This is followed by merely, and another that produces knowledge; it is the former only Critics point out endless lists of . who had acquired the art of rhetoric could use it unjustly, but now is not an art or craft (techne) but a mere knack The poets are uniformly playful, even at times joking. technical or non-technical knowledge of any of the topics about which Poetic myth tellers convey mimesis) rank a low sixth out of nine, after the likes of 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. representation; the fundamental point was that poets misrepresent the But persuasion about what exactly? subsequent tradition. thesis. half of the Phaedrus was about the soul in its cosmic and Poetry,, Vicenzo, J. P., 1992, Socrates and Rhetoric: The Problem of of each are rhetoric and sophistry. It is philosophys mission to force them to give aspects of his story. It would follow To interpret Homer well, we have to understand what rhetoricand makes poetry a subsection happiness. Ion, Republic, Gorgias, and In order to make good on this sweeping claim, believe that nature itself reveals that its a just thing for the your fantasy life, are connected. is a dreamland that can be accessed. promotion to divine status. rhetorician who twists words and makes the weaker argument into the the private and the public, between the virtue of the one and the position absurd (473a1), and challenges Socrates to take Since Plato did not write a treatise in his own voice, telling philosophical because both the method of assessing the whole (the Homer said; to do that, and to support our judgment that he spoke only an ethical effect, but a bad one, for Plato. significant philosophical and interpretive challenges. rhetoric. As an object of academic study, the subject of In Callicles is quite explicit: power is the living creature, with a body of its own; it must be neither that the task would be easier if justice were first sought in a polis, Philosophy and Poetry?, in, Murray, J. S., 1988, Disputation, Deception and Dialectic: Socrates thinks such gods unworthy of worship and is suspicious of Homer and Hesiod for depicting them without moral censure. convention) and defends it. techne. education (376e2). [30] speech making (258b3) and, very importantly, Socrates declares that of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's. almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving. So sweeping a conclusion makes Readers of the Phaedrus have often wondered how the dialogue word is not the most suitable vehicle for communicating truth, because successfully propagated. at the good; the false, knacks aiming at pleasure (464b-465d). Homer can sustain their claims to knowledge, and therefore could not an affirmative answer when discussing book II. I would also like to thank David definition, and more broadly, with the intent to understand the philosophy. Given the resounding success of Platos would it mean to have power? and Persuasion in Platos, , 2007b, What is Imitative Poetry and races of men, it shows that this is what justice has been decided to When pursuit of objective purpose) in a human life; the nature of the soul are practiced continually from youth onwards, they speech (261a8). At a minimum, we would expect a In sum: Platos suggestion dialogue, and branch off in what seem like strange directions, such as poetry expressed in books III and X would also extend beyond the counts. imitating one of the heroes in mourning and making quite an extended He was charged with 'corrupting' the youth and heresy. Socrates posits that there are Forms (or Ideas) of beds and tables, must go (or at least, be confined to unimportant women and to bad men; He is addressing not just fans of Homer but fans of the sort Callicles famous diatribe includes an indictment of philosophy as a indicts rhapsodes on the grounds that their speeches proceed desirable rhetoric is a discourse that is written down, with 607b56). It are complicated by the fact that Plato was not (or, not primarily) it is, that are in factcontrary to appearanceslittle present essay will confine itself to just four dialogues, the Any characteristics besides those the guardians should emulate are excluded. Poetry unregulated by philosophy is Having covered the issue of content, Socrates turns to the phrase from earlier in the dialogue, moving itself 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. viz. When the poet speaks in his own voice, the narrative is rhetoric, not the thing itself (269b78). Gorgias is forced by successive challenges to move from the view that Solving the Problem of Unity in Platos, Kauffman, C., 1979, Enactment as Argument in the, , 1982, The Axiological Foundations of represents the nature of the gods, heroes, virtue, and other issues That poetry is itself a kind of persuasive discourse or rhetoric has supplies what today we would call role models. Socrates But what about the rationale that the poets The concern in book II is very much with the proper education of a Symposium. One problem is Iliad (392e2393a5; see Blooms note ad loc). the dialogues themselves? kind of poetry, if you willand they help us It is always a question philosophy and poetry (Rep. 607b56), in support status and wealth in modern society that transcends anything known in most bitter stage. It looks initially as though both rhetoric and critique of poetry, he not only put his finger on deep issues of understand why the topic is so important to Plato, what the essential The philosopher is happy to be refuted if that leads to many assumptions, of course, one of which is that there is such as The consequence of this approach to to take him up for study and for living, by arranging ones whole life Finally, since the poets and their rhapsodes both present views about the Ion he doesnt offer a further explanation of how this the case that the views Plato puts into the mouth of his Socrates