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Techn, Inspiration and Comedy in Platos Ion
FRANCO V. TRIVIGNOPhilosophy DepartmentMarquette University
PO Box 1881Milwaukee, WI 532011881, USA
[email protected]
The Ion portrays Socrates in dialogue about the nature of the
rhapsodictechn with Ion, a rhapsode or actor, who performs Homers
poetry bothin contests and for private audiences. Three related
interpretive difficultieshave confounded scholars. First, while
scholars seem to agree that Socratesmeans to target or attack
something, they have disagreed over what orwhom the real topic of
the dialogue is: the sophists, the poets, the author-ity of poets,
the criticism of poetry, the notion of poetical inspiration, andart
have all been suggested,1 but it is striking that the overt topic
of thedialogue, rhapsody, is hardly ever taken to be a serious
target. Second,scholars, noticing the comedic and playful tone of
the dialogue, in parti-cular, the comic ludicrousness of Ion,2 have
had trouble finding a seriousphilosophical point in it, with
earlier scholars going so far as to declarethe dialogue spurious.3
Third, to the extent that the dialogue offers anypositive views at
all, two wildly different and logically incompatible viewsof
rhapsody and poetry are given. Both views seem clearly inadequate.
In-itially, Socrates puts forth what I will call the technical
account of poeticcomposition and interpretation, which assumes that
both are fully rational
apeiron, vol. 45, pp. 283313Walter de Gruyter 2012 DOI
10.1515/apeiron-2012-0006
1 Flashar 1958 claims that the Ion concerns the sophists;
Tigerstedt 1969, poetry andthe notion of poetical inspiration;
Murray 1996, the authority of poets; LaDrire1951, the criticism of
poetry; and Dorter 1973, art. See LaDrire 1951, 269, forfurther
discussion of the various possible topics of the dialogue.
2 Murray 1996, 98, claims that Ion himself is so stupid that he
is not worth attacking;the real target of the dialogue must be
something other than this proverbially sillyrhapsode.
3 According to Murray 1996, 96, the debate largely in Germany
about the authen-ticity of the dialogue was begun by Goethe, who
saw the dialogue as little more thana satirical attack on a foolish
rhapsode. See also Tigerstedt 1969, 1820; Moore1974, 4214.
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and technical activities (530a533c). Then, reversing course
entirely, So-crates articulates what I will call the inspired
account, by which divineinspiration accounts for poetic composition
and interpretation (533d536d).4 Most scholars have taken one of
these to be Platos consideredview, but there is no consensus as to
which one it is. In this paper, I aimto resolve these interpretive
difficulties.
I formulate and critique the technical account in 1 and the
inspiredaccount in 2. I claim that these two models contradict each
other at al-most every level but what they share is the appeal to
an originatingauthority as the source of poetic truth. The rhapsode
Ion, in struggling toexplain the nature of his own expertise,
endorses each account in turn;through his discussion with Socrates,
both are shown to be inadequate andimportantly wrong. In short, I
claim that the dialogue endorses neithermodel. In 3, I argue that,
in the third section of the dialogue, throughthe problematic
analyses of several passages of Homer (536e539e), thedialogue
gestures at what I call the oracular account, which
incorporateselements of inspiration and technique but eschews the
need for an origi-nating authority. This alternative model is
anti-authoritative orientedtoward encouraging the active
intellectual engagement of the audience.
In 4, I argue that Plato depicts Ion as a laughable figure,
particularlyin the last section of the dialogue (539e542b), in
order to expose themoral danger of taking poetry as authoritative.
Thus, the comic portrayalhas a serious philosophical point, and, I
shall argue, Ions role as rhapsodeis a crucial aspect of it.5 By
letting us see Ion as a comic figure, Plato
4 Critics have panned Plato both for endorsing the technical
account and for endorsingthe inspired account, and for good reasons
which I shall lay out in 12. Somecommentators, especially the
Romantics, have found the inspired account congenial:see e.g.,
Schaper 1968, 358, 12034. On Shelleys Defense of Poetry, which
admiresand draws from the inspired account: see Murray 1996, 312;
Stern-Gillet 2004,192194. As several scholars have noticed, Shelley
does not seem to be aware ofSocrates irony in the passage: see
e.g., Haines 1997, 80. United in their opposition tothe Romantic
reading are Woodruff 1982; Pappas 1989; Stern-Gillet 2004.
5 Part of what makes the rhapsode important is his role as
mediator between the poetand the poets audience. Dorter 1973, 66,
claims that the rhapsode provides the dou-ble perspective of poet
and audience. I will not be claiming that the dialogue exclu-sively
targets rhapsody; this would be hard to justify because the
discipline of rhap-sody is parasitic on that of poetry. Indeed, I
claim that poets, poetry and a particularattitude towards poetry
are crucial targets as well. That there was a tradition of
rhap-sodic interpretation seems well established by Richardson
2006. Despite the certainaffinities between rhapsodic and sophistic
interpretation (see note 75 below), andthus the ways in which the
criticism of the former would also apply to the latter, Isee no
reason to see the sophists as standing behind Ion as Platos real
targets in thedialogue, as Flashar 1958 claims. For a judicious
refutation of Flashar, see Tigerstedt1969, 225.
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encourages us his audience both to reject Ion as model and to
use theIon itself, not as a fount of authoritative wisdom, but as
an invitation tophilosophical dialogue.
1 The Technical Account
At the very beginning of the dialogue, we discover that Ion must
be anexcellent rhapsode as he has just won first prize in a
festival contest. So-crates and Ion try to find an explanation for
Ions excellence by examiningthe skill for which he was rewarded,
namely rhapsody. Socrates lays thefoundation for the technical
account when he assumes that Ions rhapso-dic skill constitutes a
techn.6 He begins by ironically claiming to envy[the] rhapsodes for
[their] techn (530b56).7 As it emerges through theconversation, a
techn is a thorough, masterful knowledge of a specificfield that
can be taught to others and can be recognized, certified,
andrewarded.8 Ion and Socrates understand the rhapsodic techn to
compriseboth performance and critical evaluation (530c34).9 As
Socrates articu-lates the rhapsodic techn, the rhapsode:
must learn the poets thought (), not just his verses that is
enviable! Imean, no one would ever get to be a good rhapsode if he
didnt understand what ismeant () by the poet. A rhapsode must serve
as the interpreter () of
6 Techn can be translated as art, craft, skill, expertise, or
profession but I willleave it, and related terms like technits,
transliterated in this paper. See LSJ s.v. Onthe notion as employed
by Plato, see Roochnik 1996.
7 Socrates here clearly appeals to Ions self-conception as an
expert on Homer; later,when the inspired account is introduced,
Socrates again appeals to Ions sense of hisown wisdom. Socrates
irony here serves both to get Ion into the conversation and tobegin
to expose the latters claim to wisdom as fraudulent. Ion is, as I
will argue inthe last section, an imposter, or , a bombastic figure
from comedy whose pre-tensions to wisdom are exposed. On the
imposter, see note 81 below.
8 Roochnik 1996, 1.9 Dorter 1973, 68, seeks to translate
Socrates questions about exegesis into questions
about performance, a move I find hard to justify. He claims that
a separate field ofliterary criticism existed at that time. But
this neither precludes rhapsodes from enga-ging into critical
assessment of poetry nor justifies downplaying the critical role
ofthe rhapsode which both Ion and Socrates avow. See Richardson
2006, who arguesthat there was a separate field of Homeric
criticism, which included Ion and those hementions as rival
interpreters, Metrodorus of Lampsacus, Stesimbrotus of Thasos
andGlaucon (530c9d1). Further, there is nothing surprising about
the mixture of per-formance and criticism, especially given the
historical example of Aristophanes, whomay well be considered the
first literary critic. On Aristophanes as critic, see Grube1965,
2231.
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the thought of the poet for his audience. It is impossible to do
this well ()10
without knowing what the poet means. (530b8c5)11
On this account, the rhapsode is an interpreter, a : the word
isthe etymological ancestor of hermeneutics and derives from
Hermes, themessenger god.12 As an interpreter, the rhapsode must
transmit the poetsthought his message to the audience with as
little distortion as possi-ble. Thus, the thought intended by the
poet is a regulative ideal for therhapsodic techn.13 The rhapsodes
performance can be appraised on thebasis of how well it represents
the poets intentions.14
The rhapsodes critical interpretation involves both explaining
thethought of the poet and taking an evaluative stance toward it.
Accordingto Socrates, any techn will have [1] a determinate
subject-matter and [2]a unified method; the expert technician will
be able to employ the methodto the entire subject-matter. Ion seems
to agree with this characterizationof the rhapsodic techn as a
theory of poetic criticism, which enables himto assess the relative
merits of all poets.
