00039--Bring out the differences between the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle./ Plato versus Aristotle/

Plato and Aristotle, two philosophers in the 4th century, hold polar views on politics and philosophy in general.  This fact is very cleverly illustrated by Raphael's "School of Athens" (1510-11; Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican), where Plato is portrayed looking up to the higher forms; and Aristotle is pointing down because he supports the natural sciences.  In a discussion of politics, the stand point of each philosopher becomes an essential factor.  It is not coincidental that Plato states in The Republic that Philosopher Rulers who possess knowledge of the good should be the governors in a city state.  His strong interest in metaphysics is demonstrated in The Republic various times: for example, the similes of the cave, the sun, and the line, and his theory of the forms.  Because he is so involved in metaphysics, his views on politics are more theoretical as opposed to actual.  Aristotle, contrarily, holds the view that politics is the art  of ruling and being ruled in turn.  In The Politics, he attempts to outline a way of governing that would be ideal for an actual state.  Balance is a main word in discussing Aristotle because he believes it is the necessary element to creating a stable government.  His less metaphysical approach to politics makes Aristotle more in tune with the modern world, yet he is far from modern.

      Plato's concept of what politics and government should be is a direct result of his belief in the theory of forms.  The theory of forms basically states that there is a higher "form" for everything that exists in the world.  Each material thing is simply a representation of the real thing which is the form.  According to Plato, most people cannot see the forms, they only see their representation or their shadows, as in the simile of the cave.  Only those who love knowledge and contemplate on the reality of things will achieve understanding of the forms.  Philosophers, who by definition are knowledge lovers, are the only beings who can reach true knowledge.  This concept has to be taken a step further because in The Republic, Plato states that philosophers should be the rulers since they are the only ones who hold the form of the good.  Plato seems to be saying that it is not enough to know the forms of tables or trees, one must know the greatest form--form of the good--in order to rule.  The reasoning is: if you know the good, then you will do the good. Therefore,  philosopher rulers are by far the most apt to rule.

 

      In The Republic, Plato builds around the idea of Philosopher Rulers.  Even though it is not his primary point, it certainly is at the core of his discussion of the ideal state.  The question that arises is, 'Why do you need ideal states which will have philosophers as rulers?'  There are many layers to the answer of this question.  The first thing is that a state cannot be ideal without having philosophers as rulers.  This answer leads to the question, 'Then why do you need ideal states to begin with?'  The Republic starts with a discussion of Justice which leads to the creation of the ideal state.  The reason why an ideal state is needed is to guarantee the existence of Justice.  This does not mean, though, that there cannot be states without Justice.  Actually, Plato provides at least two reasons why the formation of  a state cannot be avoided.  These are: 1. human beings are not self-sufficient so they need to live in a social environment, and 2. each person has a natural aptitude for a specified task and should concentrate on developing it (The Republic, pp 56-62).  Although a person is not self-sufficient, a composition of people--a state--satisfies the needs of all its members.  Furthermore, members can specialize on their natural fortitudes and become more productive members of society.

     

States are going to form, whether purposefully or coincidentally.  For this reason, certain rules have to be enacted for the well-being of the state.  The main way to institutionalize rules is through government and in the form of laws. Plato's The Republic is not an explication of laws of the people.  It is a separation of power amongst three classes--Rulers, Auxiliaries, Commoners--that makes the most of each person's natural abilities and strives for the good of the community.  The point is to create a harmonious unity amongst the three classes which will lead to the greater good of the community and, consequently, each individual.

     

The three classes are a product of different aptitude levels for certain tasks amid various individuals.  Plato assigns different political roles to different members of each class.  It appears that the only classes that are allowed to participate in government are the Auxiliaries and, of course, the Philosopher Rulers.  The lower class does not partake in politics because they are not mentally able.  In other words, they do not understand the concept of the forms.  Thus, it is better to allow the Philosophers, who do have this knowledge, to lead them.  Providing food and abode for the Guardians is the only governmental responsibility the lower class has.  The Auxiliaries are in charge of the military, police, and executive duties.  Ruling and making laws is reserved for the Philosopher Rulers whose actions are all intended for the good of the state.  To ensure that public good continues to be foremost on each Ruler's agenda, the Rulers live in community housing, hold wives/children in common, and do not own private property.  The separation of classes is understood by everybody Self-interest, which could be a negative factor in the scheme of things, is eliminated through a very moral oriented education system.  All these provisions are generated to maintain unity of the state.  The most extravagant precaution that Plato takes is the Foundation Myth of the metals.  By making the people believe, through a myth, that the distinction of each class is biological as well as moral, Plato reassures that there won't be any disruption in the harmony of the state.

