Dialogue in the spirit of Sophist and Statesman

Poet

Socrates: We have painted excellent portraits of both the sophist and statesman and we are well on are way to digging out the philosopher. But wait! It seems these experts are missing their good friend the poet. It would be unfortunate indeed for us to overlook his beauty.

Visitor: You're right Socrates. We will have to find him quickly though, because we will certainly need our strength to tackle our next target. The poet is a tame goose in comparison to the mighty philosopher.

Socrates: You are probably right. I am an old man and all this excitement is making me rather tired. To save my strength for the philosopher, I will sit this one out once again and let my young friend Plato here do the talking. His young heart has produced some fine poems. Plato, recite to us the epigram you wrote to Xanthippe.

Young Plato: I will recite my poem, but I should let you know I have not practiced much philosophy. I am not sure that I am the best candidate for the chase. I prefer to rest in the beauty of poetry. Listen: “I am an apple; one who loves you throws me at you. Say yes, Xanthippe; we fade, both you and I.”

Visitor: By god, Plato. Were I Xanthippe, I could not say no after hearing these words. You are as you claim a poet, beautiful, but I wonder why you prefer the beauty of poetry over the beauty of philosophy. Do you think they are both equally beautiful? Or which one do you think is more beautiful and why do you prefer poetry?

Young Plato: I believe poetry is more beautiful. The poet speaks directly from his heart only about beautiful things, while the philosopher speaks about all things that come to his mind. The poet speaks words that teem with emotion, while the philosopher's words are often sterile. Maybe I have not ever seen the true beauty and capabilities of philosophy, in which case I am not a fair judge.

Visitor: Fair enough for now. Although I am not so sure you are correct in making these distinctions between the words of a philosopher and the words of a poet. The best philosophers speak with just as much passion as the best poets. And the words of any good poet are surely true. Or could there be a good poet who speaks falsely?

Young Plato: Certainly no. A good poet speaks the purest truth strait from his heart. Otherwise I would not allow myself to be called a poet.

Visitor: Then I suspect the poet and the philosopher are very similar creatures. We should be extremely alert not to mistake one for the other on our hunt. Speaking of the hunt, where do you suppose we should look first for the poet?

Young Plato: You've found me!

Visitor: Oh and what a marvelous child you are! Speaking on a whim for the sake of entertainment! Do you think your reply represents the poet? Should we use the child to guide us to the poet?

Young Plato: Let's give it a try.

Socrates: I think we already are.

Visitor: If we use the child as a model, it will bring us down a different path than the angler did for the sophist, and the weaver for the statesman. The child will be more confusing, and is likely to change on us, even though on the surface they have telling similarities. But unlike the other models, the child is not a type of expertise. For now, lets use the same dichotomy we used for the sophist.

Young Plato: Fair enough.

Visitor: We suggested earlier (Sophist 219b-c) that there are two types of experts; those that handle production and those that handle acquisition. And unlike the sophist, the poet would certainly take the role of production. As I see it, there are two categories of production. There are persons that produce things for practical use, such as buildings, weapons, and clothes. All other persons produce things for the sake of enjoyment. These items would include things like toys, musical instruments, and plays. Is this an appropriate division?

Young Plato: Quite appropriate.

Visitor: And what type of production is the poet responsible for?

Young Plato: Things of practical use serve to ensure the well being of both the individual and the city as a whole. Practical things could also be tools of some sort. Poetry merely causes the well being of just the individual. So, the poet must produce for the sake of entertainment.

Visitor: But what about the great poet Homer? Don't his stories serve practical use? Many people rely on his poems for guidance when they need advice. Or do people's reliance on his poems differ in some way from their reliance on the laws or education?

Young Plato: I am inclined to view education differently than both the laws and people's use of Homer's poetry in this manner. Education allows individuals to be autonomous on their own critical thinking, while the laws and suggestions in Homer's poetry merely give examples of how to act.

Visitor: That seems fair. You make this distinction on the same grounds that we dismissed the laws as necessary during our hunt for the statesman. But without a critical thinker to guide one's actions, the laws and, by extension, Homer's poetry can serve a practical use.

Young Plato: In this scenario, wouldn't the poet be serving the same purpose as the lawmaker?

Visitor: A very similar purpose, if not the same.

Young Plato: I see this as a problem. When I write poetry, it comes from the urge to express myself, not to guide other's actions.

Visitor: But what about the poem you just recited to us? Didn't you suggest to Xanthippe that she should accept your love?

Young Plato: Indeed she should, but not because I told her to. After witnessing the beauty of my words and feelings for her, it will be her heart that will tell her to accept my love. In this case, it seems that poetry may guide others' emotions. Mere laws and advice cannot influence an individual's decisions in this way.

