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previous: Chapter 24 This webpage reproduces a chapter of A History of Philosophy by Frederick Copleston, S. J. as reprinted by Image Books — Doubleday New York • London • Toronto • Sydney • Auckland 1993 The text, and illustrations except as noted, are in the public domain. next: Chapter 26

Part III: Plato

 p253  Chapter XXV
Art

1. Beauty

1. Had Plato any appreciation of natural beauty? There is not an abundance of material from which to form an opinion. However, there is a description of natural scenery at the beginning of the Phaedrus,​1 and there are some similar remarks at the beginning of the Laws,​2 though in both cases the beauty of the scene is appreciated rather from a utilitarian standpoint, as a place of repose or as a setting for a philosophic discussion. Plato had, of course, an appreciation of human beauty.

2. Had Plato any appreciation of Fine Art? (This question only arises because of his dismissal of dramatists and epic poets from the Ideal State on moral grounds, which might be held to imply that he lack any real appreciation of literature and art.) Plato dismissed most of the poets from the Republic owing to metaphysical and, above all, moral considerations; but there certainly are not wanting indications that Plato was quite sensible of the charm of their compositions. While the words at the beginning of Republic 398 would not appear to be entirely sarcastic, in No. 383 of the same dialogue Socrates affirms that "although we praise much in Homer, this we shall not praise, the sending by Zeus of a lying dream to Agamemnon." Similarly, Plato makes Socrates say: "I must speak, although the love and awe of Homer, which have possessed me from youth, deter me from doing so. He seems to be the supreme teacher and leader of this fine tragic band, but a man should not be reverenced before the truth and I must needs speak out." ​3 Again, "We are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers; but we must recognise that hymns to the gods and praises of the good are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State."​4 Plato expressly says that if only poetry and the other arts will prove their title to be admitted into a well-ordered State, "we shall be delighted to receive her, knowing that we ourselves are very susceptible of her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth."​5

Bearing these points in mind, it seems impossible to write Plato  p254 down as a Philistine in regard to the arts and literature. And if it be suggested that his tributes of appreciation to the poetries are but the grudging tributes of convention, we may point to Plato's own artistic achievement. If Plato himself had shown in no degree the spirit of the artist, it might be possible to believe that his remarks concerning the charms of the poets were due simply to convention or were even sarcastic in tone; but when we consider that it is the author of the Symposium and the Phaedo who speaks, it is really too much to expect anyone to believe that Plato's condemnation, or at least severe restriction, of art and literature was due to aesthetic insensibility.

3. What was Plato's theory of Beauty? That Plato regarded beauty as objectively real, is beyond all question. Both in the Hippias Maior and in the Symposium it is assumed that all beauti­ful things are beauti­ful in virtue of their participation in the universal Beauty, Beauty itself. So when Socrates remarks "Then beauty, too, is something real," Hippias replies, "Real, why ask?"​6

The obvious consequence of such a doctrine is that there are degrees of beauty. For if there is a real subsistent Beauty then beauti­ful things will approximate more or less to this objective norm. So in the Hippias Maior the notion of relativity is introduced. The most beauti­ful ape will be ugly in comparison with a beauti­ful man, and a beauti­ful porridge‑pot will be ugly in comparison with a beauti­ful woman. The latter in turn will be ugly in comparison with a god. Beauty itself, however, in virtue of a participation in which all beauti­ful things are beauti­ful, cannot be supposed to be something which"may just as well be called ugly as beauti­ful." ​7 Rather is it "not partly beauti­ful and partly ugly; not at once beauti­ful and at another time not; not beauti­ful in relation to one thing and deformed in relation to another; not here beauti­ful and there ugly, not beauti­ful in the estimation of some people and deformed in that of others; . . . but . . . eternally self-subsistent and monoeidic with itself."​8

It follows also that this supreme Beauty, as being absolute and the source of all participated beauty, cannot be a beauti­ful thing, and so cannot be material: it must believe supersensible and immaterial, We can see at once, then, that if true Beauty is supersensible, beauti­ful works of art or literature will, apart from  p255  any other consideration, necessarily occupy a comparatively low step on the ladder of beauty, since they are material, whereas Beauty itself is immaterial; they appeal to the senses, while absolute Beauty appeals to the intellect (and indeed to the rational will, if we bring into consideration the platonic notion of Eros). Now, no one will wish to question the sublimity of Plato's idea of the ascent from the things of sense to the"divine and pure, the monoeidic beauti­ful itself"; but a doctrine of supersensible beauty (unless it is purely analogical) makes it very difficult to form any definition of beauty which will apply to the beauti­ful in all its manifestations.