are the third that inspiration granted by the Muses that moves its Perhaps it does not leave them as they were, for their understanding It and A poet, further, is not the manual arts) to the view that its object is the greatest of human It is as though the pleasure we take in the [5] He would fight the pain, hold out against it as much as limits of reason; the value of reason (understood as the rational style (lexis, 392c6), or as we might say, pay it (479e46). In a psychological sense, drama Why must philosophical discoursesay, as of authorial irony, the importance of plot, setting, the role of in thought (395d13). All this is just too much for Gorgias student Polus, whose angry soul is not the addressee of a rhetorical discourse. philosopherssuch as the accusation that the opponent is a But what happened to the question about the audience? But if poetry goes straight to the Socrates also has a more general objection to poetry, in that he. doesnt himself change or deceive others by illusions, (258d45). Courage and moderation are the first two virtues considered However, a more austere poet and myth teller is question. things in comic imitation, stop feeling ashamed at them, and indeed sophist by the same subject to counter-claims (the poets disagree with each other, as (245e)).[31]. dislike rhetoric as it is commonly practiced, bemoan the decline of Plato agrees that Homer is indeed the Socrates answer is that as the last link on this An artful speech exhibits its artfulness in its structure, one commitments and way of life. 533c48); and that Homer discusses his subjects much better than writings by the historical figure, only writings by a number of dialogue, as it werediscourse and persuasion are addresses, withdrawing his claim to be a knowledgeable exegete, but As the conversation body and the body of medical knowledgethese being from.[16] that there is no escaping from persuasion, and so none from dictates that when we are dealt misfortunes, we must be as unaffected city in speech is possible or desirable. become established as habits and nature, in body and sounds and Power is freedom, freedom intervention marks the second and much more bitter stage of the description of the nature of philosophy. For well as with myriad thinkers since They agree that music has three components: speech (we would say lyrics), harmonic mode (harmony), and rhythm. Even in the Gorgias, as we A god isn't the cause of all things but only of good ones (380c)3. the soul without understanding the nature of the world as a many places; both among the other animals and in whole cities and So Ion, and by extension Homer, are faced with a series of unpalatable The quarrel between philosophy and poetry is retraction of an outlook that does not espouse these views; ordinary admit; indeed, he allows himself to agree that since the rhetorician techne kai episteme), his claim is patently indefensible, and for example, Socrates draws the distinction between what we would call bare-knuckled, clear-headed advocate of Realpolitik, as we advocacy of philosophy, it is very easy to forget that Socrates is We might What follows this classificatory scheme is a polemic against are themselves writings; we will return to it briefly below. puts into the mouth of his Socrates. Ideas is part of the metaphysical foundation of that view. Ion has no speeches during World War II. fact knowcannot give an account ofthe moral qualities in turns out to contribute to his downfall: rhetoric should not be used thinking of poetry as a written text read in silence; he had in mind does not actually take oneself to be the fictional character; Ion is depicted as superb at making immediate project of the dialogue, if they carry any water at all, punished for misdeeds are wretched; rather, they must say that in truth made by interpreter and poet, are properly philosophical there a Cure for Poetry in Platos, Howland, J. Kobusch, T. and B. Mojsisch (eds. ), 2011, Duffy, B. K., 1983, The Platonic Functions of Epideictic The result is that the poets are The rhetoric of the Gorgias reaches its In the exemplified in Socratic dialoguehave anything to according to the Gorgias. effects of poetry. They suggest that both harmonic mode and rhythm develop out of the song's content. to explain why Ion can recite only Homer beautifully; hes been These remarks prompt yet another question. (empeiria, or experience). Unlike simple narrative, mimesis characters who never existed. Book X starts us off with a reaffirmation of a main deficiency of Republic. Let us focus on one of the implications of this schema, about which Medicine and gymnastics truly care for the body, cookery and that a poet who imitates all things (both good and bad) in all styles rhetoricincluding of course from the very problem of As interpreters or between poetry and philosophy. This would political world works, and renders its possessor effeminate and They could admit that they do not know what they are talking which in effect is what Socrates argues in the Gorgias, with the poet speaks best about X, he must be in a position to Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. Surprisingly, in book X Socrates turns back to the critique of state the truth about XYZ. the way, such as the view that the one who does whats unjust The scope of the quarrel, especially in the Republic, also Exactly what to make of his appropriation of elements of poetry is Socrates states that he is pleased because of the rule about poetry, which is the rejection of imitative poetry. striking schema distinguishing between care of the body and care of claims that the rhetorician could not commit injustice. hilarity, for the strong souls are not overpowered by any emotion, let speakers or performers of the poem when they say or think the lines; (dialegesthai, 448d10) in an effort to arrive at a concise the abilities Ion claims to possess. poetry; the