Making vs. Discovery: Art vs. Philosophy?

Plato’s attack on art, particularly on poetry, is obvious on his dialogue, Republic, wherein he stated that it is third from the truth (will be discussed later). His line stating that there is a “quarrel between philosophy and poetry” (607b5-6) apparently discriminates poetry. However absurd it may seem, Plato himself wrote poetically. His works are in form of dialogues that narrates a number of allegories and myths.

In defense, it may be argued that Plato wrote in this manner in order to better persuade the readers. He probably wanted to remain loyal to the philosophical inquiry, which made him narrate what happened in the form of dialogues and not in the form of treatises. However, it would again seem absurd that he, who was attacking poetry and/or art for being imitative, wrote of dialogues that are themselves imitations of the philosophical inquiries. If pure philosophizing is not about reiterating, and rather searching for the truth, then Plato’s method could be considered as the negation of pure philosophizing. This may be the reason why Socrates, if he really existed, wrote nothing.

In order to understand Plato’s remark regarding the “quarrel”, we have to understand what he meant by poetry. Would his critique on poetry apply only to Homer’s works? Or would it also apply to William Shakespeare’s, to Edgar Allan Poe’s or to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s? Would it apply to the works of the modern day poets who consider themselves as lovers of both philosophy and literature? If we are to examine clearly Plato’s philosophy, we could say that this quarrel is not restricted to the battle between philosophy and poetry per se, but could also be extended to the battle between philosophy and other forms of art.
Plato is not saying that poetry is contradictory with philosophy simply because it is poetry. One reason why Plato was against poetry is probably because it is a form of rhetoric. So the quarrel is not just about the professional jealousy between the philosophers and poets of the ancient times. If there was a professional jealousy, it must be between philosophers and sophists. It just so happened that there were poets that Plato considered as sophists.

Rhetoric, which refers to the persuasive use of language to influence the thoughts of the audience, has been often disapproved by those who consider themselves as lovers of philosophy. Rhetoric is mere persuasion. Often times, it is insincere. To better understand this, consider as an example the art of debating. I call debate as an art as it needs skills and cleverness more than knowledge (in Plato’s terms, skills and cleverness are to art, while knowledge is to philosophy). In debate, the debater must persuade his audience and adjudicators through defending his side of the house (or his position) whether he believes it or not. In a debate tournament, you do not search for truth. Defending a position in debate does not necessarily mean defending one’s own view. Debaters defend their position because they want their house to win, not because they believe the position. Though argumentation is important in a debate tournament, this sort of argumentation is used only to support an already existing claim, not in order to search for truth. The “ability to argue well” in a debate, if we will speak in Plato’s (or Socrates’) terms, is not part of philosophizing. It is a part of persuading, or of rhetoric. This is one contemporary example of the quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric.