The principal claim defended in this thesis is that for Aristotle arousing the emotions of others can amount to giving them proper grounds for conviction, and hence a skill in doing so is properly part of an expertise in rhetoric. We set out Aristotle’s view of rhetoric as exercised solely in the provision of proper grounds for conviction (pisteis) and show how he defends this controversial view by appeal to a more widely shared and plausible view of rhetoric’s role in the proper functioning of the state. We then explore in more detail what normative standards must be met for something to qualify as “proper grounds for conviction”, applying this to all three of Aristotle’s kinds of “technical proofs” (entechnoi pisteis). In the case of emotion, meeting these standards is a matter of arousing emotions that constitute the reasonable acceptance of premises in arguments that count in favour of the speaker’s conclusion. We then seek to show that Aristotle’s view of the emotions is compatible with this role. This involves opposing the view that in Rhetoric I.1 Aristotle rejects any role for emotion-arousal in rhetoric (a view that famously generates a contradiction with the rest of the treatise). It also requires rejecting the view of Rhetoric II.2-11 on which, for Aristotle, the distinctive outlook involved in emotions is merely how things “appear” to the subject.

Building on recent scholarship in the history of art which has started to reappraise the meaning of grotesque and scatological motifs, this thesis examines how digestion was conceived of as a model of creation, and how this was translated visually. Renaissance creativity was increasingly modelled on a series of natural processes like digestion, following a trend in favour of Aristotelian psychology. However, it has been largely overlooked in comparison to the bleeding, the pneumatic, and especially the procreative natural models, which have been extensively studied. The central argument of this thesis is that digestion constituted an alternative-albeit less 'decorous'-model of creation, denoting the intervention of a more 'earthbound' ingenium. I argue that this model was used by certain classes of artists as an acknowledgement of a strong engagement with materials and of the labour of a round-the-clock imagination. Goldsmithing and printmaking are artistic professions whereby the artistic process was often considered as an act of 'soiling' oneself, both in the sense of the body and the phantasia. This thesis focuses on a period spanning c. 1530 to 1675, from Rabelais' works to the facetious printer Jacques Lagniet. It mines a corpus of little-studied textual and visual sources from the north of the Alps, examining a continuity between France and the German lands: geographical areas which both had an especially pronounced 'culture of excretion'. From a broader perspective, this research responds to a widespread scholarly call for more attention to the organic soul and the lower body, nuancing the alleged hegemony of the brain and the higher senses throughout history. It seeks to modify the perception of early modern artists and viewers as cerebral intellectuals, presenting them as individuals who also 'thought with their guts'.

Tato práce je vícevrstevným zamyšlením nad tématem prázdnoty. Její prvotní inspirací jsou Bondyho úvahy na toto téma. Nejde o to, ukazovat na neukazatelné, či popisovat nepopsatelné, to by byla spíše filosofická statistika; prázdnota je tu primárně chápána spíše na způsob krajního horizontu, jehož bytostné připuštění zakládá možnost pravého setkání podobném smyslu uvažuje nad souvislostí prázdnoty a milosti a otevírá možnost chápat prázdnotu nikoliv jako axiologickou neurčenost, ale právě jako horizont zvláštního setkání se světem. Takto nahlížená prázdnota otevírá bytostnou plnost a zároveň braných souvislostí těchto myšlenek o mezích ontologie - Plótínovou koncepcí emanační ontologie, či se substanční ontologií ze Spinozovy Protože se v průběhu tohoto rozboru dostává do popředí problém statického a předsudečného chápání ontologické substance (která takové vlastnosti nemůže mít, vyjdeme jako krajního ontologického horizontu), otevírá se otázka původu tohoto problému; v Myšlení vnějšku) a Berďajevem následuje hodnocení možnosti ontologii, což je přeneseně otevření otázky vztahu moci a ontologie či prolínání mocenského hlediska do ontologické úvahy (prázdnota by v yslu představovala zřeknutí se moci). Druhá kapitola práce se návazně zabývá formami zřeknutí se tohoto mocenského hlediska, coby praktikovaného...