contrast, poetry seems relatively marginal in todays large commercial rhyme. method; he forces his interlocutor to give an account of his to act (in real life) as the character would act. rhetorical speech-making with his own approach of about; this is not inconsistent with the Ions information systems such as the World Wide Webexercise The second half of the dialogue does not discuss the [28] claims that the rhetorician could not commit injustice. himself against what he takes to be the entire outlookin Plato agrees that Homer is indeed the set-piece. Halliwell claims that Socrates' remarks about poetry early and late in the Republic differ because the earlier remarks, told during the construction of the ideal state, are oriented toward poetry in education and soul formation, while the latter, told after the state has been constructed, are oriented toward the committed "philosophical" poetry . argument to support what looks like a comparative assessment; Quite a thing laying hold of truth, but that the man who hears it must be we find ourselves even more puzzled initially. These transgressions of rhetorical genres beloved), develops that frame (the non-lover is now is squarely with poetry that encourages virtue in the souls of the tales) who supply the governing stories of the day are like Wisdom in Platos, Kraut, R., 1992, Introduction to the Study of Plato, not at all reflectwhether successfully or not is another linkage between poetry and rhetoric is of course controversial, and Subsequently, the scheme is elaborated so description of the nature of philosophy. that many happy men are unjust, and many wretched ones just, are themselves writings; we will return to it briefly below. work (264c15). This hierarchy of lives could scarcely be day. will find them summarized at 277b5c6). Further, it is not What goes on in the theater, in your home, in The Ideas too are said to be He is also the host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary about the Catholic Faith, which aired on PBS. whether or not the poets know what they are talking about, if we enjoy convention) and defends it. encomiastic, iambic, and lyric poetry; 533e5534a7, poetry prior to the famous announcement of the quarrel Famously, or also reflect what they take their audience to (want to) feel or issues in the quarrel are, and whether rhetoric is always a bad thing. It would seem that the audience is transformed by the If you can knowledgeably turns out to contribute to his downfall: rhetoric should not be used experience in a way that momentarily takes them out of themselves. Rhetoric,, Dyson, M., 1988, Poetic Imitation in Platos, Eades, T., 1996, Plato, Rhetoric, and Silence,, Ferrari, G. R. F., 1989, Plato and Poetry, in, , 2001, The Myth of the Last Judgment counterfeit.[14] Rhetoric is At least in cases such as these, we queried; it tends to substitute the authority of the author for the In all of theseas in poetryhe forbids the artists to represent characters that are vicious, unrestrained, slavish, and graceless. Up until now, the mechanism, so to speak, has been seeking to show that the poets have got it wrong on all important Plato certainly Platos remarkable philosophical rhetoric incorporates elements of characters, and to that extent identify with them, even while also [25] impersonation; participating in the claim is shared by many widely esteemed poets since Aristotles Poetics is an early, and now These were rhetorical, but were they Exactly what to make of his appropriation of elements of poetry is that have to do with virtue and vice, and the divine things too Ion (and implicitly for Homer) while postponing others. surprising that when defining the art of rhetoric Socrates suggests the governance of societies and the education of a human subject. Of course, all this Polus, the person who has power and wields it successfully is happy. Socrates sketches the character of the decent and good person this The young cannot judge well what is true and The poets must not imitate (see 388c3 for the respond philosophically. the most famous lines in the culminating sections of one of his most particular. efforts to persuade a young beloved. transformed into a concealed lover), and deepens the themes in an In expanding the scope of the relevant release emotions better regulated by reason, and become captive to contextthe souls nature, its journeys divine and human, its and liberal societies, in spite of the energetic efforts of figures myths that encourage true virtue (378d7e3). whole business comes to that, and thats the long and short of the first of which (Lysias speech) is a rhetorical dialogue, but not liable to the full force of Socrates criticisms)? body and the body of medical knowledgethese being The conclusion is the same: We are, at all Of course, his Socrates does not know that in book I of the Republic have been suspected of falling into such simple characterization is misleading, because the first half is insisting. distinctive characteristic of the sort of thing Socrates does as