When the content of poetry comes to the fore, both Socrates and
Iontreat Homer as though his poetry were explicitly didactic as a
wealth oftechnical information. They proceed as though the thought
of Homerwas constituted by an endorsement of the proper way to
execute technai,in other words, as if Homer thinks that we should
perform various activ-
10 The use of this word in the context of the technical account
is important for myinterpretation in 3 below. Within the parameters
of the technical account, can only mean well or correctly; it
almost never means beautifully. In the inspiredaccount, the reverse
is true. See LSJ s.v. . See note 44 below.
11 I translate as to mean here in order to provide a proper
object for the rhap-sodes understanding corresponding to the poets
thought. Socrates claims that therhapsode needs to do more than
just memorize the verse, i.e., know the words; hemust know what is
meant by them. See LSJ s.v. All translations of the Ion in
thispaper are from Woodruffs Hackett edition in Cooper 1997, with
slight alterations.
12 See LSJ s.v.13 One might claim that by introducing the
intentions of the author, I am either read-
ing too much into the text or translating as both thought and
intention.Both are perfectly acceptable translations of : see LSJ
s.v. The main point ofintroducing authorial intention in this
context is to emphasize what the technicalaccount emphasizes, i.e.,
the author as the independent creator of his poems. Thethoughts
underlying the verse are there because the author wants them to be
there;an interpretation is right because it coheres with how the
author wants his work tobe interpreted. There is no unintended
content, nor is there a more primordialsource of content.
14 The upshot of this approach is that it gives interpretation a
determinate goal andsome procedural guidelines. The downside is
that the authors intentions are notor-iously hard to reconstruct, a
problem that has prompted some literary theorists todeny that
authorial intention is at all relevant for understanding a
text.
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ities the way he describes and imitates them in his narrative.
This under-standing of the thought of the poet may seem very
peculiar to us fromthe perspective of a literate culture, but it
was not so for the Greeks in the5th century, who were still
emerging from an oral culture, in which impor-tant information was
precisely preserved in song.15 On this account, nocritical
interpretation could ever genuinely assess a passage of poetry
with-out knowledge of the techn it described. Only experts in the
relevant sub-jects would be so qualified. Socrates evokes the
possibility that two poetsmight have differing thoughts, for
example, about divination the art, ortechn, of decoding divine
messages:
S: Take all the passages where Homer and Hesiod speak of
divination (),both where they agree and disagree: who would explain
these better (),you or one of the good diviners?
I: One of the diviners. (531b37)
Poetry, then, is or can be true in an obvious sense, that is, it
can correctlydescribe the method of technical disciplines and
imitate them properly,i.e., to the satisfaction of the relevant
technician.16
Given the fact that rhapsody is parasitic on poetry, any account
of theformer will have implications for the latter. Indeed, on the
technical ac-count, poetry must itself be a techn.17 For, if the
rhapsodic techn givesone a method or procedure for interpretation,
there must be some discern-ible principles of poetic composition,
which inform or are informed bythis method. In other words, the
determinate subject matter must possessclear, discoverable
principles in order to account for the methods
generalapplicability. In short, poetry itself must be a unified
techn. There is an
15 As Havelock 1963, 3660, has demonstrated, oral cultures
depended on song for theretention of cultural knowledge, including
technical knowledge, and it is not implau-sible to think that, on
the cusp of moving from an oral to a literate culture,
therecontinued to persist a strong cultural assumption about the
role of poetry in societyas a source of wisdom, both cultural and
moral. On Homer as an encyclopedia, seeHavelock 1963, 6186.
Further, as Urmson 1982, 1334, has persuasively argued,the idea
that poetry is supposed to be edifying has found its defenders in
every era,and so Platos attack on them for failing in this regard
is still relevant today.
16 The word, , does not appear in this dialogue; however, is
implicated bythe notion of correctness as a standard for poetic
criticism. Dorter 1973, 71, claimsthat the conception of art as
imitation is clearly implicit in the Ion. Murray 1992,34, also sees
the notion as implicit in the dialogue, but for reasons that I do
not findpersuasive; in short, she thinks that the reason that Plato
treats the ideas of inspira-tion and separate in his dialogues is
that, for Plato, mimsis and inspirationare identical (46).
17 See Janaway 1995, 189, for an elegant reconstruction of the
argument, which dis-tinguishes between the critical- techn and the
object- techn.
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art of poetry as a whole, as Socrates contends in this section
(532c89).18Socrates supports this conclusion via an analogy with
the other fines arts: itis because sculpture (533a6b5) and painting
(532e5533a6) are technaithat critics are able make adequate
judgments about their relative merits.19
Let the above suffice as a sketch of the technical account. This
posi-tion is untenable for several reasons. First, as Ion protests
again and again,it fails to account for his excellence as a
rhapsode. Thus, Ion stands as acounterexample: he is good at
rhapsody, but he does not possess theknowledge that such excellence
would seem to imply. By his own admis-sion, Ion lacks familiarity
with and interest in all poets (531a14;533c48); indeed, he even
claims to doze off when other poets are dis-cussed (532c2). Thus he
does not possess knowledge of the alleged sub-ject-matter of the
rhapsodic techn (criterion [1] above). Nor does he pos-sess some
consistent means or criteria for deciding amongst these
poets(criterion [2] above). Rather, he simply declares without any
argumentat all Homers verse to be superior (531d611). Thus, he
fails to possess[2] a unified method applicable to the entire field
of poetry. Ion thus failsto possess the knowledge that would
qualify him to adjudicate amongstcompeting poets. As Socrates
argues, the ability to explain why one speakeron a topic is good
implies the ability to explain why others are bad, andvice versa
(531d532a). This is not necessarily decisive, however, becausethe
possibility of the rhapsodic techn ought not to hinge on a
singlecounterexample. Ion may be very lucky.
The second problem has to do with the viability of the
rhapsodictechn itself. It is not clear that the rhapsodic techn can
be said to have adeterminate subject-matter, i.e., it would fail
[1] above. If the rhapsodeneeds to be an expert in the topics
covered in poetry, and poetry deals witheverything, then the good
rhapsode would have to be an expert in every-thing. Put
differently, the rhapsodic techn has an indeterminate
subject-matter. Socrates own description of the subjects of poetry
confirms this:
Doesnt Homer mainly go through tales of war, and of how people
deal with eachother in society good and bad people, ordinary people
and craftsmen; how thegods deal with each other and men; what
happens to those in heaven and inHades; and the births of the gods
and heroes? (531c4d1)
18 . On the proper way to translate this claim, see Stern-Gillet
2004, 1845.
19 Socrates adduces, in addition, the examples of flute-playing,
cithara-playing and sing-ing as being structurally similar. This
has led some commentators, notably Dorter1973, 66, to see the Ion
as targeting the fine arts in general and Ion himself as
arepresentative of art. Since the overt content of the dialogue
concerns rhapsody andpoetry, I will restrict my own analysis to
these topics. Though I am sympathetic tomuch of what Dorter says,
it is not clear to me that such an extension of the scopeof the
dialogue is warranted.
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Homeric epic recreates the entire world and everything in it,
including themoral realm.20 If such is the subject-matter of
rhapsody, then it is notechn.
A third problem concerns the extension of this line of reasoning
tothe poet. The poet, then, would also have to be a kind of
universal expert,and this would seem to rule out the possibility
that there is a poetictechn. Now the passage seems to be more like
a reductio ad absurdum ofthe possibility of Ions rhapsodic
expertise: If Ion is an expert, then hewould possess the rhapsodic
techn. If there is a rhapsodic techn, then ithas [1] a determinate
subject matter and [2] a unified method. If it does,then the poetic
techn possesses [1] a determinate subject matter and [2] aunified
method. Actual poetry does not possess [1];21 therefore, there
canbe no rhapsodic techn. Because there is no rhapsodic techn, Ion
cannotbe an expert by possessing it.
To this one might add two final and not inconsequential
complaints.First, this conception of the rhapsodic skill takes no
account of rhapsodicperformance, and this is arguably the
distinctive expertise of the rhapsode.Second, the conception of the
rhapsodic skill takes no account of the es-thetic qualities of
poetry, like beauty, in which case poetry might just aswell be
prose, and the poets, consigned to imitating technical
disciplines,might just as well be technits.22 To put this point
another way, the tech-nical account focuses on the content of
poetry to the exclusion of its form.For all these reasons, we
should reject it as an inadequate conception ofrhapsody and
poetry.
2 The Inspired Account
In the next section of the dialogue (533d536d), the emphasis
shifts fromcriticism and interpretation to poetic composition and
performance, andthe beauty of poetry becomes central. Socrates
makes divine inspiration anecessary condition of writing beautiful
poetry: it is not by techn but bybeing inspired () and possessed
[that poets] compose beautiful po-
20 On the indeterminate scope of Ions alleged expertise as a
defeating feature of hisclaim to have a techn, see Roochnik 1987,
2856; as he further notes, 291n.25,poetry seems to be about
everything, in philosophical parlance, the whole, but is notquite
about everything. Indeed, given the focus on events and narrative,
poetry doesnot, for example, seem to be about stable objects of
knowledge.
21 The question of whether poetry has a unified method is not
directly broached in thedialogue, but, as I suggest above, the
notion of seems implicit in the technicalaccount.
