Book X of Platos Republic About Art and Imitation

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The Republic Book X

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Book X

Imitation and Painting

• Reflecting on their construction of the republic, Socrates thinks that the about important thing they did in the urban center was to not let whatever imitative poetry (you know, pretty much all poetry).
• Now that they've outlined the organization of the soul into three parts, Socrates thinks that it's even clearer than earlier that composing or listening to such poetry will degrade the soul.
• At get-go, Socrates is hesitant to say more nearly poesy because he loved the poetry of Homer since he was trivial kid.
• Simply, since the truth must shine through, Socrates agrees to go forward.
• Showtime, Socrates wants to ascertain the concept of "imitation" again, this fourth dimension using the example of a burrow and a table.
• Socrates explains how in the world, there are many dissimilar types of couches and tables, merely in that location is still only one idea of a table. Y'all might think of it equally "tableness"—the thing that unites all tables as tables and doesn't let whatsoever couch pass as a table.
• A craftsman, building a couch or a table, conspicuously starts with the idea of information technology already in his mind; he doesn't come up with the very idea himself.
• Socrates imagines a kind of super-craftsmen who doesn't just make tables and couches only tin can make animals and plants, too.
• Glaucon thinks that's impossible, merely Socrates says it'south really easy: all you need to do is go around the earth with a big mirror, and you'll be "creating" all these things.
• Glaucon says that that isn't actually making these things; it'southward just representing them.
• Bingo, says Socrates: information technology's simply representing them. He says a painter is just like this mirror-guy considering, in some way, he "makes" tables and couches when he paints them.
• Socrates and then goes a step farther and says that even a craftsmen who makes couches is still making a representation considering he isn't able to create the actual true idea or form of couchness; he only makes ane item couch.
• So, they can rank three kinds of couch-makers: i) a god, or nature, who makes true "couchness," 2) the craftsmen, who makes a version of the true couch, and 3) a painter, who makes a representation of a version of the true couch.
• The couch made by nature is always only i, whereas the couches made past craftsmen are necessarily many.
• Just the painter? Well, it's actually a flake of a stretch to even call him a maker of a couch, then Glaucon suggests that instead they call him an imitator of couches.
• It seems that this imitator is also the furthest away from nature, since he produces something two steps removed from the actual thought—and this is true of poets too equally painters.
• Furthermore, because painting is about appearances (says Socrates), it is primarily concerned with imitating only what the couch looks similar. It's concerned with but a small role of the couch; it doesn't care about what the couch's truthful, inner idea is like.
• Another trouble with painting is that if a painter is too skilled at imitation, he might produce a picture that would fool silly people and children into thinking that they were seeing the real thing.
• In fact, it'due south probably a practiced idea to exist suspicious of anyone who claims to know everything, because it probably means they've simply encountered imitations of everything, not the real truth.

Imitation and Poetry

• All correct. And so now Socrates decides to seriously consider the question of false in terms of tragedy and the poesy of Homer.
• Socrates points out that Homer and his poetry are often read as a repository of all wisdom, and then they need to effigy out if this is actually true. Tin can poetry lead to wisdom? Or is this, in fact, the consequence of mistaking imitation for reality?
• Socrates says that everyone would agree that the more of import thing is to really accomplish something, not simply to talk about accomplishing something.
• So, has Homer ever accomplished annihilation? Fifty-fifty though anybody praises his poetry for its portrayal of warfare and leadership, in that location isn't a urban center anywhere in the globe that tin can merits that it has benefited from Homer'south leadership, nor has any war been won nether Homer'southward dominion.
• Furthermore, if Homer were so wise and smart, why didn't he establish some kind of school or university? Why doesn't he take any devoted followers? (This seems like a problematic line of reasoning to us, but we're just the messengers.)
• So, it seems they've decided that Homer doesn't actually know about virtue; he just imitates virtue.
• Poets merely imitate things like color and harmony to requite their creations charm, but what they really lack is substance. If you saw a poem stripped of all its charm, it would expect like a male child who's no longer youthful.
• Socrates says that a painter imitates, say, the reins of saddle, but doesn't know how to apply them. Even so, he imagines that even the smith who actually makes reins doesn't necessarily know how the reins work, either. The but person who really understands how to employ the reins would be a horseman.
• So Socrates claims there are 3 kinds of people: 1) people who use things, 2) people who make things, and iii) people who imitate things.
• Socrates goes on to merits that what something is meant to exist used for is the most important quality it has.
• So, obviously, the person who uses things is the most knowledgeable and the person most about to tell the maker which things are good and bad, just as a flutist would best exist able explain to a flute-maker the most important things that can brand a flute play well.
• The flute-maker will know how to brand something well because he's being advised by the flutist, but the imitator of a flute won't know anything about how to make i ameliorate or worse; all he cares about is how a flute looks.
• To sum it upwards: 1) imitators don't know anything about what they imitate, 2) imitation is play and not something serious, and 3) tragic and epic poetry are both forms of imitation.
• They've likewise agreed that imitation is concerned with something the furthest away from truth, since information technology relies on the unreliability of appearances. How are appearances unreliable? I example: a straight object looks aptitude in water, just information technology's just because the water makes information technology appear bent.
• The only way to truly understand things is to measure and calculate them, and that's an activeness associated with the highest office of the soul—the rational part.
• The office of the soul that contradicts the conclusions of the calculating part is obviously lower.
• Imitation, equally a consequence, has cipher to do with what is true, just, or virtuous. It'southward mostly concerned with what is ordinary, and it produces ordinary things.
• Now, to brand certain that what they've been saying well-nigh imitation's place in the soul applies just as much to the visual (painting) as it does to the aural (poetry, since in Socrates'due south time people listened to poetry), Socrates defines imitation (over again) equally an imitation of an action that produces a feeling of having done either good or bad.
• Socrates then reminds everyone that they agreed that the soul doesn't have one single desire, but many, sometimes conflicting desires.
• Socrates imagines that a sensible man, if his son died, would experience torn in two directions: he'd want to remain composed in public, only he would want to give way to his grief and pain in private.
• So, Socrates says this shows that there are ii distinct impulses in such a human: i) his rational part, which draws him to understand that grief doesn't accomplish annihilation and prevents u.s.a. from analyzing a situation, and 2) his desiring role, which draws him to indulge in his grief.
• Faux, therefore, is drawn to imitate the desiring, angry, sad, irrational, passionate part of the soul, because it'due south manner easier—and more than entertaining—to run into that part imitated than to see an imitation of the repose, reserved, sensible, and contemplative qualities of the rational part.
• Therefore, it looks like poets are in the aforementioned sitch as painters (hint: not a good one). They won't be allowed in the metropolis, either, since they appeal to what's lowest in humans and create ghosts of the truth instead of going after truth itself.
• Simply the biggest problem with poetry is how effective information technology is at highly-seasoned to even super duper sensible, rational people. Everyone, Socrates included, admits to having been totally wowed, won over, and left in tears after hearing about something sad in Homer.
• Why does this happen? Well, it's because poetry appeals to the base part of the soul that most rational men don't often entreatment to. When this part hears something appealing, it goes crazy.
• Even though people might be too embarrassed to do what they are hearing described (like a cracking hero crying) themselves, they remember it'due south okay to exist moved by it because it's happening to someone else.
• Jokes work the aforementioned way: plenty of people laugh at jokes they would never tell.
• But, says Socrates, letting yourself be affected by others nevertheless affects you and the virtuousness of your soul. The same goes for sex and appetite, also.
• What you need to go along in mind, then, is that even though you might agree with someone when he or she says that Homer is lovely, and even if this person goes on and on about how wise Homer is, Homer still wouldn't be admitted into the metropolis.
• Besides, Socrates reminds everyone that there's an "quondam quarrel" between poetry and philosophy, suggesting that the ii have ever been somehow incompatible.
• But if poetry wants to construct a really good argument to show that information technology does deserve to be part of a proficient city, and if its argument is convincing, they'll totally allow it dorsum in the city. These guys do like poetry, actually; they just can't ignore the truth
• Bluntly, even if they did mind to these arguments, they'd have to be very careful non to be charmed by information technology again, remembering how much they loved it equally children.
• Socrates warns anybody that they need to take this stuff very seriously, because information technology'southward a question of good and evil.
• In fact, speaking of good and evil, something else important about the soul is that it is immortal—different a unmarried person'due south life, which, in the thou scheme of things, is quite curt.
• Glaucon is flabbergasted. The soul is immortal? He must hear more.

The Myth of Er

• In one case upon a time, there was a strong human named Er, who seemingly died in a war.
• Just as Er is about to exist burned on a pyre for his burying, he comes back to life and tells everyone almost his experience in the underworld.
• When he first got to the underworld, Er saw how those people who were judged to be just were sent upwardly to heaven with a record of their good deeds, while those who were judged to exist unjust were sent downwards to hell with a record of their bad deeds.
• When it'southward Er's plow to be judged, the judges make up one's mind that he needs to be a special messenger to the living people on world, ane who tin can explain to them what actually goes downwardly after expiry.
• And so, Er watches everything very carefully.
• Er sees how some people are actually returning from heaven and hell, looking exhausted, because subsequently being judged, they had been sent on a very long journey.
• Anybody's gathering in a meadow, kind of having a big party, and they beginning sharing their experiences nearly their lives and afterlives.
• The ones who had been sent downwards to hell cry virtually how difficult their experience has been, while those who had been in heaven couldn't stop talking nearly how gorgeous it is.
• It turns out that the unjust have to pay for all the people they were unjust to... times x.
• That's bad news if yous were unjust to a whole city.
• It also turns out that the gods don't much appreciate information technology when you dishonor them, or when you dishonor your parents, or when yous murder people.
• One guy, Adiaeus the Corking, was a tyrant, and he has done and so many horrible things that he's stuck in hell forever, where he is continuously flayed live over thorns (yikes).
• After everyone parties for four days, they're off again to end their journey.
• This takes them to an amazing, kind of psychedelic eye of calorie-free in heaven. It looks like a huge, viii-level spiral that gets narrower and narrower as you get downwardly.
• Each level turns in an opposite management and is guarded past a fierce siren.
• Brain bite! A siren is a fierce, female monster in Greek mythology who is most known for looking—and sounding—beautiful and seductive from the heart up. She'due south horrible and monstrous from the bottom down, though. Bummer, right? The most famous incident involving sirens takes place in Homer's Odyssey.
• Now, this whole area is ruled by the goddess Necessity and her daughters. They instruct everyone to gather around a pick a number.
• Based on the number y'all pick, y'all get to pick the next life you want to pb.
• Now, here's where Socrates interjects and reminds anybody that it's just this kind of (large) decision that philosophy prepares you for.
• If you don't empathise what a truly proficient life looks similar, you might brand a terrible choice.
• Go a load of that guy who picked tyranny, for example. He wasn't a bad guy in his previous life. He was but kind of ordinary, he got overly excited nearly all the flash and cash, and all that has led him to cull the life of a tyrant.
• Unfortunately, afterward he examines the life he's chosen a little more closely, he notices some serious drawbacks: eating his children, killing people... yeah.
• The simply foolproof way to make information technology through this procedure is to stick with philosophy.
• Equally Er watches these people cull their lot in life, he sees some big-name famous dudes, who all tend to choose their next life based entirely on their previous life:
• Orpheus, for example, ends his life being torn apart past women, and so he chooses to exist a swan (the Greeks thought, weirdly, that swans weren't built-in from females).
• Er also sees Thamyras (another arrogant singing type), Ajax (a big Trojan War hero), Agamemnon (ditto), Epeius (a cowardly Trojan State of war hero), and Thersites (a ridiculous Trojan State of war hero).
• Er finally sees good former Odysseus, who, non surprisingly, chooses a life of peace and quiet.
• Once anybody has called their life, the Fates spin out their thread to bear witness how long they allow each person alive.
• Finally, each person has to drink from the Lethe (the river of forgetfulness) in order to forget everything they have experienced before, in their previous life. Some foolish people drink from the river of Carelessness, too, because why not, right? Before they know it, they're off, well, being born.
• And so, folks, that's the end of Socrates'due south story, which he hopes has made its moral very clear: be merely and philosophical in this life so that y'all'll glide through the perils and issues of the afterlife.

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