For over two thousand years, various philosophers have questioned the influence of art in our society. They have used abstract reasoning, human emotions, and logic to go beyond this world in the search for answers about arts' existence. For philosophers, art was not viewed for its own beauty, but rather for the question of how art and artists can help make our society more stable for the next generation. Plato, a Greek philosopher who lived during 420-348 B.C. in Athens, and Aristotle, Plato’s student who argued against his beliefs, have no exceptions to the steps they had to take in order to understand the purpose of art and artists. Though these two philosophers made marvelous discoveries about the existence of art, artists, and aesthetic experience, Plato has made his works more controversial than Aristotle. During the ancient times in Greece, Plato was the first human to document and criticize the existence of art and artists. He mentioned that human art was always in a form of a representation of something else. In one of Plato’s famous works, he demonstrates the idea of art is like an “imitation of nature” (Blocker 3). In other words, the purpose of art was to represent nature and nothing else. Art was not created for the sake of its own self nor was it created to appreciate its own beauty by any means. Instead, art, usually in forms of writings, paintings, or sculptures, was created to only to represent nature, Gods, emperors, families, or other important individuals. Furthermore, Plato had a very critical view towards the existence art in our society because art makes us more emotional, and our emotions lead to many errors about life. He believed it is our rational thinking, not our emotions or senses, which helps us und... ... middle of paper ... ...ed knowledge beyond ordinary people’s understandings. However, in some ways Aristotle did a better job than Plato. As a result, his ideas will continue to exist in this world for the generations yet to come. Works Cited Blocker, H. Gene., and Jennifer M. Jeffers. Contextualizing Aesthetics: from Plato to Lyotard. Belmont,CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1999. Print. Jones, David. "ARISTOTLE'S AESTHETICS." Rowan University. Ulbery Press, 19 Apr. 2007. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. Havelock, Eric. Views of Republic. Standford: Brooke Spencer, Jan.-Feb. 2003. PDF. Lingis, Alphonso. "Literary Reference Center - Powered by EBSCOhost." EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. Routledge, 02 Feb. 2004. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. Stecker, Robert. "The Journal of Aesthetic Education." Plato's Expression about Art 26.1 (1992): 1-122. Jstor. Ithaka, 7 June 1992. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.
Plato and Aristotle alike were two men who had ideas on ways to improve existing society. Plato, a political philosopher, was in the pursuit of philosophical truth (Hacker 114). Aristotle was concerned with the citizen and the design of political institutions (Hacker 114). They both had well thought out ideas and plans on how to build a better society. Both Aristotle and Plato have had a tremendous impact on political scientists of today. Aristotle helped to develop some democratic ideas. In conclusion these men were great thinkers. Their opinions on society and its functions were quite different, but they both had the same intention, to build a better way of life for the societies they lived in and for the societies that would come to be in the future.
To recall another relic of ancient Greece, Plato had strong opinions on artwork, even that which was created during his time. Plato believed tha...
The works of art from the Archaic Period, Classical Period, and Hellenic Period developed physically and mentally, and the study of their aesthetic differences from period to period allow for a decided contrast and comparability. This interpretation has had a profound effect on the art world and that continues even in today’s world. The importance of Greek sculptures is evident in the storytelling of the gods, the people, and the culture. We use these sculptures as a tool to go back into the past of the Greek people, letting us admire how far mankind has truly come, whether it is in art or intelligence. Generation after generation has been and will continue to be able to see for themselves the society, culture and uniqueness of these periods through the wonderful sculptures that came out of ancient
Plato has had a lot of influence on the philosophy that we have today. In this modern time we do not really have our own philosophy we are learning our philosophy from a guy that wrote it hundreds of years ago. It is really significant that we are still going with his thoughts on justice and things like that, but the ideas are a little old and not very well applied to the modern ways of life. I found this person who was writing about why Plato was wrong and she made some very good point in which the language and arguments make no sense and there really is no information there. “Plato takes forever to say anything, spinning what should be a single sentence into a page or more. This makes it very difficult to quote his argument directly so that
Plato vs. Aristotle How do we explain the world around us? How can we get to the truth? Plato and Aristotle began the quest to find the answers thousands of years ago. Amazingly, all of philosophy since that time can be described as only a rehashing of the original argument between Plato and Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle's doctrines contrast in the concepts of reality, knowledge at birth, and the mechanism to find the truth.