The suggestion is offered in the Hippias Maior​9 that "whatever is useful is beauti­ful." Thus efficiency will be beauty: the efficient trireme or the efficient institution will be beauti­ful in virtue of its efficiency. But in what sense, then, can the Supreme Beauty be thought of as useful or efficient? It ought, if the theory is to be consistent, to be Absolute Usefulness or Efficiency — a difficult notion to accept, one might think. Socrates, however, introduces a qualification. If it is the useful or efficient which is beauti­ful, is that which is useful for a good or for a bad purpose or for both> He will not accept the idea that what is efficient for an evil purpose is beauti­ful, and so it must be that the useful for a good purpose, the truly profitable, is the beauti­ful. But if the beauti­ful is the profitable, i.e. that which produces something good, then beauty and goodness cannot be the same, any more than the cause and its product can be the same. But since Socrates is unable to accept the conclusion that what is beauti­ful is not at the same time good, he suggests that the beauti­ful is that which gives pleasure to the eye or ear — e.g.. beauti­ful men and colour-patterns and pictures and statues, beauti­ful voices and music and poetry and prose This definition is, of course, not quite consistent with the characterisation of supreme Beauty as immaterial, but, quite apart from that fact, it is involved in another difficulty. That which gives pleasure through sight cannot be beauti­ful simply because it comes through sight, for then a beauti­ful would not be beauti­ful nor can a tone be beauti­ful precisely because it gives pleasure to the sense of hearing, since in that case a statue, which is seen but not heard, would not be beauti­ful. The objects, therefore, which cause aesthetic pleasure of sight or hearing must share some common character which makes them beauti­ful, which  p256 belongs to them both. What is this common character? Is it perhaps "Profitable pleasure," since the pleasures of sight and hearing are"the most harmless and the best of pleasures?" If this be so, then, says Socrates, we are back in the old position that beauty cannot be good nor the good beauti­ful.

If anything like the foregoing definition of beauty were maintained, it would be inconsistent with Plato's general metaphysical position. If Beauty is a transcendental Form, how can it possibly be that which gives pleasure to the sense of sight and heart? In the Phaedrus​10 Plato declares that beauty alone, in distinction from wisdom, has the proving of manifesting itself to the senses. But does it manifest itself through what is itself beauti­ful or not? If the latter, how can there be a real manifestation If the former, then do the sensible manifesting beauty not supersensible manifested beauty unite in a common definition or not? And if so, in what definition? Plato does not really offer any definition that will cover both types of beauty. In the Philebus he speaks of true pleasure as arising from beauti­ful shapes and colours and sounds and goes on to explain that he is referring to "straight lines and curves" and to "such sounds as are pure and smooth and yield a single pure tone." These"are not beauti­ful relatively to anything else but in their own proper nature." ​11 In the passage in question Plato distinguishes between the pleasure attaching to the perception of beauty and beauty itself, and his words must be read in connection with his statement​12 that "measure and symmetry everywhere pass into beauty and virtue," which implies that beauty consists in μετριότης καὶ συμμετρία. Perhaps this is as near as Plato ever comes to offering a definition of beauty that would apply to sensible and to supersensible beauty (he certainly assumed that there are both, and that the one is a copy of the other); but if we take into account the remarks on the beauty scattered about in the dialogues, it is probable that we must admit that Plato wanders"among so many conceptions, among which it is just possible to say that the identification of the Beauti­ful with the Good prevails,"​13 though the definition offered in the Philebus seems to be the om promising.

