Platonic and Aristotlian Display

Ok, I've finally put the blogs up. They should be coming now on a regular basis. Please, I insist on harsh critiques, ideas, comments, concerns, arguments...FEEDBACK in any way is pleasurable. Cheers, Aidan


On Republic Book Ten:

I have always enjoyed Plato and the way in which he fashions his arguments. Again in this excerpt from his famous Republic we have him talking with Socrates on the notion of art and poetry, and the theory or standards of it. I find it quite fascinating how he breaks down the idea of mimesis or imitation rather, and subordinates this type of artistic representation. He rejects or downplays what the artists and poets do by reappropriating something solid like the example of the bed: an object made by God, and then founded and physically duplicated by men such as carpenters. As he argues if God is the author, then the carpenter is second removed from the original, and finally the artist by representing the object rather than manufacturing it is “ at third remove from reality ” (425). Although, as I aforementioned I quite enjoyed this piece of literature, I agree with one of the two arguments that Plato puts forth. I agree that yes there is this distance from the tangeable object, and what the artist does in imitating it through a different medium, but I disagree that this is altogether a bad thing. Plato seems to be worried that art will corrupt society. In my experiences as someone living few thousand years after Plato I have found that art has enhanced the mental environment and social environment through it’s ability to make us think, and think creatively, and it has also been an effective tool for keeping corporate and political powers in check.

On Poetics:

I have read Poetics in the past, and it is a great guide to anyone studying Shakespeare or Greek Tragedies, Comedies, and Epics. Aristotle does a good job of categorizing and defining the specific species of the early literary genres. Focusing on the idea of imitation I found it interesting that Aristotle felt that in connecting humans with literature, and what we gravitate towards is rhythm, language and melody. As he states this happens “ either separately or in combination ” (4). It is therefore not that strange that music seems almost second nature to us. Music and language are obviously very interconnected, and the creation of poetry at such an early period of humanity seems fascinating. Origins gave a brief but logical explanation of why we imitate objects around us, and I agree, I think it is because we seem to have this need to understand and then define everything. We try to categorize, explain, and therefore control our environment; there is this feeling of power that is attached to accumulating knowledge.