Although Aristotelian theory of purification or purgation of the soul has attracted the attention of philosophers since antique times but still we do not have a completely worked out theory. For many years Aristotelian comprehension of the catharsis was interpreted unilaterally, and first of all the psychology effected by tragedy – to get rid of the negative emotional state while feeling fear and pity which gives deep artistic pleasure to the spectator. In modern times Kant spoke about objective social criteria of the artistic pleasure from the point of view of “disinterestedness” but he did not see the social source of the pleasure. Whereas reaching personal interested pleasure through artistic need is the objective basis of the catharsis. The catharsis is the pleasure of cognition of the force of the beauty. Augustine considers that if we ourselves feel emotional stimulus then it is suffering, and when we respond to emotional experience of others then it is pity. According to Lessing, emotional stimuli do not make them weaker but stronger. Goethe did not see the sense of the tragedy in purification of passions but in their harmonious conciliation. Russian psychologist L. Vygotsky considers the catharsis to be an inverse artistic response. Schiller, Schelling, Solger, and Hegel have commented the question in their own way. According to Schelling, tragedy is dialectics of the freedom and the necessity. Hegel connected the tragic with the publicly necessary. Shakespeare’s Hamlet investigated the crime but his goal was not revealing the criminal, but it was also conviction in the sense of the right for vindictiveness. This is an out-of-time character that is why, according to Hegel, the circle of objective circumstances in which the tragedy takes place may be called the universal state of the world. According to German sociologist Darendorf, those who are able to fight against conflicts through their cognition they manage to keep under control the rhythm of the history. And those who miss that opportunity they get that rhythm as a rival. That is why in this aspect the catharsis is a powerful means to keep the man itself and make him god-like. And for that reason the tragic will for a long time remain as a nourishing source of the real art.