Writers of the Material or Immaterial World

An Interpretation of Plato’s Banning of the Poets in Republic X

Henry Whittlesey (Schroeder)

[Abstract on relevance to perypatetik project: 

This paper argues that Plato’s ban on poets in the ideal city (kallipolis) would only apply to materialist poets or writers. Metaphysical ones would be admitted. This position is consistent with our belief that literary fiction writers today are overwhelmingly appealing to the base instincts of humankind for their own success – exactly why Plato wanted to ban them. However, then as now, there are other writers looming in the wings. They remain true to Plato’s ideal and would be admitted for their distillation and representation of the essence of being.]

 

Introduction

“If the poetry that aims at pleasure and imitation has any argument to bring forward that proves it ought to have a place in a well-governed city, we would be glad to admit it” (607c), Socrates says to Glaucon after explaining the reason why such poets should be banned. The intent of this paper is to argue that Plato’s ban on poets has merits in regard to the popular poets he criticizes, but fails to consider differences between types of poets (hereinafter also: writers). If he had conceived of a distinction between writers as popular writers of the material world on the one hand and philosophical writers orienting on the immaterial world, especially, the mind, on the other, he would have banned the former and admitted the later.

This paper commences, in section one, with a reconstruction of Plato’s objection to (popular) writers. The second section examines a potential ambiguity in the word writer as a segue to arguments in support of the thesis that material writers should be distinguished from immaterial ones. In section three, some objections to the dual interpretation of writers are considered. Finally, the paper closes with rebuttals to these objections and the fallacies they reflect.

1. Reconstruction of Plato’s argument

Socrates argues that poets are imitators of the worst sort, people who produce something that is “third from the natural one” (597e). The creator or inventor[1] of the form of something like a bed is first, the “real or natural maker” of, e.g., the “being of a bed” (597c-e): “Now, the god…didn’t make more than one bed in nature, but only one, the very one that is the being of a bed” (597c). What god created is followed by imitators such as artisans who produce many different kinds of beds (597a) second from the natural one (597b). Finally, we have artists, broadly defined, who imitate what the artisan has made (597b). Furthermore, the artist represents these depicted things as they appear rather than as they are because, e.g., a bed appears different depending on what side you look at it from (598a-c). Analogously, Homer and other poetic imitators, according to Socrates, are only capable of imitating images of virtue and other things without grasping the truth (600e). Unlike the artisan, the imitator also does not receive any feedback on the quality, use, functionality, etc. of their products (602a). In addition, it is highly likely that the poetic imitator has a false grasp of a person’s divided soul: On the one hand, there is the (superior) rational part of the soul that calculates, measures and weighs (602e); on the other, there is the inferior part, which might think that a bed viewed up close is a different size than a bed viewed at a distance (602c). What is necessary, Socrates argues, is that we deliberate, using the rational part of the soul, and eschew the appearance-influenced part (604c). This approach is critical for us to appropriately handle grief, misfortunes, bad luck, etc. (604c). Unfortunately, a poet does exactly the reverse in his work: “…he produces work that is inferior with respect to truth and that appeals to a part of the soul that is similarly inferior rather than to the best part…; he arouses, nourishes, and strengthens this part of the soul and so destroys the rational one” (605a-b).

2. Distinguishing between popular writers of material world and philosophical writers of immaterial world

2.1 The market and material/immaterial world distinction

Two assumptions underlie Plato’s conception of a writer: i) they are dependent on the “market” and therefore must cater to it, and, more saliently, ii) their imitation is directed at the material world.

2.1.1 A writer’s dependency on the market

On the first point, Socrates argues that a poet cannot help with the desired strengthening of the rational part of the soul, as a philosopher does, because he wants to be popular. A poet is unable to produce a “rational and quiet character” because that type would be difficult to understand and alien to the audience (604e-605a).[2] Consequently, such poets produce entertaining work that appeals to the audience’s inferior instincts.

