Book contents
- Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy
- Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Republic
- Chapter 1 Plato on why mathematics is good for the soul
- Chapter 2 Long walk to wisdom
- Chapter 3 The truth of tripartition
- Chapter 4 Plato and the dairy-maids: the distribution of happiness inside and outside the ideal city of the Republic
- Chapter 5 Justice writ large and small in Republic IV
- Chapter 6 Fathers and sons in Plato’s Republic and Philebus
- Chapter 7 By the Dog
- Chapter 8 Culture and Society in Plato’s Republic
- The total culture: material, moral, musical
- First glance ahead: the divided soul in book X
- A tale of two cities
- Historical interlude: Greek couches
- Self-reflections in the cave
- Two types of imitator
- Second glance ahead: the form of couch in book X
- Modern analogies
- Plato’s programme
- Stage 1 of the reform: content
- Stage 2 of the reform: mimesis and the manner of performance
- Poetry and politics
- Stage 3 of the reform: musical technique
- Stage 4 of the reform: the material and social setting
- Retrospect on the reform in books II–III
- The reform resumed in book x: Homer as the first tragedian
- Does book X ban more mimesis than book III?
- Understanding mimesis
- Is book X’s concept of mimesis different from book III’s?
- The painted carpenter
- The poet’s knowledge
- The poet as maker
- The poet as painter
- The honeyed muse
- Back to the divided soul
- Chapter 8a Lecture I. Couches, song, and civic tradition
- Chapter 8b Lecture II. Art and the menace of mimesis
- Chapter 8c Lecture III. Farewell to Homer and the honeyed muse
- Part II The past in the present
- Appendix: The archaeology of feeling
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
Chapter 8a - Lecture I. Couches, song, and civic tradition
from Chapter 8 - Culture and Society in Plato’s Republic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2022
- Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy
- Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Republic
- Chapter 1 Plato on why mathematics is good for the soul
- Chapter 2 Long walk to wisdom
- Chapter 3 The truth of tripartition
- Chapter 4 Plato and the dairy-maids: the distribution of happiness inside and outside the ideal city of the Republic
- Chapter 5 Justice writ large and small in Republic IV
- Chapter 6 Fathers and sons in Plato’s Republic and Philebus
- Chapter 7 By the Dog
- Chapter 8 Culture and Society in Plato’s Republic
- The total culture: material, moral, musical
- First glance ahead: the divided soul in book X
- A tale of two cities
- Historical interlude: Greek couches
- Self-reflections in the cave
- Two types of imitator
- Second glance ahead: the form of couch in book X
- Modern analogies
- Plato’s programme
- Stage 1 of the reform: content
- Stage 2 of the reform: mimesis and the manner of performance
- Poetry and politics
- Stage 3 of the reform: musical technique
- Stage 4 of the reform: the material and social setting
- Retrospect on the reform in books II–III
- The reform resumed in book x: Homer as the first tragedian
- Does book X ban more mimesis than book III?
- Understanding mimesis
- Is book X’s concept of mimesis different from book III’s?
- The painted carpenter
- The poet’s knowledge
- The poet as maker
- The poet as painter
- The honeyed muse
- Back to the divided soul
- Chapter 8a Lecture I. Couches, song, and civic tradition
- Chapter 8b Lecture II. Art and the menace of mimesis
- Chapter 8c Lecture III. Farewell to Homer and the honeyed muse
- Part II The past in the present
- Appendix: The archaeology of feeling
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
Summary
A wide-ranging study of Plato’s treatment in the Republic of the forms and institutions of a society’s culture (anthropologically understood), and the way culture shapes character through its operation, often gradual and imperceptible, upon the soul. Topics discussed in detail include Book X’s account of the structures within the human soul that Plato identifies in describing and explaining the way culture impacts upon it; Book II’s account of the first ‘economic’ city and its successor, the city of luxury, with special attention to the use of couches in the ancient Greek’s conception and practice of the key cultural practice of civilised feasting; the puppets and the puppeteers in the Cave analogy of Book VII, interpreted as symbolising the role of cultural products and their creators in shaping human susceptibility to cultural formation; and Book X’s discussion of the ontological status both of cultural products as indirect imitations of Forms, and of those Forms themselves, particularly considered as the paradigms upon which a more soundly based culture might be modelled.
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- Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy , pp. 154 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022