<philosphical terminology, history of philosophy> Greek term for imitation or representation. Hence, for Plato, mimÍsis is one of the ways in which sensible particulars copy the eternal forms; thus he criticized the arts as doubly removed from ultimate reality. Although Aristotle rejected the theory of forms, he agreed with Plato that aesthetic experience is fundamentally mimetic. Recommended Reading: F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (NYU, 1967); Theories of Mimesis, ed. by Arne Melberg, Donald Melcalf, and Nicos A. Nicola (Cambridge, 1995); Laurence R. Goldman, Child's Play: Myth, Mimesis and Make-Believe (Berg, 1998); and Andrew Benjamin, Art, Mimesis and the Avant-Garde: Aspects of a Philosophy of Difference (Routledge, 1991).
[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
Try this search on OneLook / Google