     

Whereas Plato's The Republic is a text whose goal is to define Justice and in doing so uses the Polis(Greek City-State), Aristotle's The Politics's sole function is to define itself--define politics.  Aristotle begins his text by answering the question: "Why does the state exist?"  His answer is that the state is the culmination of natural associations that start with the joining of man and woman ("pair"), which have a family and form a "household"; households unite and form villages; villages unite and form the state.  This natural order of events is what is best because it provides for the needs of all the individuals.  Aristotle, like Plato, believes that a person is not self-reliant.  This lack of sufficiency is the catalyst in the escalating order of unions among people. 

     

In The Politics, it appears that Aristotle is not very set on breaking down society.  His argument says that there are different classes in society, but they are naturally defined.  For example, he devotes a lot of time to an explanation of the "naturalness" of slaves and their role in society.  Aristotle is also very sexist and explicitly states so.  His view is that women are inferior to men in all senses.  Perhaps the most pertaining to our discussion is the citizen, whose role is purely political.  Both Plato and Aristotle seem to agree that some people are not capable of practicing an active role in political life.  Plato's reason is that the lower class is not mentally adept for the intricacies of higher knowledge on the good.  Aristotle seems to base his opinion on a more political issue.  He believes that only those that fully participate in their government should be considered citizens of the state.  For this reason, he excludes workers as citizens because they would not have the required time to openly participate in politicking.

     

The Aristotelian Polis, as opposed to Plato's, is a city with a large middle class which promotes stability and balances the conflicting claims of the poor and the rich.  Aristotle combines elements of democracy with elements of aristocracy, again to balance opposing claims.  Because he is aware that human interest is an inextricable  entity, the distribution of scarce and valuable goods is in proportion to contribution to the good of the Polis.  This system provides for the self interested who believe that those who work harder should receive more.   Another point is that the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, insofar as the mixed social system allows.  This is permissible because of the strong involvement of the citizens in government; it is what one would call a "true democracy."  Overall, a spirit of moderation prevails.

      The philosophies of Aristotle and Plato have been around for over sixteen centuries, yet today it is difficult to find specific instances where either philosophy is applied.  This may be a result of the fact that today's political philosophy differs from both philosopher's.  While Aristotle and Plato uphold the good of the community or state above individual good, today's constitution includes a bill of rights that guarantees the rights of each individual in the nation.  Having these individual rights is a necessity for today's citizens.  Going back in history to 1787 will show that one of the reasons there was controversy in the ratification of the constitution was that it did not include a Bill of Rights.  When the drafters promised that as soon as the constitution was ratified, a Bill of Rights would be added, the doubting states proceeded to ratify it.  According to Plato and Aristotle, a Bill of Rights is not necessary because it does not improve the good of the community.

      Another point of discrepancy between the philosophers and today's society involves the topic of slavery.  Aristotle argues for the naturalness of slavery in The Politics, yet slavery has been considered grotesque for quite some time.  In correlation to slavery, there is the undermining of the female population by Aristotle.  Although Plato is a lot less discriminatory, he also believes women are the sub-species.  While women have had to fight endless battles to achieve the recognition they deserve, today it is a well accepted fact (generally) that women are as capable as men in performing tasks.

      Naturally, since Aristotle and Plato have been around for such a long time, our society certainly contains some of their influences in a general sense.  For example, today it is believed that certain people are born with certain capacities.  Intelligence has been attributed to genetics.  Because of the different intelligence levels among people, we have different classes--for example: advanced, intermediate, and beginners.  In their appropriate level, each person develops his or her abilities to the highest potential.  This concept is sometimes at odds with the ideal of equality, ie. we are all human beings.  Yet, in essence, it does not take away from the ideal because we are all humans, but we differ in certain capacity levels to complete tasks.

      
Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy have helped shape present thought, though, by no means, mandate our practices.  The philosophers are very community oriented while we value the individual.  Besides differing with today's standards, each philosopher is in his own way distinct.  Plato is very attracted to metaphysical philosophy, while Aristotle is much more methodical.  