22 Thus, a widely made complaint in the literature is that Plato
holds the poets to anunfair and inappropriate standard: see e.g.,
Guthrie 1975, 205.
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etry (533e58).23 The articulation of the inspired view seems
itself in-spired, since it employs rich poetic images and metaphors
throughout.The technical account of poetry, by contrast, lacks a
spiritual resonanceentirely.24 It is this section for which the Ion
has been historically famousor infamous: Shelley found the true
basis for a defense of poetry in it;25Goethe saw an attack on
poetry with Aristophanic malice.26
When Socrates describes the composition of verses, he goes to
greatlength to emphasize the poets lack of agency. Using the
metaphor of fren-zied religious festival celebration, Socrates
compares the poets to Coryban-tic dancers and Bacchic revelers. But
the primary analogue to the inspiredpoet is the diviner, or
inspired seer.27 This passive understanding of thepoet presents a
stark contrast with the technical account whose frameworkassumes
that the thought of the poet is the goal of interpretation. On
theinspired view, the poets have no thoughts to interpret, at least
not whenthey are composing. While composing, the poets are quite
literally out oftheir minds.28
It is rather the Muse who plays a seminal role in poetic
production.Using the metaphor of a magnet and iron rings, Socrates
describes howthe Muse begins a chain of inspiration:29
Its a divine power ( ) that moves you, as a magnetic stone
movesiron rings. This stone not only pulls those rings, if they are
iron, it also putspower in the rings, so that they in turn can do
just what the stone does pull
23 Tigerstedt 1969, 26, claims that Plato was the first Greek
writer to describe poeticinspiration as possession; on his view,
inspiration was a common motif, but notpossession.
24 Arist. Po. clearly conceives of poetic production as a
technical expertise and his ac-counts of epic poetry and especially
tragedy at once delineate the theoretical bases ofpoetry and
provide practical advice for the aspiring poet. It is interesting
to note thatAristotles Poetics de-emphasizes the mythic, religious
and musical bases of poetry ingeneral and of tragedy more
particularly. On this, see Halliwell 1998, 82108.
25 Murray 1996, 312.26 See Tigerstedt 1969, 189, 26, for an
account of Goethes judgment and influence.27 According to Murray
1992, 33, the association between diviners and poets is ancient
and widespread and a commonplace in early Greek poetry.28 This
conception of poets as out of their minds when they compose has
Aristophanic
precursors in Ach. 395ff.; Th. 40ff. Murray 1992, 34, claims
that, in reality the figureof the mad poet is a Platonic myth and
constitutes a radical break with the past.This is only true if
Plato is taken to be expounding doctrine here, as opposed tomocking
the poets. If taken in the latter sense, he is firmly in line with
the traditionsof Old Comedy. On the possible influence of
Democritus on Plato, see Tigerstedt1969, 726.
29 Murray 1996, 113 notes that the magnet metaphor for
inspiration has no knownprecursors. This use of the word seems to
be the origin of our magnet and its cog-nates.
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other rings In this same way, the Muse makes some people
inspired herself, andthen through those who are inspired a chain of
other enthusiasts is suspended.(533d3e5)
With the Muse functioning as the magnetic force, the first ring
in thechain is the poet. Socrates makes clear that the god speaks
through thepoet: the god himself is the one speaking ( ) these
things andthrough these poets, speaks () to us (534d35). While
thesounds come through the poets, the poets, like diviners, are
merely thepassive vehicle for the gods intended meaning:
[T]hese beautiful poems are not human nor are they from humans
but they aredivine and from the gods; these poets are nothing other
than interpreters ()of the gods (534e25).
One should notice that, on this account, interpretation has the
sense ofpassive transmission a stark contrast to its more active
meaning in thetechnical account.30 The poet, as interpreter,
deserves no credit for hisown poetry and he is barely afforded even
a potentially disruptive role; atmost, one could say that the poet
is blessed.31
This account relegates the rhapsode to the role of ,an
interpreter of interpreters (535a9). As the middle ring in the
chain ofinspiration, his mediating function makes him twice removed
from thesource. An upshot of this account is that it can make sense
of Ions exclu-sive interest in Homers poetry (536bc). The other
poets simply do notinspire Ion.32 Since Homer does inspire him, Ion
is drawn to Homer, andothers in the audience are drawn to Homer
through him. Ions excellenceas a rhapsode has to do with his being
inspired and, thus, inspiring others:he is, in short, a link in the
chain of inspiration.
When Socrates focuses on the poetic quality of the verses and
theirbeauty,33 he recognizes esthetic considerations, e.g., lyrical
features of the
30 See Murray 1996, 121. See also Partee 1971.31 Indeed, on
Socrates account, to prove this, the Muse provided the example of
Tynni-
chus, who apparently wrote an exceptionally beautiful and
popular paean but abso-lutely nothing else of note (534e). He was,
one might say, the worlds first one-hitwonder.
32 While in the technical account, interpretation was presented
as a technical methodin principle applicable to every poet, in the
inspired account, interpretation is radi-cally individuated. The
poet interprets one god; the rhapsode interprets one poet.What was
earlier presented as an absurdity, namely, the idea that one could
interpretone poet exclusively, now seems perfectly natural.
33 Woodruff 1982, 1402, claims that Plato denies that there is
an esthetic sense to. On his reckoning, Plato takes esthetic beauty
to be radically distinct from thefine or beautiful itself ( ). He
claims that Socrates views mere beauty as adeception. As I will
argue, there are two senses of beauty at stake in the dialogue:one
which is superficial and potentially deceptive, the other which is
deeper and con-
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verses, ignored in the technical account of poetry. Beauty
becomes the cri-terion for the goodness of poetry. In articulating
this view, Socrates em-ploys highly poetic language as a kind of
performative demonstration. Hismetaphors are richly drawn and
articulated in a religious and almost ec-static tone:34
[Poets] are not in their right minds when they compose these
beautiful lyrics, butas soon as they sail into harmony and rhythm
they are possessed by Bacchic frenzy. Poets tell us that they
gather songs at honey-flowing springs, from glades andgardens of
the Muses, and that they bear songs to us as bees carry honey,
flying likebees. And what they say is true. For a poet is an airy
thing, winged and holy (534a1b4)
In the inspired account, we find a preponderance of words
relating to. The concern with beauty marks a shift away from the
technicalaccounts concern with correctness. Poems have immense
value, coming asgifts from the gods, but it is not clear that they
can be true in any sense.One can experience the divinely inspired
vision of the poet through hispoems and thus experience a poems
beauty. As the standard by whichpoetry is judged, beauty, conceived
of as harmony and rhythm on thisaccount, is the outward
manifestation of that vision.35
Turning to Ions actual performances absent from the technical
ac-count we see that emotion is central to the inspired account.
Ion vividlydescribes the way he works himself up into an emotional
frenzy when heperforms a particularly jarring and passionate scene
(535cd). Accordingto Socrates, Ions inspired soul believes [] that
it is present at theevents that are described and enacted (535c13).
When Ion illustrateshis effect on the audience, he focuses on the
emotional state that he in-duces in them, indeed, the way that Ions
own experience is reproduced inthe spectator (535d89). When Ion
performs an emotionally jarringscene, the audience members are
crying, terrified and amazed (535e16).Thus, they too believe that
they are present at these wondrous events.They are passive
recipients of the inspiration which moves Ion.
nected to truth. In other words, contra Woodruff, I will be
claiming that Plato thinksthat there is an esthetic sense to ,
which is not in itself worth very much andmay be deceptive. It can,
however, be useful in leading us toward the deeper sense, asin
Symp. 210ae; Phdr. 249e50d.
34 Socrates imagery is indeed evocative with roots in
traditional Greek religion. How-ever, Socrates analogies are also
reminiscent of comic accounts of poets. The compar-ison of poets to
bees is traditional and generally favorable; however, the image
ofpoets flying has mocking precursors in Ar. Pax 827ff.; Av.
1373ff. On the roots ofthe inspired account, see Murray 1992,
302.
35 For the moral implications of harmony and rhythm, see Rep.
401d402a; Tim.47ce.
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Though Socrates exposition is shot through with irony and
exaggera-tion, I have reconstructed the view as though it were
seriously meant. Incritiquing the view, I will be giving voice to
what the irony indicates. In-deed, one finds that there are several
reasons for dissatisfaction. First, aswith the technical account,
this account fails to account for Ions ownactivity. When Ion
finally realizes that the account subtly mocks him, heprotests:
Youre a good speaker, Socrates, but I would be amazed if youcould
speak well enough to convince me that I am possessed or crazedwhen
I praise Homer (536d47). Socrates account overstates the degreeto
which the rhapsode gives up his agency. For example, Socrates
claims:
Are we to say that this man is in his right mind at times like
these: when hes at festivalsor celebrations, all dressed up in
fancy clothes and golden crowns, and he weeps,though hes lost none
of his finery; or when hes standing amongst millions of
friendlypeople and is terrified, though no one is undressing or
harming him? (535d15)36
In short, Socrates account makes the rhapsodes out to be
delusional luna-tics, and while Ion is surely unintelligent, he is
certainly not insane.37
Second, we might extend this line of criticism to the author and
theaudience, the two other main links in the chain of inspiration.
