L'homme d'Aristote : animal mimétique, animal politique

My aim is to consider the relationship between the Politics and the Poetics or, to be more precise, to point out the two-sided characterization of the human being by Aristotle. On one hand, the human being is defined in the Politics as a political animal, endowed with logos, that is with reason and speech. But he is, on the other hand, described in the Poetics as the only animal having a natural ability to imitate. Though it is rather unusual to connect these two points of view, my hypothesis is, however, that the « mimetic » ability involves a basic uncertainty in which is rooted the political ability. Hence, if Aristotle refuses to eliminate risk in the political life, he does so on the grounds of a confrontation between rules or institutions and this basic instability.Revault d'Allonnes Myriam. L'homme d'Aristote : animal mimétique, animal politique . In: Les Cahiers du GRIF, n°46, 1992. Provenances de la pensée femmes/philosophie. pp. 97-102