ADVANCE PHILOSOPHY

Narration,
Imitation, and
MUH. ARIEF MUHSIN
Point of View &
ROSYIDA
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary
to convey a story to an audience. Narration
encompasses a set of techniques through which
the creator of the story presents their story

The creator of the story presents the story:

Narrative point of view: the perspective (or type of
personal or non-personal "lens") through which a
story is communicated
Narrative voice: the format (or type presentational
form) through which a story is communicated
Narrative time: the grammatical placement of the
story's time-frame in the past, the present, or the
future.
 A narrator is a personal character or a non-personal voice that the
creator (author) of the story develops to deliver information to the
audience, particularly about the plot. In the case of most written
narratives (novels, short stories, poems, etc.), the narrator typically
functions to convey the story in its entirety. The narrator may be a
voice devised by the author as an anonymous, non-personal, or
stand-alone entity; as the author as a character; or as some other
fictional or non-fictional character appearing and participating
within their own story.
The narrator is considered participant if he/she is a character
within the story, and non-participant if he/she is an implied
character or an omniscient or semi-omniscient being or voice that
merely relates the story to the audience without being involved in
the actual events.
Some stories have multiple narrators to illustrate the storylines of
various characters at the same, similar, or different times, thus
allowing a more complex, non-singular point of view.
Narration encompasses not only who tells the story, but
also how the story is told (for example, by using stream of
consciousness or unreliable narration). In traditional literary
narratives (such as novels, short stories, and memoirs), narration
is a required story element; in other types of (chiefly non-
literary) narratives, such as plays, television shows, video
games, and films, narration is merely optional.
 We need also to accommodate cognitive aspects of point
of view so as to allow for both the reflection in thought of our
access to the world and the limitations thought imposes on
that access, as when a train of ideas makes some options
more accessible than others, and some not accessible at all
And there are non-cognitive limitations imposed on our
access to the world, as when our preferences and interests
make unavailable to us what are, from other perspectives,
adequate characterizations of things and events as
interesting or dull, valuable or worthless
Narrative point of view;
Narrative point of view or narrative
perspective describes the position of
the narrator, that is, the character of
the storyteller, in relation to the story
being told. It can be thought of as a
camera mounted on the narrator's
shoulder that can also look back inside
the narrator's mind.
 First-person narrative
With the first-person point of view, a story is revealed through a narrator who is also explicitly a character within his or her own story. Therefore, the
narrator reveals the plot by referring to this viewpoint character with forms of "I" (i.e., the narrator is a person who openly acknowledges his or her
own existence) or, when part of a larger group, "we". Frequently, the narrator is the protagonist, whose inner thoughts are expressed to the
audience, even if not to any of the other characters. A conscious narrator, as a human participant of past events, is an incomplete witness by
definition, unable to fully see and comprehend events in their entirety as they unfurl, not necessarily objective in their inner thoughts or sharing them
fully, and furthermore may be pursuing some hidden agenda. Forms include temporary first-person narration as a story within a story, wherein a
narrator or character observing the telling of a story by another is reproduced in full, temporarily and without interruption shifting narration to the
speaker. The first-person narrator can also be the focal character.
Second-person
In the second-person point of view, the narrator refers to at least one character directly as "you", suggesting that the audience is a character within
the story. This is a common type of narrative point of view for popular music lyrics (in which the narrator often directly "speaks" to another person)
and certain types of poetry, though it is quite rare in novels or short stories. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas is one such novel.
In some cases, a narrator uses the second person, rather than the usual first person, to refer to her- or himself, thus providing an alienated,
emotional, or ironic distance, as is commonly the situation in the short fiction of Lorrie Moore and Junot Diaz. An example of this mode in
contemporary literature is Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. In this novel, the second-person narrator is observing his own out-of-control life,
unable to cope with a trauma he keeps hidden from readers for most of the book. He refers to himself, therefore, as "you":
"You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is
entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy." Opening lines of Jay McInerneys Bright Lights, Big City (1984)
The use of "you" as an addressee (as in poetry and song) is employed in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Fighting Fantasy" series of books
that were popular in the 1980s. It is also usual in interactive fiction, where the reader controls at least some of the protagonist's actions.
The second person ("you") is often used to address the reader personally and is therefore frequently used in persuasive writing and advertising. It is,
in many languages, a very common technique of several popular and non- or quasi-fictional written genres such as guide books, self-help
books, gamebooks, do-it-yourself manuals, role-playing games, and musical lyrics, and also blogs.
Third-person
In the third-person narrative mode, each and every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they", but never as "I" or "we" (first-
person), or "you" (second-person). This makes it clear that the narrator is an unspecified entity or uninvolved person who conveys the story and is
not a character of any kind within the story, or at least is not referred to as such.
Traditionally, third-person narration is the most commonly used narrative mode in literature. It does not require that the narrator's existence be
explained or developed as a particular character, as with a first-person narrator. It thus allows a story to be told without detailing any information
about the teller (narrator) of the story. Instead, a third-person narrator is often simply some disembodied "commentary" or "voice", rather than a fully
developed character. Sometimes, third-person narration is called the "he/she" perspective.
The third-person modes are usually categorized along two axes. The first is the subjectivity/objectivity axis, with third person subjective narration
describing one or more character's personal feelings and thoughts, and third person objective narration not describing the feelings or thoughts of
any characters but, rather, just the exact facts of the story. The second axis is the omniscient/limited axis, a distinction that refers to the knowledge
held by the narrator. A third person omniscientnarrator has, or seems to have, access to knowledge of all characters, places, and events of the
story, including any given characters' thoughts; however, a third person limited narrator, in contrast, knows information about, and within the minds
of, only a limited number of characters (often just one character). A limited narrator cannot describe anything outside of a focal character's
particular knowledge and experiences.
Alternating person
While the general trend is for novels (or other narrative works) to adopt a single point of view throughout the novel's entirety, some authors have
experimented with other points of view that, for example, alternate between different narrators who are all first-person, or alternate between a first-
and a third-person narrative perspective. The ten books of the Pendragon adventure series, by D. J. MacHale, switch back and forth between a
first-person perspective (handwritten journal entries) of the main character along his journey and the disembodied third-person perspective of his
friends back home. Margaret Atwoods Alias Grace provides one character's viewpoint from first-person as well as another character's from third-
person limited. Often, a narrator using the first person will try to be more objective by also employing the third person for important action scenes,
especially those in which they are not directly involved or in scenes where they are not present to have viewed the events in firsthand. This mode is
found in the novel The Poisonwood Bible.
 Point of view (philosophy)
In philosophy, a point of view is a specified or stated manner of
consideration, an attitude how one sees or thinks of something,
as in "from my personal point of view". This figurative usage of
the expression as attested since 1760. In this meaning, the
usage is synonymous with one of the meanings of the
term perspective
The concept of the "point of view" is highly multifunctional and
ambiguous. Many things may be judged from certain personal,
traditional or moral points of view (as in "the beauty is in the eye
of the beholder"). Our knowledge about the reality is often
relative to a certain point of view
 Vzquez Campos and Manuel Liz Gutierrez suggested to analyse the
concept of "point of view" using two approaches: one based on the
concept of "propositional attitudes", the other on the concepts of
"location" and "access
The internal structure of a point of view may be analysed similarly to the concept of a
propositional attitude. A propositional attitude is an attitude, i.e., a mental state held by an
agent toward a proposition. Examples of such attitudes are "to believe in something", "to
desire something", "to guess something", "to remember something", etc. Vazques Campos
and Gutierrez suggest that points of view may be analyzed as structured sets of
propositional attitudes. The authors draw on Christopher Peacocke's Sense and Content.
(Within this approach one may carry out ontological classification of various distinctions,
such as individual vs. collective points of view, personal vs. non-personal, non-conceptual
vs. conceptual, etc)
Whereas propositional attitudes approach is to analyze points of view internally, the
"location/access" approach analyzes points of view externally, by their role. The term
"access" refers to the statement of Liz Gutierrez that "points of views, or perspectives, are
ways of having access to the world and to ourselves", and the term "location" is in reference
to the provided quotation of Jon Moline that points of view are "ways of viewing things and
events from certain locations". Moline rejects the notion that points of view are reducible to
some rules based on some theories, maxims or dogmas. Moline considers the concept of
"location" in two ways: in a direct way as a vantage point, and in an extended way, the
way how a given vantage point provides a perspective, i.e., influences the perception. (This
approach may address epistemological issues, such as relativism, existence of the absolute
point of view, compatibility of points of view (including "faultless disagreement"), possibility of
a point of view without a bearer, etc)