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00024--An Article on Plato.

PLATO

   Ca-427-ca. 347 B.C.E.

A monumental figure in the history of Western philosophy; Plato looms nearly as large in the history of European literary theory. Indeed, for many literary scholars he marks the beginning of the tradition of literary theory, although his choice of the dialogue  format, in which historical personages convey particular arguments, suggests that the issue he raises had already been debated before he took them up-as do the extant fragments of the writings of the pre-Socratic philosophers. The several dozen dialogues attributed to Plato engage almost every issue that interests philosophers: the nature of being; the question of how we come to know things; the proper ordering of human society) and the nature of justice, truth; the good, beauty, and love. Although Plato did not set out to write systematic literary theory-unlike his student ARISTOTLE, who produced a treatise on poetics-,-his consideration of philosophical issues in several of the dialogues leads him to reflect on poetry, and those reflections have often set the terms of literary debate in the West.

What binds together Plato's various discussions of poetry is a distrust of mimesis (representation or imitation). According to Plato, all art...,-including poetry-is a mimesis of nature, a copy of objects in the physical world. But those objects in the material world, according to the idealist philosophy that Plato propounds, are themselves only mutable copies of timeless universals, called Forms or Ideas. Poetry is merely a copy of a copy, leading away from the truth rather than toward it. Philosophers and literary critics ever since, from PLOTINUS in the third century C.E. to JACQUES DERRIDA in the late twentieth century, have wrestled with the terms of Plato's critique of poetry, revising it or attempting to point out inconsistencies in his argument.

Plato was born about four years after the beginning of the twenty-five-year-long Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta and just after the death of the great Athenian statesman Pericles, who had overseen the city's artistic golden age. His parents both came from distinguished Athenian.families, and his stepfather, an associate of Pericles, was an active participant in the political and cultural life of fifth century Athens. Plato had two older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, who appear as characters in his longest dialogue; Republic (ca. 375 B.C.E.). As a young man, growing up in a city at war and ,in constant political turmoil, he seems to have been destined for a ,political career. But after·the Peloponnesian War ended in 405, with the defeat and humiliation of Athens, the excesses of Athenian political life under the oligarchical rule (404-403) of the so-called Thirty Tyrants and under the restored democracy left Plato disillusioned with political life. The execution in 399 of Socrates, on charges of impiety and corrupting the young, was a turning point in his life. The older philosopher was a close friend of Plato's family, and Plato's writings attest to Socrates' great influence on him. Indeed, the position of Socrates in European philosophy is unique. Though he apparently never wrote a word, his influence on subsequent thought through his' followers, Plato hi particular, is incalculable. After Socrates' death Plato retired from Athenian political life and traveled for a number of years. In 388 he journeyed to Italy and Sicily, where he became the friend of Dionysius I, the ruler of Syracuse, and his brother-in-law Dion. The following year he returned to Athens, where he founded the Academy, an institution devoted to research and instruction in philosophy and the sciences; he taught there for the rest of his life. Plato envisioned the Academy as a school for statesmen where he could train a new kind of philosopher-ruler (or "guardian") according to the principles set forth in his Republic. Unlike the older sophist GORGIAS or Plato's contemporary rival Isocrates, who both taught the arts of rhetoric and persuasion, Plato focused primarily in the Academy on mathematics, logic, and philosophy. However, when Dionysius died in 367, Dion invited Plato to return to Syracuse to undertake the philosophical education of the new ruler, Dlonysius II. Plato went, perhaps with the hope of putting the theory of Republic into practice; but philosophy proved no match for local politics and Dionysius's suspicions. Indeed, a return visit resulted In Plato's brief Imprisonment; by 360 he was back at the Academy for good.

Plato is recognized as a master of the dialogue form and as one of the great prose stylists of the Greek language; His published writings; apparently all of which are preserved, consist of some twenty-six dramatic dialogues on philosophical and related themes. The central problematic posed by this form is that it becomes virtually impossible to attribute any statement directly to Plato: he never speaks in his own person. The only exceptions are a series of thirteen letters (whose authenticity is still a matter of scholarly debate) written in the last decades of Plato's life, most addressing the political situation in Syracuse. Only the seventh-and longest-letter takes up philosophical issues. For the most part, Plato places his arguments in the, mouths of characters who mayor may not be based on historical persons. The speakers can never be assumed' to be voicing Plato's own views or the views of those whose names they bear. In almost all the dialogues, Socrates is the focal character and Plato's mouthpiece, but Plato's Socrates is not the historical Socrates. These complications, which thwart efforts to fix Plato's thought within a series of propositional statements, have attracted much attention, especially from late-twentieth-century post-structuralist philosophers like Derrida.

