Why does plato consider ruling an art

I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all things. Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting designed to be—an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear— of appearance or of reality?

Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.

And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man— whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine to be.

And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion.

Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities?

Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well? Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the image-making branch?

Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in him? The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them. Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honour and profit.

Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about medicine, or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer: we are not going to ask him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like Asclepius, or left behind him a school of medicine such as the Asclepiads were, or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts at second hand; but we have a right to know respecting military tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest and noblest subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them.

The good order of Lacedaemon is due to Lycurgus, and many other cities great and small have been similarly benefited by others; but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of Charondas, and there is Solon who is renowned among us; but what city has anything to say about you? I think not, said Glaucon; not even the Homerids themselves pretend that he was a legislator.

Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive? Or is there any invention of his, applicable to the arts or to human life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other ingenious men have conceived, which is attributed to him? But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any?

Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate with him, and who handed down to posterity an Homeric way of life, such as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him? Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates, Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive?

Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind— if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator—can you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and loved by them?

And is it conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to stay at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got education enough?

Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with Homer, are only imitators; they copy images of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures.

In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well— such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have.

And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose. They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them? Here is another point: The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence; he knows appearances only. Am I not right? Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an explanation.

Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit? But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who knows how to use them—he knows their right form. That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them?

And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them. Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use; for example, the flute-player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions?

The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told by him? The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge? But will the imitator have either?

Will he know from use whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful? Or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw?

Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations? The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations? And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude?

Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in iambic or in Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree? And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth? I will explain: The body which is large when seen near, appears small when seen at a distance?

And the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable.

Thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other.

And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding-there is the beauty of them— and the apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight? And this, surely, must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul.

And when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal, or that some are greater or less than others, there occurs an apparent contradiction? But were we not saying that such a contradiction is the same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing? Then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure?

And the better part of the soul is likely to be that which trusts to measure and calculation? And that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the soul? This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they have no true or healthy aim.

The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring. And is this confined to the sight only, or does it extend to the hearing also, relating in fact to what we term poetry? Do not rely, I said, on a probability derived from the analogy of painting; but let us examine further and see whether the faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or bad.

We may state the question thus:—Imitation imitates the actions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more? But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himself—or rather, as in the instance of sight there was confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things, so here also is there not strife and inconsistency in his life?

Though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember that all this has been already admitted; and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar oppositions occurring at the same moment?

Yes, I said, thus far we were right; but there was an omission which must now be supplied. Were we not saying that a good man, who has the misfortune to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him, will bear the loss with more equanimity than another?

But will he have no sorrow, or shall we say that although he cannot help sorrowing, he will moderate his sorrow? Tell me: will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow when he is seen by his equals, or when he is alone? When he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which he would be ashamed of any one hearing or seeing him do? There is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist, as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing him to indulge his sorrow?

But when a man is drawn in two opposite directions, to and from the same object, this, as we affirm, necessarily implies two distinct principles in him? The law would say that to be patient under suffering is best, and that we should not give way to impatience, as there is no knowing whether such things are good or evil; and nothing is gained by impatience; also, because no human thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the moment is most required.

That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best; not, like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art.

Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune. Yes, I said; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason? And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly?

And does not the latter—I mean the rebellious principle— furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Callicles, the synthesizing figure, confuses maximizing states of pleasure and superiority with happiness, though he goes much further than either Polus or Gorgias in recognizing the radical implications of the doctrines and values they defend e f. In that respect, although he is more immoderate and tyrannical in his appetites, pride, and intellect than they are, he is in one sense more rational, insofar as he is more able to reveal the grounds in his albeit mistaken conception of nature for what he espouses - a theory of the art of rule that will receive fuller articulation in the Republic.

Already with Callicles, however, there is some indication of the problems associated with that theory, including the question of conflicts between its ideal of manly acquisitiveness and the natural boundaries of human need and desire, as well as between that idea and truth, on the one hand, and friendship, including civic friendship, on the other. For discussion, see Simpson, , p. I will return to the topic of justice in discussing the Republic , but must first conclude the treatment of the arts and moderation in the Gorgias.