Christopher Arthur Bruce Peacocke (born 22 May 1950) is a British philosopher known for his work in philosophy of mind and
epistemology. His recent publications
Margarita Vzquez Campos, Antonio Manuel Liz Gutirrez, "The Notion of Point of View", in: Temporal Points of View: Subjective and
Objective Aspects, Springer, 2015, ISBN 3319198157
Manuel Liz, "Models and Points of View: The Analysis of the Notion of Point of View", in: Lorenzo Magnani (ed.), Model-Based Reasoning
in Science and Technology: Theoretical and Cognitive Issues, Springer Science & Business Media, 2013, ISBN 364237428X
 Mimesis/Imitation
Mimesis (/mamiss/; Ancient Greek: (mmsis), from (mmeisthai), "to
imitate", from (mimos), "imitator, actor") is a critical and philosophical term that
carries a wide range of meanings, which
include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity,
the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the presentation of the self
Imitation (from Latin imitatio, "a copying, imitation") is an advanced behavior whereby
an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form
of social learning that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our
culture. It allows for the transfer of information (behaviours, customs, etc.) between
individuals and down generations without the need for genetic inheritance." The
word imitation can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training
to politics. The term generally refers to conscious behavior; subconscious imitation is
termed mirroring
In ancient Greece, mimesis was an idea that governed the creation of works of art, in
particular, with correspondence to the physical world understood as a model for
beauty, truth, and the good. Plato contrasted mimesis, or imitation, with diegesis, or
narrative. After Plato, the meaning of mimesis eventually shifted toward a specifically
literary function in ancient Greek society, and its use has changed and been
reinterpreted many times since
 One of the best-known modern studies of mimesis,
understood as a form of realism in literature, is Erich
Auerbach's Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in
Western Literature, which opens with a famous comparison
between the way the world is represented
in Homer's Odyssey and the way it appears in the Bible.
From these two seminal Western texts, Auerbach builds the
foundation for a unified theory of representation that spans
the entire history of Western literature, including the
Modernist novels being written at the time Auerbach began
his study. In art history, "mimesis", "realism" and "naturalism"
are used, often interchangeably, as terms for the accurate,
even "illusionistic", representation of the visual appearance
of things

Erich Auerbach (November 9, 1892 October 13, 1957) was a German philologist and comparative scholar and critic of literature. His best-
known work is Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, a history of representation in Western literature from ancient to
modern times and frequently cited as a classic in the study of realism in literature