PLATO, THE ARTIST
The purpose of this essay is to encourage an expanded
study of the works of Plato from an artistic point of view and in so doing to
bask in the glow of his creativity, wisdom, and knowledge. Students may,
thereby, discover that philosophy professors are not expressing their personal
opinions but are teaching and examining fundamental ideas originated, over two
millennia past, by Plato and others before him and recorded in his dialogues.
Such ideas are a repository of the perennial issues, philosophical and social, with
which philosophy is concerned. That is not to say that there are not serious
questions to be raised about some of these concepts. Nevertheless, it is true
that many of the thoughts expressed by philosophers, since Plato, have their
origins in his works. And though it is important to be concerned with the truth-value of the ideas, Plato deserves to be recognized and appreciated, also, as an
artist.
Plato, to use a weak analogy, applied the method of
"trial and error," prodding and questioning. He has Socrates
questioning Simmias about the senses as related to the attainment of knowledge.
What again shall we say of the actual acquirement of knowledge? -- is the body, if invited to share in the enquiry, a hinderer or a helper? I mean to say, have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as the poets are always telling us, inaccurate and indistinct, what is to be said of the other senses? -- for you will allow that they are the best of them? (Phaedo, 65)
In essence, the final result of this technique was to
present differences of opinions and ideas while at the same time offering his
philosophical convictions. It is no easy task to distinguish the former from the
latter. In total, however, one should come away from a study of Plato not with
final answers but with a continued wonder and some doubt as to what extent
clarity and knowledge was achieved and above all else an exhilarating sense of
the beauty and artistry and poetic depth of his use of the dialectical technique
which he acquired under the tutelage of Socrates with the admonishment that
"the unexamined life is not worth living."
My former teacher, of Philosophy of Art, Professor
Irwin Edman, at Columbia University, described the works of Plato not as:
a set of formulas, but the whole repertory of human idealism and aspiration. He remains not the teacher of a system, but the dramatist of the soul, of the soul eternally asking itself questions about the mystery of itself and its world, eternally piercing beyond the mists of time to the clearer sunlight of eternity.
Such poetic language does justice to Plato as an
artist and to the aesthetic character of his dialogues. His legacy is the wonder
and excitement that great art stimulates in us and is a supreme contribution to
humanity.
Plato, imbued his art with reason characterized by his
epoch, his culture, and, of course, his convictions. Always, however, even
though he spoke of the existence of absolutes, he was aware of the
non-absoluteness of his ideas, despite the fact that he had no doubt of the
truth of his teachings. This is amply demonstrated by his use of the dialectical
method throughout his dialogues.
I do not consider myself a Platonist and certainly not a
metaphysician even though I accept many of this great philosopher's ideas
especially those related to the use of language and meanings we attribute to
words wherein he portrays Socrates as the greatest nitpicker of all time. But I
am very much, in spirit, a believer in his thesis that beauty and justice, as
hazy as those terms may be, are inseparable as compared with what passes for
"in-the-eyes-of-the-beholder beauty and art" in their various evolutionary
stages.
Having said that, though I have grave reservations about
the ontology of Plato's universals to which he was led by way of abstract
reasoning, they are, aesthetically, a source of great interest and value.
Though in the cautionary caveat of the eminent scientist, Stephen Jay Gould,
"We still carry the historical baggage of a Platonic heritage that seeks
sharp essences and definite boundaries," we must heed John
Dewey's admonishment that ideas function as instruments for instilling wonder and the
sense of "beauty" that resides in reason.
The absence of final answers is a necessary condition in
the pursuit of truth and knowledge. And even though Plato often referred to
absolutes, his artistic method forecloses any possibility of arriving at them.
Plato was, after all, a master in the advancement of abstract ideas seated in
his conviction that universals exist despite his admission of difficulty in
making a credible relationship between his universals and particulars.
Though much of Plato's works is metaphysical, his method
in the pursuit of "knowledge" and "The Good Life" are
aesthetic, not mystical, goals.
When I refer to his method and attitude, I am not
speaking of his philosophy of art in the general sense of the word, even though
this may be evident in some of his dialogues. Rather, I am concerned with his applied
artistic method of reasoning which is abundantly evident in all his
works including the so-called non-dramatic dialogues.
In the following examples, notice the poetic use of
language, even a subtle sense of rhythm, as Socrates reasons his way through an
argument by use of metaphors and the dialectical method.