Since whatis transferred from poet to rhapsode to audience is a
kind of experience ofbeing carried away, an implication of the view
seems to be that poets andaudiences are, when inspired, just as
crazy as the rhapsodes. In describingthe poets composition,
Socrates says he is not able to make poetryuntil he becomes
inspired [], and goes out of his mind [] andhis intellect is no
longer in him [ ] (534b46).Through this accumulation of
near-synonymous expressions, Socrates ef-fectively executes a move
from inspiration to insanity.38 In addition, whilewe might agree
that there is some sense in which the audience gives up itsagency
when it is transported into the world of the poet through
therhapsode,39 as with the rhapsode, Socrates presentation makes
the audi-ence seem like it is completely insane, and this seems
unwarranted.
36 Cp. Ar. Ach. 4105; Th. 14950, for comic portrayals of the way
that poets confusethemselves with their characters in real life.
Such a confusion is, on my reading, acore feature of the comic
portrayal of Ion (see below in 4).
37 See also Pappas 1989, 3813, who rightly sees that the
inspired account amounts toan imputation of insanity.
38 The term probably had an original medical sense of insanity,
since its earliestuse can be found in the Hippocratic corpus. See
LSJ s.v. It clearly indicates an im-paired level of cognitive
engagement, though, in the Lg., Plato uses in connec-tion with
Bacchic revelry (790e). The last term, , thoughredundant, drives
home the point. This line is an instance of what Stern-Gillet
2004,178, describes as Socrates cunning mix[ture of] flattering and
unflattering language.
39 Cp.Mx. 235ac, where Socrates describes the effect of funeral
oratory on him. He feelsso good about himself that he feels nearly
transported to the Islands of the Blessed.
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Third, Ion presents a counterexample when he claims to notice
theeffect of his performance from the rostrum. One would think
that, beingdivinely inspired, Ion would be unable to remember or
comment on theeffect of performance, but Ion always has his eyes on
the proverbial prize:
I look down at the audience from the rostrum, and they are
crying and lookingterrified, and as the stories are told, they are
filled with amazement. I must keepmy wits and pay close attention
to them: if I start them crying, I will laugh as Itake their money,
but if they laugh, I shall cry at having lost money. (535e16)
For this to be possible, the inspired account must be wrong. How
couldsomeone who is possessed and out of his mind pay enough
attention tothe audience to make calculations concerning his
potential earnings?40What Ion describes is a plausible enough
scenario for a performer andwould seem to present a more general
problem with the account, and notjust an idiosyncratic one about
Ion. Socrates overstates the irrational andnon-cognitive aspect of
rhapsodic performance, i.e., he makes the poetsand rhapsodes out to
be far more passive than they are or even couldpossibly be.41
Fourth, at the end of the account, Socrates extends the magnetic
chainof inspiration to include the audience and draws out to
absurdity the im-plications of the magnet metaphor. He includes
iron rings hanging off tothe side and the chain of inspiration
becomes unwieldy. Not only arepoets, rhapsodes and audiences
inspired, but so is anyone who has any-thing to do with poetic
production and performance, including the choralperformers, chorus
trainers and assistant chorus trainers. What is lost en-tirely by
the magnet metaphor is the content of the poetry in the end,there
are no thoughts at all and the only thing produced by the Muse
ismore inspiration. Socrates is surely right to deny that Ion has
knowledgeand even that there is no rhapsodic techn. However, one
might say thatthe core problem with the inspired account is that it
pushes the inspira-tion line so far that there is no discursive
content in the poems at all, norfor that matter in the minds of
poets, rhapsodes or audiences. Pushing themagnet metaphor further,
we would have to vacate the minds of the chor-al performers, chorus
trainers and assistant chorus trainers as well. Again,this seems to
go well beyond what is warranted. Indeed, Platos strategyhere is
similar to the reductio used to disarm the technical account;
by
40 This point has been noticed by other commentators: see e.g.,
Tigerstedt 1969, 21.41 Woodruff 1982 rightly finds in the Ion a
radical separation of the poet from his
poetry. Building on this, he concludes that the inspired
individuals could not possiblycompose poetry and that the
inspiration story is simply false: Platos story about godsand
passive poets is absurd, and he cannot be sincere when he tells it
(146). I agreewith this assessment of the inspired account, but as
I will show in the next section, itcontains certain elements of
truth.
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amplifying the core components of the view to absurdity,
Socrates mocksand undermines them.42 For the reasons stated, we
should reject the in-spired account.
3. An Oracular Account
Both the technical account and the inspired account seem at
least initiallyto be endorsed by the dialogue, but neither supplies
a satisfactory accountof rhapsody or poetry. As with the technical
account, the inspired accountfails to find a source for Ions
excellence in rhapsody and his alleged exper-tise. The two models
provides two completely different origins as authori-ties (poet or
gods) to which Ion might appeal in order to verify his exper-tise.
As I have shown, neither account is adequate. One provides such
anexaggerated focus on knowledge and content that it leaves out
considera-tions of inspiration and beauty; the other provides such
an exaggeratedfocus on inspiration and beauty that it leaves out
considerations of knowl-edge and content. Part of Platos purpose is
to show that no account ofpoetry would afford rhapsody with an
appropriate authority to groundIons rhapsodic alleged wisdom. On
both accounts, Ion is the passive reci-pient of the authoritys
wisdom and his self-conception is dictated by hisrelationship to
that authority.
I suggest that the dialogue points to, though never fully
articulates, aview what I call the oracular account which draws
from both thetechnical and inspired accounts but eschews the need
for an originatingauthority. Thus, there is some truth in both
accounts, though each is, onits own, false.43 I defend and
elaborate on this suggestion in three ways inthis section. First,
Socrates, in discussing three passages from Homer(536d538d), uses
the term ambiguously: he initially employs - to mean correctly,
i.e., in a way that conforms to the technical ac-count, but then he
uses it to mean beautifully, i.e., in a way that resiststhe
technical account and conforms to the inspired account. Through
thisambiguity, the dialogue points to a more fundamental unity and
providesthe impetus for a combination of the two views. Second, in
discussion ofthe passages suitable for a diviner to judge
(538d539d), Socrates choosespassages which highlight two different
aspects of divination: inspired vi-
42 See Woodruff 1983, 137, 147. On Platos use of amplification
as a parodic strategy,see Trivigno 2009; Trivigno 2012.
43 Socrates seems to endorse the technical account at 532d8,
when reflecting on thepreceding discussion, he says, I speak
nothing but the truth and the inspired accountat 534b3, when he
says of the poetic descriptions of poetry: what they say is
true.Since they are logically incompatible, Socrates cannot mean to
endorse all aspects ofeach account.
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sion of future events and technical interpretation of signs.
Thus, the figureof the diviner, who can be either passively
inspired or a technits, providesa second impetus for a view of
rhapsody and poetry that incorporates bothinspiration and
technique. Finally, I fill out some of the details of thisaccount
using the model of the oracle, a kind of divination which
expli-citly incorporates both inspired vision and technical
interpretation.
3.1 The Ambiguity of
When Ion retreats back to the technical view, Socrates puts him
to thetest by citing three passages from Homer and asking who would
best judgeHomers account. The first Homeric passage Socrates and
Ion discuss de-scribes what Nestor said to Antilochus about driving
a chariot (537a2).What is at issue is: who will know whether Homer
speaks correctly( ) in these lines (537c1). Nestor counsels
Antilochus aboutmanaging a turn in a chariot race; he gives direct,
specific guidance on theappropriate way to lean, use the reins and
handle the horses.44 The passageis thus quite congenial to analysis
by a technical expert. When Socratesposes his question a second
time, he substitutes for ; he asks:who will know better whether
Homer speaks , you or a charioteer?(538b23). The questions are
taken to be identical by Ion, and indeed, inmost cases, and are
interchangeable.45
In the second Homeric passage, Socrates recites a section of the
Iliadin which Homer narrates how Hecamede, Nestors woman, gave
tothe wounded Machaon a barley potion to drink (538b).46 It is
unclearwhether this passage depicts a medical treatment rather
than, say, a fewpeople sitting around having a drink together.
Socrates asks:
44 The charioteer is the best qualified candidate for assessing
these lines because thecharioteers techn includes this information.
Socrates argues that each techn has itsown object of knowledge and
that it is only in virtue of the techn that the expert isable to
judge what is done well and what not. This argument precludes the
possibilitythat several technai might account for the knowledge of
a single matter. This is, atbest, a disputable claim.
