1. THE LITERARY CLASSIC OF MIMESIS Erich Auerbach (1946): Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Literature is a performance of representation: Writing reflects the reality one experiences – ‘paratactic’ Homer vs ‘hypotactic’ Genesis. Both works have strong performative character. 19 th century ‘realist’ novel represents the pinnacle of mimesis (extreme hypotaxis) Edward Said counterposed Auerbach to Gyorgy Lukacs, who stressed competing senses of ‘realism’ – the representation of interiority vs. the representation of mundanity – each tapping into capitalism’s compelling of people to confront the materiality of life.

2. TWO CLASSICAL PROBLEMATICS FOR MIMESIS: 1. GREEK Art is inherently problematic because what aspects of the original are imitated or not is concealed from the observer. This potentially casts doubt on any claims to authenticity in public expression. Rhetoric celebrates this aspect of mimesis.  Plato = Rhetoric is dishonest and should be banned and mimesis limited to self-disciplined philosophical contemplation  Aristotle = Rhetoric properly circumscribed, especially as theatre, useful to purge destructive emotions

3. TWO CLASSICAL PROBLEMATICS FOR MIMESIS: 2. CHRISTIAN What does it mean to ‘imitate Christ’? Strong distrust of mimicking external signs, since one wishes to imitate the divine aspects of Jesus – i.e. those not essentially tied to his human form -- yet our imitations must also be expressed in human form.  Peter Abelard became a heretic for noting the ‘dialectic’ between Jesus’s self-sacrifice for humanity (a one-off event) and his status as exemplar for ordinary Christian lives: Weber’s ‘routinisation of charisma’ Absolution = How to maintain if not increase one’s closeness to God while abandoning the non-essential features of Jesus’ life: Asceticism- cum-mysticism, Protestantism, Enlightenment. Hypocrisy = How to achieve God’s ends while having to deal with humans and other aspects of mundane existence: ‘The end justifies the means’, Jesuitry, pedagogy as white lies to serve a higher truth.

4. MIMETIC PROCESSES SEEN THROUGH THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY Passion: Emotion displayed spontaneously – uncertain provenance and effect. Teresa of Avila: Suspicion of her self-induced ecstasies of the Cross. Fanaticism: Emotion displayed in the temple (literally) – i.e. targeted to a setting. Calvin on the Eucharist: The Body of Christ is embodied in the co-presence of the faith community with minimal material mediation: General Will. Enthusiasm: Emotion displayed at will – portable and used to spread the word. Evangelism: Self-induced through the act of preaching and testing one’s faith against a crowd. (Capitalism and scientism as obsessive-compulsive disorders?)

5. MIMETIC PROCESSES Understanding (Verstehen) – Provide reasons for what someone does that would be available to anyone in a similar position. Mimic the ‘logic of the situation’. This need not be true to any psychological processes but they save the phenomena. Many economic (‘rational choice’) models of human behaviour are like this. Sympathy (Mitgefühlung) – Relate to aspects of another’s situation because they overlap with one’s own. A mimicry of life contexts that will be more available to some than others, depending on one’s own life. Here one infers the relevant psychological states from the potential similarity in life contexts. Empathy (Einfühlung) – Enter into another’s mode of being by inhabiting their spirit, re-enacting their thoughts. Presumes a deep commonality of mental processes among all people that may be normally manifested quite differently depending in life contexts, but in which one may be educated. It inspires confidence in full-bodied re- enactment (cf.’method-acting’)

6. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF UNDERSTANDING · The ‘space of reasons’ is itself rule-governed but separate from natural laws o Put another way: It is a reorganization of natural laws within self-imposed boundaries · The model selects properties of the modelled and places them in a self-contained system. · Rationality is agent-centred and goal oriented: ‘Intentional stance’ · Rationality is portable: It applies in many contexts, in some of which it performs better than in others. o Thus, one says ‘A was trying to do X but fell short or could have done better’.

7. ISSUES CONCERNING MIMETIC MECHANISMS Classical associationism (Locke to Hartley and Priestley: anti-dualism by blending matter and spirit): Neural transmissions are not only independently reinforced through repeated experience but also mutually reinforced by their occurring within the same brain origins of abductive reasoning and the interest in anticipatory responses in the 18 th century shift in the binary from voluntary/necessary to voluntary/involuntary, i.e. the ‘voluntary’ becomes what’s experienced as new and present to consciousness as the product of construction. The difference between collective and individual in terms of asymmetric mimetic flows that are captured and bounded.