p257 ii. Plato's Theory of Art

1. Plato suggests that the origin of art is to be sought in the natural instinct of expression.​14

2. In its metaphysical aspect or its essence, art is . The Form is exemplary, archetypal; the natural object is an instance of μίμησις. Now, the painting of a man, for example, is the copy or imitation of a natural, particular man. It is, therefore, the imitation of an imitation. Truth, however, is to be sought properly in the Form; the work of the artist accordingly stands at two removes from the truth. Hence Plato, who was above all things interested in truth, was burned to depreciate art, however much he might feel the beauty and charm of statues, painting or literature. This depreciatory view of art comes out strongly in the Republic, where he applies it to the painter and the tragic poet, etc.​15 Some of his remarks are a little comical, as when he observes that the painter does not even copy objects accurately, being an imitator of appearance and not of fact.​16 The painter what paints a bed, paints it only from one point of view, as it appears to the senses immediately: the poet portrays healing, war and so on, without any real knowledge of the things of which he is speaking. The conclusion is that "imitative art must be a long way from truth."​17 It is "two grades below reality, and quite easy to produce without any knowledge of the truth — for it is mere semblance and not reality." ​18 The man who gives up his life to producing this shadow of reality has made a very bad bargain.

In the Laws there appears what is perhaps a somewhat more favourable judgment concerning art, though Plato has not altered his metaphysical position. When saying that the excellence of music is not to be estimated merely by the amount of sense-pleasure it occasions, Plato adds that the only music which has real excellence is the kind of music "which is an imitation of the good."​19 Again, "those who seek for the best kind of song and music, ought not to seek for that which is pleasant, but for that which is true; and the truth of imitation consists, as we were saying, in rendering the thing imitated according to quantity and quality."​20 He thus still clings to the concept of music as imitative ("everyone will admit that musical compositions are all imitative  p258 and representative"), but admits that imitation may be "true" if it renders the thing imitated as best as it can in its own medium. He is ready to admit music and art into the State, not only for educative purposes, but also for"innocent pleasure";​21 but he still maintains the imitation-theory of art, and that Plato's idea of imitation was somewhat narrow and literal must be clear to anyone who reads the second Book of the Laws (though it must be admitted, I think, that to make music imitative implies a widening of imitation to include symbolism. That music is imitative is, of course, a doctrine common to both the Republic and the Laws.) It is through this concept of imitation that Plato arrives at the qualities of a good critic, who must (a) know of what the imitation nis supposed to be; (b) know whether it is "true" or not; and (c) know whether it has been well executed in words and melodies and rhythms.​22

It is to be noted that the doctrine of μίμησις would indicate that for Plato art definitely has its own sphere. While ἐπιστήμη concerns the ideal order and δόξα the perceptible order of natural objects, εἰκασία concerns the imaginative order. The work of art is a product of imagination and addresses itself to the emotional element in man. It is not necessary to suppose that the imitative character of art maintained by Plato essentially denoted mere photographic reproduction, in spite of the fact that his words about"true" imitation indicate that this is what he was often thinking of. For one thing, the natural object is not a plane hoc copy of the Idea, since the Idea belongs to one order and the perceptible natural object belongs to another order; so that we may conclude by analogy that the work of art need not necessarily be a mere reproduction of the natural object. It is the work of imaginative creation. Again, Plato's insistence on the imitative character of music makes it very difficult, as I have mentioned, to suppose that imitation meant essentially mere photographic reproduction. It is rather imaginative symbolism; and it is precisely because of this fact that it does not assert truth or falsehood, but is imaginative and symbolic and wears the glamour of beauty, that it addresses itself to the emotional in man.

