Art: Inspiration or Knowledge

The Ion is one of the early works by Plato which is considered by the scholars as a Socratic dialogue not presenting the originally Platonic view based zealously on the theory of Forms. This dialogue is the only work by Plato which can be said to be dedicated completely to ‘aesthetics of art’. The typical idea of this work is the ‘divine inspiration’ as the essence of aesthetic production and experience. As it’s an early dialogue, divinity here should not be understood in a purely Platonic sense as can be found for example in Timaeus, but rather in a Socratic sense which is not so different from the popular mythologies believed by the Greek of the time and received a testimony from Socrates in the Apology.

In this paper a summary of this dialogue will be presented. I try only to highlight the lines of demonstration avoiding the dialectical aspects.


1. Rhapsody

Plato in this dialogue took rhapsody as his case-study though several passages assure us that he has taken rhapsody as a representative of all kinds of per-formative arts like dance and musical or dramatic plays; therefore whatever is assigned to the rhapsody in this dialogue, can be applied to all kinds of per-formative art . But I think it will be illuminative if we know what rhapsody meant in the ancient Greece. Rhapsody has derived from the Greek word ‘rhapsodia’ (ραψωδια) which is related to the verb ‘rhapsodein’ (ραψωδειν) which means ‘to stitch’. The Greek writer Pindar (522-443 BC) defines the word as “the singer of stitched verses”. The Ion by itself is the most informative source about the word. According to the dialogue and the other original sources a rhapsodist was a man who professionally recited a selection of an epic in public assemblies. Some times that recitation was accompanied by songs and some interpretations. The rhapsodist usually had a staff in his hand which was used to perform some dramatic acts. Hence, rhapsody can be considered as one of the most primary forms of dramatic performance. There were several poets loved by the rhapsodist to be taken as the source of the act among which Homer and Hesiod were the most famous. Probably, rhapsody was a more active and dramatic version of what now is known as ‘declamation’.

According to Plato it was widely believed that it’s not enough for a rhapsodist to “merely learn the [poet’s] words by rote… and no man can be rhapsodists who dose not understand the meaning of the poet.” Therefore the rhapsody is something in association with both poetic form and poetic content. The question whether content is something to be conveyed or merely an aid for performing the form is not discussed by Plato.

There is a claimed phenomenon insisted throughout the dialogue and taken at several points as the premise of demonstrations: ‘there are some rhapsodists who are able only to perform the epics of a particular poet.’ Ion, the only opponent of Socrates in this dialogue after whom the dialogue has been named, is one of these rhapsodists though he is one of the best performers in this art. The dialogue starts with an attempt to find an explanation for this phenomenon. It’s remarkable that validity of this claim is not challenged in the dialogue.


2. Art is not Based on Knowledge!

Ion would be able to perform the epics of all poets if his art was based on his knowledge and as he is not able, it’s proved that his art is not a manifestation of knowledge. Suppose his art is based on his knowledge. The immediate question is that what the object of that knowledge is. Here, Plato makes a light distinction between the aesthetic form and the content by suggesting two possibilities for the object of this knowledge. If it is the aesthetic form which is known by the rhapsodist, as form according to Plato is a general and universal aspect of the object, any knowledge of the aesthetic forms should be knowledge of the ‘general rules of art’ which can be applied to all epics of all poets equally. Even if some of these poems are not following these general rules (which makes them bad poems), at least the rhapsodist by the means of his professional knowledge should be able to take the part of a critic to state aesthetic judgments showing disadvantages of those poems; while Ion, though being the best rhapsodist is not able to do that. On the other hand, if the object of the rhapsodist’s knowledge is the content or -as Plato prefers- the subject and the theme of the poem, the following difficulties will be faced: a) the poets who have composed on a common theme and subject like love or war should be equally the subject of the rhapsodist’s skill; while in the case of Ion, obviously it is not true and he is skillful to perform only the Homeric verses though those verses some times are of the same subject as the Hesiod’s epics; b) the people who are the most knowledgeable regarding the themes of a poem should be the best rhapsodist for performing that poem; for example, a successful general should be able to perform the verses of Homer which describe the field of battle; while obviously it is not the case; c) likewise a rhapsodist who is able to perform the warlike verses, usually doesn’t know how to fight. Therefore, as neither the aesthetic form nor the subject or theme can be the object of the rhapsodist’s knowledge, his art cannot be based on his knowledge.


