Week 3 Lecture – Plato and Nietzsche
Plato, The Republic, key quotes
1. Poetry as immoral/sacrilegious
'No young person is to hear stories which suggest that were he to commit the vilest of
crimes, and were he to do his utmost to punish his father's crimes, he wouldn't be
doing anything out of the ordinary, but would simply be behaving like the first and the
greatest gods.' (378b)
'the claim that God, who is good, is responsible for any instance of badness is to be
resisted as forcefully as possible by anyone who wants a well-regulated community,
until it is never spoken and never heard by anyone, of whatever age, whether the tale
is told in verse or in prose.' (380b/c).
'the second principle to which religious discussions and literature must conform [is]
that the gods are not shape-shifting wizards and do not mislead us by lying in what
they say or do.' (383a)
2. Representation as falsehood or distortion
'were a man who was clever enough to be able to assume all kinds of forms and to
represent everything in the world to come in person to our community and want to
show off his compositions, we'd treat him as an object of reverence and awe, and as a
source of pleasure, and we'd prostrate ourselves before him, but we'd tell him that not
only is there no one like him in our community, it is also not permitted for anyone like
him to live among us, and we'd send him elsewhere...' (398a).
The painter is a craftsman who 'creates appearances and not real things' (596e).
A painting is therefore an imitation of an imitation, and thus at 'two generations from
reality' (597e) ... 'representation and truth are a considerable distance apart, and a
representer is capable of making every product there is only because his contact with
things is slight and is restricted to how they look' (598b).
The poet 'uses words and phrases to block in some of the colours of each area of
expertise, although all he understands is how to represent things in a way which
makes other superficial people, who base their conclusions on the words they can
hear, think that he's written a really good poem about shoemaking or military
command or whatever else it is that he's set to metre, rhythm, and music. It only takes
these features to cast this power a spell: that's what they're there for.' (601b)
3. Poetry casts a spell by appealing to our emotions
The poet 'establishes a bad system of government in people's minds by gratifying their
irrational side... by creating images, and by being far removed from truth.' (605b/c) [...]
, 'when we listen to [a poetic speech], even the best of us... feels pleasure. We
surrender ourselves, let ourselves be carried along, and share he hero's pain; and then
we enthuse about the skill of any poet who makes us feel particularly strong feelings'
(605d).
'However, poetry might accuse us of insensitivity and lack of culture, so we'd better
also tell her that there's an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy... All the
same, we ought to point out that if the kinds of poetry and representation which are
designed merely to give pleasure can come up with a rational argument for their
inclusion in a well-governed community, we'd be delighted--short of compromising the
truth as we see it, which wouldn't be right--to bring them back from exile; after all, we
know from our own experience all about their spell.' (607b/c)
'As long as it is incapable of rebutting our allegations, however, then while we listen to
poetry we'll be chanting these these allegations of ours to ourselves as a precautionary
incantation against being caught once more by that childish and perverse love' (608a).
Slides Notes
1 The phrase comes from Plato's republic after Plato has banished
'The Ancient the poets from his ideal republic.
Quarrel The fascinating thins about this statement is that their
between Poetry previously hadn't been - he has no evidence to his claims.
and Philosophy' But now that quarrel has become ancient, just at Plato’s
Socrates' time it wasn't so.
critique of
poetry and its
legacy.
2 1. Myth and Historical Narratives (e.g. The Odyssey)
What did His understanding is different to ours today
Socrates mean which is one subset of literature - condensed
by 'poetry' and language with line endings, lyrical,
'poets'? expression of feelings, with multiple
meanings.
His def of poetry is broader > the word
poetry comes from ancient word Greek for
'making' > anything made with language or
that language makes
3 2. Religious speech (prayers, incantations, prophecies)
// Spoken in tongues such as metaphore and
allegory > contrary to the single objective
truth that philosophers are after.
4 3. Moral teachings (stories, mottos, folk wisdom)
