2011- 1- 21
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#3743
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أكـاديـمـي ذهـبـي
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رد: Third Year's Students Come Here To Be One Hand
"The Republic" by Plato (The theory of imitation)
poetry is an imitation of an imitation of the real truth.Poetry is Thrice removed
from truth .God-maker-imitator
, Is this an argument? No
because we have only one point of view given to us from Plato's point
of view. Although he is using argumentative style of questioning and answering, but he is not using the proper argumentative methods, he is
not applying, he is just making use of it to prove his own point of view
Plato gives an example of the bed and the table. Any bed or table starts by an original idea that comes at a person who starts giving a shape to the idea in his mind. Of course there are so many shapes but the original idea is something made of any material for someone to sleep on. At the beginning they made it of stone then it was developed using straw, wood, metal …
But the idea of having something raised from the ground for a person to sleep on is the original idea of the bed that was sent by a god to a man who started to give it a form.
For art they thought the muse didn't carry only the ideas but what beyond them, the words the colors in painting. This is what we call god and maker.
► Which poetry Plato didn't banish from his Republic?
Poetry has a strong effect on people and it is affecting the majority not only the simple minded people. He said at the very end that he is not against poetry as poetry but he is against the effect of poetry on people.
Having a powerful effect is not only made by love poetry but it is made by all kinds of poetry. There was another kind of poetry at that time called the religious or divine poetry that was glorifying deeds of the gods and goddesses. He didn't banish that kind of poetry from his Republic.
He said that most of the people could not understand correctly, so why would we have it for the minority? It's better to banish it. So he was against poetry because of its power, because he himself was a poet and turned to be a philosopher.
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He speaks about the rational principle of the soul:
1- the superior part is the mind, the reason and 2- the inferior part is heart and emotions and what part is poetry addressing at the end? It is addressing the inferior part of the soul. They are far removed from reality, they don't have a name and they don't teach.
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Why poetry should be banished from Plato's ideal society or Republic?
1- Plato considered all arts are only imitating appearance not reality and they are three times away from reality. Because of that, poetry should be banished from his ideal society.
2- Plato thinks that the user is more beneficial than the artist. We have 1- god, 2- the maker, 3- the user, and 4- the artist from the point of view of the utility; that's why this was the second reason he banished poetry from his Republic.
3- Even when the audience receives poetry, the mind is unconscious. So it is addressing the inferior part of the soul, so the outcome will be more inferior. He said it is like an inferior marrying an inferior, so the children will be more inferior. This is another reason for banishing poetry from ideal society.
4- Poetry as Plato sees is full of lies because it's only imitation of appearance. This means that the poet is lying and because it's full of lies, so we cannot accept it in ideal society.
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