The History of Philosophical Ideas and Their Expression in Art - страница 4

While the Sophists were skeptical of the possibility of knowing the truth about reality and turned from the pursuit of knowledge to the practice of Rhetoric trying to persuade people by non-logical means, Socrates, on the contrary, was interested in the cultivation of souls and developed his own method of achieving this result which was called Dialectic. The way in which Dialectic uncovers the truth is very much like the way in which we recollect something. And the object of knowledge is not the world of Particulars (the world of time and change), but rather the reality of Forms, the first patterns that everything else follows.

In “The Symposium” Plato suggests that since Forms are universal an unchangeable and Particulars are always changing and temporal, we should distinguish between the essence of the Ideal Beauty which could be grasped only “with the eye of the mind” and particular beautiful things. We should “begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is”.

Earthly life ought to be harmoniously ordered and unified following the example of the Cosmos, including a human individual who is a microcosm, a part of the whole. Society should encourage the development of the capacity of mind to love and know the ideal order, especially when the training of heroes is concerned. Socrates asks in “The Republic” – “And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort? – and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul. True. Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards? By all means”. Besides, Plato writes that “musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar”. And yet, adding that “the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish”, he excludes harmonies expressive of sorrow (Lydian), softness and indolence (Ionian) from the educational process and advises to use Dorian and Phrygian harmonies since they stimulate courage and temperance.

Aristotle is a follower of Plato and he is also quite critical of Plato. For instance, Plato believes that Art should imitate transcendent Forms, hence Art that imitates Particulars is twice removed from Reality. As far as Aristotle is concerned, Art is not an imitation of Forms but a representation of life and characters with their emotions and actions. And a good tragedy must be such as to produce Catharsis “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions” (“Poetics”).