45 LSJ s.v. lists the three main senses of as the esthetic,
utilitarian and moral inthat order. The adverb form, , emphasizes
the utilitarian sense; it is generallybest translated as well or
correctly and understood as the performance of someactivity in
accordance with its appropriate uses, methods and/or goals. It also
has anadverbial sense that correspond to the esthetic and moral
sense of . In artisticendeavors, note that the utilitarian and
esthetic senses will overlap. On the ambiguityof in the Ion, see
also Dorter 1973, 756. On the wide variety of things thatcan be
described as , see HipMa; Symp. 210a-e.
46 This passage is a badly misquoted mixing of three lines: Il.
11.63940 and 630: seeMurray 1996, 1278.
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Whether Homer speaks (correctly) or not, would this be diagnosed
(beautifully? correctly?) by the doctors profession (), or the
rhapsodes()? (538c45)
In asking whether a doctor would diagnose whether Homer speaks,
Socrates somewhat surprisingly juxtaposes with the doctorsexpertise
and with Homers poetry; one might expect that the doc-tor would
diagnose and Homer would compose , not theother way around. In this
subtle way, the dialogue unsettles the first exam-ples semantic
identity of and and reveals an ambiguity in thesense of .
The third passage Socrates invokes has Homer narrating a simile
ofIris traveling to fetch Thetis (Il. 24.802):
Leaden she plunged to the floor of the sea like a weightThat is
fixed to a land cows horn. Given to the huntIt goes among ravenous
fish, carrying death. (538d13)
Socrates asks if the rhapsode or the fisherman would know
whether inthese lines, Homer speaks or not. Here, the notion of
falls tothe side, but the ambiguity of is most evident. Homers
similes areone of his distinctive stylistic achievements; they are
not simple compari-sons. According to Lesky, Homeric similes create
many correspondences,include a brilliant wealth of detail, and give
depth and coloring to theaction they describe.47 A fisherman would
almost certainly not be ex-pected to give a proper assessment of
these lines. The technical accountseeks to make all poetry univocal
and thus genial to interpretation; the useof metaphorical speech
problematizes the univocal understanding of in the technical sense
(as correctly) and invites us to acknowledge theexistence of its
esthetic sense (as beautifully). Even if the fisherman tellsus that
Homer has correctly described weighted fishing hooks by
acknowl-edging the fact that hooks are often connected to a cows
horn, he willhave assessed the passage in a superficial way and
have missed its estheticqualities entirely.
What these successive analyses open up for, I suggest, is the
possiblecoexistence of beauty and correctness. This is not, in
itself, implausible:surely a line of poetry can be both correct (to
the extent that it properlyimitates some aspect of the world) and
beautiful (to the extent that such aline is harmonious and
rhythmic). If this is right, then and techn and inspiration are
compatible, and this points us toward thepossibility of an account
of poetry, which conceives of it as both technicaland inspired.
Indeed, there may be both a deeper sense of beauty and adeeper
sense of correctness implied here whereby they do not merely
47 Lesky 1963, 64.
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overlap in an incidental way (a technically correct imitation
that happensto be beautiful) but come together in a more
fundamental way. They docome together, I suggest, in the notion of
divine truth.48 While technicalcorrectness concerns imitating the
practical activities of a craftsman, divinetruth concerns the
underlying structure of reality, which is the object ofthe
philosophers inquiries.49 While superficial beauty concerns the
formalfeatures of verse, i.e., their pleasure-giving harmony and
rhythm,50 the dee-per sort of beauty understood as divine truth
concerns the harmonyand rhythm of the cosmos, i.e., its order,
which makes it knowable andripe for inquiry.51 If this deeper,
philosophical sense of beauty is gesturedat in these passages, an
important question remains: whether and to whatextent the poet can
represent this beauty in his poetry and thus transmittruth to his
audience. I return to this question later in section 3.3.
48 Dorter 1973, 756, also sees the dialogue as pointing to
divine truth as a deepersense of beauty, but, appealing primarily
to Phdr., he develops this idea in a radicallydifferent way. In his
view, beauty is a sensuous reflection of the primal order
under-lying the whole of reality and, via this connection, all
harmony and rhythm can besaid to contain some truth irrespective of
content. For Dorter, this means that thepoetry can be an imitation
of the divine; this strikes me as an overly optimistic view from
Platos perspective about what the poets can accomplish. On Dorters
view,the divine truth of a poem its affinity with the primal order
can be directlyexperienced by the audience through the poems rhythm
and harmony. This seems tocontradict the depictions of poetic
experience, as we see them in the Ion itself.
49 This need not be understood in a robustly metaphysical sense
as implying commit-ment to the theory of forms. Socrates famous
what is it? question expressly seeksthe principle which serves to
unify an object or property, i.e., the one underlying themany.
50 Dorter 1973, 76, denies that Plato thinks of beauty as giving
pleasure, but his argu-ment does not work. While he locates the
beauty of verses in their form, i.e., theirharmony and rhythm, he
denies that beauty gives pleasure on the grounds that theIliad, the
most frequent example of beautiful art, has gruesome and thus
unpleasantcontent. Dorter cannot have it both ways: after locating
the beauty in the Iliads me-trical form, he cannot draw conclusions
about its beauty by consideration of its repre-sentational content.
Though Plato does not admittedly focus on the
pleasure-givingqualities of poetry in the Ion, the connection
between beauty and pleasure is made inHipMa. 297eff., with music
mentioned prominently at 298a. Interestingly, this sug-gestion
comes only after two more promising definitions suggesting a deeper
sense ofbeauty (the appropriate (293eff.) and the useful (295bff.))
have failed to generate aproper account.
51 This suggestion obviously has Pythagorean resonances and is
further developed byPlato in later dialogues, but the connection
itself is embodied in the very word forthe universe, : the word
primarily means order but also means ornament. SeeLSJ s.v.
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3.2 Two Kinds of Divination
Given the use of divination both as a paradigmatic techn in the
technicalaccount (Socrates very first example at 531b) and as a
primary analogy forpoetic inspiration in the inspired account
(534d), it is surely interestingthat Socrates comes back to it yet
again in quoting two long passages fromHomer (539ad). Its role, I
suggest, is to provide a model for the compat-ibility of techn and
inspiration. Continuing his refutation of Ions view ofhimself as a
technical expert, Socrates asks for (and supplies) passages inHomer
which are supposed to be appropriate for a diviner to judge.
Twofeatures of the passages are important: first, the passages are
in fact point-edly inappropriate passages for a diviner to judge;
second, each passagewould require the judgment of a different kind
of diviner.52
In the first passage (Odyssey XX.3517),53 Theoclymenus
perceivesthat Athena has made Penelopes suitors mad, and he has an
inspired vi-sion of their impending deaths. It does not take a
diviner to know thatTheoclymenus has truly seen their coming
deaths. Anyone familiar withthe Odyssey knows that he is right
about that. In fact, Socrates alluded tothe very scene in which
Odysseus slays the suitors earlier in the dialogue(535b). But in
order somehow to judge the passage for technical accuracy,another
diviner would need the impossible: access to the inspired
vision.While the future to which the vision refers is available to
any reader ofthe Odyssey, the inspired vision itself is located in
the mind of the seer. Inthe second passage (Iliad XII.2007), Homer
describes an eagles encoun-ter with a snake. Here we have a
different problem. We are told the bird-sign, but not its
interpretation.54 How could a diviner know if the meredescription
of a birds struggle with a snake is well, correctly or
beautifullydone? There is nothing for a diviner to judge without
knowing the inter-pretation.55
The different ways that these passages are unsuitable for
analysis by anexpert highlights the significant differences between
the types of divinationimplicated.56 The first case fails because
of the inaccessibility of a divinely
52 On the different kinds of diviners, see Cic. Div. 1.12;
Halliday 1913.53 Plato omits line 354.54 On the interpretation of
bird-signs, see Halliday 1913, 24671.55 In Il. XII.210ff., the sign
is taken by Polydamas to mean that the Trojans should not
proceed beyond the walls to burn the ships of the Achaeans. It
is unclear whether thesign is interpreted properly.
56 Two other differences between these passages are of note. In
the first passage, Homerspeaks as a character, Theoclymenus, while,
in the second, he speaks as the narrator.Also, in the first, he
employs metaphors and rich imagery, while, in the second, hegives a
bare description of the events. I pass over these differences as
their possibleimplications are not directly related to my task
here.
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inspired vision, and the latter, because the omen does not
become compre-hensible as a divine sign prior to its interpretation
as such. If the inspiredaccount is right about the fully passive
and irrational nature of inspiration,then the inspired vision
itself would require a rational interpretation in or-der for the
content or meaning of the vision to be rationally
understood.Otherwise, it could not play a role in practical
reasoning. The figure ofthe diviner is on the border, as it were,
between techn and inspiration.This passage not only provides a
second impetus for a view that combinestechn and inspiration, but
it suggests using the analogy of divination tohelp formulate
it.
3.3 The Oracular Model
Given the two impetuses for a combination of the technical and
inspiredviews and the prevalence of divination in the dialogue, I
use the exampleof oracular divination, which incorporates both
inspired vision and ra-tional interpretation, in order to fill out
some details of this account.57 Anoracle, e.g., the oracle at
Delphi, contains a divine seer and a technical seer,the prophts.
