Aristotle on Narrative Intelligence

Abstract

In the Poetics Aristotle connects the experience of mimetic works with learning (Poet. 4.1448b5-18). This essay offers an interpretation of the kind of understanding that spectators/readers gain from the experience of tragedy and of its relation to other forms of knowledge. It suggests that, although it is different from, and inferior to, practical and theoretical wisdom, “narrative intelligence” is connected to both. It is directed to the kinds of objects that are the focus of practical intelligence in use, but understands them in a way that is analogous to philosophical learning.