POETRY AND THE EMOTIONS IN ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY

A question in aesthetics that has been discussed for a long time is how far can our aesthetic reactions be taken to be cognitive. That is, we feel certain emotions perhaps when we confront examples of art, and then wonder whether those are just subjective and personal reactions, or do they fall into some rule-governed pattern based upon the nature of the objects themselves and our nature? Sufism tends to regard aesthetic responses as objective, as insights into a deeper level of reality where only one sort of reaction is appropriate, while the Peripatetic philosophers rather argue that although poetry in particular has a logical structure, it does not result in a conclusion that has to he generally accepted. The latter are often criticized for making poetry fit into a logical straitjacket which is inappropriately rigid, but there are good reasons for thinking that the Peripatetic thinkers in the Islamic world are far better at analyzing the role of emotions in poetry than are the Sufis.