Stephen asked:

Why does Plato propose such strict censorship of the arts? can his view be justified?

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To understand Plato's aesthetics fully you need to understand his metaphysics as set out in The
Republic.But there is an earlier dialogue Ionin which he also expresses doubts about the arts
without the metaphysical baggage of The Republic.

According to the outcome of Socrates' argument in Ion,artists must possess, according to Plato, the
skill of mimesisor 'imitation'. They do not, significantly for Plato's general philosophical position,
possess understanding or knowledge. Just because a poet knows how to write a character who is a
great soldier, for example, does not mean that the poet would make a good soldier himself. So
possessing the skill of mimesis is not to possess true understanding. It is just a skill which allows the
artists to imitate or emulate realistically certain aspects of life.

Plato takes this further in The Republic(Books II and X) All art, qua mimesis, is criticised because it is
the creation of mere appearances that fall short even of sensible reality, thus twice removed from the
transcendent truth of the plane of the Forms posited by Plato's metaphysics. Yet art is insidious
because it has the power to bewitch the soul and compel strong and decadent emotions from those
whom it affects. On Plato's model of the soul, art is to be analysed as the subversion of the control of
reason by the arousal of the passions. Therefore art must be censored because Plato's ideal city
could not function in the way he wants if the rational faculties of its citizens were to be so subverted.

The arts appeal to the lower, inferior part of the soul. While susceptibility to illusion is a natural human
weakness, imitations are at the furthest remove from objects of knowledge (forms), They also
distance us from the faculty by which we come to know those objects (reason). However, Plato is
ultimately ambivalent in his attitude to art, not least by the evidence of Plato's own activity as an artist
and writer of dialogues which attest to the persuasive power of narrative and imagery.

Iris Murdoch's The Fire and the Sunis a more detailed account of Plato's position which you should
read. On the question of justification, we need to consider the relationship between art and ethics. If
you believe that art should only exist to make us morally better (as Plato certainly thought) then this
would be a justification for censorship. Plato's view was that virtue can only proceed from the
understanding, so the glorification of the tragic hero by a poet would not be conducive to moral
improvement. The thought that art is at a third removed from the reality of the forms, as Plato's
metaphysics suggest, puts Plato's position in hot water in my view. If you don't go along with his
metaphysics, it's difficult to maintain his view that art should be censored merely because it doesn't
have anything to say about the real world. But morally questioning the value and importance of art is,
I think, important for anybody with an interest in aesthetics.

Adam Gatward