Plato (c. 427-347 BC)
Main Sources: Benjamin Jowett, trans., The Dialogues of Plato,
4th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), selections reprinted in Hazard
Adams, ed.Critical Theory Since Plato (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1992), pp. 11-48).
Biographical Information
- born to distinguished family in Athens
- political ambitions
- sought refuge at Megara after execution of Socrates (399 BC)
- travel: Greece, Egypt, Italy, Sicily
- friendship with Dion, brother-in-law to Dionysus I, tyrant of Syracuse
- founded the Academy in Athens , 387 BC, pursuit of philosophical and
scientific research, mathematics, law
- tutor to Dionysus II in Syracuse
- writing of dialogues
Main points from Adams's Introduction:
Reality in ideas/forms vs appearances/sensory world; poet deals with
appearances, makes copies of copies, twice removed from reality, madness,
irrationality, away from truth, dangerous to society (Republic, Laws), banishment
from republic, censorship, must be limited to songs in praise of the state
Ion (c. 390 B. C.)
- Conversation between Socrates and rhapsode Ion
- Socrates treats poem as collection of copies of copies of ideas
- emphasis on content (no consideration of form)
- denial poem as object or indivisible whole
- Plato as founder of moralistic/didactic criticism; external moral standards
guide criticism of the poem
- Socrates attacks Ion's contention that he can speak better about Homer
than about other poets
- mocking the supposed divinity of the poet: no art, no knowledge, only
'inspiration' equating of inspiration with madness
- characterization of Ion as shallow, vain, and self-interested
- metaphor of magnetized rings, power issuing from gods to poet to rhapsode
to audience
- Socrates divides Homer into 'parts', expressions of discrete knowledges,
separation of disciplines/arts and their respective objects
Note: One of the issues seemingly troubling Socrates is the multidisciplinary
and totalizing ambition of the literary art, which seeks to understand and
judge of all human endeavors. Socrates would prefer to grant authority only
to specialists in given disciplines. Do you think Socrates deals fairly
with Ion? The maneuvering which leads to Ion claiming expertise as a general
certainly manages to ridicule him, but is there perhaps some merit to what
Ion says? How would Aristotle respond to Socrates's challenge? (see, for
example, Book 25 of the Poetics)
Republic (c. 373 B. C.)
From Republic, Book II (Socrates and Adeimantus)
- education of heroes, gymnastics and music
- attempt to control what 'children' hear
- censorship of fictions
- poetry as lying but irony of Socrates's desire to suppress ugly truths
(19)
- didactic, moral intentions; "for a young person cannot judge what
is allegorical and what is literal" (19)
- representation of God as good, God as author of good only, unchanging,
fixed, immutable
- issue of deception and self-deception as intolerable (21)
Note: May there be some underlying political intentions in the philosophical
activity of Socrates?
From Republic, Book III (Socrates, Adeimantus, and Glaucon)
- purpose of story-telling to encourage formation of fearless warriors,
remove fear of death
- Socrates singles out for criticism Achilles's words in the underworld
(22)
- censorship, awareness of power of poetic words to influence behavior
- Stoic philosophy; disapproves of laughter (23)
- only rulers should have the right "to lie for the public good,"
double standards
- virtues: obedience and temperance (example of Diomedes)
- disapproves of Odysseus's words in praise of the banquet (24)
- desire to censor anything which could put a blemish on the character
of heroes
- fear of demystification of gods and heroes (25)
- treatment of style, simple narration and imitation, epic as combination,
comedy and tragedy as imitation (26); imitation becoming second nature
(27); narrative style suited to character of narrator
- claims unity of human nature/character
- rejection of imitator of all sorts of behavior; melody and song (28)
- rejection of Lydian (sorrow) and Ionian (convivial) melodies/musical
strains, retention of Dorian and Phrygian modes, warlike sternness and
moderation; elimination of certain musical instruments (flutes, many-stirnged
instruments), retention of lyre and harp; "purging the state, which
not long ago we termed luxurious"; rhythm expressing courageous and
harmonious life (29); simplicity
- desire to control all the arts
- recognition of special influence of music on people (30);
Note: Does Socrates articulate a consistent moral or ethical position? If
not then what is the logic ruling his argument?
From Republic, Book 10 (Socrates and Glaucon)
- maker/creator, imitation (31)
- painter as creator of appearances; tragic poet as imitator, "thrice
removed from the king and from the truth" (32)
- driving toward the criticism of the poet as creator of everything,
Homer ( 33)
- poet like painter, imitator, no contact with truth
- favoring "measure and calculation" (35)
- poetry as stimulant rather than inhibitor of passions
- quarrel philosophy vs. poetry
- call for poetry to defend herself and show herself useful (37)
Cratylus
Composed shortly before Republic; (Hermogenes, Socrates and Cratylus)
dialogue on language, questions of relation of things to words and to each
other
- aletheia (truth, "divine wandering") vs pseudos (falsehood,
"the opposite of motion")
- "legislator" (38)
- etymologies, search for origin of words; names and nature of things;
words as imitations of the essence of things (39)
- analytical method of decomposition of names into syllables, letters
- rho as expression of motion (40); iota also motion and expression of
"the subtle elements which pass through all things"; phi, psi,
and xi, "expenditure of breath" used to "imitate what is
... windy"; delta and tau, "closing and pressure of the tongue,"
"binding and rest in a place"; liquid movement of lambda, "expression
of smoothness"; "heavier sound" of gamma, detaining tongue,
"notion of a glutinous clammy nature"; omicron "sign of
roundness"
- work of legislator in fitting sounds to the nature of things
- Cratylus seems to agree with Socrates's notions
- Socrates: "I cannot trust myself," "nothing worse than
self-deception" (41)
- naming as an art practiced by legislators
- Cratylus: all names equally appropriate to nature of what they name,
"how can a man say that which is not-say something and yet say nothing,"
speaking falsehood impossible, merely "unmeaning sound" (42);
"names-they must be always right"; right vs. wrong assignment
of names; "a good image, ... a name"; "artist of names is
called the legislator"
- Socrates: language is qualitative (43); images different from what
they represent; possibility of error in naming; nouns: primitive and derived
- Cratylus: "I cannot be satisfied that a name which is incorrectly
given is a name at all"
- Hermogenes: names are conventional
- Cratylus: representation by likeness (44)
- Socrates: "the correctness of a name turns out to be convention"
- Socrates introduces issue of perspective, names made according to point
of view of legislator (45)
- Socrates: "every man should expend his chief thought and attention
on the consideration of his first principles"; "thus the names
which in these instances we find to have the worst sense will turn out
to be framed on the same principle as those which have the best";
"is correctness of names the voice of the majority?"
- Socrates asks whether knowledge is possible before the existence of
names
- Cratylus: "a power more than human gave things their first names"
(46)
- Socrates: knowledge derived from noting of affinity and difference,
"the knowledge of things is not to be derived from names ... they
must be studied and investigated in themselves" [pragma, "thing,
deed"]
- Socrates opposed to theory of continuous flux, Heraclitus
- distrust of names, "unhealthy state of unreality"; "reflect
well and like a man" (47)
- Cratylus: "I incline to Heraclitus"
Note: Is the explicit modesty of Socrates sincere? How about his supposed
willingness to listen to other points of view? Is he merely mocking his
interlocutors? Cratylus has a sort of mystical reverence for names; he seems
to imply that continued use and acceptance of names proves their appropriateness;
later Platonists: Plotinus, poetry as way of apprehending intellectual beauty;
Plato's mythmaking leads to the establishment of allegorical tradition,
where literary works are seen as veiled revelations of the Platonic forms/ideas;
Henry Reynolds; American New Critics (Ransom) criticism of platonic separation
of form and content as well as denial of ontological status to the poem