The divine seer has a more direct relationship with the
god;ecstatic and possessed, she is the passive vehicle of the gods
message. Butsuch proclamations must be rationally interpreted.
Consider Platos owndescription of this process from the
Timaeus:
While he is in his right mind, no one engages in divination,
however divinely in-spired and true it may be, but only when his
power of understanding is bound insleep or by sickness, or when
some sort of possession works a change in him. Onthe other hand, it
takes a man who has his wits about him to recall and ponderthe
pronouncements produced by this state of divination or possession,
whether insleep or while awake. It takes such a man to thoroughly
analyze any and all visionsto determine how and for whom they
signify some future, past or present good orevil. This is the
reason why it is customary practice to appoint prophets() to render
judgment on an inspired divination. (71e372b1)58
57 Though the Ion makes no particular mention of oracular
divination, the importanceof divination in the dialogue as a whole
and the resolution of the tension betweeninspiration and technique
which oracular divination provides makes the move irresis-tible.
The connection between poets and seers is affirmed by Socrates in
Ap. 22ac, adialogue in which the basic model of divination is the
Oracle at Delphi (20eff), andSocrates makes repeated reference to
his interpretation of the oracles message. Cp.Meno 99cd.
58 The translation is Zeyls in Cooper 1997. On the use of this
passage to help under-stand the nature of poetical inspiration, see
Tigerstedt 1969, 712, where the parallelbetween poem and oracle is
suggested, but not developed. While I am certainly sensi-tive to
worries about using a late dialogue like the Tim. to interpret an
early onelike the Ion, the account of divination offered here does
not seem connected in any
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At Delphi, the interprets the fragmentary message uttered by
thedivine seer into dactylic hexameter as an ambiguous response,59
which inturn has to be further interpreted by whoever asked the
oracle for help.60This means that inside the oracle itself, two
motions are contained, onedivine and the other technical. Once the
oracular response is given to thepetitioner, yet another
interpretation must be conducted in order to makesense of the
oracles ambiguous reply. Crucially, the petitioner begins thewhole
process by actively seeking out the answer to an important
question;since the petitioner must see something true in the text
of the oraclesresponse to her question and interpret that response,
the petitioner andthe oracle engage in a kind of dialogue.
It is worth pausing here to look at the Apology and Socrates
ownresponse to the Oracle at Delphis proclamation to Chaerephon
that thereis no one wiser than Socrates (21a68). Socrates
considered it to presenta riddle (21b4), was initially at a loss to
the gods meaning (21b7), andthen set about an investigation in
order to attempt to refute the oracle(21c1). Socrates thus sought
to interpret the oracles meaning and onlyafter he could not manage
to refute the oracles apparent content did heaccept its
proclamation as legitimate. Socrates initially assumed that
theoracle means that he is wise in the sense of possessing divine
wisdom, andon that basis approached the supposed experts; but he
later came to realizethat there is a human sort of wisdom worth
very little that is beingattributed to him (20de; 23aa). Thus, the
proper interpretation onlyemerged after much testing and inquiry.
Socrates claims that the god doesnot lie (21b6); however, the
authority of the proclamation does notmerely stand on its own.61
Socrates, in short, subjects the oracular pro-nouncement to
rational testing, without which he would have had no
realunderstanding of the oracles pronouncement and no guidance as
to how
way to any of the metaphysical and epistemological views that
are characteristic ofthe later dialogues and absent in earlier
ones. Indeed, it seems implausible that, overthe course of Platos
life, the nature of divination had changed so radically that whathe
describes as customary later in his life is irrelevant to what he
says earlier.
59 The primary sense of is to be an interpreter of the gods (LSJ
s.v.). I didnot translate as interpreter only to avoid seeming as
though I were conflat-ing it with . In Zeyls translation, in this
passage, is rendered asinterpreter.
60 See OCD s.v Delphic oracle. This account is controversial
with respect to the natureof the priestesses uttering and thus the
nature of the priests translation.
61 On the debate over Socrates attitude toward the oracles
proclamation, see Brick-house and Smith 1990, 967. They are surely
right to see that Socrates does notmerely dismiss the oracle, but I
am not in agreement with their larger picture of therole of the
oracle in Socrates mission.
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to respond to the oracle from a practical standpoint, i.e., how
to live andwhat to do.
How does this account of oracular divination help us to
understandwhat the Ion suggests about poetry, inspiration and
techn? I have arguedthat the dialogue, by showing the inadequacy of
both the inspired andtechnical accounts of poetry, points us in the
direction of a combination.This is not accomplished by the
dialogue, but rather suggested by it. Thus,in attempting to fill in
the details of the oracular account, I am inevitablygoing beyond
what the dialogue explicitly offers.62 I take as my model thethree
steps contained in the oracular paradigm, and this model providesme
with a way of understanding the origin of poetry, its value and
theproper way to approach it.
On the view of the origin of good poetry that I am suggesting,
stepsone and two are both internal to the poet: the poet plays the
role of boththe divine seer and the technical interpreter.63 The
Muse inspires the poet,who must interpret the vision and, using
poetic techniques, gives it expres-sion in rhythmic and harmonious
verse. Thus, the poet and the Muse areboth, in their own ways,
responsible for the poem. The poet may be re-sponsible for any
superficial beauty and correctness the poem might have,but only the
Muse can be said to be responsible for a poems deepbeauty.64 This
explains how the poets can say many beautiful things with-out any
understanding of what they say (Ap. 22c23).65 Socrates
nowheredenies that the poets say many beautiful things; he even
goes so far as toclaim that they say many true things (Meno 99c35).
What he deniesconsistently is that knowledge can be attributed to
them on that basis.
62 As I will show, the fact that the dialogue points to a view
without actually articulat-ing it is just what one would expect
given the picture of poetry that emerges in theoracular account.
Plato, as author, provides us, his readers, with provocations to
phi-losophical reflection and with avenues of inquiry, but not with
clear and decisive finalanswers.
63 Woodruff 1982, 150n.17, considering a view that would
assimilate poetry to pro-phecy, complains that the analogy between
poetry and prophecy breaks down. Pro-phets speak in tongues only a
specialist can decipher; but any Greek can make a goof interpreting
Homer. By focusing on the oracles message to the petitioner, as
gen-erated in two steps by distinct types of seers, my use of the
analogy restores the sensein which prophetic utterances are
accessible to non-experts. Surely anyone can at-tempt to interpret
the oracle at Delphi.
64 Woodruff 1982, 145, claims that all the beauty of a poem
comes from the inspiringgods. In my view, all of the deep beauty,
i.e., truth, comes from the inspiring gods,while the superficial
beauty what Woodruff calls aesthetic beauty may comefrom the
poet.
65 Cp. Men. 99b-d. Even if Stern-Gillet 2004, 195, is right
that, in the inspired account,inspiration serves as a kind of
stand-in for dearth of explanation, there is still some-thing to be
explained, namely the fact that the poets sometimes get it
right.
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Indeed, if we take Socrates to mean deep beauty here, then we
have anexplanation for why Plato pays attention to, quotes and
analyzes poetry sofrequently in his dialogues.66 On this view, the
poets audience must inter-pret the poetic articulation of the
inspired vision to see where its truthlies, i.e., one must subject
the poem to rational scrutiny.67 It is onlythrough this active
process of testing and investigating that the truth ofthe poets
vision can be accessed by another.
Just as the oracular model requires that the oracles petitioner
takean active role in interpreting the oracles meaning, so too does
this modelof poetry require that the audience take an active part
in approaching awork of poetry, determining its meaning and using
it in order to seek thetruth. Unlike with the oracle, however, one
does not have a guarantee thatthere will be some truth in the poem.
On the inspired account, only goodpoets are inspired (533e), and
only when they are writing good poems(534de).68 It is simply not
possible to know ahead of time whether apoet has been inspired by
the Muse, or whether he is merely an inferiorpoetic technits.69 The
poem itself must be tested, and if a deeper truthemerges from ones
reflections on the poem, only then can we conclude,
66 For the extensiveness of Platos quotation of and reference to
poetry, see Tarrant1951; Halliwell 2000. As Halliwell 2000, 94,
puts it, [i]n the case of Plato, an en-gagement with the culturally
powerful texts and voices of poetry is so evident, sopersistent,
and so intense as to constitute a major thread running through the
entirefabric of his writing and thinking.
67 LaDrire 1951, 31, argues that part of the point of the
dialogue is to establish thatthere is no science of as literary
criticism, and further, that no such thing is possible. Iam in full
agreement with this. I am not claiming that Plato thinks that one
needs aliterary critical techn to understand a poem; rather, he is
suggesting that one needs aphilosopher to see whether a poem
contains any truth. For Plato, all other considera-tions are
ultimately unimportant. See Trivigno forthcoming.