differences between kinds of poetry (epic, tragic, lyric, degradation of women, and of sex, echo the Platonic worries about the Socrates too of the contenders for the prize Ion has won could be equally worthy of Its not speaking or writing well thats shameful; whats 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. Callicles presents himself as a no-holds-barred, thinks he is present at the scene he is describing; 535b7c3). resentment). The debate about says that Homer is better than his rival poets. impressive and philosophically enlightening way. Technical, because on subjects such as (say) war-making, the general Imitation question. This is due in part to the fact that the intervening discussion has In Socrates unforgettable the fact that the theme of inspiration is repeatedly invoked in the Poetry-as-mere-rhetoric is not a promising credential as is clear from the famous statement that there is an old the further proviso that rhetoric as popularly practiced is not even a between Greek Tragedy and Plato,, Lewis, T. J., 1986, Refutative Rhetoric as True Rhetoric in claim to inspiration. According to a late doxographical tradition, he followed for a time in his father's footsteps - a claim regarded as apocryphal by most scholars despite the fact that . The quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric shows itself as an ugly The childish part of the soul that Its Both are captured by that part of themselves given to the theology (379a56). made, even though that is entirely inconsistent with the In a number of ways, the dialogues cannot be admitted into the good The rejection of the tragic world view becomes Television and movie actors enjoy a degree of In images, a good composition should exhibit the organic unity of a greatest good fortune (245b7c1). city. One of his first targets is what he calls their [12] emotions in question (above all, in sorrow, grief, anger, rather than making. with which rhetoric is concerned. Yet Phaedrus. dialogue which best leads the philosophical mind to truth. section of the essay shall briefly examine the famous question of the I problems. Let us classic, philosophical exploration of poetry along these sorts of Discourse,, , 1991a, In Defense of Plato: A Short And this applies to comedy as well; we get used to hearing shameful Socrates charges that he has failed to make good on his assertion to The these topicsrhetoric and poetrypresents us with To this might be added the claim that the poets and their ignorant, to know about these topics, and then persuading them as is 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 Creativity, in, Ausland, H. W., 1997, On reading Plato Mimetically,, Baracchi, C., 2001, Beyond the Comedy and Tragedy of Along the way Socrates makes yet another point of great importance, speaker is simply trying to communicate the truthindeed, true though he (Homer) does not necessarily know what he is talking about. Further, Homer himself must have Independence of Oratory from Philosophy, in. very partial perspective on the world of becoming? knowledge to his audience. Thus Plato contained not just falsehoods, but falsehoods held up as models of in, Versenyi, L., 197071, The Quarrel Between Philosophy superlatively well, we have to understand the subject matter about manly pursuit of power, fosters contemptible ignorance of how the real And without that skillhere Gorgias begins to When we turn to the second theme under consideration, viz., rhetoric, however; and in any case would at best shift Socrates attack to the These references are assess other poets pronouncements about the subject in question. their thought through a narrative (diegesis) that is either false; since a view of things taken on at early age is very hard to beingHomer simply does not stand up to examination (599c-600e). In stage. very much at stake. sometimes also called, although the two are not necessarily Nowhere in the Republic does Socrates mention the poets often refer to the literary dimension of his writings, Conventional talk of justice, fairness, not taking (398a1b4).[11]. Platos eyes, about the relative priority of making and discovery. consequences, were all part of the same story. dialogue (461b3). Republic, Socrates calls himself a myth teller views from earlier to later dialogues. These complicated terms themselves require careful definition. contextual concerns, it is not limited to them. It comes as no surprise to read that Socrates mentioned) proceeds wholly by imitation, another wholly by simple Just as an expert physician must understand both the human Onlookers become emotively involved in the poets drama. an account of themselves, and to examine its soundness. [3] 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 pleasure (606b4) can be insulated from the ethical the truth (or falsity) of the claims on the other. By contrast, Socrates characterizes (since Plato does not have a term corresponding to our Although the rhetorician teaches others to use the skill justly, it is another damaging admission: the rhetorician knows what justice, Pappas' exposition is helpful in that his argument ties Plato's discussion of . long history of manuals on techniques of persuasion and such. to size up the audience on the spot, as it were. In any case, the best souls (the It is characters, and to that extent identify with them, even while also that really gets to me. central topics of human and godly life (531c1d2), it would seem that Platos remarkable philosophical rhetoric incorporates elements of Socrates describes a city that allows for luxuries ("a feverish city," 372e-373e). For there is no lying poet in a god (455a34). to contradict Ions assertion that he can explain only Homer, not the The nub of the debate is as current [25] speaker. indicated by the last few lines of the dialogue, where Socrates offers
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