Visitor: So then poetry has practical use, different from the laws and advice. The poet can use his words to touch the souls of his listeners, which will influence their decisions from the deepest level.

Young Plato: The poet is certainly a powerful creature. Like the songs of the Sirens, the poet's words can enchant any passerby. I am becoming wary of the poet.

Visitor: Let's stay alert to the dangers of the poet as we continue our hunt. We've decided that the poet's production is concerned with matters of practical use. As I see it, experts can be concerned with the production of two types of things: physical objects and immaterial objects.

Young Plato: That is obvious enough.

Visitor: Well then, it is also obvious in which category poetry falls.

Young Plato: In the category of immaterial objects.

Visitor: That's right. But how should we divide this category, so that no single immaterial object shares features of both categories?

Young Plato: I do not yet see how.

Visitor: Me neither, at least not in a way that will help us find our target. Let's try this; we can make a category out of language and words, and another category out of all immaterial objects that are non-language and non-words. Both categories would include things like sound.

Young Plato: You've chiseled out language from other immaterial objects with expert precision.

Visitor: And I see a dividing line between all language.

Young Plato: Yes, I believe I do too. One can either speak language truthfully, about the things that are eternally and universally true. To speak about these things is to speak about the most beautiful things. Otherwise one can speak can speak myths, lies, and nonsense. Surely these things are vulgar, and are not the concern of the good poet.

Visitor: That is approximately where I would draw the line too. But I am not so sure the poet does not concern himself with myths and the like.

Young Plato: How so?

Visitor: Well consider Hesiod's and Homer's poetry. Surely you can think of many examples of far-fetched tales in their poetry that seem unreal.

Young Plato: Yes, there are some questionable tales in their poetry. But even if they are not real, they serve as illustrative and entertaining examples of virtue, or other qualities like courage or honor. Others illustrate the effects of misbehavior. These are portraits of true aspects of life.

Visitor: Then the poet uses myths and metaphors to show images of the truth. But tell me, are the virtuous characters in these poems examples of the form of virtue itself, or do they simply participate in the form?

Young Plato: Of course, they can only participate in the form.

Visitor: So then the poet's images of virtue are only imitations of images. And even if the poet has direct knowledge of the forms of these things, his words only have the ability to reflect images of these forms.

Young Plato: It seems that the line we used to divide language is itself divided.

Visitor: That's right. And so far it seems that the poet only produces things that fall into the category of imitations.

Young Plato: But poetry of this sort is nearly useless. Indeed, imitation is not even a type of production. Their depictions fall flat, and only show one side of the forms. The poet is free to show only the beautiful sides of forms, leaving out the vulgar parts. And this is precisely what the poet will do, since it is his job to produce only beautiful things. The foolish listener might be left unaware of the whole truth, thinking things about forms that are not true. This is not at all an admirable occupation.

Visitor: But if the poet's job is to produce beautiful things, then he must know beauty itself. He need not know the whole form of things, but only the parts of things that participate in beauty. The poet needs not be an expert at all things to create beautiful poetry, but only an expert in beauty.

Young Plato: That's true. But I do not believe the poet actually produces beautiful things. By merely imitating beautiful things, he makes his poetry appear beautiful.

Visitor: But nevertheless, the poet must see the form of beauty in these things to be able to illustrate only these parts. Therefore, the poet's words are illustrations of beauty itself.

Young Plato: That may be the case, but his words are not always about beauty. What the poet often speaks about explicitly are mere imitations.

Visitor: That may very well be the case. But consider this; there are things other than beauty that the poet talks about with complete understanding.

Young Plato: What other things are there?

Visitor: The things that are most close to him. Like you said earlier, the good poet speaks truth directly from his heart.

Young Plato: That's right.

Visitor: These things are the poet's emotions. They are as pure as truth itself. And since the poet speaks of these things directly, he is producing actual images of these emotions. Therefore, the poet's occupation remains in the category of production.

Young Plato: That's true. But what good do these emotions have? Pure emotions are devoid of reason. And the poet combines these unreasonable emotions with imitations of images. What a scornful and dangerous role the poet has!

Visitor: Indeed not many men are well suited to this role.

Young Plato: This role is not suitable for any man.

Visitor: But we might still be able to save the poet.

Young Plato: For what reason?

Visitor: Good reason. We said before that the poet has the ability to speak directly about emotions and beauty. Why must he stop there? If he has the knowledge of the forms of other things, then he will be able to speak about these things too. His poetry could serve to educate people about all important things.

Young Plato: This is the type of man I would like to be. But wait! This man is not the poet, but the wise philosopher. For the poet will only speak of beauty, and ignore other parts of things.

Visitor: Your eyes are sharp my boy; you may very well become that type of man. But I believe there is much more to the philosopher than what meets your eye. We have made distinct only the poet. I think it's time to start our hunt for the philosopher.

