Rachel Worthington: In-class Readings 2

Plato takes after Socrates, in that he believes that the nature of art and the impact it has in the audience is dangerous. He asserts that artists are imitators because they try and recreate something that is already an imitation. He draws this argument from the notion that all worldly things are not real in the first place. For instance, objects change and the also are created as well as destroyed; therefore, they lack in the fullness of reality. When an artist portrays these objects, whether it be through painting, poetry, etc., he is merely copying the form of something else. By doing this, the artist is even more removed from what Plato would call "the real", which are the actual forms of the objects and "the things of daily life," (Plato, 13). The artist provides the audience with certain emotions through the artwork that are contradictory to the actual view of the world; therefore, art is contradictory to rational thought. Plato believed that the most valuable thing about human beings was our ability to rationalize and participate in philosophy. To Plato, art defies philosophy and cannot be a helpful way of showing an audience anything of the world.