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Thus our senses and, consequently, art are "metaphysically" misguided since it is directed towards illusion and not "reality."
Further, Art serves to perpetuate and sustain this misdirection, keeping us ignorant of truth, justice, goodness and "real" beauty.
Think of the uncanny similarity between the imprisoned slaves in Platos Allegory of the Cave who mistakenly take the shadows to be all there is to reality, an those who in a darkened cinema sob uncontrollably when Leonardo DiCaprio goes down for the last time.
"Poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue"
Like a skilled chef, artists are only interested in pleasing the palate, even if it poisons the diner. Since (mimetic) art is institutionally divorced from truth, goodness or any concern with 'real' beauty, it creates an environment of superficial "flavors" where all sorts of atrocities can be made to seem a tempting confection.
NB: This is similar to the criticism leveled by some today against violence and sex in the media. Like Plato, they argue that violence and sex in the media cause us to be a more violent, sexually obsessed culture. This affects not just the people who consume the violent images, but the entire community of which they are a part.
Platos View
there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of 'the yelping hound howling at her lord,' or of one 'mighty in the vain talk of fools,' and 'the mob of sages circumventing Zeus,' and the 'subtle thinkers who are beggars after all'; and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her --we are very conscious of her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth.
Platos View
If her defense fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are enamoured of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests, so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education of noble States has implanted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest; but so long as she is unable to make good her defense, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains; that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many. At all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law.
Platos View
At all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law.
Platos View
Entire Republic can be seen as an argument for allowing Philosophy to do the work accorded to Poetry In Platos defense, today it is widely agreed that the arts do not produce the kind of reliable knowledge or moral wisdom that the sciences and philosophical argument produce. (And Artist still bay at Science and Philosophy) But do we beg the question against the arts by looking exclusively for propositional knowledge (see renderings of molecules). Arthur Danto reminds us, "Plato did not precisely propose that art was mimesis, but that mimetic art was pernicious."
Art production and training is a necessary part of any education since it uses and encourages the imaginative manipulation of ideas.
Nothing is more natural than for human beings to create using their imagination. Since art is imitation, it is an imaginative use of concepts; at its heart art is "conceptual," "intellectual."
Artists must accurately portray reality to be successful. It teaches effectively and it teaches the truth.
(Convincing and powerful drama is convincing and powerful because it reveals some truth of human nature.)
Introduces the concept of "Organic Unity" the idea that in any good work of art each of the parts must contribute to the overall success of the whole.
(Just as in biological organisms each part contributes to the overall health and well-being of the creature, so too in good- works of art, each element must contribute to the thematic development. This is another way in which works of art reflects or imitates reality.)
Unified action, "with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole,"
NB: Aristotle believed that drama imitated not only "events" but actions. As such they imitated intended behaviors, psychological forces and the unseen "inner life" of persons. Note too that he unwittingly set up two functions for a work of art to fulfill; to imitate nature perceptual detail and to imitate natures "organic unity" (music, architecture).
Doctrine of Catharsis"
Art was neither psychologically de-stabilizing nor politically destructive. Art is a therapeutic part of the healthy life of not only the individually, but of the nation.
NB: Similar to arguments made today in defense of graphically sexual or violent art or even of pornography or of violence on television.
But this overlooks how people should and do respond to (even very realistic) art.
Resemblance theory?
But resemblance to what and in what way? (Anything might be said to resemble anything else. No simile is, technically, false.) Well
Yikes!
Ernst Gombrich claims that there is no innocent eye The eye comes always ancient to its work, obsessed by its own past and by old and new insinuations of the ear, nose, tongue, fingers, heart, and brain. It does not much mirror as take and make.
(Perhaps both belong to the class of things which seek approval give enthusiastic, uncritical support.)
NOTE: If representing is a matter of classifying objects rather than of imitating them, of characterizing rather than of copying, it is not a matter of passive recording.
2. If the probability of actual confusion is 1, we no longer have representation; we have identity. 3. Probability of real confusion seldom rises above zero. Seeing a picture as a picture precludes mistaking it for anything else. 4. Appropriate conditions of observation defeat deception.
According to Goodman, When viewing a representational painting I recognize the images as signs for the objects and characteristics represented, signs that work instantly and unequivocally without being confused with what they denote.
Consider the various attempts to mask the signs of aging. What would have worked in the 1700s no longer does because we have come to notice other signs. Individual judgements of similarity are more or less objective and categorical, but the assessment of total resemblance is subject to influences galore, and our representational customs are not least among these.
Representation is thus disengaged from perverted ideas of it as an idiosyncratic physical process like mirroring, and is recognized as a Symbolic relationship that is relative and variable.