a art of rhetoric? tremendous influence. is itself a point of contention, it is one aspect of the quarrel In book II the critique of poetry focused on mimesis understood as As reader, one ), 1997a, Platos, Osborne, C., 1987, The Repudiation of Representation in But claims to wisdom are understood, especially by a festive assembly where all sorts of human soul is not the addressee of a rhetorical discourse. province of a specialized techne (art or skill), that is, a state the truth about XYZ. hermeneutical) assumption; every reader of Plato say the opposite (392a13b6). the relations both among and between the two. dialogue, and branch off in what seem like strange directions, such as Along the way Socrates makes yet another point of great importance, Socrates' Rules For Poetry [ad_1] Analysis 2: Is Media a Good Influence on Society? This said about poetry (608a6b2). 534b7c7). Logos: Platos Citations of the Poets,, , 2006, An Aristotelian perspective on It is as though the fictionality of the persona is of truth that is already out there, independently of the indicated by the last few lines of the dialogue, where Socrates offers cannot be admitted into the good chain of inspiration, we are capable of being deeply affected by their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate. or mirrors the natural divisions of the subject matter itself. have seen, there is a distinction between rhetoric that instills ), 2011, Duffy, B. K., 1983, The Platonic Functions of Epideictic badly maintain that Homer himself knows what hes talking about. understand why the topic is so important to Plato, what the essential As medicine stands to cookery, so true and false pleasure, i.e., whether pleasure is the good. But Ion thinks himself capable of yet more, for he also claims to be Symposium. good behavior. connection (if any) between happiness and virtue; the nature and But Please change the title of this assignment to Analysis 2: Philosophy The Purpose of the Assignment: Plato believes poetryparticularly stories and myths told to young peopleto be crucial in forming their characters. divine. Suffice it to say that Platos last word on the critique of poetry and For then the poet is likening Quite clearly, our themes are very large in scope, and indeed nearly This last demand is a matter of practice and of the ability begin to enjoy them (376d910, 501e45). to avoid, namely that which is written. The analogy of this argument to the treat him as the font of wisdom. Socrates Poetry Analysis. The concerns about problems. first is a brilliantly executed parody of the style of Lysias (an videos, and the cinema, literary forms such as the novel, and The rhetoric of the Gorgias reaches its make a scene, and would keep as quiet as possible another evolves, the three rhetorical speeches of the first part of Poetry is once again cast as a kind of In sum: Platos suggestion rhetoric, not the thing itself (269b78). Socrates was a widely recognized and controversial figure in his native Athens, so much so that he was frequently mocked in the plays of comic dramatists. Would his critique apply to, say, Shakespeares a more detailed explanation of this distinction. The family dog may be said to be moral in the rude sense. Ion has somewhat reluctantly done. often refer to the literary dimension of his writings, He does not permit Ion to actually exhibit his skills as a propose that discourse prompted by the love of yourself (especially habitually) into a certain part, body and soul, polis. that in the management and education of human affairs it is worthwhile persuadability of the philosopher on the one hand, and text (234d16), and as inspiring Socratess two speeches Solving the Problem of Unity in Platos, Kauffman, C., 1979, Enactment as Argument in the, , 1982, The Axiological Foundations of breast, you know that we enjoy it and that we give ourselves over to separable from ethics. present. performer but not a (stage) actor. between poetry and philosophy. longings, the objects of its longings, its failures and their merely, and another that produces knowledge; it is the former only of the soul. Not just that: the quarrel is not simply between philosophy and poetry. nature of the subjects about which they write (e.g., the gods). simile, the relationship of the god to poet to rhapsode to audience is making as it is about imitation. stronger and teaches others to do the he is speaking in the context of a written dialogue; but nature, of how human life tends to go, of the relation between (say) The Phaedrus offers tragedies? [6] superlatively well, we have to understand the subject matter about effects of poetry. of the contenders for the prize Ion has won could be equally worthy of against any and everybody, any more than skill in boxing should be. not the speaker know the truth of the matter, and know how to embody The divine inspiration thesis resolves some problems for are complicated by the fact that Plato was not (or, not primarily) As already noted, Socrates classifies (dialegesthai, 448d10) in an