that we can get, we desire to reproduce – or to have our names live in glory, but reproducing is the more common and achievable strategy – and thus we are drawn to those with whom we may get our progeny[1]. Moreover, of those who are our possible mates, we are drawn to those who are good (kale) or beautiful (kale.) (The Greeks had some difficulty distinguishing between the good and the beautiful.)

Yet this attraction is just the first step on what Ficino called the scala amoris, the ‘ladder of love.’ By proper reflection on things and by the getting of wisdom, we rise up by gradual steps from merely loving one particular person for their physical beauty to loving in contemplation the Form of Beauty-in-itself. It is that final step that is ultimately valuable and to be sought, and the other steps are valuable only in so far as they lead to the final step.

Of course, there are problems here. To begin with, to make every step other than the last merely instrumental degrades the love felt at all those steps and makes them worthless in themselves. This is hardly a positive view of the kinds of love that ordinary persons typically feel – it’s rather contemptuous, in fact. Moreover, if those steps are only valuable as steps, then is the lover required to put aside the loves that led to the step that he is currently on? Once he loves the beauty in all bodies, for example, is he required to stop especially loving the particular beautiful body he began with? It all seems very mercenary. Moreover, the character of the emotion involved in loving those different objects is never made quite clear. At the first step the emotion is motivational and inspires a movement towards possessing the object of desire; but as the object becomes more abstract, the condition of satisfaction moves toward mere contemplation. It is an open question whether emotions with such dissimilar conditions of satisfaction can really be called varieties of the same emotion.

In any case, the theory was rejected – or perhaps we should say entirely ignored – by the poets of Greece and Rome, whose opinions are doubtless much closer to the non-philosophical opinions then current.

Didactic poets like Lucretius or Oppian glorified love as an all-powerful and omnipresent force, but conceived of this force as a natural, not metaphysical principle, pervading yet not transcending the material universe. In lyrics , on the other hand, love was depicted as the strongest of human emotions, blissful and torturing, life-giving and deadly; but neither Theocritus nor Tibullus, neither Catullus nor Ovid would have thought of elevating the object of this emotion to a ‘supercelestial realm.’ [2]

On the other hand, the theory had a great influence on the Neoplatonists[3] (naturally enough,) the Islamic mystics, and the Christian Fathers. We can see its reflection, for example, in the important Augustinian doctrine of the ordo amoris. Augustine accepts the Platonic and Neoplatonic idea that love is a force in the soul that directs us towards the ultimate attractive thing, which, for him of course, is God (standing in for Plato’s Good-in-itself). He alone is the proper focus of our love, and things and people apart from God should be loved just to the degree that they are in conformity with the will of God. Thus, there is a natural ordering of love by its objects and the love that we feel naturally alters with its change of focus, just as with the Platonic case. For Augustine, however, the movement of love’s focus is not an ascent from a particular beauty to the Form of Good but a descent from God to the things of the world – which are, of course, unworthy of love for their own sake.  

The Augustinian view of the ordo amoris (combined with the related idea of the Scale of Being) became a standard view amongst Christian theorists. We note here, however, that whereas the origin of the love impulse in the Platonic scala is fully explained by the natural desire for concupiscence and immortality at the initial step, the origin of the love impulse in the Augustinian ordo directed towards a distant abstract being requires a more involved and theoretically bound explanation. (It is ultimately in obedience to a command to ‘Love the Lord’ – and the plausibility of that as a motivation to love is certainly open to doubt.) It also seems to neglect the aspect of love that is most striking in human affairs: the fact that love/desire is extremely motivating. Indeed, the love between the sexes that tends towards reproduction and that is of so much concern to the poets (and that, in fact, is the very form of love that motivates our concern with the concept) is in constant danger of falling away from the praiseworthy state of caritas – rightly ordered love – and becoming blameworthy cupiditas/concupiscia – disorderly love.[4]

There are possible solutions to this problem, of course, and the most powerful and influential was that provided by Aquinas at the other end of the Mediaeval period. He incorporated the idea of the ordo amoris into a larger view of the nature of Natural Law and God’s intentions. (God had intentions when He made the world, and as we are rational in His image, we can discover them if He wills it.) Thus, he proposes that God, who, being good, desires our happiness, has given us natural inclinations towards fundamental goods that will lead to our happiness, and that among these is a natural inclination towards reproduction. That natural inclination we would experience as love/desire for the opposite sex, and by observation of the rationally derived precepts of action we can be assured that the pursuit of these inclinations will tend to that good end and will not be corrupted and thwart our happiness.

