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Image, Myth, and Dialectic in Plato

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 12; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10848770701208376

1470-1316

Evanthia Speliotis,

Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies

Abstract This essay describes and illustrates the role that (verbal) pictures in general can play in the search for knowledge. Focusing on myth as a particular kind of verbal image, this essay examines the new form of myth that Plato creates and defines, and the role that this new form of myth can play in a philosophical logos. Notes NOTES 1. Writing about the traditional (i.e. pre-Platonic) meaning of myth, Luc Brisson emphasizes orality and tradition: “it always evokes a recollection preserved in the memory of an entire community, which has orally transmitted it from generation to generation, over a long period of time” (17); and that the past of which myth speaks “is an object neither of direct or indirect testimony, but of tradition” (22). Luc Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, trans. Gerard Naddaf (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 2. Several scholars have argued that Plato preserves and perpetuates this understanding and use of myth. See, for example, John Miller, “Why Plato Wrote Myths,” Southwest Philosophical Studies 3 (1978): 84–92. 3. Translations of Republic passages are my own. 4. For the lasting effect these early stories have, see Critias’ comment in the Timaeus: “the lessons of childhood are something to be wondered at with respect to memory” (Tim. 26b), meaning that, as adults, while we may forget what we experienced or learned recently, the lessons from our childhood, transmitted to us in the form of myths, stay with us vividly into old age. 5. This has led some to claim that for Plato, the philosopher stipulates the standard and the poet fills in the outline with a colorful story. See, for example, Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, 109. 6. For now, we will follow primarily the use of these terms in the Republic, where they emphasize different aspects of an image, but are roughly interchangeable: “eikona” seems to focus more on how alike an imitation and the original are; “phantasma” emphasizes that we are getting only an appearance and not the real thing itself. In the Sophist, Plato treats “eikona” and “phantasma” more as terms of art, and distinguishes them more sharply: “eikona” is literally and precisely a likeness; that is to say, it preserves and reproduces the same proportions as in the original. A same-sized exact duplicate of something would be one example of this. An architectural model of a building done to scale (but smaller than the original) would be another (but a bit more ambiguous). A “phantasma,” on the other hand, focuses on appearing beautiful to the beholder, which may require altering the proportions of the original (Sophist 235d–236b). 7. See Rep. 501b. 8. Several authors have argued that Plato is the one responsible for demoting myth to mean a mere image or lying tale. See, for example, J. P. Vernant, “Image et apparence dans la theorie platonicienne de la mimesis,” Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 2 (1975): 133–60; Luc Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, esp. part 2. 9. Cf. Rep. 533e–534a, where he redoes this slightly, replacing “nous” with “episteme” (science). 10. A “methodos,” if you will. 11. See Rep. 532d; see also Meno 85c–d. 12. For why this might be so, see Phaedo 99d–100a. See also Robert Scott Stewart, “The Epistemological Function of Platonic Myth,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 22 (1989): 272. 13. Sophist 253d–e; Statesman 285a–b; Phaedrus 265d–266a. 14. Translations of the Statesman follow Seth Benardete, Plato's Statesman, in part III of The Being of the Beautiful (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984). 15. Whether there is a difference between the way of collecting and dividing without investigating one's hypotheses, and the way of deducing the consequences from an unexamined hypothesis assigned to the dianoetic realm is a subject for another paper. Stewart, in “The Epistemological Function of Platonic Myth” (269) argues that these are distinct, but then, citing Sayre, acknowledges that both begin from a hypothesis and reason down from it. See also Kenneth Sayre, Plato's Analytic Method (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 230. For now, both the way of hypothesis and the way of collecting and dividing stand in contrast to dialectic, which does examine its hypotheses. 16. And, in fact, what may be the clearest examples of the employment of this method are the Sophist and the Statesman, both of which are conversations with a young mathematician. 17. Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, esp. chap. 9. 18. See Rep. 501b; see also the description of the couch maker in Republic X (596b10). 19. “For though it's the most beautiful thing right at the start to separate apart and away from anything else that which is being sought if it's correct—just as you a little while ago, on the suspicion that you had the division, urged forward the speech when you saw it was proceeding toward human beings—but my friend, it's not safe to work on so minute a scale, and it's safer to go cutting through the middle; it's there rather that one might encounter looks (ideai)” (Statesman 262b). 20. Note how young Socrates’ ignorance of the nature of human beings on the one hand makes him a good example of someone who is trying to ascend from ignorance to knowledge. On the other hand, because of his ignorance on this point, he mirrors the indifference of the proposed statesman to the nature of his subjects. (Or perhaps we should say that the proposing of statesmanship as purely theoretical is a reflection of young Socrates’ opinions/ignorance.) That the statesman is indifferent to the nature of his subjects is made clear in the divisions because, by the time they arrive at the division “herd animals versus non-herd animals” (261d–e), the nature of the statesman's knowledge has already been identified (the self-injunctive art of supervising ensouled beings). All that remains is to isolate the human herd from the rest. Per hypothesis, this ought not alter the nature of his knowledge. 21. See also the Stranger's discussion in the Sophist of the gigantomachy: the theoretical “war” between the “body people” (i.e., those who claim that only what can be perceived is) and the “Friends of the Forms” (i.e., those who allow that the perceptible world belongs to the realm of becoming, but argue that there is an absolute divide between being and becoming, such that being is “august, pure, and motionless” [Soph 249a; see also Rep. 381b–c]). In the end, the Stranger says, “it no less turns out that if the things which are, are motionless, there never is mind to anything about anything … than that if, in turn we concede that all things are sweeping along and moving, we’ll remove by this speech too this same thing from the things which are” (249b). And, finally, “For the philosopher, then, who particularly honors these things, there's every necessity, it seems, on account of this, to refuse to accept the all as stationary, from those who speak of one or even the many species, and no less, in turn, not even listen to those who set in motion in every way ‘that which is’; but, in accordance with the prayer of children, to say that all that is motionless and in a state of motion are both together ‘that which is’ and the all” (249c–d). 22. Thus, while there is ample leisure in the age of Cronus for philosophizing, that is, for investigating all the natures (Statesman 272c), there is no mind or memory to make such an investigation possible, and no desire to fuel it (272c–d; 274c). 23. See Statesman 270e: when human beings “grow” backward, “they get to be similar [to the nature of a new born child] both in terms of the soul and in terms of the body.” 24. “It is for this reason … that we set down the myth alongside him [the statesman]—in order that it might show [ parathemetha … hina endeixaito]” (Statesman 275b). 25. At Statesman 277e ff., the Stranger reminds young Socrates of how children first learn letters to spell. They first learn the spellings of short words, and then (with help) they can take those familiar spellings (combinations of letters) and lay them down beside longer words that seem complex, and notice the similarities (esp. 278a–b). 26. For example, we have experience of more knowledgeable and less knowledgeable individuals; from this we can hypothesize to the perfectly knowledgeable individual. 27. For example, Euthyphro 6a; Laws 672b–c.