3. Inspiration and its Mechanism

If art is not based on knowledge, what is its basis? Plato’s suggestion is ‘inspiration’ or ‘being possessed’ . The rhapsodist is inspired by a particular or some particular poets so that the relationship between the rhapsodist and the poet is not a rational relationship and therefore there is no generality considered in this case. Inspiration, unlike knowledge, is a particular-based relationship. Ion cannot perform the poems by a poet other than Homer, simply because he is possessed by Homer through a kind of inspiration. Plato is so pleased by this suggestion that he likes to apply it to all artistic activities. He forms a chain of successive inspirations: a god (specifically a Muse ) inspires a poet; the poet inspires a rhapsodist and the rhapsodist inspires the auditors. It is a pattern which can be applied to all per-formative arts:

god  composer  performer  appreciator

It is a divine chain which is formed by a god to convey his meaning to the appreciators and the media, the composer and the performer, are used only as the god’s instruments without admitting any dispositional virtue like that which is found in the case of knowledge. In order to explain this fact, Plato proposes an allegory around the magnet stone: “This stone not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a similar power of attracting other rings; and sometimes you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another so as to form quite a long chain: and all of them derive their power of suspension from the original stone. In like manner the Muse first of all inspires men herself; and from these inspired persons a chain of other persons is suspended, who take the inspiration.” A piece of iron is magnetic only as long as it is in a chain which ends to a magnet stone. Likewise, a composer or a performer is able to effect and inspire the others only as long as he is inspired in his own turn by a chain which has been already inspired by a god. In this allegory the magnet stone stands for the inspiring god.

Though there is no direct mention by Plato to the psychological mechanism of inspiration, the clues which he has given enable us to reconstruct the following pattern for its stages:

Absorption  Imagination  Emotion

This pattern equally may be applied to the composer, performer and appreciator; it means these three stages occur to all of them while they are engaged with the artistic performance or production . In fact, the end of inspiration which is to be handed over by the composer to the performer and by the performer to the appreciator is provocation of emotions. This miraculous process assures the appreciator that the massage which is conveyed through art has a divine source but Plato never mentions what the god’s intention of contacting human through art is .

Once in the dialogue, Plato compares the poet and the rhapsodist with a prophet who is possessed by a god to speak on behalf of the god and as a prophet at the time of prophecy should be void of his own mind resigning his soul completely to the god, the stages of inspiration also deserve the artist to be out of his ordinary rationality entering the realm of madness or being ‘mainomenos’ (μαινομενος). Of course, in the presence of a healthy and rational mind, no absorptive imagination is possible .


4. Conclusion: Plato’s Love-Hate Approach to Art

Plato’s approach to art seems controversial. This controversy never disappears in various dialogues in which Plato mentions the status of art and artist in his semi-ideological philosophy. Obviously, according to him, art is not a virtue, because all virtues finally refer to knowledge while art is not based on knowledge. But on other hand, art though not virtuous is divine and consequently holy. Here, controversially holiness and virtue are distinguished. I have doubt this distinction how much can be supported by the other dialogues. If this distinction is authentic and not merely accidental, the distance between holiness and virtuous can show a basic distance between religion on one side and ethics and philosophy on the other side and again it can suggest a distinction between divinity and reason; a distinction between art as a language applied by religion and dialectic as a language applied by reason. This development of Plato seems consistent with the Greek culture in which mythology is the language of religion as well as the material of poetry; while philosophy started existing just as the mind of philosopher wished to make distance from the mythological accounts of human and his world. Art seems to be invalid because it has come out of madness and at the same time too valid because that is delivering a divine message. In the Platonic ontological cosmology gods are standing some where between the inferior world and the Ideal world just as chest which is the place of emotions is placed between belly and head. It can imply the association of gods and emotions .

All these provide a love-hate approach which Plato started from the Ion. This approach most radically appears when he anoints the poet, crowns him and expels him from the Republic.


The End