Reiterating his thesis that artists are imitators,
Plato has Socrates speaking to Glaucon:
Pursuing his method of examining an issue in different
dialogues with different "cast" members, Plato has a stranger speaking
to Theaetetus:
in works either of sculpture or of painting, which are of any magnitude, there is a certain degree of deception; for if artists were to give the true proportions of their fair works, the upper part, which is farther off, would appear to be out of proportion in comparison with the lower, which is nearer; and so they give up the truth in their images and make only the proportions which appear to be beautiful, disregarding the real ones. [Theaetetus replies, "Quite true."] (Sophist, 236)
To add a note of clarity to Plato's method, Greece
produced great painters and sculptors; throughout his works, however, only
passingly does he mention them:
Some gleam of his attitude toward art can be surmised
in that he makes no mention of their masterpieces. Moreover he offers no study
or analysis of art as we conceive it today other than to speak of it as
imitation.
Art, for Plato, is not to be judged by standard rules of
criticism, but, rather, by a subtle influence of "purity,"
"simplicity," "grace," " harmony," and
"beauty," which, he is convinced, pervades all things, animate and
inanimate.
Plato would impose these conditions on all the creative
arts. He dislikes the "illusions" and the false proportions of
"painting and sculpture." These techniques are but imitations.
They
are "images of the images of the real" and painters, poets,
sculptors and all such artists are imitators of reality. (Sophist, 235)
Art, in other words is the exercise of grace and
beauty, etc., enabling true ideals to be instilled in the mind, such as,
for instance, reasoning ability.
A true artist, therefore, is one who is inspired by love
of the good and this is all he should imitate. Plato (i.e., Socrates), in this
sense, is only second removed from the real in showing us the good life. (Republic,
401)
Hence, Plato's artistic method and attitude embody
training and education as required elements in preparation for living the good
life. He uses the Phaedrus as the vehicle for expressing this belief.
The
process that he develops in his dialogues, is that which is to be followed in
pursuing the art of rhetoric; and it cannot be followed unless one is primarily
interested in perfecting one's soul.
before it inhabited a human form.
The conclusion Plato
draws is that one cannot be a rhetorician without being a philosopher pursuing
knowledge for its own sake. A good man, then, is not merely a man with inherent
virtues in the general sense of the term. Rather, he is an artistic achievement
fulfilled by deliberate endeavors to recall and upon recalling, lives by his
pre-natal glimpses of the good. This is a fundamental aspect of Plato's artistic
attitude. He is dramatically and artistically advocating a way of life patterned
after high but vague ideals, the achievement of which, in itself is an artistic
pursuit. Plato not only makes this clear in explicit statements
but, proceeds to demonstrate by applying this attitude as a method on how to go
about achieving this good life, a life of reason. He seems however, to possess
the "third removed" artistic attitude too, despite his dislike for
such "imitators" for it is embodied in his literary techniques. Plato casts ideas, minds, and personalities as the
characters in his dialogues. He handles the ideas, i.e., concepts, so well that
one can almost detect the conflict of ideas completely severed from the minds or
personalities being used as the vehicle for their expression. For example, his artistic genius is clearly evident when
he has Socrates refute Thrasymachus, (in Book I of the Republic) who
charges in like a furious bull sure of his power and conviction that power is
right. Thrasymachus proclaims,
Justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger. (Republic, 338)
Socrates refutes him in a three-fold manner, 1)
dialectically, 2) dramatically, leaving him shorn of speech and power, a picture
of dejection and rejection. Thrasymachus, weakly accepts Socrates' argument even
though Socrates readily admits,
so have I gone from one subject to another without having discovered what I sought at first, the nature of Justice; (Republic, 354)
and 3), Plato, needing minds capable of understanding
the subject matter, replaces Thrasymachus with Glaucon and Adeimantus. Another excellent example of Plato's dramatic technique
and artistic attitude is seen in the Symposium where he symbolizes love
for the life of reason (the beautiful) in Socrates. Alcibiades makes a riotous
entrance and has praise only for Socrates, whom he loves and is vying for
against Agathon who symbolizes love only in himself and would seduce Socrates who in
the end rejects both of them. In this rejection, we see the central point
Plato wishes to
make, that one must separate himself from earthly (physical) love to experience
the everlasting love of the beautiful. Also, in the Symposium, he
presents the idea that love is shown to give immortality through the propagation
of children from the physical point of view and in union with the beautiful in
the psychological. In regard to the Republic, Plato has presented
Book I as an introduction for the rest of the dialogue essentially about the
same subject matter. With this outline so dramatically and forcefully presented,
Plato was free to exercise at leisure every artistic device he possessed. These find their fullest expression which is a
masterpiece of skillfully woven threads of the artistic methods used in his
other dialogues. Plato possessed the genius of reconciling them all: satire,
mythology, poetry, rhetoric, dialectic, and drama, within a predetermined
logical framework. He would announce his intentions and proceed to fulfill them.
