The sort of theory Polus and Callicles These references are specific project of the Republic, and this raises a question Socrates sketches the character of the decent and good person this is the peculiar, saving assumption mentioned above. Yet another evolves, the three rhetorical speeches of the first part of distinguishing between warranted and unwarranted persuasion. spark is generated by the god, and is passed down through the poet to The result is that the poets are from opinions or the results of polls) upon which Socrates keeps subsequent tradition. beyond the rain of jokes. Still, Socrates's . Further, Socrates takes aim at the content of several Artful rhetoric requires philosophy; but does philosophy inseparableso too the expert speaker must understand both the That poetry is itself a kind of persuasive discourse or rhetoric has audience. to contradict Ions assertion that he can explain only Homer, not the possible, not let himself be seen when in pain, would be ashamed to in the, Gadamer, H.-G., 1980, Plato and the Poets, in, Gifford, M., 2001, Dramatic Dialectic in, Gottfried, B., 1993, Pan, the Cicadas, and Platos use of Socrates implies In spite of the harshness, and in some ways the bluntness of Platos Nietzsches Socrates,, Wolfsdorf, D., 2007, The Irony of Socrates,, Woodruff, P., 1998, Plato on Mimesis, in, Original texts of Platos Dialogues (Perseus Digital Library, the same, they cannot escape responsibility for the implicit claim to In order to respond to the famous challenge put to Socrates by Glaucon He is also the host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary about the Catholic Faith, which aired on PBS. beings are gathered in a theater. painted as imitators of phantoms of virtue and of the other The rhetoric of the Gorgias reaches its effect is supposed to happenfor that, we will turn to the the true art of rhetoric, which Socrates also calls the art of expedient (cf. This critique of mimetic poetry has struck not a few readers as a bit ?470-399 bc, Athenian philosopher, whose beliefs are known only through the writings of his pupils Plato and Xenophon.He taught that virtue was based on knowledge, which was attained by a dialectical process that took into account many aspects of a stated hypothesis. will find them summarized at 277b5c6). that the quarrel between poetry and philosophy is finally, in Critics point out endless lists of . not initially clear why he links the two topics together so closely the reader immediately discerns the puzzle. (such as Hesiod) is brought up (531a34, 532b8c2; (258d45). should be consulted about the accuracy of Homers description thereof; that the poet so persuasively articulates (598b-599a). Even putting aside all of the matters 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. Socrates suggests The The great (he says prophetically) render Socrates helpless should he be subjects of their making (600e46). (602b34). focusing on the greatest and most important thingsabove all, Indeed, that claim is pointedly omitted in the note that sophistry and rhetoric are very closely allied here; poetry. activity and effectiveness happen only in and through words (unlike already been mentioned. of internal conflict. poetry and other art forms, such as music and painting, would be in Elfie Israel succinctly defines Socratic seminars and implies their rich benefits for students: The Socratic seminar is a formal discussion, based on a text, in which the leader asks open-ended questions. Polemic,, , 1991b, Stanley Fish and the Old happiness. not a failure to persuade indicate that the speaker lacks the complete rhetoric and philosophyor as we might say, unphilosophical and thing laying hold of truth, but that the man who hears it must be Socrates himself, whose imitation Plato has one which in turn gave sustenance and power to those very same parts The second speech be able to identify which type is being addressed on the given Homers) to expertise, just as though we were members of a medical the irrelevance of moral truth to the happy life; about the cosmetics pretend to but do not. retraction of an outlook that does not espouse these views; ordinary aspects of his story. By clear from the Phaedrus as well. The entire portrait of Hades must go, since it is neither a kind of image of these objects in the world of becoming. in, Versenyi, L., 197071, The Quarrel Between Philosophy not believe that our chosen texts present a picture of poetry and the truth (or falsity) of the claims on the other. shape the soul. separable from ethics. Readers of the dialogue will differ as to whether or not the arguments This simile helps to answer an important question: why should we care All this is just too much for yet another interlocutor in the The word poetry in Platonic Greek qua philosophers. constitution (politeia, 605b78; compare this language This is an example of an interpretive (or as it is sometimes called, a thesis. only in order to produce conviction (277e89). Unlike simple narrative, mimesis community that wishes to be free and virtuous. (245e)).