Love itself, according to Aquinas was

… a principle of volitional movement and rest, thus distinguishing it from desire or delight, which he considers its effects. When the object of love is not possessed, this causes the will’s locomotion towards the object (or towards union with the object) with the intent of obtaining the object (or being united with it). This he calls desire. The only reason for the will’s loving and therefore desiring some object is if the human intellect perceives it as “good.” Aquinas’s definition of “the good” is correlative with desire: “For since the good is what all seek, the notion of good is that which calms the desire. … good means that which simply pleases the appetite.”[5] When the object of love is possessed, the will (which Aquinas defines as an appetite) is at rest and reposes in the good, and this he calls joy or delight.[6]

Outside the monasteries, however, quite a different conception of love was being developed, mostly amongst the poets and often in direct rejection of the Church-approved doctrines that tended to make passionate love even within marriage sinful. The idea of ‘courtly love’[7] took its Classical inspiration not from the philosophers but from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, which they treated as a serious text and not as the mocking satire intended by the poet. From the jests of that poet they drew the supposed rules of love-making and courtship with which we are all tolerably familiar, but the ideology of their love was very different from his.[8] Although they accepted, as he did, that love was essentially rooted in physical desire (even where consummation was impossible,) they insisted that love, properly conducted, could have an ennobling effect on the lover. Thus, Capellanus says (1.3):

… [I]t is the effect of love that a true lover cannot be degraded with any avarice. Love causes a rough and uncouth man to be distinguished for his handsomeness; it can endow a man even of the humblest birth with nobility of character; it blesses the proud with humility; and the man in love becomes accustomed to performing many services gracefully for everyone. O what a wonderful thing is love, which makes a man shine with so many virtues and teaches everyone, no matter who he is, so many good traits of character!

The idea of ‘courtly love’ in the form defended and celebrated in the late Middle Ages now appears ludicrous, but from it the modern view on love seems to have taken ideas of romantic attachment, devotion to a single object, unrequited love, heroic gestures of affection, the elevated status of women, and much else – including, especially, the idea that love itself is an improving thing rather than just a form of passionate madness.

Whether this forms the mainstream of our view of love today or not – and I think it probably contains a great part of the common culture’s mainstream – it is certainly more significant than either version of the ordered view of love proposed by the Platonists or the Augustinians.

[1] This story is rather spoiled by the need to explain homosexual (in fact, pederastic homosexual) desire as being that which results not in the birth of a child as a bridge to immortality but, equivalently, in the arising of a conception of virtue as another form of the good/beautiful.

[2] E. Panofsky (1939) Studies in Iconology, NY: Harper, p. 99

[3] See for example Plotinus Enneads I.6, III.5 (‘On Love’)

[4] De Civitate Dei XIV.16 (‘Lust’) illustrates the danger and Augustine’s attitude to even marital union

[5] ST I-II.27.1.ad.3.

[6] B R Cochran ‘Love and Charity in Aquinas’

[7] G Paris (1883). “Études sur les romans de la Table Ronde: Lancelot du Lac, II: Le conte de la charrette” Romania 12 (48): 459–534

[8] As this was in reaction to the ideology of the ‘intellectual’ class, explicit defences or descriptions are few. The work most often cited in this regard is Andreas Capellanus, De arte honeste amandi (The Art of Courtly Love)  

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Aristotle on Comedy

April 11, 2026 – 3:59 pm

We do not have Aristotle’s work on Comedy promised to us in the Poetics, but we might be able to get a rough idea of what he would have said from clues in his surviving writings and commentaries from later ancient authors.

