Republic, Ion, Phaedrus
From the commentary:
The myth of the divided line, Plato’s hierarchy of the physical and mental universe:
|
MODES OF BEING | MODES OF MENTAL ACTIVITY ________________________________________________________________________
|
Ideas | Knowing
Mathematical Forms | Understanding —-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Material Things | Opinion
Images | Conjecture
|
“The first horizontal line separates the eternal world of true Being from the world of Becoming, the material things that are begotten, born, and die. The vertical line separates modes of existence from from the modes of thought appropriate to them.”
“The poets may stay as servants of the state if they teach piety and virtue, but the pleasures of art are condemned as inherently corrupting to citizens and guardians alike.”
From the text:
“all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them.”
“The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures.”
“there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them […] the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use”
“The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring.”
“poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue.”
Ion
From the text:
“for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.”
“God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselveswho utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us.”
Phaedrus
From the commentary:
“while written discourse can be flashy and impressive, the way to search for the deepest truths is through oral discourse between people who care about each other.”
From the text:
“Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them.”
[Like the three tiers from Republic, the user, the maker, the imitator.]
“The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”
“Until a man knows the truth of the several particulars of which he is writing or speaking, and is able to define them as they are, and having defined them again to divide them until they can be no longer divided, and until in like manner he is able to discern the nature of the soul, and discover the different modes of discourse which are adapted to different natures, and to arrange and dispose them in such a way that the simple form of speech may be addressed to the simpler nature, and the complex and composite to the more complex nature-until he has accomplished all this, he will be unable to handle arguments according to rules of art, as far as their nature allows them to be subjected to art, either for the purpose of teaching or persuading;—such is the view which is implied in the whole preceding argument.”
“Wise, I may not call them; for that is a great name which belongs to God alone,—lovers of wisdom or philosophers is their modest and befitting title.”