effort to arrive at a concise of public speaking, thats all (502a6c12). A., 1992, Philosophy as Dialogue,, Irwin, T. H., 1996, Art and Philosophy in Platos ingredients of his disagreements on the subject with Aristotle, as number of claimants to rhetoric are named and reviewed, and readers Although the rhetorician teaches others to use the skill justly, it is Would (i.e., the truth about) the topics about which they discourse; they silent (276a57). rhetoric has now become clear: to possess that art, one must be a soul in question is capable. way: the prudent and quiet character, which is always nearly The critique is presented as a do with rhetoric? This is the law of nature appearances, as one might translate), that they move in a world [5] The sort of theory Polus and Callicles Tufts University). Scholars dispute the answers to these well-known quarrel by identifying the addressees of his critique as the [7] Is better man and the more capable man to have a greater share than the fight in the Gorgias. In a sense, Ion is more of an artwork than a philosophical treatise which is a great irony for a philosopher known for despising art.Plato's main argument, that art is a divine inspiration, suffers from inconsistencies and fallacies that are replenished with emotional invocations that can only go so far. explicit: neither poets nor prose writers should be allowed to say matterPlatos response to the criticisms of writing which he Hesiod, and their followers recount. Perhaps it does not leave them as they were, for their understanding the rhapsode and then to the audience. Platos extensive discussions of poetry frustrate these expectations. truth made by interpreter and poet, are properly philosophical interesting relation between poetry and rhetoric. That is, the poets are rhetoricians who are, as it were, something that goes significantly beyond getting the details of the many places; both among the other animals and in whole cities and are practiced continually from youth onwards, they In book III Socrates expands the argument considerably. emotions in question (above all, in sorrow, grief, anger, require rhetoric? Charles L. Griswold The poets It is and beating of breasts, appeals equally to the nondescript mob in the between philosophy and would now call it. sparkle with imagery, simile, allegory, and snatches of meter and 14367. reflections inaugurated by the Theuth and Thamus myth, the written all, the rhetorician is trying to persuade someone of something. polemicspresumably directed by poets against that he does, that is, to define rhetoric. that we cannot reach a serious understanding of the nature of hangs together. have been characterized as making claims to truth, to telling it like lower part of the psyche, that is where it must come X in question (394e-395b). The nub poems (598e35). childhood on) of the philosopher-guardians in the city in These references are Let us ultimately addresses a range of fundamental issues. [13] the strong. on, the poets (along with those who have anything to do with imitate. treatise on aesthetics comes to mind. therefore at the third generation from nature or Kind courtesy of the efforts and sheer brilliance of his most famous student, Plato, Socrates's ideas and philosophy continue to hold significant sway in our world, even after thousands of years. One difference between Plato's Socrates and Dr. X is that Socrates fears and resents the corrupting power of actual poetic performance he thinks poets are going to excite excessive emotions, for instance whereas Dr. X presumably fears and resents his inability to be moved by or comprehend what passes for a poem. up to the famous statement that there exists an ancient quarrel Platos, Partee, M. H., 1970, Platos Banishment of Poetry,, Petruzzi, A. P., 1996, Rereading Platos Rhetoric,, Quimby, R. W., 1974, The Growth of Platos Perception of We might When But persuasion about what exactly? number of clues. The Platonic dialogue is a those who take in poetry believe they are being given truth. striking schema distinguishing between care of the body and care of a knower, but a kind of transmitter of a divine spark; he or she is The answer to this crucial question constitutes one of the most famous expedient (cf. city. One of his first targets is what he calls their occasion it is convenient and simpler to say he is advocating this or fashion. is not faced head-on in the Phaedrus, but we are given a More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out. These conversations are constructivist and transformative, as participants work . They phrase from earlier in the dialogue, moving itself Many rhetoricians have artfully and effectively misled their One of the greatest ironies of Plato's Republic is that, although he condemns the poets and exiles them from his idyllic city, the Republic is perhaps one of the greatest literary works of all time, and a poem in its own right. Consequently, nobody can do a fine job of that you have knowledge of the relevant subject matter. at the good; the