Katharsis (κάθαρσις) — “Purification” or “purgation.” In Greek medicine, cleansing of the body. In Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy, purification of the soul through knowledge. Aristotle uses the term in the Poetics: tragedy arouses pity and fear, thereby achieving the katharsis of these emotions in spectators — interpreted as emotional discharge (Bernays, 1857), moral clarification (Nussbaum), or ethical-pedagogical learning (Lessing). Freud revives the concept in therapeutic catharsis in psychoanalysis.
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