LFU:online

Institut für Philosophie Institut für Philosophie

Hon.-Prof. Univ.-Doz. Dr. Allan Janik Hon.-Prof. Univ.-Doz. Dr. Allan Janik

602006

Theater and Knowledge

PS 2

wöch.

keine Angabe

Englisch

The Problem: What can philosophy and theater learn from one another? The presuppositions: 1) Theater is concentrated life (Peter Brook) 2) Theater is a form of practical knowledge 3) A theatrical production, considered as a vehicle for transmitting knowledge, can illuminate how practical knowledge is formed. The tentative answers: Philosophy Post-Kuhnian Epistemology is practice oriented. Theater, and it alone, reproduces the structure of human action (practice) in all its dramatic complexity in a concentrated, and thus illuminating, form. Theater Theatre aims at CATHARSIS, i.e., producing moving insight into human situation in the public. What kind of knowledge is it that informs us by moving us emotionally? An etymological clue: Theoria, detached philosophical contemplation, originally meant taking a look for yoursself. The Theatron was the place where you could take a look at examples of paradigms of actions.

ARISTOTLE ON INSIGHT: PRACTICAL JUDGMENT AND TRAGEDY HOW CAN THEATER TRANSMIT KNOWLEDGE? WHAT SORT OF KNOWLEDGE? 1. “Theater is concentrated life”. Focussed life as opposed to unfocussed, “unconcentrated life”. Poorly produced theater is unfocussed, unenlightening action. 2. Performing a story concentratedly leads to insight into how particular kinds of problems originate. THE COMPONENTS OF THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE or what is necessary for catharsis? WHY DO WE NEED CATHARSIS: because we lack self-knowledge (Socrates). There a kind of knowledge that is “tacit”, i.e., that we do not know in the formal sense but that can nevertheless go wrong: failure, conflict, self-destructive behaviour. HOW DO WE LEARN FROM THEATER? The hermeneutics of allegory. Stories give us scenarios (i.e. models) for interpreting our problems and in so doing constituting our identity. Stories performed live do this in is an especially moving way. In everyday life, ‘if’ is a fiction, in the theater ‘if’ is an experiment. In everyday life, ‘if’ is an evasion, in the theater ‘if’ is the truth. When we are persuaded to believe in this truth, the theater and life are one. This is a high aim. It sounds like hard work. To play needs much work. But when we experience the work as play, then it is not work any more. A play is play. The Empty Space, P. Brook

Beginn: 7.03.2005