Plato's Republic

2 Pages 457 Words

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus build and imaginary city. When deciding how to implement this city they realize that they must start with the children. They discuss how the children should be educated through muses, or music, and gymnastics. This leads them to discuss musicians and painters. Socrates discusses a theory of forms which states that the physical aspect of something is a particular, like human beings. But, what it is to be something is its form.
In Book X of the Republic, Socrates said, “the painter, we say, will paint for us a shoemaker, a carpenter, and other craftsmen, although he doesn’t understand the arts of any one of them” (598c). Socrates claims that painters have no understanding of the form or what it is to be a good shoemaker. The ontological criticism of this would be that all painters do is create an image that is three times removed from the form. When a painter paints an object he paints the particular, or what he sees. The epistemological criticism of Socrates’ statement is that image-makers tend to not know the form. For example if a painter were to paint a shoemaker performing his craft of shoemaking he may capture a shoemaker who isn’t very good at his craft or paint a step not need in the shoemaking process.
But, in Book V Socrates suggests that it may be possible for an image-maker to create an image close to the true form. He said, “Do you suppose a painter is any less good who draws a pattern of what the fairest human being would believe and renders everything in the picture adequately, but can’t prove that it’s also possible that such a man come into being”(472d). This suggests that it may be possible for a painter to paint almost perfect forms. If a painter were to paint a man more beautiful than he actually was then he would have painted the man closer to the form of beauty. He would have erased any imperfections of the particular and ...