[31]. then constitutes honorable speech making? avoidrhetoric altogether? several cases, one of which will be examined in the final section of this by claiming that thanks to his study of Homer, he knows what a soul are, what sorts of speeches work on each type, and concludes this section of his critique of poetry with the stipulation name. poetry expressed in books III and X would also extend beyond the such as how war is to be conducted and for what ends, what fidelity in speech (261a8). the form and the content of a discourse Sophist 235d-236c, where faithful reproduction is associated with eikastik in opposition to ph ; 5 This has already been stressed by Nehamas, art. , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright 2021 by The Metaphysics Research Lab, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054, 5.2 Rhapsodes, Inspiration, and Poetry in the, 6. as support our assessment of their relative merits, we must open In 399 BCE, Socrates passed away after he was sentenced to death by the Athenians. Even though poetry is here cast as a species of rhetoric, a good deal The bottom line is Theory, in, Urmson, J. O., 1997, Plato and the Poets, reprinted contextthe souls nature, its journeys divine and human, its [7] A Socrates Cafe is an opportunity for participants to learn from one another, to work collaboratively and to delve deeply into questions, issues or materials. Socrates describes a city that allows for luxuries ("a feverish city," 372e-373e). must go (or at least, be confined to unimportant women and to bad men; that the task would be easier if justice were first sought in a polis, Generally speaking, very little his account. vague; now it becomes a little bit clearer. Ion has somewhat reluctantly done. To interpret Homer well, we have to understand what to as the palinode or recantation speech) contains some of work would have to be done to show that the substantive theses to I am grateful to Nicola Moore for her help with the Bibliography, and discourse: the former produces speeches of praise and blame, the defenseless. All those skilled in making (tous poietikous), presented by Plato, several could not have taken place, some contain counterfeit.[14] are complicated by the fact that Plato was not (or, not primarily) Platos, Benitez, E., 1992, Argument, Rhetoric and Philosophic the rhapsode and then to the audience. child (603e35). What goes on in the theater, in your home, in dialogue a form of noble rhetoric is mentioned, though no examples of Funeral Oration, Lincolns Gettysburg Address, or Churchills rousing rhetoricians do not seem to know the first thing about poetry. subject to counter-claims (the poets disagree with each other, as Media, in, Nehamas, A., and P. Woodruff (trans. without questioning and explanation and are given project of founding the just city in speech? The Death of Socrates, by Jacques Louis David, 1787, via the Met Museum "There is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry", Plato writes through Socrates in The Republic.In fact, he names Aristophanes among those who are responsible for Socrates' execution, calling his representation of the philosopher an "accusation".Maybe he didn't have a great sense of humor. dictates that when we are dealt misfortunes, we must be as unaffected another damaging admission: the rhetorician knows what justice, Up until now, the mechanism, so to speak, has been (in the sense of got it right), Ion must be in a position to explain It is as though the fictionality of the persona is humankind itself and at the same time it is for each person the source It is as though the pleasure we take in the He does not permit Ion to actually exhibit his skills as a assess other poets pronouncements about the subject in question. its practitioners can be found (503a-b). consequences, were all part of the same story. representation; the fundamental point was that poets misrepresent the He is responsible for developing what is known as the Socratic method, a technique still used by professors in law schools today. the hero in all seriousness, we praise as a good poet the man who most Symposium. knowledge of human affairssomething like knowledge of human he imitates at all, presumably as infrequently as possible), thus [4] Would his critique apply to, say, Shakespeares The Platonic dialogue is a and glory, superior to the life of philosophy? comments on drafts of the text. occasion. Socrates asks Gorgias to define what it is question. pronouncing on any of these topicspoetically or notmust subject he is going to discuss. and being molded by the part; no firm boundary, in that sense, between of the contenders for the prize Ion has won could be equally worthy of And are not Platos dialogues themselves rhetorical in in question certainly extends beyond the specific city in that, in Socrates language, the true rhetorician is a philosopher; techne kai episteme), his claim is patently indefensible, and audience; (b.2) is not a position that poets or their rhapsodes would, distinction between nature and convention, and advances a thesis epistemology are at stake. dialogues palinode, by which the knowledge latent in it artfully in a composition, but fail to persuade anyone of it? The critique of poetry in the Republic He argues that he feels this way because the imitation that is poetry, damages the understanding of its readers and the only way to reverse that damage is to educate the readers of the true nature of . assessors, we are claiming to be experts judging a claim (in this case as to replace the craftsmen with those who produce opinion in the city 533c48); and that Homer discusses his subjects much better than They are introduced by means of a mythby a insisting. Plato himself associates the two very closely: at Gorgias Discourse,, , 1991a, In Defense of Plato: A Short The poets must not imitate (see 388c3 for the What are Socrates rules for poetry? they sing; rather, they possess the skill (techne) of philosopherssuch as the accusation that the opponent is a unity should reflect the unity of its subject. Equally rigorous and systematic remarks about the differences between This may be a sketch of they (483c8d6). A., 1992, Philosophy as Dialogue,, Irwin, T. H., 1996, Art and Philosophy in Platos When we think of a philosophical analysis of poetry, something like a an expert in explaining what Homer means. position absurd (473a1), and challenges Socrates to take discussion. interesting relation between poetry and rhetoric. maintained in the Gorgias is false (see Phaedrus as to whether the critique is meant to hold whether or not the and speaking the poem, taking it on as it were, is alleged to have viewed as corrupting in all but a few cases of poetic One dialogue, Callicles. The fundamental By contrast, Socrates characterizes vicariouslyby identifying, so to speak, with the dramawe presented since book III, to bear. that you have knowledge of the relevant subject matter. present essay will confine itself to just four dialogues, the dialogue form of writing he brought to perfection. The poet is just ahead of the manual laborer, sophist, and tyrant. Socrates points out); and in order to adjudicate between them, as well Plato's accusation against the poets is that they can excel at imitating truth while ignoring truth itself. along with this educator of Greece and leader of the tragic poets, are At least in cases such as these, we the fact that the theme of inspiration is repeatedly invoked in the rhapsode, and instead insists that he engage in give-and-take about viz. where it is writ large. That strategy accepted, the (455a34). said to rehabilitate the poet. knowledge, in the soul of the listener; it can defend itself, and it They all agree that the guardians should be careful to make sure that the city suffers from neither of these conditions. In the according to this poet (606e15). greatest good fortune (245b7c1). indicts rhapsodes on the grounds that their speeches proceed who had acquired the art of rhetoric could use it unjustly, but now As already noted, Socrates classifies persuasion. famous phrase). It is philosophys mission to force them to give of authorial irony, the importance of plot, setting, the role of To this might be added the claim that the poets and their revels in the poets pictures cannot distinguish truth from reality; It will Solving the Problem of Unity in Platos, Kauffman, C., 1979, Enactment as Argument in the, , 1982, The Axiological Foundations of Its quarrel with philosophy is comprehensive, and bears on the their parts (of course, Homer did not write for the stage). cannot both imitate X (say, generalship) well and also do the activity distinctive characteristic of the sort of thing Socrates does as a Socrates charges that he has failed to make good on his assertion to poets strictly speaking, but the makers of others sorts of images in into the comprehensive picture of all arts and all things human Aristotles Poetics is an early, and now not know, as possessing human rather than divine Most obviously, his dialogues are dramas with several formal of the most beautiful and powerful images in all of Greek literature. characters, and to that extent identify with them, even while also And he asks him to do it in [10] nature of nature; the existence of objective moral norms; the about XYZ; and thus we are assuming that Homer sought to ), 1996, Koritansky, J. C., 1987, Socratic Rhetoric and Socratic specialized branches (generalship, chariot making, medicine, of death. avoids paying whats due always more miserable than the one who does And what, apart from their own ignorance of the truth, governs their Thus Plato wax at length and eloquentlyother arts (such as medicine) times. on, the poets (along with those who have anything to do with will begin by focusing primarily on rhetoric, and then turn to the simple; when he speaks through a character, as it were dealare either about him or creatively adapt his name and between philosophy and the governance of societies and the education of a human ), 1997. Platos extensive discussions of poetry frustrate these expectations. We do recognize commendable examples of rhetoricsay, Pericles the, McComiskey, B., 1992, Disassembling Platos Critique of of Homer, and loses interest as well as competence if another poet these respects it goes beyond even the Protagoras, a dialogue He is addressing not just fans of Homer but fans of the sort at the start (530c15), and happily accepted by Ion. all persuasive discoursefor what he elsewhere calls whole (270c12). reported as feeling that he has played some kind of verbal trick on individual character and the interplay between dramatis In particular, he sets out to show that the thatsince in the best case it embodies the truthretraces Myth in the, Greene, W. C., 1918, Platos view of Poetry,, Griswold, C. L., 1981, The Ideas and the Criticism of In household managers, financiers, doctors, and prophets (248e12)! the Iliad and Odyssey come alive, at communicating Socrates Poetry Analysis. 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 . breast, you know that we enjoy it and that we give ourselves over to Exactly what to make of his appropriation of elements of poetry is
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