Underlying this analysis is the assumption that a writer needs income from their work, which is achieved by popularity. Such popularity, in turn, as Socrates criticizes above, comes at the expense of reason because audiences want entertainment, pleasure, drama (especially in light of the public nature of the author-audience relationship). However, with the advent of the novel, the public presentation of writing shifts to a private environment – namely, the home, for the most part. The now personal nature of reading may not eliminate a desire for the excitable in works of literature, but it facilitates other approaches to narrative such as moral, educational (coming-of-age novel, Bildungsroman), social, psychological ones. These non-entertaining stories tend to combine drama with deliberative content, thereby preserving an original feature of the poetry of imitation (possibly with consideration given to a reader sitting in a drawing room with others after supper), while integrating elements suited for a person reading alone by the fireplace and reflecting (such as Ralph in Indiana[3]). At the latest in the nineteenth century, writers also increasingly considered the diverse minds of characters, demanding deliberation (rather than indulgence), and in the twentieth century, especially in postmodern novels, the idea of entertainment largely disappeared from critically-acclaimed novels. Accordingly, the popularity of a writer ceased to be tied exclusively to entertainment value.

2.1.2 Writers’ imitating the material (rather than immaterial) world

In terms of the second issue, namely, the type of imitation, Socrates’ arguments ignore the possibility that especially a non-performing philosophical writer has a choice to imitate the material or immaterial world, and that a writer imitating the immaterial world or mind[4] would attenuate his critique of three primary objections to including them in the ideal city: i) third-from-the-original imitation or lack of genuine knowledge, ii) appearances deceive, iii) inferior part of soul is used/encouraged.

On the first matter (the choice to imitate the material or immaterial world), it was the convention at Plato’s time and for centuries thereafter for writers to depict what they and their readers encountered on the basis of sense-experience. Narratives from Homer in Ancient Greece all the way to Richardson, Scott, early Goethe, Karamzin, and Pushkin in 18^th-century Europe – to name but a few – almost universally and without exception disregarded consciousness, thought or what I am referring to as the mind (in its ambiguous position between the brain and the spirit). Omniscient narrators moved characters through scenes and events like puppets. Narration and discourse were the sole modes of storytelling, largely without thought being represented in either discourse or governed indirect discourse (formulations with inquit phrases such as “she thought that,” “he felt that…”). The diegesis focused on the events and the characters interactions with each other over the course of the plot. In this context, a non-performing philosophical writer still effectively imitated the material world or an imagined world – if events unfolded in the realm of gods (e.g., The Divine Comedy) – derived from the material, sense-experienced world of earth. The mind, i.e., consciousness and thoughts, had still not become a domain worthy of representation.

In the nineteenth century, arguably beginning with Jane Austen in England (especially Sense and Sensibility) and later Wolfgang Goethe in Germany (Elective Affinities), the representations of the mind began to assume an increasingly large place in narratives through various forms of discourse (governed indirect discourse, free indirect discourse/narrated monologue, and direct discourse). Plato/Socrates did not anticipate this development or even the possibility in The Republic. The representation of the mind in fiction shifts the argument Socrates is making and precludes some of his primary objections to writers and their imitation, as we will examine in the following section.

2.2 Why Plato would accommodate literary writers of the immaterial world or mind/spirit/nous

Plato conceived of only one type of writer or poet in his criticism of their imitation. It may or may not be plausible to ban the market-based poets with material imitation whom Plato describes, but Plato himself would surely have welcomed writers attempting to represent the mind or nous for three reasons: i) the mind is not present in the material world so the writer is second from the original and capable of genuine knowledge; ii) there can be no deceiving by appearances; iii) the representation of the mind by a philosophical writer is defined by reason.

2.2.1 Genuine knowledge of the mind

When the writer represents the mind, they are at worst similar to an artisan (rather than painter (597b)) in imitation because there is no original of the mind that has been replicated by an artisan and is present in the world for the writer to (mis)represent with inauthentic knowledge (597b). One of Socrates’ fundamental objections is that the poet or painter is imitating an imitation (by an artisan) of an original (created by a god) and has no authentic knowledge of the product as a result. Since there is no imitation of the mind by an artisan, the writer’s representation of the mind is second from the original. As we will explore in section 2.2.2 below, the writer’s representation of the mind will be negotiated with readers just as users of beds participate in determining the best beds. A representation of the mind that resonates over time with readers will establish a canon of classics determining the best, retroactively establishing the genuine knowledge the writer had of the mind.