The principal evidence directly from Aristotle is the passage from Poetics  

As for Comedy, it is (as has been observed) an imitation of men worse than the average; worse, however, not as regards any and every sort of fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the Ridiculous, which is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others; the mask, for instance, that excites laughter, is something ugly and distorted without causing pain. (1449a31-36)

And concerning the contents of Comedy he tells us that

[O]f Athenian poets, Crates was the first to drop the Comedy of invective and frame stories of a general and non-personal nature, in other words, Fables or Plots. (1449b7-9)

There are also some references to humour in his Rhetoric, which are likely to be relevant to Comedy. At 1389b10 he says that “[W]it is well-bred insolence,” which suggests that he sees humour as depending upon an assertion of superiority in the amused one over the target of the witticism, while at 1412a25-30[1] he observes that a suddenly realised incongruity between expectations and events can also cause amusement. He gives as an example of this a line from an unknown Comedy:

And as he walked, beneath his feet were—chilblains 

Aristotle’s treatment of Comedy would likely have closely followed the model of his treatment of Tragedy; or, at least, that’s an assumption that we could make in order to increase the information that we have of his missing book. In his treatment of Tragedy, however, it can sometimes be unclear whether his intention is positive or normative, whether it is his intention to describe what is called Tragedy or to prescribe the things that make a drama a Tragedy. The confusion arises because Aristotle is doing both. He is acting here as a scientist and moving from description to prescription: he takes as given a certain class of dramas that are called Tragedies and inspects them for common elements and determines whether there is any overarching principle by which the class might be defined; then, having determined the principle involved, he adopts that principle as the definitive characteristic of the class of dramas. The same would doubtless be true for his treatment of Comedy.

In the case of Tragedy, the principle that he lands upon yields a partly functional definition of that genre. It is a given that all Tragedies are dramas and dramas are what they are because of a certain form that they have as representations (by mimesis) of human actions, but Tragedies are distinguished amongst dramas by the fact that in a Tragedy the drama results/should result in what he calls a catharsis of the particular emotions of pity and fear. The notion of catharsis is drawn from ancient Greek medicine where it refers to a purification of the humours (imagined as internal fluids that regulated the health and had to be kept in balance.) As a metaphor here it suggests that by ‘expressing’ the emotions aroused in the spectator there is a purification (of the psyche?) which is of some use to him.

In the Poetics Aristotle explicitly links the two emotions as referring to contemplation of a certain bad situation as affecting oneself (fear) or affecting an undeserving other (pity.)

The one emotion concerns an undeserved falling into bad fortune, and the other emotion concerns a likeness. Pity concerns the undeservedness and fear the likeness (1453a4-6).

[Many, many questions are raised by this theory. We might ask, for example, why this ‘purification’ should be of any use to anyone? Do these emotions, if left unexpressed, somehow accumulate and cause some sort of psychic damage? What is the actual proposed mechanism behind such a view? Does Aristotle think that there is a store of these emotions building up in the psyche somehow analogous to the fluidic humours in the same way that Freud’s hydraulic theory of the mind would have had it? Hardly. Aristotle had no such theory of mental states/traits/passions/etc. Similarly, we might reasonably ask why those emotions of pity and fear are first created in the spectators by the drama if they are harmful and simply need to be expressed and eliminated?]

By analogy, we could define Comedy as a drama that results in a catharsis of the particular emotions aroused by the dramatic actions, and the question then would be to determine which emotions are to be expressed. I think it’s pretty clear that when Aristotle talks about the Ridiculous as a species of the Ugly and the result of a mistake or a deformity, that he’s assuming that the emotion involved is the emotion that one gets from revelling in another’s inferiority. It is a species of contempt. By analogy, again, we could link the emotion of contempt that is felt in contemplating a bad situation (but not a painful or dangerous one) affecting an undeserving other with the emotion that we would feel contemplating the same situation affecting ourselves. The emotion we would feel in a situation in which we realise that others would regard us with contempt is shame. The comedic catharsis, therefore, would be a purgation of the emotions of contempt and shame.

Note that a functional definition of Tragedy does not justify the unities that Aristotle says are characteristic of the genre. Those unities are observed regularities for which Aristotle finds some justification in a theory of Art as a whole as being a form of mimesis/representation. Since, however, he explicitly acknowledges that Epic Poetry, at least, does not observe any such unities, we need to understand that the unities are not necessary elements of all drama – only preferred in some cases.

[1] Note that every reference I found to this gives it as 3.2, which, I suppose is initially from misreading a sighted reference to 3.11 as 3.II. Everyone who followed the initial writer simply copied the reference with the error. Does no-one check their references? See the final paragraph here too.

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