XIII—From Painters to Poets: Plato’s Methods inRepublicX

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 116 (3):289-309 (2016)
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Abstract

Throughout much of the critique of poetry in Republic X, Socrates exploits a parallel between painting and poetry. I argue there are two distinct methods at work here, the ‘similarity’ and ‘heuristic’ methods. The first uses painting to discover the general definition of mimesis, which is then swiftly applied to poetry. The second describes certain features of painting before using independent arguments to show that these also apply to poetry. That Socrates sometimes uses the parallel in this heuristic way is not new in the literature. My purpose is to be more precise about what these two methods are, when Socrates uses one or the other, and why. At the end of the paper, I argue that the painting–poetry parallel is methodologically very similar to the state–soul parallel used earlier in the work. This allows us to view the arguments of Republic X in a more sympathetic light.

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Dominic Scott
Oxford University

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References found in this work

An introduction to Plato's Republic.Julia Annas - 1981 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Plato on imitation and poetry in republic 10.Alexander Nehamas - 1982 - In J. M. E. Moravcsik & Philip Temko (eds.), Plato on Beauty, Wisdom, and the Arts. Rowman & Littlefield.
The Republic of Plato.W. A. H. & James Adam - 1905 - Philosophical Review 14 (3):371.

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