Earlier, Socrates seemed, in relation to the arts of the soul, to have in mind two forms of psychic art, relating to persuasion in the legal and political systems. In the latter part of the dialogue, Socrates presents moral dialectic as a medical art of the soul, which potentially removes false pride- and appetite-beliefs, and imparts a dialectical test for moral knowledge and the rationality of such beliefs. For discussion, see Vlastos, ; McKim, ; Moss, For a different view of the historical Alcibiades, conceivably reformed by the historical Socrates, see Forde, In addition to a true art of soul-medicine, Socrates also proposes toward the end of the dialogue a true art of soul-gymnastics or legislation, which would inspire its clients toward a well-ordered community, not addicted to false goods and false self-knowledge.

In other words, in this art, presumably working with the art of true jurisprudence, the client would have to be a co-creator of the good that was sought, and of the logos which justified that good. For discussion, see Schmid, , p.

In the Republic , the theory of the arts is developed more completely in relation to the themes of knowledge, justice, and war.

I discuss these aspects of the Republic in three segments. First, I consider the overall picture that Plato offers of education with the parable of the cave, and its relation to the theory of the arts.

This will largely confirm the account offered in the Gorgias , but add some new elements, with respect both to the criterion of rationality and that of benefit. This comparison reveals why Plato believes a tyrannical art of rule must fail, and offers further considerations for his argument that moral control over the arts is essential to the formation of a just city. The image, at least in one respect, seems to fit both the corrupting manipulators of the Gorgias , as well as the benefactors of the Republic.

Translations are from Cooper, The ruler-poets of the Republic, by contrast, may claim they are instilling patterns of conduct, emotion, and reason conducive to justice and happiness cf. But apart from those among them who rise to monarchy, the citizens are not positioned to examine that claim or those beliefs. In this respect, they do not truly see themselves or each other in full, intellectually and socially emancipated personhood, but act out their lives oriented by the truths, such as the patriotic noble lie, which the rulers have used to shape them.

Here, the citizens have been released from their blinders and ties, enabled to see how the construction of their social reality operates, and presumably enabled to see each other, including those still blinkered and bound.

They must infer the creators of the idols, but that does not seem to be what still limits their self-awareness. Rather, it seems, the light of the cave itself has restricted their ability to see and move. The social sciences in late capitalism are distorted, according to C. In this situation, the alternative is not to rise out of the cave, but only to become a manipulator and artist oneself. Here, clever artists in the unjust cities may claim to know the nature of their subjects and what they believe is good - i.

At the third level, Socrates envisages someone who has risen to a higher level of a rational understanding in their art, insofar as it has truly universal objects and can prove its truth-claims, based on its governing principles, though he does not have an evaluative understanding of the benefit of his art, nor of its place within nature as a whole. On eikasia, mathematics, and the line, see Klein, , esp.

For discussion of mathematics and the good, Gill, This would be comparable to a scientific doctor who could explain why he was recommending a particular procedure in relation to the beneficial outcome of re-establishing the proper functioning of the leg or eye in the human body, but not how that functioning was relevant to the overall good of the patient and her rightful place in society.

Prodicus or Theodorus or other craftsmen who understood their art and passed that standard of rationality would fall short of the ideal standard, which includes concern with how the art contributes to the good of their clients.

At the fourth stage, taking it to culminate in the daytime inference to the Good as the inclusive illuminating principle of all cognition and agency, Socrates pictures a philosopher who thinks she has risen to a complete dialectical understanding of the operation of her art, including an evaluative understanding of its benefit.

This image includes a comprehensive relationship of reason, through the idea of the good, to all of nature and society, but it does not seem to include a creative relationship to others or to self-motion. The final, highest form of social-cognitive art and life is represented by the erotic, emancipative artists of the cave, whose work presupposes not only logos , dialectic and recollection, but ethos , practical habituation, resulting in political wisdom and virtue.

