The Imitative Arts Will Tear Us Apart in the Republic
The imitative arts are the greatest threat to justice in the constitutions of state and soul in the Republic. The members of such arts include music, poetry, and the visual arts. Bks. II and III delimit the function of the imitative arts in education and by Bk. X all “imitative” arts are banished from the constitutions. The most serious charge against imitative poetry, in the end, is that “with few exceptions it is able to corrupt even decent people…” (605c). The imitative arts corrupt the constitutions by shrinking the best part and by enlarging the inferior parts (603a). In Bk. IV Socrates distinguishes three parts of the constitutions (443d). Then, two Stephanus pages later, he says …show more content…
I reject the canonical interpretation and argue that the number of parts in a constitution is contingent. The best constitution has two parts and the imitative arts cause it to devolve. As the constitutions devolve they tend to have more parts. No constitution has four parts. To make room for this interpretation, I show that the imitative arts cause the degeneration of the bipartite constitution and they contribute to the other degenerations. Socrates employs two independent criteria to distinguish a “part,” either it is necessary or it can oppose another part. With this distinction I turn to the claims that there are three parts and that there are five parts in the constitutions. I show that there are two necessary parts and there are at least five parts that can oppose another part. This saves the text from an apparent contradiction. Though some of the five parts are not necessary, they are all “parts.” I conclude with a count of the number of parts in each of the constitutions. In this way the text shows that the imitative arts tear constitutions …show more content…
It might be that Socrates thinks the ideal city has no parts. The account of the ideal city does provide us with two necessary classes that recur in the luxurious constitutions. The luxurious cities have rulers and merchants. The ideal city must at least have masters to direct the activity of slaves. It also needs, however minimal, a deliberative class. This class excludes labor and includes only ideal members. They decide what work needs to be done. They direct when and where to act in the city. Socrates does not distinguish the parts of the corresponding person’s soul, but isomorphism between the accounts of the constitutions allows us to apply the distinctions in the ideal city to the analogous account of the soul. The deliberative class is analogous to the rational part of the soul and the market-class is analogous to the necessary appetites in the soul. These two parts of the ideal constitutions are
The imitative arts are the greatest threat to justice in the constitutions of state and soul in the Republic. The members of such arts include music, poetry, and the visual arts. Bks. II and III delimit the function of the imitative arts in education and by Bk. X all “imitative” arts are banished from the constitutions. The most serious charge against imitative poetry, in the end, is that “with few exceptions it is able to corrupt even decent people…” (605c). The imitative arts corrupt the constitutions by shrinking the best part and by enlarging the inferior parts (603a). In Bk. IV Socrates distinguishes three parts of the constitutions (443d). Then, two Stephanus pages later, he says …show more content…
I reject the canonical interpretation and argue that the number of parts in a constitution is contingent. The best constitution has two parts and the imitative arts cause it to devolve. As the constitutions devolve they tend to have more parts. No constitution has four parts. To make room for this interpretation, I show that the imitative arts cause the degeneration of the bipartite constitution and they contribute to the other degenerations. Socrates employs two independent criteria to distinguish a “part,” either it is necessary or it can oppose another part. With this distinction I turn to the claims that there are three parts and that there are five parts in the constitutions. I show that there are two necessary parts and there are at least five parts that can oppose another part. This saves the text from an apparent contradiction. Though some of the five parts are not necessary, they are all “parts.” I conclude with a count of the number of parts in each of the constitutions. In this way the text shows that the imitative arts tear constitutions …show more content…
It might be that Socrates thinks the ideal city has no parts. The account of the ideal city does provide us with two necessary classes that recur in the luxurious constitutions. The luxurious cities have rulers and merchants. The ideal city must at least have masters to direct the activity of slaves. It also needs, however minimal, a deliberative class. This class excludes labor and includes only ideal members. They decide what work needs to be done. They direct when and where to act in the city. Socrates does not distinguish the parts of the corresponding person’s soul, but isomorphism between the accounts of the constitutions allows us to apply the distinctions in the ideal city to the analogous account of the soul. The deliberative class is analogous to the rational part of the soul and the market-class is analogous to the necessary appetites in the soul. These two parts of the ideal constitutions are