The chronology of Plato's dialogues is highly controversial, but most scholars divide the works roughly into three periods. The earliest works, begun after 399, include the Apology of Socrates and Crito, in which Plato defends Socrates against the charges that led to his death; Gorgias, in which Socrates' opponent is the sophist Gorgias; and Ion (one of our selections), which examines poetry as a kind of divine madness. Characteristic of these early Platonic dialogues is Socrates' disarming claim of ignorance and a formal technique of cross-examination called elenchus, a method of questioning designed to lead a learner through stages of reasoning and to expose the contradictions in an opponent's original statement.  This method of "emptying out" the question by Socrates to reveal his opponents' ignorance is especially evident in his discussion of poetry with Ion, a rhapsode (professional reciter of epic poetry). The middle period, from 380 to 367, includes the Symposium, Cratylus, and Republic, all begun after the founding of the Academy; they develop the theory of Forms or Ideas anticipated in the early dialogues. The Forms constitute a realm of unchanging being to which the world of individual mutable objects is subordinate. Because the Forms are immutable, they are more real-and more true than the changeable material world. The Form of the Good enjoys a unique status, for it is responsible for the being and intelligibility of the world as a whole. Plato's famous "Allegory of the Cave" in book 7 of Republic (one of our selections), a passage that has generated much interest among post-structuralist theorists, provides a memorable introduction to the Platonic theory of Forms, which is reiterated in book 10's equally well known critique of artistic imitation. Cratylus is of interest to theorists of language because the dispute in this dialogue concerns the "correctness" of names: do they point unproblematic ally to the "Nature of things"-that is, to the Forms-as Hermogenes contends, or are they merely a matter of convention, as Cratylus argues? Socrates concludes that the matter is unresolvable, but that "no one with any understanding will commit himself or the education of his soul to names, or trust them or their givers to the point of firmly stating that he knows something." To the late period (366-360) belong Timaeus, which throughout the Middle Ages was Plato's most widely known work; Critias; Sophist; and Phaedrus, the latter closing with a notorious attack on writing.

In Ion, our opening selection, Plato's Socrates engages Ion in a debate about the nature of the rhapsode's knowledge of poetry, about the nature of poetry, and about the status of knowledge itself. Poetry, Socrates maintains, is not an art; it is a form of divine madness: "the poet is an airy thing, winged and holy, and he is not able to make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his mind." This debate between the claims of inspiration and those of art would subsequently have a long history in European literary criticism. Is poetry primarily a craft with a set of rules that can be taught and learned, as HORACE, GEOFFREY OF VINSAUF, and ALEXANDER POPE argue, or is it primarily the result of inspiration or genius, as LONGINUS, PLOTINUS, FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, and others, following Plato, have maintained?

Plato's Socrates goes a step further. Not only is poetry a form of divinely inspired madness, but so is criticism. "You are powerless to speak of Homer," he tells Ion, "on the basis of knowledge or mastery." Socrates uses the image of a magnet as a metaphor for divine inspiration: as a magnet attracts iron and passes that attraction along, so the gods inspire the artist, who inspires the interpreter, who, in turn, inspires the audience. For Plato's Socrates, the work of poet and critic is not divided between inspiration and rational analysis, as it is for most modern critics (see, for instance, MATTHEW ARNOLD and the New Critic CLEANTH BROOKS); rather, it lies on a continuum, and the work of the critic is no more rational than that of the poet, the,critic's knowledge no more truthful.