2.2.2 The mind permits only various appearances

Just as artisans design different kinds of beds on the basis of the original (produced by a god), so too do writers assume exactly this function with respect to the mind. The artisan mediates between the perfection of the original (bed) and the various functions their imitation assumes for users. They then receive feedback on the quality, use, functionality, etc. of their products (602a). Again, with respect to the immaterial world of the mind, the writer representing it occupies the position of the artisan in the material world: If the writer’s representation is of value, useful, insightful or beneficial in some other capacity, they will be acknowledged and respected for what is taken to be an (immaterial) product close to the original.

There is no misrepresentation of the appearance of the mind in the sense of the painter replicating an artisan’s objects like a bed because the writer is second from the original, as we saw above in section 2.2.1. The success of the writer’s representation may depend on whether it accords with readers’ sense-experience, e.g., whether a mental state is reflected in the given behavior/expression or vice-versa.[5] It may also be bad. As such, again, the writer’s representation is analogous to the bedmaker who produces some beds that generate sales and others that do not. Some inner states are not expressed in behavior, and the latter may also deceive. Yet in each case, relative to a material object, the mind poses no greater risk of deceiving by appearances due to various angles of approach. There is no alternative with the mind – it can only and must be looked at from the various angles the writer has studied by analyzing their own mind and others for the characters in their books. The artisan looks at original material objects and imitates them to the best of their abilities; the writer delves into the immaterial mind and imitates it commensurately. Finally, an ideal city needs its citizens to understand these diverse minds, especially rational ones, beyond their own, which is facilitated by a novelist’s treatment of the topic in various guises, as explained below.

2.2.3 Representation defined by reason

The depicted mental states of protagonists in a literary work generally entail deliberation by readers due to the possibility of identification with one protagonist over another or judgement of a single protagonist against one’s own character and sense-experience. A few examples from classics in literary fiction should suffice to show how this process unfolds: In Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Marianne, the sensual or emotional character, has a breakdown when she realizes that Willoughby was being deceitful, whereas her sister Elinor, pragmatic and reasonable, remains stoic throughout her own romantic difficulties. A reader could view the mind of Marianne against her sister Elinor or against their own mind. If the reader is a romantic, they might identify with Marianne; if not then with Elinor. Alternatively, even a reader simply hoping to enjoy a good story would presumably compare the two sisters. As we saw in section 2.1.1 on the change in the literary market from entertainment to at least the possibility of deliberation, the exploration of the mind is facilitated by the potentially fulfilled condition of a person reading alone at home for non-entertainment reasons. When that is done and the author meets such a reader’s intellectual interest with a complex representation of characters, the faculty of reason will override the inferior desire for entertainment.

Authors depicting the mind in the 19th century seem to have recognized the potential for reason to animate their readers. Critically acclaimed writers in the era favored lead protagonists like Anne Elliot in Persuasion who is depicted as a rational, deliberative woman and ultimately finds happiness. If Anne Elliot is viewed in relation to passionate Anna Karenina, the eponymous protagonist of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, we see how a person guided by passion and lack of reason (Anna) encounters a tragic fate, while reasonable women are rewarded.[6] The same applies to men in Anna Karenina: Unreasonable Oblonsky has endless problems and chaos, whereas staid Levin ultimately arrives at a truth.

In such cases, the writer produces as many different kinds of minds as the artisan does beds, allowing the reader to witness the benefits of the rational part of the soul over the inferior emotional part. The works that have become part of the canon recount the lives of rational individuals in a better light than their irrational counterparts. The latter may be funnier, with their authors thereby appealing to the inferior instincts of readers as in the past, but the work as a whole arouses, nourishes and strengthens the reasonable part of the soul that Socrates considered so important. In the ideal city Socrates dreams of, writers of literary fiction depicting the mind make the importance of reason accessible to everyday individuals in a way that is elusive for academic philosophy: by representing it second from the original like philosophy, but enmeshed in the mind’s apprehension of daily sense-experience analogous to a reader’s own.

3. Objections

3.1 Objection to the market and material/immaterial distinction

3.1.1 To retain the attention of a novel reader, the writer must integrate drama, wallow in emotion, commiserate with the plight of less fortunate characters. Any rational guidance in the work will be marginal relative to the misfortune and often does not appear until the end. The philosophical writer of the mind engages in the same tricks as the popular writer of the material world.

