This unique collection of essays presents various aspects of Platos views on art and beauty, not only in the Republic but in the Ion, Phaedrus, Symposium, Laws and related dialogues. The selection aims to address a representative range of issues including the moral status of music and visual art, the allure of artistic and sensual beauty, censorship, the relations between aesthetic and moral emotions, truth and deception in art, and the contest between philosophy and poetry. The essays are not exclusively interpretive, although some (such as those by G. R. F. Ferrari, Jessica Moss and C. D. C. Reeve) are close scholarly readings of specific dialogues. Others authors, including M. F. Burnyeat and Stephen Halliwell, aim to locate Platos thinking on art and beauty within wider controversies in ethics, politics and aesthetics. A common thread uniting them is their appreciation of the extent to which certain of Platos texts are contributions to aesthetic and moral psychology, as much as exercises in metaphysics and epistemology.
Preface Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Abbreviations Editors Introduction PART I: WHY CENSOR THE ARTISTS? UNDERSTANDING PLATOS QUARREL From The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists; I.Murdoch Plato and the Mass Media; A.Nehamas Art and Mimesis in Platos Republic; M.F.Burnyeat PART II: ART AND BEAUTY: BEFORE AND BEYOND REPUBLIC X Platos Early Aesthetics: The Hippias Major; D.Sider A Divinity Moving You: Inspiration and Knowledge in the Ion; D.Barchana-Lorand The Philosophers Antidote; G.R.F.Ferrari Plato on Tragic and Comic Pleasures; P.Destree Plato on Begetting in Beauty; C.D.C.Reeve Beyond the Mirror of Nature: Platos Ethics of Visual Form; S.Halliwell Art and Ethical Perspective: Notes on the Kalon in Platos Laws; J.Moss Index