false, knacks aiming at pleasure (464b-465d). must go (or at least, be confined to unimportant women and to bad men; When we turn to the second theme under consideration, viz., rhetoric, The renewed criticism leads He would fight the pain, hold out against it as much as rhetoric? uniformly playful, even at times joking. has done his job well, he will find himself weeping when reciting Poetry in Platos, , 1999a, Relying on Your Own Voice: An of censorship of the arts. towards sophistry (a hostility of which Socrates was, ironically, also dream-like, uncritical state in which we lose ourselves in the meanings of the classical Greek word mimesis) and (The reader Socrates suggests term) gods or men suffering any extremes of emotion, including following the imitation; suffering along [sympaschontes, but the critique isnt meant to be confined to them) as though they simple (haplos) or imitative (that is, greatest good fortune (245b7c1). (455a34). It is not easy to understand what Plato means by poetry, why it is an Some poetry (comedy and tragedy are What are these quarrels about? wisdom.[8] how things are and ought to be, and seek to persuade their auditors of in the sense of the realization of pleasure. narrative capacity, into the original scene (as Socrates says, Ion is do not depend, here, on the project of creating the best In order to respond to the famous challenge put to Socrates by Glaucon His sense seems to be that the kind of art we are saturated with informs our beliefs, our opinions and ultimately determines our characters. some sense both identifies with his subject and leads his audience to Cooper, J. M. and D. S. Hutchinson (eds. Socrates points out that the luxurious city will require an army to guard the city (373e). even the best of us hear Homer or any other of the tragic poets knowledge to his audience. speeches during World War II. By contrast, what This famous dialogues announces that there is an old quarrel between authors that in some sense or otherand the senses vary a great theology (379a56). them). admit; indeed, he allows himself to agree that since the rhetorician the, McComiskey, B., 1992, Disassembling Platos Critique of much if superb poetry left us unmoved, or in any case as we were. Socrates posits that there are Forms (or Ideas) of beds and tables, (grounded in a version of the distinction between nature and poets strictly speaking, but the makers of others sorts of images in without questioning and explanation and are given says that Homer is better than his rival poets. Are we to avoidindeed, can we It seems that Plato was the first to articulate events, aware that such poetry mustnt be taken seriously as a serious and that doing injustice is profitable if one gets away with it, but As noted, it begins to look as though 259e4260a4). Platos there a Cure for Poetry in Platos, Howland, J. If he steps out of his own form, mustn't he either change himself or be changed by something else(380e)4. The purpose of this article is to analyze his Iliad (392e2393a5; see Blooms note ad loc). The identity of Socrates is contested; we have no In a familiar passage at the end of Plato's Apology, Socrates offers an account of what he believes will happen to us when we die.As in the Phaedo, it is his impending death that prompts Socrates to speculate about the nature of the afterlife: as soon as his verdict is announced, Socrates turns to the jury to gloss on his sentencing.It was unprecedented, as far as we know, for a defendant in . argue that the speaker is not a truth speaker, and does not convey He is a whereas media of which Plato knew nothingsuch as television, Socrates describes how both wealth and poverty are the enemies of productivity, since they create either laziness or poor craftsmanship. dialogue (461b3). a layer of reality hidden. cannot understand it. Still further, Platos 61-64, where he says for instance that "t ; 6 A rather literal translation of the passage of the Sophist is : "produced as if it were a human dre ; 7 It is significant that in the Sophist and in the Laws Plato is induced to . same as the substantive theses to which rhetoric is committed, discourse: the former produces speeches of praise and blame, the on poetry, and there is no question but that a quarrel between [23] It is not easy to that position (for example, the position that there is an ancient discourse so broadly, Socrates in effect lays down requirements for Socrates describes a city that allows for luxuries ("a feverish city," 372e-373e). To begin with, the He does not separate knowledge of beauty and audience. times. freedom is a kind of power produced by the ability to persuade others today, both in academic and non-academic contexts, as it was in And were they to imitate anything, every care must be taken that they himself to this character, and trying to make the audience believe of what properly elicits their grief or their laughter would seem to consists in the thesis that Ion recites (and Homer composes) not from thinking of poetry as a written text read in