Man's emotions are varied, some being profitable, others harmful. Reason, therefore, must decide what art is to be admitted and what is to be excluded. And the fact that Plato definitely admits forms of art into the State in the Laws shows that art  p259 occupies a particular sphere of human activity, which is irreducible to anything else. It may not be a high sphere, but it is a sphere. This is borne out by the passage in which Plato, after referring to the stereotyped character of Egyptian art, remarks that"if a person can only find in any way the natural melodies, he should confidently embody them in a fixed and legal form."​23 It must, however, be admitted that Plato does not realise — or, if he does realise, does not sufficiently exhibit — the specifically disinterested character of aesthetic contemplation in itself. He is much more concerned with the educational and moral effects of art, effects which are irrelevant, no doubt, to aesthetic contemplation as such, but which are nonen the less real, and which must be taken into account by anyone who, like Plato, values moral excellence more than aesthetic sensibility.​24

3. Plato recognises that the popular view of art and music is that they exist to give pleasure, but it is a view with which he while not agree. A thing can only be judged you the standard of pleasure when it furnishes no utility or truth or "likeness" (reference to imitation), but exists solely for the accompanying charm.​25 Now, music, for instance, is representative and imitative, and good music will have "truth of imitation";​26 therefore music, or at least good music, furnishes a certain kind of "truth," and so cannot exist solely for the sake of the accompany charm or be judged of by the standard of sense-pleasure alone. The same holds human for the other arts. The conclusion is that the various arts may be admitted into the State, provided that they are kept in their proper place and subordinated to their educative function, this function being that of giving profitable pleasure. That the arts do not, or should not, give pleasure, Plato by no means intends to assert: he allows that in the city there should be "a due regard to the instruction and amusement which the Muses give,"​27 and even declares that "every man and boy, free and slave, both sexes, and the whole city, should never cease charming themselves with the strains of which we have spoken, and that there should be every sort of change and variation of them in order to take away the effect of sameness, so that the singers may always have an appetite for their hymns and receive pleasure from them."​28

 p260  But though Plato in the Laws allows for the pleasurable and recreative functions of art, the "innocent pleasure"​29 that it affords, he most certainly stresses its educative and moral function, its character of providing profitable pleasure. The attitude displayed towards art in the Laws may be more liberal than that shown in the Republic, but Plato's fundamental attitude has not changed. As we have seen when treating of the State, a strict supervision and censor­ship of art is provided for in both dialogues. In the very passage in which he says that due regard should be paid to the instruction and amusement given by the Muses, he asks if a poet is to be allowed to"train his choruses as he pleases, without reference to virtue or vice."​30 In other words, the art admitted into the State must have that remote relation to the Form ("truth of imitation" via the natural object) which is possible in the creations of the imagination. If it has not got that, then the art will be not only unprofitable but also bad art, since good art must have this "truth of imitation," according to Plato. Once more, then, it becomes clear that art has a function of its own, even if not a sublime one, since it constitutes a rung on the ladder of education, fulfils a need of man (expression) and affords recreation and innocent amusement, being the expression of a definite form of human activity — that of the creative imagination (though "creative" many understood in connection with the doctrine of imitation). Plato's theory of art was doubtless sketchy and unsatisfactory, but one can hardly be justified in asserting that he had no theory at all.

Note on the Influence of Plato

1. The example of Plato is an influence by itself. His life was one of utter devotion to truth, to the attainment of abiding eternal and absolute truth, in which he firmly and constantly believed, being ready to follow, as Socrates was, where reason might lead. This spirit he endeavoured to stamp upon the Academy, creating a body of men who, under the ascendency of a great teacher, would devote themselves to the attainment of Truth and Goodness. But though he was a great speculative philosopher, devoted to the attainment of truth in the intellectual sphere, Plato, as we have seen, was no mere theorist. Possessed of an intense moral earnestness and convinced of the reality of absolute moral values and standards, he urged men to take  p261 thought for their dearest possession, their immortal soul, and to strive after the cultivation of true virtue, which alone would make them happy. The good life, based on an eternal and absolute pattern, must be lived both in private and in public, realised both in the individual and in the State: as relativistic private morality was rejected, so was the opportunist, superficial, self-seeking attitude of the sophistic "politician" or the theory that"Might is Right."