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance,” –Aristotle
We have two great philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. These are great men, whose ideas have not been forgotten over years. Although their thoughts of politics were similar, we find some discrepancies in their teachings. The ideas stem from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle. Plato based moral knowledge on abstract reason, while Aristotle grounded it on experience and tried to apply it more to concrete living. Both ways of life are well respected by many people today.
In The Republic, Plato uses many different aspects in Books II, III, and X including: art, literature, and music. These aspects play a huge part in the building of the “ideal city”. Plato includes what can and cannot be used and what is good and what is bad for the city. While building the city, everything is broken down and analyzed by Plato. Art as an imitation of real things, three types of imitation, the types of literature, art, and music allowed and not allowed in the city, and the impact of art on the people of the city will all be analyzed in this paper.
Many philosophers are well known for their stances or beliefs. One of the most well-known philosophers are Plato and Aristotle. Plato once being a pupil himself of Socrates found himself being a teacher to Aristotle. This is why both Plato and Aristotle cover most of the same issue topics and have direct contrasts on topics as well as similarities. Most of Plato and Aristotle comparisons can be found in their forms of “Problems of the universals” and Realism verse Idealism.
...died with Plato at his academy. Aristotle learned a great deal from Plato but was impressed with Plato idea of the significance of logical and critical thinking. Socrates was already working with Plato and eventually Aristotle joined them.
The word Philosophy comes from the Greek words of ‘philo’ meaning love and ‘sophos’ meaning wisdom (Philosophy). It is the pursuit for wisdom, to comprehend human behavior, nature and ultimately the meaning of life. Plato was the student of Socrates, influenced by his work, Plato aged to become a great philosopher himself; establishing his philosophy from that of his teacher. Aristotle was the student of Plato, and like his teacher, grew up to ground his philosophy from that of Plato. Although, both Plato and Aristotle criticized their teacher’s works, they were also influenced by them. Both Plato and Aristotle developed their own modes of knowledge acquisition; Plato’s Platonic Idealism and Aristotle’s Analytic Empiricism. In this paper, my objective is to identify the differences in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, which lead to the development of two contradictory modes of knowledge acquisition and their influence on succeeding thinkers.
Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato were two of the most influential and knowledgeable ancients in our history. Their contributions and dedication to science, language and politics are immensely valued centuries later. But while the two are highly praised for their works, they viewed several subjects entirely differently, particularly education practices, and human ethics and virtue.
The relationship between art and society: Mimesis as discussed in the works of Aristotle, Plato, Horace and Longinus The relationship between art and society in the works of Plato are based upon his idea of the world of eternal Forms. He believed that there is a world of eternal, absolute and immutable Forms (the world of the Ideal) and thought that this is proven by when man is faced with the appearance of anything in the material world, his mind is moved to a remembrance of the Idea or an absolute and immutable version of the thing he sees. It is this moment of recollection that he wonders about the contrast between the world of shadows and the world of the Ideal. It is in this moment of wondering that man struggles to reach the world of Forms through the use of reason. Anything then that does not serve reason is the enemy of man. Given this, it is only but logical that poetry should be eradicated from society. Poetry shifts man’s focus away from reason by presenting man with imitations of objects from the concrete world. Poetry, with its focus on mimesis or imitation, has no moral value. While Plato sees reality as a shadow of a realm of pure Ideas (which in turn is copied by art), Aristotle sees reality as a process of partially realized forms moving towards their ideal realizations. Given this idea by Aristotle, the mimetic quality of art is redefined as the duplication of the living process of nature and its need to reach its potential form.
First, Plato believed that ideas are the realist things in the world. What we see in our daily life is not reality; sense perceptions are only appearances. And appearances are unreliable material copies of the immaterial pure ideas. Thus to him the world of the ideas is reasonable and fixed and holds the truth. While the world of physical appearances is variable and irrational, and it only bears reality to the extent that it succeeds in capturing the idea. To live the best life that you can and to be happy and do good, as a person you have to strive to understand and imitate the ideas as best as you can. So, with this philosophy in mind we can understand why Plato considered art as just a mindless pleasure. He viewed art as just an imitation.
Plato believed art to be a form of communication on a metaphysical level. The modern western view of art appears to support his supposition in this regard. However, his student Aristotle felt that art was a reflection and invocation derived from the scientific forms of nature. Clearly, his ideology does not fit into the Ancient World’s artistic representations. As art evolves throughout history it intersects with Aristotle’s philosophy although not for many centuries will we begin to see his naturalistic/scientific theory evolve.