Epistemological Theory of Forms

Epistemological Theory of Forms

Plato presents a serious critique of his theory of forms in the first part of the Parmenides. He invites us to improve his theory by illustrating its weaknesses. Many of the absurd consequences that Parmenides finds stem from claims of existence. If one interprets Plato's theory of forms as fundamentally an epistemological theory, many of the problematic claims would either be false descriptions of the theory or their consequences would be more plausible.

The first problems that Parmenides finds with forms is due to their existence as objects of quantity. At 131b-c, Parmenides illustrates the problems that arise if when things participate in a form, they take a “share,” or quantity, of the form. If this is the case, it seems obvious that objects will not be able to participate in the whole form, because one form would exist in many separate objects. Alternatively, things would participate in part of the forms and the forms would be divisible and finite. In this sense, objects would get a share of the forms themselves. The features and characteristics of the objects would be one and the same as the features and characteristics of the forms themselves. This is why Parmenides is able to make the problematic claims that an object that participates in the small will get a share that is smaller than small itself, and that equal objects are only partly equal because they get only part of the form of equal.

If the forms have no finite quantity in the same way as knowledge, then objects would not participate in either part of or the entirety of the form. Instead, it is possible that either part of or the whole object would participate in a form. It is possible to measure the quantity of blue light waves that an object reflects, and say that the object is blue insofar as the amount of blue light waves it reflects. The form of blue could be a distinct concept, the features of which we could compare to the object's own features.

Parmenides finds an infinite regress of forms as a result of the idea that we compare the form as a thought (or concept) with objects. He argues that if the mind's eye sees an object as participating in the form of large, we must know another form of large so that we can compare the lesser form to the object (132a). If this were an accurate description of knowledge, then we would never be able to learn new concepts.

If an individual has knowledge of a form (as a concept), objects could participate in the form when the individual sees similarities between the two. Just like comparing two portraits to see if they portray the same individual, a person can compare his/her knowledge to an object and see if it is the same concept. There need not be a third photograph of the actual person to see that it is the same individual, and a new form need not arise to understand that a concept is the same as its object.

There are two possible ways that we come to learn new concepts. It is possible that knowledge of forms could be, as Plato suggests in the Republic, inherent in us since birth. This easily allows for a type of realism, because forms are universal truths about the world. Objects would come to be as we come to know them as images of those forms, insofar as we can understand the similarities, or insofar as the objects match up with a form.

It is also possible that we come to know the forms by extracting concepts from the outside world. We would necessarily learn the forms through our subjective lenses and refine them with pure reason. An individual would not need prior knowledge to discover the truth of an object. He/she would be able to observe features of an object and then form a concept. An individual who has extracted a form (either a rough image or the whole form) from a specific object could then use that knowledge to recognize other instances of the same form. An invention would be discovered through pure reasoning. For example, an individual would first discover the form (as a concept) of a boat, then see a log as an instantiation of a boat, or a pile of wood and nails as a possible instantiation of a future boat. In this case, the individual did not discover the form by extracting it from the outside world, but by reasoning to it from knowledge that was originally extracted from the outside world.

It might seem that this notion of Plato's forms is not very different than some contemporary realists' notion of true knowledge. This theory and the realist both suggest that we gain knowledge about the outside world through observation and reasoning, and that true knowledge is universal (but in different senses). This theory has a unique notion of truth. A belief would not be true simply to the degree that a person's knowledge mimics the outside world. Instead, there are two conditions that decide truth. A belief is true to the degree that the knower's concept is complete (or, how much of the form the knower is aware of), and to the degree that the object mimics the person's knowledge. This is an important reversal of the former conception of truth. It entails that a person actually makes an object what it is by believing it is something.

If objects come to be as an individual comes to understand them as instantiations of a form, someone might argue that it seems ridiculous that we make objects what they are by our beliefs about the object. This theory would admit that if a child has accurate knowledge about rocket-ships and whole-heartedly believes that a TV box is a rocket-ship, it is in fact some sort of rocket-ship. It would be, however, a very poor instantiation of a rocket-ship. If the child's mother walks in and tells her child that it is just a box, the same object would then be both a rocket-ship and a box. This theory would argue that the box has come to be both a box and a pitiful rocket-ship, and that both instantiations are not mutually exclusive. The object is of course just a pile of meaningless stuff when left unconvinced.

The theory that Plato's forms exist as knowledge instead of metaphysical objects may be a rather different interpretation than Plato intended. Nevertheless, it seems to solve many of the problems that Parmenides finds with other interpretations. None of the consequences I have found are fatal, although they are a little strange. Since absolute truth lies within us and not in the outside world, we need not search every corner of the universe to gain complete knowledge of the world. Instead, we must discover every possible reasonable concept.