If man's life ought to be lived under the dominion of reason according to an ideal pattern, in the world as a whole we must acknowledge the actual operation of Mind. Atheism is utterly rejected and the order in the world is ascribed to Divine Reason, ordering the cosmos according to the ideal pattern and plan. Thus that which is realised in the macrocosm, » in the movements of heavenly bodies, should also be realised in man, the microcosm. If man does follow reason and straits to realise the ideal in his life and conduct, he becomes akin to the Divine and attains happiness in this life and the hereafter. Plato's "otherworldliness" did not spring from a hatred of this life, but was rather a consequence of his convinced belief in the reality of the Transcendent and Absolute.

2. Plato's personal influence may be seen from the impression he made on his great pupil, Aristotle. Witness the latter's verses to the memory

Aristotle gradually separated himself from some of the Platonic doctrines that he had held at first; but, in spite of his growing interest in empirical science, he never abandoned metaphysics or his belief in the good life culminating in true wisdom — in other words, he never abandoned altogether the legacy of Plato, and his philosophy would be unthinkable apart from the work of his great predecessor.

3. Of the course of Platonism in the Academy and in the Neo‑Platonic School I shall speak later. Through the Neo‑Platonists  p262 Platonism made its influence felt on St. Augustine and on the formative period of mediaeval thought. Indeed, although St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the Schoolmen, adopted Aristotle as"the Philosopher," there is much in his system that can be traced back ultimately to Plato rather than to Aristotle. Moreover, at the time of the Renaissance, the Platonic Academy of Florence endeavoured to renew the Platonic tradition, while the influence of the Platonic Republic may be seen in St. Thomas More's Utopia and Campanella's City of the Sun.

4. In regard to modern times, the influence of Plato may not be at first sight so obvious as it is in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages; but in reality he is the father or grandfather of all spilt philosophy and of all objective idealism, and his epistemology, metaphysics and politico-ethics have exercised a profound influence on succeeding thinkers, either positively or negatively. In the contemporary world we need only think of the inspiration that Plato has afforded to thinkers like Professor A. N. Whitehead or Professor Nicolai Hartmann of Berlin.

5. Plato, who stands at the head of European philosophy, left us no rounded system. That we do not possess his lectures and a complete record of his teaching in the Academy, we naturally regret, for we would like to know the solution of many problems that have puzzled commentators ever since; but, on the other hand, we may in a real sense be thankful that no cut and dried Platonic system (if ever there was such) has come down to us, a system to be swallowed whole or rejected, for this fact has enabled us to find in him, more easily perhaps than might otherwise be the case, a supreme example of the philosophic spirit. If he has not left us a complete system, Plato has indeed left us the example of a way of philosophising and the example of a life devoted to the pursuit of the true and the good.

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The Author's Notes:

1 230b2 ff.

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2 625b1‑c2.

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3 595b9‑c3.

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4 607a2‑5.

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5 607c3‑8.

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6 H. M., 287c8‑d2.

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7 H. M., 289c3‑5.

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8 Sympos., 211a2‑b2.

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9 295c1 ff.

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10 250d6‑8.

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11 51b9‑c7.

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12 Phil., 64e6‑7.

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13 Aesthetic, by Benedetto Croce, pp165‑6. (2nd edit., trs. by Douglas Ainslie, Macmillan, 1929.)

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14 Cf. Laws, 653‑4, 672b8‑c6.

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15 Rep., 597c11 and ff.

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16 Rep., 597e10 ff.

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17 Rep., 598b6.

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18 Rep., 598e6‑599a3.

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19 Laws, 668a9‑b2.

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20 Laws, 669b4‑7.

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21 Laws, 670d6‑7.

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22 Laws, 669a7‑b5.

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23 657b2‑3.

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24 For further treatment of Plato's philosophy of art, see » Professor R. G. Collingwood's article, "Plato's high of Art," in Mind for April 1925.

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25 Laws, 667d9‑e4.

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26 668b4‑7.

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27 656c1‑3.

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28 665c2‑7.

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29 670d7.

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30 656c5‑7.

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31 Arist., Frag. 623 (Rose, 1870.)

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