However, it is helpful when reading Plato to remember that his dialogues don't always present a straightforward argument or arrive at a single unambiguous conclusion. The process of elenchus and Socrates' persistent irony often make it difficult to pin him down to anyone position. In Ion, is Socrates making fun of the pomposity of the rhapsode, or does he seriously believe that whatever truth emerges from poetry and the interpretation of poetry results only from divine madness? On the surface, it might seem that Ion treats poetry very differently than does the later Republic, our second selection, where Plato's Socrates argues that far from being divinely inspired, poets lie and ought to be banished from the ideal republic-or, at the very least, heavily censored and kept in check. But Ion presents a view of knowledge that is consistent with the weightier arguments in Republic. However divinely inspired, Socrates argues, poets' and critics' knowledge is of a different order than, and one decidedly inferior to, the knowledge of charioteers, fishermen, or philosophers. To the modern student of literature, this denigration of the poet's learning appears downright odd. Surely the standards by which the knowledge of a charioteer or a fisherman or a mathematician would be judged are irrelevant in judging the value of poetry. Why demand that the poet "know" about horses in the same way that a horseman "knows" about horses?

To understand Socrates' remarks about knowledge, the modern reader needs to understand the centrality of poetry to Greek education. In a culture in which literacy was a relatively new and suspect technology, knowledge was frequently encoded and passed :on through the mnemonic devices of music and poetry.·The instruction provided by.the sophists and by Plato's main rival, lsocrates, was almost exclusively rhetorical and literary. Even in Republic, a book concerned with the ideal education of the guardians and citizens, Socrates divides schooling:into physical training for the body and music and poetry for the soul. Socrates' criticism of poetry and its representations appears to be directed against a culture that,believed literally "that poets know all crafts, all human affairs." In such a culture Socrates' insistence makes more sense: a poet needs to know, a horse the way a horseman knows a horse .. In his Academy, however, Plato promoted all earning whose foundation was dialectics, dialogue, and philosophical reasoning.

Both the Allegory of the Cave and Republic 10's infamous critique of mimesis explore the nature of knowledge and its proper objects. The world we perceive through the senses, Socrates argues, is illusory and deceptive. It depends on a prior realm of separately existing Forms, organized beneath the Form of Good. The realm of Forms is accessible not through the senses, as is the world of appearances, but only through rigorous philosophic discussion and thought, based on mathematical reasoning. For Plato's Socrates, measuring, counting, and weighing all bring us closer to the realm of Forms than do poetry's pale representations of nature. All' art and poetry, because they represent what is already an inferior representation of the true original (the Forms), can only lead further away from the truth, and further into a world of illusion and deception. Virtually every subsequent defense of poetry (memorable examples include those by Aristotle, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, APHRA BEHN, and PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY) has had to come to terms with Plato's devastating attack on poetry as inferior and deceptive mimesis.

Plato's Phaedrus (from which our final selection has been taken) has been of interest

to contemporary literary theory for its discussion of the evils of writing. There Plato has Socrates relate the story of the· invention, of writing by the, Egyptian god Theuth (Thoth), who offers it to King Thamus. Thamus declines the offer, deciding that humans are better of without writing because, it substitutes an alien inscription- lifeless signs-for the ,authentic living presence of spoken. language. Far from aiding memory, writing will cause it,to atrophy. For Plato, the only good memory is anamnesis, the recollection of spiritual truths through 'genuine; living wisdom! that is, through philosophy. Plato reiterates this point in his Seventh Letter, where he says: "anyone who is seriously studying high matters will be the last to write about them and thus expose his thought to the envy and criticism of men. i.e. whenever we see a book, whether the Jaws of a legislator or a composition on any other subject, we can be sure that if the author is really serious; the book does 'not contain his best thoughts; they are stored away with the fairest of his possessions. And if, he has committed these serious thoughts to writing, it is because men, not the gods, 'have taken his wits away.' "  Yet Plato's use of a myth in Phaedrus to frame his philosophical objections to writing raises questions of its own, since presumably myths suffer from the same defects as the texts of the sophists, rhetoricians, poets, and other purveyors of false wisdom whom Plato criticizes elsewhere. Derrida offers a celebrated unraveling of the logic of Plato's argument against writing in his Dissemination (see below), which may be the most significant encounter between a twentieth-century philosopher and Plato.

Plato is the progenitor of Western didactic criticism and theory: the idea that literature

should serve moral and social functions.' Republic, where, he, describes an ideal well-regulated community in which the educational curriculum promotes respect for law, reason, authority, self.,discipline; and piety, has been specially influential. Although Plato's Socrates loves and regularly cites Homer's Iliad and Odyssey\ he calls for the censorship of many passages in these )works ;that ,represent sacrilegious; sentimental; unlawful, and irrational behaviour'. Above all else, he' requires that literature teach goodness and grace. Plato's relentless application of this standard to all literature marks one of the, most noteworthy beginnings of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry.