68 Given the example of Tynnichus, it seems clear that being
inspired in one case doesnot imply that one is inspired in all
cases. It may very well be that only certain linesof a poem are
inspired. This restriction insulates my account from the kind of
criti-cism that Woodruff 1982, 146, levels, namely, that poets,
being mouthpieces of thegods, should all say the same thing.
69 Woodruff 1982, 145, considers the possibility that poets have
some skills at prosodyor diction but then claims that Plato denies
the poets a techn, even of pure style.He adduces Phdr. 263a in
support, but strangely ignores Phdr. 245a: If anyonecomes to the
gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by
acquiringexpert knowledge of the subject without the Muses madness,
he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by
the poetry of men who have been driven out oftheir minds. Indeed,
the contrast being drawn is explicitly between a poet
composingmerely with techn and one composing also with the
inspiration of the Muses. Onthis issue, see also Janaway 1995, 167,
1689.
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retrospectively as it were, that the poet was inspired when he
wrote it.70Indeed, one must be careful not to confuse merely
superficial beauty withthe deeper kind, though this is in practice
difficult to do. The value ofpoetry consists in its deep beauty and
correctness, i.e., in its divinely in-spired truth.71 There is, by
contrast, little value in technical correctness orsuperficial
beauty, and its similarity to deep beauty makes its
positivelydangerous (more on this below in 4). A poem may very well
properlyimitate the charioteer using verses that are harmonious and
rhythmic, butthis does not imply that the poem contains any deeper
beauty that may beuncovered by reflection. It should be emphasized
that neither in the caseof a poem that has superficial beauty and
correctness nor in the case ofone with deep beauty are we warranted
in attributing any content-knowl-edge to the poet. By extension,
then, neither the rhapsode nor the audi-ence can be said to have
knowledge on the basis of their familiarity with apoet.
The oracular model, I suggest, shifts the focus away from
uncoveringthe nature of poetic composition and origin of poetic
authority and refo-cuses attention on the audience of poetry. The
process of investigation thatthe poem provokes becomes central, and
the poet as authority figure re-cedes. Indeed, to ask about the
authority of the poet is to ask the wrongquestion because it
assumes that poets can be counted on to be reliableguides to truth.
They cannot, and poetry cannot transmit truth to a pas-sively
receptive audience.72 Poetry can, however, help us to see matters
in acertain way by sparking an insight, but the truth of the vision
is onlyaccessible to an individual who interprets and critically
engages the insightfor herself, in short, who approaches the poem
as a philosopher. A workof poetry, like an oracle, does not wear
truth on its sleeves.73 The oracularmodel, as I suggested at the
outset, is anti-authoritative, and the role ofpoetry is subordinate
to the pursuit of truth. By encouraging the activeengagement of the
audience and downplaying the authority of the poet,
70 This view is consistent generally with Platos use of
inspiration, as Woodruff 1982,139, notices, as a common factor in
Platos explanations of human success.
71 Cp. Moravscik 1982, 30, who claims that according to Plato
the objects and pro-ducts of inspiration have at best instrumental
value insofar as they contribute to theseeking of understanding on
higher, more theoretical levels.
72 Plato is thus attempting to instill in his audience a more
critical attitude towardspoetry, while at the same time preserving
the idea that, through poetry, one can cometo the truth. The path
to the truth involves distrusting the authority of the poets
andsubjecting the poetic claims to rigorous philosophical analysis.
See Trivigno forth-coming.
73 One might say that the truth of the poem is not in the poem,
but rather discoverablethrough the poem. The poem cannot, contra
Dorter 1973, 75, directly imitate thedivine; rather, it can provoke
a true insight into the divine.
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this oracular model guards against the danger that poetry might
supplyone with a false sense of wisdom, as in the case of Ion. More
positively,poetry can be the impetus to philosophical reflection;74
it can provoke aninsight, but that insight should not be the
endpoint of interpretive andcritical reflection but rather a
beginning. In this way, poetry can put oneon the quest for
wisdom.75
One may have noticed that the rhapsode has vanished from this
mod-el. Indeed, on the positive view that I am defending, the
rhapsode losesany importance he might have been thought to possess.
Only on one ofthe false authoritative models does the rhapsode
really have anything tooffer. Indeed, on the oracular model, the
rhapsode, one might say, is re-placed by the philosopher. However,
as I will show in the last section, thefigure of Ion as a rhapsode
is crucially important to the critical implica-tions of the
dialogue and the threat that taking poetry as authoritativeposes
towards ones self-knowledge and identity. This threat is clearest
ofall in the portrayal of Ion in the dialogues final section
(539e542b).
4 The Philosophical Purpose of the Comic Figure of Ion
Many scholars have noticed that the Ion, amongst Platos
dialogues, seemsparticularly comedic.76 Woodruff calls the Ion a
comic dialogue; Oates,high comedy; Wilamowitz, an Aristophanean
farce.77 The dialogue was
74 To usurp the magnetic ring motif for the oracular account, we
might say that a poet,in turning his audience to philosophy, might
inspire them to turn still others. SeeSocrates account of his own
protreptic task as a philosopher in Ap. 30b-31c; 33d-34a; 39c-e.
Cp. the account of the statesmans art in Euthyd. (291cff.), which,
whileaporetic, at least suggests that one of the tasks of the art
is to teach the art to otherswho will in turn teach others
(292de)
75 Cp. Symp. 209c6-e4, where Diotima claims that the progeny of
Homer and Hesiodare finer or more beautiful than human children
because, as Janaway 1995, 74, putsit, they give rise to wisdom and
excellence. Of course, given the attendant dangersand the presence
of a better, more direct route to wisdom, namely philosophical
dia-lectic, reading poetry will not be a primary method for
education. For the methodo-logical debate between Socrates and
Protagoras about the value of poetic interpreta-tion, see Prot.
338e348c. In my view, what distinguishes rhapsodic
interpretationfrom sophistic interpretation is that the former
takes the poet to be an actual author-ity, while the latter only
pretends to take the poet as an actual authority, using thepoets
words for his own rhetorical purposes, whatever they happen to be.
For ananalysis of sophistic interpretation, see Trivigno
forthcoming.
76 There is quite a lot of comedy to be found in Platos
dialogues: see e.g., Greene 1920;Brock 1990.
77 Woodruff 1983 in the title of the Hackett edition; Oates
1972, 35; Wilamowitz, asquoted in Tigerstedt 1969, 18
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declared spurious in the 19th century by scholars who could not
see howa work could be both comic and seriously philosophical.78
Despite thewide acknowledgement of the comic character of the
dialogue, no scholarthat I know of has tried to incorporate the
comedic elements into a coher-ent interpretation of the dialogue as
a whole. I wish to focus my analysison Platos portrayal of Ion as a
comic imposter, or , especially as heappears at the very end of the
dialogue (539e542b). One common com-plaint about the dialogue is
that, put bluntly, Ion is just so dumb.79 Thisfact has forced
scholars to speculate as to the real target of the dialogue, asIons
stupidity is thought to be unhelpful and even distracting from
thephilosophical content of the dialogue. I hope to make some sense
of thiswith my analysis to show how something philosophically
significant isbrought out through the character of Ion.80 In short,
the portrayal of Ionas an imposter shows how treating poets as
authorities makes one ridicu-lous and self-ignorant.
The comic imposter, a standard figure from Old Comedy, is an
impu-dent and absurd pretender who attempts to lay claim to that
what hedoes not deserve.81 In the Philebus, Socrates defines the
ridiculous or thelaughable as a dispositional lack of
self-knowledge, most commonly in-stantiated as a pretension to
wisdom (48e). Socrates glosses this conditionas standing in direct
opposition to the Delphic inscription to Know thy-self (48c69). In
Ions case, appealing to Homers authority, the rhapsode
78 Woodruff 1983, 1, 5. For the fallacy involved in the thought
that comedy cannothave serious meaning or intention, see Silk 2000,
31020.
79 Scholars are fond of claiming that the rhapsodes had a
reputation for stupidity inPlatos time, but such claims are not, in
my view, very persuasive. The evidence ad-duced for them comes
either from the Ion itself and its portrayal of Ion, or from
textsthat have clearly been influenced by the Ion, like Xen. Symp.
Indeed, in Symp. 3.6,the character Antisthenes suggestion (along
with Niceratus agreement) that nogroup of people is more stupid
than the rhapsodes seems to have played a undulyprominent role in
the historical reception of the rhapsodes. The power of Platoscomic
portrayal of Ion, coupled with the absence of any contravening
evidence, seemsto have been the decisive factor.
80 Tigersted 1969, 189, rightly sees Ion as a figure from
comedy, but does not pursuethis point in his interpretation. Ranta,
1967, 2226, also sees Ion as playing the roleof the imposter, but
his analysis remains at the level of the dramatic and does
inte-grate this function into the larger philosophical content of
the dialogue.
81 Cornford 1961, 122. On the imposter generally, see Conford
1961, 11533. Cp.Arist. EN. 1108a2022; 1127a13b32; EE 1124a2425;
Theophr. Char. 23. Onefinds a definition in pseudo-Pl. Def.