This becomes abundantly clear, as one perceives the development of his method
throughout the Republic, with the purpose, first implied while Socrates
was having fun with Polemarchus, in proving that to reduce any individual
excellence was to reduce justice. Plato knew the scope of his subject matter and was under
no illusions as to the difficulties in making them understood. Hence with this
knowledge, he again applied his inherent genius and treated his subject matter
as concrete in nature utilizing allegories and physical imagery of myths and
illustrations. It is important to recognize that Plato never used his myths as
proofs. They merely supplement what he had already set forth or intended to set
forth, logically or dialectically. He understood full well the power of physical
imagery of myths in holding the interest of the listener and in clinching an
argument formally presented. Nowhere is this more eloquently demonstrated than in the Republic.
There, Plato has Socrates direct a lengthy and serious dialectic at Glaucon,
finding its culmination in a discussion on rewards for the just and punishment
for the unjust. In the end of Book X, he introduces the myth of ER
in which the hero, Er, is killed in battle and "as he was lying on the
funeral pile, he returned to life" to tell of what he had witnessed in the
afterlife. Socrates recounts Er's lengthy tale of which the following is a
smattering.
Likewise, Plato supplements the
divided line between the intelligible world and knowledge and the visual world
and opinion, through the "allegory of the cave." He has Socrates
saying to Glaucon, referring to the chained prisoners,
In the Phaedrus, we find the
charioteer with his two steeds symbolizing the soul, its nature, and its
pre-natal visions. It is often Plato's technique to follow up a myth with an
argument. As in the case of the Phaedrus, the immortality of the soul, in the
myth, later finds itself presented in the ideas planted for those who follow
him.
It is a clever device of Plato's
to treat the same subject matter in different dialogues through different minds
and personalities. In this way, he achieves a multitude of points of view
showing that the same subject matters can give rise to many different problems.
By giving these two different
treatments of love of the beautiful, Plato contributes immensely to the causes
that will induce others to follow the life of reason. In the Phaedrus, for
instance, Plato shows that he wants his words to be instruments for the
stimulation of thought. He is the artist at work utilizing his artistic
attitude -- which surely insures his immortality.
Plato never for a moment lets his
dialogues or his characters, i.e., ideas, take command of him as occasionally
occurs in literary works. No matter where the path of his deliberate digression
may lead, he makes them converge on the central point, whether it be the
definition of a word, justice, virtue, knowledge, etc., the sympathetic
portrayal of a prominent personage and his views, or the final vision, the good,
of an artistic experience. This is exemplified in Book IX of the Republic.
After
having run the gamut of the tri-part soul, the divided line, the primitive
state, the modern state, etc., Plato shows us one of the conclusions he has been
striving for, i.e., the attempt to arrive at who is the happier, the just or the
unjust man.
Of extreme importance is the fact
that in all his dialogues, Plato's emphasis is an exhortation to live the good
life, and it turns out, for him, that the absolute good is knowledge of the good
which itself is an artistic experience or vision, not mystical as often
suggested. But such a vision is impossible; Plato hastens to make clear, unless
his program of education is rigidly adhered to. And, it is in his program of
education that Plato's artistic attitude toward living and experience is
embodied; for the good life is a human achievement just as good human beings are
works of art. But the Philosopher kings are the sole individuals capable of
knowing the good. Hence, they must be constantly aware of it ever ready to
For, as Socrates says to Adeimantus, appealing to the
poetry of metaphysics, even
It is interesting to note that even Plato's non-dramatic
dialogues embody much of his artistic attitude, though in respect of their form,
the dialogue may be superficial. However in his dialogue, Laws, Plato
seems to have "awakened" to the "reality" of the "world
of appearances."
By the time Plato wrote this dialogue,
Laws, he
was a much older and experienced man. He'd seen much more of the world.
He saw
that there wasn't much chance of changing it into his Republic,
utopia. Hence, the next thing was to control it.
Plato's Laws, loses much of the artistic flavor
manifested so intensely in his other works. In it, man's inhibitions and
failings are now to be treated as real and alterable factors in any State to be
formed. The good is the laws of the State; these laws are divine and embody
reason. They are the best possible laws, and the task of the legislator, is to
persuade the people to obey the laws. The means of persuasion constitute an
educative art, such as employment of praise or blame, or fear of disgrace in
pursuit of pleasure. Education still plays a vitally important role in the
artistic achievement, i.e., the good life.
It is through the development and control of various
aspects of life that the best possible way to cope with man's
"failings" is that they first be discovered.
Education is the method by which this is to be
accomplished. Thus, in the Laws, the legislator persuades the citizens
by controlling their emotions through education as opposed to the Republic
in which the emotions of the citizens were not so stimulated.
At any rate, even in Laws, Plato is still
exhorting the good life that is, still for him, the greatest artistic endeavor.
For the good man, who obeys the laws best, is the greatest artistic achievement.