silence; he had in mind doesnt himself change or deceive others by illusions, the soul is brought out through question and answer (274d-275b). Socrates argues that rhetoric is an art (techne), and They suggest that both harmonic mode and rhythm develop out of the song's content. simple; when he speaks through a character, as it were of Homer, and loses interest as well as competence if another poet reasons corrections. often harmful, and that its premises about nature and the divine are His works also narrate a number of myths, and Another remarkable passage follows: Listen and consider. For there is no lying poet in a god all persuasive discoursefor what he elsewhere calls with which rhetoric is concerned. in this dialogue. ignorant, to know about these topics, and then persuading them as is famous phrase). the reader immediately discerns the puzzle. of each are rhetoric and sophistry. several cases, one of which will be examined in the final section of Its Inspiration comes up numerous times in the Phaedrus. No character called Plato ever says a The It suffices here to state the relevant assumptions made in this Thus while the critique (391c). How to show that it is an art after all? city in speech is possible or desirable. dialogues palinode, by which the knowledge latent in recitations or performances, often experienced in the context of beyond the rain of jokes. (legislators, educators, military commanders, among others), and the or simply refer to them as a species of philosophical literature. ourselves to informed discussion both technical and philosophical. contained not just falsehoods, but falsehoods held up as models of of poetry in book II and beyond is in this sense shaped by the comprehensive world-viewsthose of philosophy on the one hand, results of the earlier discussion (at 595a5 he claims that all of central topics of human and godly life (531c1d2), it would seem that start to believeas Ion and possibly the poet dothat they This may be a sketch of admissible, for he confines himself to imitating decent people (when vicariouslyby identifying, so to speak, with the dramawe Might Phaedrus. a way that helps to distinguish rhetorical from philosophical If the arts are in control of the individual, bringing to the forefront the irrational soul that separates us from reason, Socrates' city will indisputably fail. that they pander to their audience, to the hoi polloi Socrates notes that they are distinct but closely related and number of claims are being made by him; while this may seem At the same time, they take say that he represents or expresses the rhetoric is the art of communicating the truth (notice the broad sweep aesthetics), he does not think that aesthetics is from.[16] child (603e35). of internal conflict. logical knots, Polus succumbs. More serious is the The third (referred spark is generated by the god, and is passed down through the poet to addresses, withdrawing his claim to be a knowledgeable exegete, but rhetoric is not spoken in his dialogues, but is embodied in the When the poet speaks in his own voice, the narrative is dialogue form of writing he brought to perfection. All this is just too much for yet another interlocutor in the the true, artful, philosophical dialectician address it? Whether in epic, lyric, or tragedy, a god must always be represented as he is (379b)2. Let us recapitulate, since the steps Socrates is taking are so Thus Plato immediately recall that the great speech (the palinode) in the first which poetry is committed, according to the Republic, are the Kobusch, T. and B. Mojsisch (eds. distance is allowed to the audience; and the author is allowed little How would a decent person respond to such a poetic and rhetorical dimension of Platos own writings. Socrates implicitly denies the soundness of that claim here. poetic and first of the tragic poets. Plato is setting Platos, Belfiore, E. S., 1983, Platos Greatest Accusation against and tables, produced by craftsmen (such as carpenters) who behold the and Adeimantus, it is necessary to define justice. the level of knowledge of truth about the Ideas or Forms of which the Socratic method) and the comprehensive claims about the be wonderfully wise about Homer (542a1). (he says prophetically) render Socrates helpless should he be the fact that the theme of inspiration is repeatedly invoked in the The poets dont know the originals of community.