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Aesthetics - Reading List: Plato

Aesthetics - Reading List: Plato

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  Dickie, Geoirge T (1991). "Aesthetics" in Ency. Americana.
          Grolier Publishing (Danbury, CT, USA, Terra)

   (Dickie, Vol. 1, P. 235)

  (b. 428bce, Athens, GR; d. 348/347bce, Athens, GR)


Questions that may be regarded as problems 
in of aesthetics occur in several of Plato's
dialogues:  Ion, Symposium, Republic, Phaedrus,
Sophist, and Laws. Plato views the practice of
art as craft (techne; texne) that produces
something, but he does not place arts now 
regarded as "fine" in a class apart.   
According to Plato's theory, the art 
product is an imitation (mimesis; )
-- the painter reproduces (imitates) his
[sic] subject on canvas and the dramatist
depicts (imitates) the actions of men [sic]
in his [sic] plays. Because he conceives 
of works of art in the light of his theory 
of reality [Note 1   
These forms are not experienced witht the sense but are known intuitrively by reason. Plato regards them as the real
and the objects of ordinary sense experience of ordinary sense experience as un-real.  [Note 2Note 3]


In sayting that art is imitation, Plato 
set a preceent that many philosophers 
follow even today (this: 1991) in such 
theores as "art is expression", 
"art is wish full-fillment", and 
"art is play". An assumption of Plato, 
and of those who agree with him on this 
point, is that here is some single 
characteristicc (imitation, expression, 
or the like ) that is the form or essence 
of art and that is present is every work of art.


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Thus, we might refer to this "universal" 
(and indeed trans-universal) element as
the primal atom of art - the essence of
"art-ness". Interesting chap, Plato, eh?

  Come along ducklings,
  Setting the co-ords
  Guttenburg Project
  2010, "Plato" "Ion".
  >go
  *sd sent
  *dsr ready
  >tJAUNT!!! (dsestination, determination, ...

  http://www.scificonventions.com/
             )

And now for our feature presentation....

arrive'

(ahem; mister tonks will you *please* stop doing 
       that? it only irritates the natives.
 also, everyone will please to ignore that
 clearly improperly dressed gentlman over
 there. That's professor jowette doing
 some sort of research. This way, i think...

  -[a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1635" target="_blank">ion]-




Notes
(this section only)


[1] One of Plato's main contributions to 
    philo (prompting Voltaire to say, 
"All philosophy begins and ends with Plato")
was the idea of "the alegory of the cave".
In the story, people are bound (chained)
inside a cave and can only judge the outside
world by the shadows that they see on the
floor of the cave in front of them. Thus,
he thought of things like a chair (that we
might see in front of us) as "but" a shadow
of some ideal chair that exists in a sort 
of hyper-reality. 

See also:  "The Matrix" (film)
    also:  "The Matrix and Philosophy" (book)

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[2] Compare this almost opposite view
    of the so-called of metaphysics
that "nothing un-real exists". 
("Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (film)

In a sense, this means that an imaginary
IS imaginary because it can NOT exist. 
Once something (antthing) exists it thus
ceases to be non-real (imagined only,
postulated only, etc) and hence BECOMES
real.

Technically, it isn't clear if 
metaphyics is achronic (outside of time)
or dichronic (existing in/within-in time).

Plato would indicate that time is a non
variable, since ideal things always exist
and thus, we assume (;) have always existed
and will always exist. Hence, the cave and
the viewers within it are un-necessary and
Plato's ideals transcend the anthropic principle
that the universe exists only because (or
in order that) something can perceive it.


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[3] Clearly Plato's impossibility of art ever
    "achieving" the idea might be transcended
by the surRealist concept. If we recall that
many artists (eg, Odilon Redon, Salvidor Dali,
Varo Remedios) attempted to contact their 
sub-conscious, their dreams, and of course
an "ultra-reality". One can (me thinks) argue
that perhaps in some ways van Gogh was trying
to BE colour and part of this might have been
his madness, or "merely" his intense efforts
at transcending the (perceived) real world.

See also:  "The exquisit corpse" (dada creativity game)

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