For the philosopher as erotic, see Smp. These artists draw on sharper and more wonderful cognitive tools e. Their art is informed by a synoptic activity of reflection, together with a synthesis of the art of self-gain with that of other-benefit, in the theory and practice of living. Thus the parable of the cave can be interpreted to represent five levels of art from the standpoint of rationality, although ultimately only one, from the standpoint of full benefit and goodness.

The discussion of the arts in the Republic adds several new elements, in addition to the overall conception of knowledge and human life suggested by the three great metaphors and discussion of Books VI-VII. Whereas in the Gorgias , the true arts are clearly identified as arts of peaceful relations and harmony among men, gods, and the cosmos as whole a , in Kallipolis this is no longer obviously the case, as there is a tension between art and nature in certain of its key institutions, e.

This poses the question whether the Socratic assumption of a scientific techne of government - in which the discussion of dialectic in Book VII seems to culminate a - is justified, and the Republic is even possible. The first important theoretical innovation concerning the arts in the Republic arises in the debate between Socrates and Thrasymachus.

In the fake art of medicine, what constitutes benefit is defined by the art of gain war. The spiritual warfare the rulers carry out with respect to the citizenry is complete; and for the few who do not conform and do not do their own work, but meddle in activities external to them and the common good, the alternative is first shaming, finally exile or death.

By this reconceptualization, the line between physical and mental health is redrawn, to include the former within the latter. This change affects both the kind of rationality the medical art will attain within the Republic as opposed to other societies, e.

As a result, there will be less experience with the range of illnesses and injuries found in those societies, e. The critical distinction again consists in the way in which the standards of rationality and benefit are oriented to ethical work and public, not private health in the Republic, as opposed to unjust societies. Medical rationality in the Republic is understood in relation to the good of the whole person, their ethical work, and the public good.

As noted, this does not mean the patient can explain why she receives the treatment she is given, and the physician does not, as part of her practice, teach the patient entirely why she does what she does, relative to their nature. In this respect, the Republic might be called by modern readers tyrannical.

For discussion of the honor- and city-loving class, see Gill, ; also Kamtekar, The argument is more difficult regarding the productive class, but insofar as they choose to live justly d-e; also c-e and moderately d-e , and find satisfaction in each part of their lives and their lives as a whole, they would seem to practice moderation and justice for their harmonizing value in their lives and relations with others, not simply the external appetitive or social goods they bring. The soldier in the Republic would do his job and not obey an illegal order, even if it meant demotion; the craftsman would do his job and honor his verbal contract, even if it cost him profit c-d ; each would do it because it was right.

This has implications for medical diagnosis, medical treatment, and medical research. This is not to say that illness would not occur within the Republic, even ideally; only that sickness, i. Thus, while the same narrowly causal explanation might be offered for a treatment in the other regimes as in the Republic, the relation of that explanation to their true nature would be occluded. Their chief goal would be to identify, release, and draw out the healthy capacities in persons who are not deeply and chronically sick, so that they could return to their own work and reconnect with the whole.

This effort, by contrast, seeks to read its political surface with an ethical lens. On this way of reading Plato, see Annas, , p. This is why medical care has a much more decidedly utilitarian appearance than in the unjust societies. In the Republic, the healthy citizen will want to forego extreme medical treatment, if they cannot return to their ethical work and offer their contribution to the city, and they would think of accepting that situation as rational.

Similarly, a healthy citizen would have learned to want to mate and procreate or not, depending on its relation to their ethical work and the common good. See Kraut, ; Gill, In Kallipolis, the good of the polis , justice and the common good, takes precedence over the good of the oikos , private well-being, so that, to the greatest degree possible, the right hierarchy of social reproduction would occur and each generation might have more virtuous citizens than the last.

In the Republic this includes guardian men and women wrestling naked in competition and the selection of reproductive partners by rational government rather than patriarchal family or individual will, in the Laws the elimination of homosexual desire contra Aristophanes in the Symposium.

In contrast to this strict public health and well-being model, the more individualistic and democratic medical art of a Herodicus ab , which sought to extend life for all citizens would unjustly distribute medical attention and resources from those to whom it belonged young or fit to those for whom it was inappropriate old and unfit , i. Holland, Similarly the provision of medical care that extended the lives of children who would never be fit for ethical work would be unjust, given the austerity of the community with respect to material well-being.

