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Chapter 4 - Immersion and Corruption in Plato’s Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2021

Jonas Grethlein
Affiliation:
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany
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Summary

Plato is not only a key figure in the history of the aesthetics of deception; the focus of my study also permits us to reassess his criticism of poetry in the Republic. Chapter 4 examines how Plato takes seriously Gorgias’ playful entwinement of aesthetics with ethics and uses it to give new substance to the charges against poetry that Gorgias had deflated. For Plato, immersion is a central factor of the harm done by poets. After exploring his entanglement of aesthetic illusion with the corruption of the soul, I consider passages that seem to respond to Gorgias and help us capture the similarities and differences between the two thinkers. Finally, I contend that, while unanimously condemned by a broad alliance of scholars, Plato’s view of poetry is premised on an assessment of aesthetic experience that turns out to be valid when seen in the light of cognitive studies.

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The Ancient Aesthetics of Deception
The Ethics of Enchantment from Gorgias to Heliodorus
, pp. 75 - 106
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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