Siera Hanks
Hum 110
Prof. Weber
Paper #2
A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words: A defense of art in Socrates’s ideal society In Plato’s The Republic, Socrates makes an interesting, and inflammatory, argument for the exclusion of art from his ideal society. Although he enjoys art himself, he feels that it cannot be defended as something that is good or useful for people because it is imitative, and thus, in his opinion, a diversion of truth. However, Socrates invites the possibility of a defense for art in the future, saying, “Those of her defenders…[must] show not only that [art] is pleasant but also useful… for if this can be proved we will surely be the gainers.”(265). In the 2000 plus years since, this invitation for defense has been met by philosophers and most importantly artists, again and again, just as it was met by Socrates ancestors, and his contemporaries. It would be pointless to deny that art often -but not always- tries to depict through translated imitation some facet of human reality. However, Socrate’s singular, hierarchal, and exclusive view of truth leads him to deem the imitative qualities of art as necessarily harmful, and to deny the people of his ‘ideal state’ of the many beneficial and even essential functions of art as a tool of …show more content…
Therefor, when I see a painting of a bed or hear about a bed in a poem, I am not merely being shown a bed, I am also being told something. So when Socrates says that “all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them” (Plato, 252) he is ignoring the communicative nature of the artistic expression itself. He doesn’t even consider that even the choice to create poetry is telling about humanity. Socrates’s philosophy is not humanist in nature, so he has no reason to consider this, even though there is much knowledge to be
Hum 110
Prof. Weber
Paper #2
A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words: A defense of art in Socrates’s ideal society In Plato’s The Republic, Socrates makes an interesting, and inflammatory, argument for the exclusion of art from his ideal society. Although he enjoys art himself, he feels that it cannot be defended as something that is good or useful for people because it is imitative, and thus, in his opinion, a diversion of truth. However, Socrates invites the possibility of a defense for art in the future, saying, “Those of her defenders…[must] show not only that [art] is pleasant but also useful… for if this can be proved we will surely be the gainers.”(265). In the 2000 plus years since, this invitation for defense has been met by philosophers and most importantly artists, again and again, just as it was met by Socrates ancestors, and his contemporaries. It would be pointless to deny that art often -but not always- tries to depict through translated imitation some facet of human reality. However, Socrate’s singular, hierarchal, and exclusive view of truth leads him to deem the imitative qualities of art as necessarily harmful, and to deny the people of his ‘ideal state’ of the many beneficial and even essential functions of art as a tool of …show more content…
Therefor, when I see a painting of a bed or hear about a bed in a poem, I am not merely being shown a bed, I am also being told something. So when Socrates says that “all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them” (Plato, 252) he is ignoring the communicative nature of the artistic expression itself. He doesn’t even consider that even the choice to create poetry is telling about humanity. Socrates’s philosophy is not humanist in nature, so he has no reason to consider this, even though there is much knowledge to be