As it is explained in The Republic: Book X it is said that Plato would remove artist from his “Perfect world” due to their inability to “Explain or to show and merely imitate the Truth” the true idea of an object or push people away from the “truth”. An example is beds, there are different types of beds in the world like king size, quean size, twin size, bunkbeds, etc. But there is only one type / idea of a bed, he says that artist can’t replicate / express the idea / truth. Art doesn’t belong in his hierarchical scheme of reality; he feels that art and artists only make a copy of the truth. People who consumes these arts are being depraved of the truth and the artist aren’t interested in reality. Art deceives in the way that the artist hasn’t experienced these truths thus are merely deceiving us. His example is that Homer hasn’t experience the truth of being courage like Achilles thus he is unfit to provide an imitation of the truth. This makes us weak when real truth come to us, the art has betrayed us. That the art has trained us the wrong way, when real conflict and tragedy comes a’ knocking we would be unable to handle it. I do not agree with this criticism, art can be good. The story’s that these artists can present can inspire people to be brave, smart, to have courage, and to be kind. Many people may have accepted these artist “ideas” of as fact, but many were able to act accordingly learn the “truth” like the way that Plato wanted but with help with these artists like Homer with ideas of their “false truths”. So, no I don’t agree with Plato’s criticism on the value of the arts and their “false truths”.
Pedro's blog 