Ziomara asked:

I have been given the following essay question: "Explain the relation of Art and Virtue in the Platonic
Philosophy. Does this relation explain Socrates' attitude towards Ion?"

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Plato disapproved of art because he saw it as appealing to the emotions rather than to reason. You
can read his views on this in the RepublicBook X. Plato thought that all artists imitate reality and what
we understand "reality" to be is, for Plato, simply the empirical world which is the world of
appearances. So the artist, by imitating what is only appearance is very far removed from Platonic
reality which is the intellectual realm of reasoning and understanding. Virtue lies in the opposite
direction to art because it is a Form which relates to the Form Good. We only know what it is by
understanding, which we achieve by trying to clarify the concept. In pursuit of an understanding of
virtue, we use our intellectual faculties.

In Plato's dialogue Ion,Ion is not using his intellectual faculties but attempting to arouse emotions,
which Plato held to be the enemies of reason because emotions are irrational. Because Ion can only
talk about Homer, Socrates claims that he is not even skilled, but caught up in the frenzy created by
the inspiration and possession of one poet. Whilst Socrates is highly critical of the poet who is
possessed by a divine inspiration, he is even more critical of the rhapsode who is possessed by the
poet. The rhapsode is one step beyond the irrationality of the poet himself.

Socrates attitude to Ion reflects Plato's respect for rationality and the value of the search for
knowledge such as the nature of virtue. Plato does have some respect for skills. Rational knowledge
and skills are both valuable since in the acquisition of these, there are no irrational emotional
elements.

Rachel Browne