Mimesis and Preception

In some cases, Preception is Mimetic. For example, the following of a cooking recipe imitates, not, of course, the words of the recipe, the imitation of which would be the re-writing of those words, but the movements of a chef, of which the recipe is a narration. Similarly, insofar as the Golden Rule is taken as a summary description of the actions of Jesus, the latter is the Mimant of the Conduct of one who follows the Rule. On the other hand, if the Golden Rule is taken as based on some insight into human nature, as Kant's Pure Principle of Practical Reason is deduced from the nature of Pure Reason, Conduct that follows it is not Mimetic. Also, some precepts are formulas expressed in specialized notation, with 'Do this: ' only implicit, e. g. a musical score. Now, if a musical score is based on an actual playing of the piece by the composer, then a player's performing it is Mimesis, with the composer's own performance the Mimant of the player's. But, the performance of a score of a polyphonic composition, especially one created by a Beethoven, who could not have heard it, is not Mimetic. Rather, it is an experiment that aims at discovering what such a concoction would sound like. So, these considerations show that the Mimant of a Mimesis is a particular, but with at least some generalizable characteristics. They furthermore suggest that even when Mimesis is not Preceptive, it still entails motor skills of some sort, e. g. the contortion into a sneer of the facial muscles of an Elvis impersonator.