3.1.2 The mind may not be visible in the physical world the way a bed is, but this makes it even more prone to Socrates’ concerns of inferior imitation and lack of knowledge. A writer must draw on an interpretive framework for their representation of the mind. The tripartite model of imitation i) god’s original form of the object, ii) artisan’s different kinds of objects, iii) painter’s imitation of those objects becomes i) the form of the mind, ii) the interpretative framework for the mind (e.g., psychological, biological, philosophical, etc.), iii) imitation of the academic interpretation in fiction. Consequently, the writer is still imitating third from the original. They still have no knowledge in the sense that they are repackaging theorists’ analyses of the immaterial or mental world.[7]

3.2 Objection to second-from-the-original writer or writer with genuine knowledge, no misrepresentation, reason in novel

3.2.1 If the metaphysical writer of the mind were indeed similar to the artisan making a bed or a philosopher interpreting the forms, then similar to these accredited professions, such a writer would have a following.[8] The consequent is denied here because philosophical writers of the mind do not have the quantity of acolytes as Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk have.[9] Consequently, the metaphysical writer is not like an artisan or maker of products/platforms.

3.2.2 The lack of misrepresentation in section 2.2 is not denied in the multi-realizability of mental states, but it is disputed that the representation of the mind is preferrable to that of a material object. On the contrary, a physical object may have many different appearances, but the mind will have an infinite number.

3.2.3 On the third point, the reason and deliberation that authors encourage of readers in their work, is conceded as an element, but one rendered nearly nugatory relative to the deluge of drama required to create an engaging narrative, as alluded to in section 3.1.1.

4. Conclusion ­– rebuttals to objections

4.1 Market and material/immaterial distinction

4.1.1 A bedmaker or philosopher must also integrate design, non-functional features and secondary or digressive elements in their productions.

4.1.2 Authors such as Jane Austen represented the mind without recourse to any theory; in fact, Austen is arguably the first author to widely use free indirect discourse or narrated monologue for thought in her novels, a development that preceded theory.[10] The proof that she knew the mind the way an artisan knows how to produce a bed is determined by the user. If the artisan makes a good bed because of his expertise, people buy and use it. Since readers still peruse the works of Jane Austen and critics continue to examine her representation of consciousness two hundred years after her death, her incorporation into the canon proves that she has the skill of the artisan, only, in her case, it is genuine knowledge of the mind.

4.2 Second-from-the-original writer or writer with genuine knowledge, no misrepresentation, reason in novel

4.2.1 The objection leveled is a classic case of the ad-hoc fallacy.[11] The criticism is not an objection to the argument, but to the person: The number of followers someone has says nothing about their argument. The followers might all be wrong.

4.2.2 Reminiscent of the straw man fallacy, the arguer distorts the argument to attack it more easily. The main point was to show that different minds can only be accessed through representation in literary works. It is not whether there are more possible representations of the mind than an object.

4.2.3 Finally, the objector missed the point of the discussion on reason and deliberation or created a red herring. The argument was that novels depict mental states encouraging readers to reflect on the benefits of reason. This premise was supported by examples, allowing for the conclusion that readers are encouraged to identify with reason. It does not matter, as the objector wants to claim, that sections reflecting irrationality may exceed in volume those of reason and deliberation.

Works cited

Primary literature

Plato. The Republic. Translated by Robin Waterfield. New York: Barnes and Nobels Books, 1996.

Secondary literature

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Austen, Jane. Persuasion. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

Cohn, Dorrit. Transparent Minds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.

Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

[1] A God, according to Socrates (597c).

[2] “if he’s to attain a good reputation with the majority of people, his cleverness is not directed to pleasing it [deliberation, reason, quietness]”

[3] by George Sand

[4] It does not matter whether mind here is interpreted as Nous or Daimonia or the mind more closely associated with modern-day Realist conceptions of it, i.e., a brain, albeit one supervened on by things such as understanding.

[5] This would represent the behaviorist position in the spirit of Ryle in philosophy of mind. See Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind.

[6] e.g., Anne, Elinor, Marianne when she comes to her sense, Kity after she becomes more reasonable following her breakdown, Natasha Rostova with age.

[7] And the appearances are on an even grander scale due to the lack of physical manifestation of the immaterial/mental.

[8] According to Socrates (599b, 600c).

[9] As measured by innumerable X followers.

[10] See Dorrit Cohn, Transparent Minds.

[11] This statement also applies in regard to Socrates’ argument in Republic X.