Medical systems in other regimes would not only distribute inappropriate kinds of treatment, for those who did not merit and would not use it to wise ends; more importantly, they would fail to habituate all citizens to the right conception of how medicine relates to mental and social well-being. For that reason Plato insisted that music especially music , along with poetry and drama and the other arts, should be part of the education of young citizens in his ideal republic, but should be strictly censored to present, at first, only the good.

That stories and images can shape character may seem obvious enough; but how does music do this? Plato was much impressed with the theories of Pythagoras, and his number mysticism. Early thinking about geometric ratios was partly inspired by noticing the series of overtones connected with the vibration of a string. A string, when plucked, vibrates along its whole length, but also in halves, giving the octave, and in other divisions which give the fifth, the third, and the rest of the overtone series.

These are the bell-like higher tones string players produce when they play "harmonics". Plato thought that the right sort of music would help to set the soul in harmony rather than discord.

But that meant excluding certain musical modes from the Republic, and keeping only those that were conducive to a properly ordered soul, i. Only when young people were ready should the strength of their character be tested by exposing them to depictions of evil, and to the more promiscuous modes of music. From Plato to New York Mayor Rudolf Giuliani, influential people through the centuries and across cultures have worried about the power of the arts to influence, and potentially to corrupt.

It can be hard for a twenty first century westerner to sympathize with Plato's severe censorship of the arts. Little if anything is more valuable to us than our freedom; we don't take kindly to others telling us what we can watch or listen to or read. We believe in the free exchange of ideas, and let the best idea win.

We might even try to justify this idea from Plato's own dialogues. Of course, Plato did not value freedom so highly as do we; he thought that freedom with no limits and no proper training would result in no good.

In fact, he thought it would leave the mass of people vulnerable to deception, manipulation, and eventual enslavement by a tyrant. In spite of this, he agreed with modern people about the free exchange of ideas. There was no other way to arrive at truth, in his view. His problem with the arts was that they operated by images rather than by ideas, and thus that they might cloud the truth rather than clarifying it.

Perhaps a bit of "sympathy for the devil" is possible here. There Plato asks readers to imagine prisoners chained to a bench, facing the wall of a deep cave. Behind them is a six-foot wall, behind that a fire, and in between the fire and the wall walk actors carrying puppets on sticks. All the prisoners can see are the shadows cast by the puppets. That is their world, and they think it Reality. Imagine that a prisoner is somehow released. At first he or she will stumble in the dark, and be blinded by the fire, but then come to realize that the shadows are copies of the puppets.

The liberated prisoner stumbles further up, all the way out the mouth of the cave and into the sunlight. There, when the sunblindness goes away, the prisoner sees the real things of which the puppets themselves are copies. Finally, he or she is able to see the sun, by whose light the real things are visible. Why would Plato have seen the arts as shadows on the wall of the cave, rather than as shining symbols of the true spiritual world outside?

The answer is that he saw both potentials. If he did not see the possibility that art could reveal truth and form character in a good way, he would not have recommended music and stories for the young. But why so much emphasis on the seductive shadow potential of art?

Put the Allegory of the Cave into its obvious 21st century version, and one answer begs to be given. The prisoner becomes a couch potato, tied to the television, and taking the images and myths purveyed by the ads and the shows as the way things are. Are those images and myths powerful? Do they shape our picture of ourselves and the world? Do they distract us from knowing who we really are, what is really best for us, who would be a good political leader?

The questions answer themselves. But for a particularly powerful, detailed description of just how they do so, see the works of Stuart Ewen, particularly All Consuming Images and PR!

Plays and public oratory were the media and propaganda of Plato's day, and painting, statuary and music often served similar ends. Think "media", "propaganda", and Entertainment Tonight , rather than "fine art", and it is easier to gain some sympathy for Plato's views. It is surely a chief challenge of our time to enable free, honest, challenging communication while resisting the unreasoned power of advertising imagery and media hype.