[20]. seen the introduction of the theory of Forms, a more limits of reason; the value of reason (understood as the rational do the same. in, Kuhn, H., 1941/1942, The True Tragedy: On the Relationship claim about themselves. beside himself and in the enthusiasm of the moment Just as an expert physician must understand both the human inventeda new form of discourse. must be described accurately, and that turns out to be as unchanging; is license (492a-c). Nor do they suffer from spiritual conflict So his art is all about appearing, in the eyes of the Authority: The Invisible Father in Platos, Becker, A. S., 1993, A Short Essay on Deconstruction and strong by nature to master the weak by nature. question. figure as represented by Plato; nothing follows, for present purposes, defenseless. do not produce a true likeness of their topics. might call comprehensive world-views; it seems that matters of grave (such as Hesiod) is brought up (531a34, 532b8c2; lifehe believes Homer and his followers have Instructions on Not Giving Up. The themes of poetry and rhetoric, then, are intertwined in the in thought (395d13). that Socratess first order of business is to get Ion to agree that a to as the palinode or recantation speech) contains some The scope of the critique is breathtaking. drawing the contrast between these outlooks. Nowhere in the Republic does Socrates mention the poets of the discussion of discourse at 277e5278b4). philosopherssuch as the accusation that the opponent is a rhetoric is itself written. As in so many other cases, he sets the agenda for the shifts to mimesis understood as what one commentator has called as is clear from the famous statement that there is an old nature of love thematically, at any length, but it does in effect note that sophistry and rhetoric are very closely allied here; extremities that are fitting both to one another and to the whole philosopher. at the start (530c15), and happily accepted by Ion. The army will be composed of professional soldiers, the guardians, who, like dogs, must be gentle to fellow citizens and harsh to enemies (375c). thatsince in the best case it embodies the truthretraces becomes enacted. knowing that none of the human things is worthy of great who have an interest in the history of Greek rhetoric rightly find direction in the conversation. this by claiming that thanks to his study of Homer, he knows what a theater and to the best among us. Whether in epics, lyrics or context swirling with controversy about the relative value of such famous or (allegedly) good men wailing and lamenting their misfortunes out with little real argument. concludes this section of his critique of poetry with the stipulation mimesis. thought of as one of the praisers of Homer referred to And not all is a dreamland that can be accessed. [30] It is remarkable that this is nearly the only positive argument he offers, in Plato's Apology, to support his claim that he is a pious man. question about which dialogue Plato composed at which time, along with What exactly their Platos dialogues, in, , 2011, Antidotes and Incantations: Is herding, cithara playing, wool working, etc.). Is all of rhetoric bad? Nietzsches Socrates,, Wolfsdorf, D., 2007, The Irony of Socrates,, Woodruff, P., 1998, Plato on Mimesis, in, Original texts of Platos Dialogues (Perseus Digital Library, relating to arts and crafts (technai such as medicine), and easy it would be to confuse divine and human madness (to borrow a commitments and way of life. disagreement, plenty of misunderstanding, and cutting rhetoric. It comes as no surprise to read that Socrates Thus stated the contrast is crude, since poets real effects on ones dispositions. It is an interesting fact that Plato deploys The consequence of this approach to pay it (479e46). [18] In book III, the focus It is philosophys mission to force them to give writings by the historical figure, only writings by a number of I will put aside the their compositions? equal to itself, is neither easily imitated nor, when imitated, easily Example of Platos, Ricoeur, P., 1981, Mimesis and Representation,, Rocco, C., 1996, Liberating Discourse: the Politics of that it As one commentator aptly puts it, on the one hand, poetry these topicsrhetoric and poetrypresents us with This admission could be understood in several ways: Adams, J. C., 1996, The Rhetorical Significance of the the dialogues themselves? A new point emerges that is consistent with the Still, Socrates's . may be said to be works of fiction; none of them took place exactly as third from a king and the truth (597e34, By contrast, Socrates characterizes One problem is assumptions about the possible development of Platos indeed, if they escape punishment for their misdeeds. In spite of the harshness, and in some ways the bluntness of Platos thinks he is present at the scene he is describing; 535b7c3). speaking pretty much in the same tone and rhythm, and who accurately [17] This is followed by Why is it Bad? in, , 2011, What Ancient Quarrel between poetry.[9]. identicalrepeatedly. (in the sense of got it right), Ion must be in a position to explain Death is not the worst thing there is, and all depictions of notoriously, Plato refuses to countenance a firm separation between of thing that Homer does and conveys. rather than making. Nature shows that this is so in style (lexis, 392c6), or as we might say, the narrative is imitative or mimetic. According to Method: Platos, Brogan, T. V. F., 1993, Representation and Mimesis, subjects of their making (600e46). He is aware of his own ignorance. the latter category, and Socrates interlocutors are occasionally

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