00023-- Plato's THEORY OF IDEAS (this is necessary to understand why he said ART IS TWICE REMOVED FROM REALITY. see 00001 post.)

Plato's Theory of Ideas is his most original philosophical achievement.  We can summarize it in a few definite statements.  They are:

1) Forms or Ideas are real entities. There is a world of ideas which is real.  The world we live in is the copy of that world of ideas.  When an artist does copy the nature or anything in it, his art becomes something that is twice removed from reality. 

   

2) There is a great variety of forms, including the forms of classes of things(house, dog, man etc.); of qualities(whiteness, roundness etc.) ; of relations(equality, resemblances etc.) ; of values(goodness, beauty etc.).

3) The Forms belong to a realm of abstract entities, a "heaven of ideas," separable from concrete particulars in space and time.  The separation of the forms and their exemplifications is commonly referred to as the Platonic dualism.

4) The forms are superior to particulars in degree of reality and value; the forms are the realities of which particulars are mere appearances. The form is a model or archetype of which the particular is a copy.

 5) The forms are non-mental and subsist independently of any knowing mind.

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5

00002--Plato’s comments on Drama.

Plato’s comments on Drama. 

Plato’s observations on poetry are equally applicable to drama.  In addition, he makes a few more comments on the dramatic art.

a)Its appeal to baser Instincts

Unlike poetry, drama is to be staged.  The audience consists of heterogeneous multitude.  To please them all, the dramatist introduces quarrels and lamentations in tragedy and imitation of thunder and cries of beasts in comedy.  Such a drama is capable of arousing man’s bad instincts.  Plato did disapprove such plays in his REPUBLIC.

b) Effects of Impersonation

The actors in a play have to impersonate various characters.  Such characters include thieves, murderers, cowards and knaves.  Constant impersonation results in letting the evil qualities into the actor’s own nature.  Plato argues that even acting the part of an innocent character is harmful.  Constant impersonation represses individuality and leads to the weakening of one’s character. He admits that impersonation of noble heroes will stimulate virtuous actions such as courage, wisdom, virtue etc. in the actor.

c) Tragic and Comic pleasure

The question ‘what is it in a scene that causes pleasure?’, had occurred to Plato.  He gave an explanation of his own.  Human nature, he says, is a mixture of heterogeneous feelings such as anger,envy, fear, grief etc.  A man weeps or get angry because it pleases him to lose his temper or to go on weeping.  In comedy the pleasure takes the form of laughter at what we see on the stage.  The entire Greek comedies were satirical in form. We laugh at a coward who pretends to be a brave man.  Such pleasure, according to Plato, is of negative kind because it comes from the weakness of the character.  We must pity him instead of laughing at him.  Also Plato warns against too much pity and too much laughter.  Plato here hits upon a profound truth that no character can be comic unless he is lovable. 

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00001--On What Ground Plato Condemns Poetry?/ Plato's Attack on Poetry.

Plato condemns poetry on the basis of following reasons:

a)Art (poetry) is twice removed from reality.

Things are conceived as ideas before they take practical shape as things.  Thus the objects of the world are once removed from reality.  Art (literature, painting, sculpture) being the reproduction of these things, is twice removed from reality.Therefore poetry takes men away from reality rather than towards it.  So poetry helps neither to mould character nor to promote the well-being of the state-- the two things by which Plato judged all human endeavour.

b) Poetic inspiration

The poet writes because he is 'inspired' not because he has thought long over a subject.  According to Plato this sudden outpouring of the soul cannot be a reliable substitute for truths based on reason. Even if there is profound truth in poetry it needs to be subjected to a further test-- the test of reason.  Poetry therefore cannot take the place of philosophy.

c)The emotional appeal to poetry

Poetry is a product of inspiration rather than of reason and therefore it appeals to the heart rather than to the intellect. Poetry is concerned about the beauty of form. An individual who is in search of truth, can never be guided by poetry.  Plato illustrates this by referring to the tragic poetry of his age, in which weeping and wailing were indulged to the full to move the hearts of the spectators.  So poetry ‘fed and watered’ the passions instead of drying them up and let them rule instead of ruling them as they ought to be ruled with a view to the happiness and  virtue of mankind. 

