Poesis

"[Art] is there to celebrate the deeds of great heroes and divinities or as a manifestation of the excellence of the owner of the art (like Menelaus) or to foster enjoyment among those who contemplate it. There is no sense in Homer that poesis is something that needs defining or critical evaluation. What makes a work of art good is self-evident--it moves those who are exposed to it to admiration." -Ian Johnston, Poesis in Plato´s Republic

In describing Homer´s view of art, Johnston provides the antithesis-- Plato´s outlook on poesis "(meaning making) to refer to all common forms of artistic creativity in the visual and plastic arts, music, drama, poetry, and prose fiction"-- and elaborates on why art and philosophy cannot mix. While Plato seeks to define the perfect society, he points to philosophy and its logic as the only way to uncover the innate knowledge that exists our souls. The senses, Plato argues, are unreliable. They corrupt our souls from birth and cloud our vision of and access to the truth. Senses also trigger emotions. According to Plato, emotions are dangerous and hindering to a rational--and therefore knowledgeable-- society. With this information, it is easy to see why Plato considered art to be corruptive and dangerous. He did not deny the existence of art, but because of its irrationality, he saw no fit place for it among scholars and philosophers (the elite group of people that he believed were the only ones capable of discovering a universal truth). The aim of our seminar is to philosophize about art. It seems, however, that Plato considers the two to be opposites and therefore impossible to combine. An "imitation of an imitation", Plato argues, is too far removed from the truth to be considered relevant to society. How could one grasp the truth, however, if it wasn´t for art? Don´t we need a visual trigger to "remember" a true tree? I don´t understand how without these representations we can trace our thoughts back to the origin of a form. What do you think?