Based on Plato's allegory of the cave, the identity of the famous puppeteers is an unresolved que... more Based on Plato's allegory of the cave, the identity of the famous puppeteers is an unresolved question, therefore scholars tend to look for answers in different passages of the Republic. Book X identifies the puppeteers with the poets: it defines their activity, i.e. mimesis, as "shadow-painting" (skiagraphia - 602d), the imitation of an object's appearance (phantasia) or likeness (eidōlon). In this respect, the works of the imitative artist as the likenesses of the form's likenesses are only in the third place after the forms and copies of the forms. Plato returns later to the problem of image making in the Sophist. The more developed conception in the Sophist differentiates between likeness-making and appearance-making (the former creates likenesses according to the proportions of the paradigm, the latter creates mere appearances), furthermore, divine and human image-making. The dialogue concludes that the agent of the appearance-making (phantastikē) art uses him/herself (i.e. body and voice) as an instrument and - likewise in the Republic - does not know the imitated thing itself but is aware of his/her own ignorance. Nevertheless, this artist is not identified with the poet but with the sophist, who creates "man-made dreams" (266c) as the puppeteers in the allegory of the cave. In this essay, first, I outline the ontological structure of the allegory of the cave by the complex relationship of pictures; secondly, I seek the identity of the puppeteers in the Republic and the Sophist.
Based on Plato's allegory of the cave, the identity of the famous puppeteers is an unresolved que... more Based on Plato's allegory of the cave, the identity of the famous puppeteers is an unresolved question, therefore scholars tend to look for answers in different passages of the Republic. Book X identifies the puppeteers with the poets: it defines their activity, i.e. mimesis, as "shadow-painting" (skiagraphia - 602d), the imitation of an object's appearance (phantasia) or likeness (eidōlon). In this respect, the works of the imitative artist as the likenesses of the form's likenesses are only in the third place after the forms and copies of the forms. Plato returns later to the problem of image making in the Sophist. The more developed conception in the Sophist differentiates between likeness-making and appearance-making (the former creates likenesses according to the proportions of the paradigm, the latter creates mere appearances), furthermore, divine and human image-making. The dialogue concludes that the agent of the appearance-making (phantastikē) art uses him/herself (i.e. body and voice) as an instrument and - likewise in the Republic - does not know the imitated thing itself but is aware of his/her own ignorance. Nevertheless, this artist is not identified with the poet but with the sophist, who creates "man-made dreams" (266c) as the puppeteers in the allegory of the cave. In this essay, first, I outline the ontological structure of the allegory of the cave by the complex relationship of pictures; secondly, I seek the identity of the puppeteers in the Republic and the Sophist.
Uploads
Papers by Rosta Kosztasz