d) It’s Non-moral character

Finally,  Plato indicts poetry for its lack of concern with morality.  In its treatment of life it treats both virtue and vice alike, sometimes making the one and sometimes making the other triumph indifferently, without regard for moral considerations.  It pained Plato to see virtue often coming to grief in the literature of his time.  The epics of Homer, the narrative works of Hesiod, the odes of Pindar and the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.  Such literature, according to Plato, corrupted both the citizen and the state.

a.       Art (poetry) is twice removed from reality. b.      Poetic inspiration c.       The emotional appeal to poetry d.      It’s Non-moral character

                                                                                                                             

PLATO

E x t r a   r e  a d i n g

An extract from plato’s Ion

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:

Socrates, Ion

Socrates: Would you or a good prophet be a better interpreter of what these two poets say about divination, not only when they agree, but when they disagree?

Ion: A prophet.

Socrates: And if you were a prophet, would you be able to interpret them when they disagree as well as when they agree?

Ion: Clearly.

Socrates: But how did you come to have this skill about Homer only and not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does not Homer speak the same themes which all other p0ets handle? Is not war his great argument? And does he not speak of human society and of intercourse of men, good and bad, skilled and unskilled, and of the good conversing with one another and with mankind, and about what happens in heaven and in the world below, and the generations of gods

and heroes? Are not these the themes of which Homer sings?

Ion: Very true, Socrates.

Socrates: And do not the other poets sing of the same?

Ion: Yes, Socrates; but not in the same way as Homer.

Socrates: What, in a worse way?

Ion: Yes, in a far worse.

Socrates: And Homer in a better way?

Ion: He is incomparably better.

Socrates: And yet surely, my dear friend Ion, in a discussion about arithmetic, where many people are speaking, and one speaks better than the rest, there is somebody who can judge which of them is the good speaker?

Socrates: And he who judges of the good will be the same as he who judges of the bad speakers?

Ion: The same.

Socrates: And he will be the arithmetician?

Ion: Yes.

Socrates: Well, and in discussions about the wholesomeness of food, when many persons are speaking, and one speaks better than the rest, will he who recognizes the better speaker be a different person from him who recognizes the worse, or the same?

Ion: Clearly the same.

Socrates: And who is he, and what is his name?

Ion: The physician.

Socrates: And speaking generally, in all discussions in which the subject is the same and many men are speaking, will not he who knows the good know the bad speaker also? For if he does not know the bad, neither will he know the good when the same topic is being discussed.

Ion: True.

Socrates: Is not the same person skillful in both?

Ion: Yes.

Socrates: And you say that Homer and the other poets, such as Hesiod and Archilochus, speak of the same things; although not in the same way; but the one speaks well and the other not so well?

Ion:

Socrates: And if you knew the good speaker, you would also know the inferior speakers to be inferior?

Ion: That is true.

Socrates: Then, my dear friend, can I be mistaken in saying that Ion is equally skilled in Homer and in other poets, since he himself acknowledges that the same person will be a good judge of all those who speak of the same things; and that almost all poets do speak of the same things?

Ion: Why then, Socrates, do I lose attention and go to sleep and have absolutely no ideas of the least value, when any one speaks of any other poet; but when Homer is mentioned, I wake up at once and am all attention and have plenty to say?

Socrates: The reason, my friend, is obvious. No one can fail to see that you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able to speak of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of all other poets; for poetry is a whole.

Ion: Yes.

Socrates: And when any one acquires any other art as a whole, the same may be said of them. Would you like me to explain my meaning, Ion?

Ion: Yes, indeed, Socrates; I very much wish that you would for I love to hear you wise men talk.

Socrates: 0 that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so; but you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose verses you sing, are wise; whereas I am a common man, who only speaks the truth. For consider what a very commonplace and trivial thing is this which I have said-a thing which any man might say: that when a man has acquired a knowledge of a whole art, the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same. Let us consider this matter; is not the art of painting a whole?

Ion: Yes.

Socrates: And there are and have been many painters good and bad.

Ion: Yes.

(The dialogue continues.  Plato was highly poetic in his prose though he stood against poetry.  Aristotle stood for poetry but his prose was rather dry.)

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