416a1011: . (Being an imposter is the state of pretending to a
goodor some goods which are undeserved). Cornford 1961, 120,
further claims that theimposter is exposed by an ironist, who masks
his cleverness under a show of clownishdullness. Though it is
tempting to pursue the association of Socrates as ironist, I
willlet it pass here. On Socrates as ironist, see Ranta 1967, 2202;
Vlastos 1991.
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falsely believes himself to be wise. Socrates exposes this lack
of self-knowl-edge, first by ironically submitting to Ions
authority through ironic praise(530b5c6), and then by undermining
that authority through the failedattempts to explain it. Both the
technical and inspired accounts subtlymocked Ion the first by
insisting that he possessed far more knowledgethan possible, the
second by making him out to be insane. Throughoutthe dialogue,
Socrates attempts to subvert Ions false self-conception, gen-erated
by his purported access to the authority of Homeric wisdom; in
myview, he does not do this simply to expose and mock Ion but
rather toopen up for him the possibility of self-knowledge and thus
philosophy.Plato, by letting us see what Ion in the end does not
see that his claimto wisdom makes him absurd cautions us against
taking his dialogues asauthoritative sources of wisdom and rather
asks us to take them as aninvitation to philosophy.82
In the last section of the dialogue, the arguments take on a
pointedlyad hominem character, with Socrates trying to get Ion
finally to think forhimself. When Socrates tries to force Ion to
take ownership of his viewsby pointing out that he holds logically
incompatible claims, Ion simplyshifts his position. When asked what
Homeric passages are appropriate fora rhapsode to judge, Ion
initially says every single one of them (536e);and even after Ion
has conceded that some passages are the provenanceof technical
experts, he still claims to be an expert concerning all of
the[passages] in Homer (539e6). An exasperated Socrates exclaims:
No, Ion!You do not say, All of them! (539e7), pointing out the
contradiction.Socrates then mockingly supposes that Ion has
forgotten what he has justagreed to but, recalling a similar barb
in Hippias Major, rescinds it imme-diately: It wouldnt be fitting
for a rhapsode to be forgetful! (539e79).83When Socrates reminds
Ion that, on Ions own view (540a6), there arepassages that fall
outside of the rhapsodes expertise, Ion attempts to mar-ginalize
these passages by casting them as exceptions; as Socrates
pointsout, these exceptions extend throughout the entirety of the
Homeric cor-pus, which, as we saw, deals with everything
(540b).
Socrates fails to get Ion to take a stand, and the latter grasps
at yetanother position, claiming to know whats fitting to say for a
man or awoman, or for a slave or a free man, or for a follower or a
leader (540b3).We begin to see here that the problem is not merely
that Ion cannot stakeout a philosophical position, but that his
professional obsession has lefthim with an identity problem. He is,
in a way, the sum of the characters
82 This is not to vacate the dialogues of positive philosophical
content, but rather toinsist that the content is partial and that
it is up to us, Platos audience, to follow thephilosophical paths
that the dialogue leaves unexplored.
83 Cp. HipMa. 285e; HipMi. 369a.
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he plays, but only in the most superficial way. He does not seem
to under-stand the distinction between knowing what someone would
say and pos-sessing the knowledge that makes what is said
appropriate. Thus, in thisfinal attempt to formulate his expertise,
Ion comes across as most absurd.Though admitting that he would not
know what navigator, doctor, cow-herd and woolworker should say,
when asked whether he would knowwhat a general should say, Ion
jumps on it: Yes! The rhapsode will knowthat sort of thing
(540d23). He claims that the generals techn and therhapsodes are
identical, but naturally enough refuses the implicationthat all
good generals are good rhapsodes. Since he is the best rhapsode
inGreece, Ion agrees that he must also be the best general in
Greece:
S: Are you also a general, Ion? Are you the best in Greece?I:
Know it well, Socrates this too I learned from Homers poetry!
(541b35)
Socrates seizes upon this with a wickedly ironic rebuke: Why in
the nameof all that is holy, if you are both the best general and
the best rhapsode,do you bother to go around Greece rhapsodizing
when you could be lead-ing an army? (541b68). Ions response, that
his hometown of Ephesus isruled by Athens and that the Athenians
and Spartans think they are ade-quate to the task, implies that he
would be willing to fight for either ofthe two main powers locked
in a war for nearly 30 years.84
Socrates provides some examples of foreign generals fighting
forAthens and proceeds to compare Ion to Proteus:85
Really, you are just like Proteus; you twist up and down and
take many differentshapes, until finally youve escaped me
altogether by turning yourself into a general,so as to avoid
proving how wonderfully wise you are about Homer.(541e6542a1)
In the Odyssey, Proteus takes all sorts of different forms in
order to scareoff anyone trying to ask him a question (4.385ff.).
Socrates charge againstIon is obviously apt; Ion has endorsed and
dropped positions without theslightest hesitation. He has
explicitly endorsed inconsistent claims, and histhoughtlessness
extends to that most important question of who he is. Byclaiming to
be a general, Ion has simply continued a trend that he startedat
the beginning of the dialogue. Ion has no self-knowledge; worse,
he
84 Apollodorus of Cyzicus, Phanosthenes of Andros and Heraclides
of Clazomenae.Nails 2002, 316, uses this passage to set the
dramatic date of the dialogue at 413,after the Sicilian disaster
but before the Ionian revolt of 412, after which Ephesuswas no
longer under Athenian control: according to Nails, the reason that
Athensbegan using foreign generals had to do with the acute
shortage of leadership, materi-als and manpower after the Sicilian
disaster.
85 For the use of Proteus as a metaphor for constantly shifting
ones ground, cp. Eu-thyph. 15d; Euthd. 288b.
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hardly has a stable self-conception.86 This is because of his
shallow andunreflective relationship to himself. Ion cannot engage
in a proper dialo-gue because he will not offer his own views;
instead, he consistently relieson the authority of Homer. The one
thing he emphatically claims toknow about himself is his superior
and exclusive expertise with respect toHomer (533c).
Ions particular self-ignorance embodies two distinct tendencies:
asrhapsode, Ion plays a dual role of both interpreter and
performer. As per-former, Ions self-conception is determined by his
rhapsodic performances;he thus mistakes himself for the characters
he imitates.87 Through his abil-ity to plausibly reproduce various
characters for his audience, Ion con-vinces himself that he is
adequate to the tasks for which they are genuinelyqualified. Not
only does this harm his self-knowledge but it proves proble-matic
for the stability of his very identity. As interpreter, Ion lets
his con-ception of the world be dictated to him by Homer, thus
losing himself inthe world of the poet.88 Just as he persuasively
reproduces his charactersfor his own audience as performer, so too
does Homers poetry persua-sively recreate the world to which Ion
lays claim as interpreter. His passiv-ity with respect to the
authority of Homer makes him an imposter, alaughable figure who is
simply incapable of thinking for himself.
Though neither the technical nor inspired accounts were
satisfactory,Ion cannot escape the dilemma: he endorses the
technical account untilreduced to aporia (533c) and the inspired
account until he understandsthat it makes him into a kind of
lunatic (536d); but then he simply re-
86 Woolf 1997, 189, finds in the Ion a theory of the self
whereby only knowledgequalifies one for selfhood. A core piece of
evidence for this theory is to be found inthe comparison to
Proteus. It seems much more plausible and true to Platos text tosee
Ions lack of a stable identity in his deferential relationship to
Homers poetryrather than in his lack of a techn, as Woolf 1997,
1956, would have it. Further,Woolfs view has a clearly unacceptable
implication, namely, that carpenters and allmanner of technits
possess selfhood, while Socrates himself, famously lacking
inknowledge, is, to use Woolfs own elegant phrase, a nobody.
87 An anonymous reviewer has suggested that the expertise
peculiar to the rhapsode issurely his facility in performance. As I
argue above, the technical account makes nomention of performance,
while Ions clearheaded state during his performances is oneargument
against the inspired account. In the end, however, it is the
rhapsodes knackfor imitative performance that puts his very
identity in question; given the criteriafor what constitutes a
techn, such a thing could never qualify as genuine expertise.
88 See Pappas 1989, 3856, who calls this aspect of Ions
ignorance perverse andcharges the rhapsode with choosing ignorance
over knowledge. While I agree thatIon turns his back on a search
for truth based on the authority of Homer, it is lessclear to me
that this is particularly perverse. Given the prominent role of
Homer ineducation, the tendency in Ion to look to Homer for
guidance, while certainly exag-gerated in Ion, is surely not
exclusive to him.
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verts to the technical model, which he abandons for the inspired
modelagain at the very end of the dialogue (542b). At the end,
Socrates presentsIon with the choice: either he is divine or
unjust. If Ion has a techn, heshould be able to give an explanation
of it; since he does not, Ion is eitherunjust (because he refuses)
or he is unable (in which case he has no technbut is divine). Ion
replies, Its much lovelier [] to be thought di-vine (542b12). This
final response shows that Ion ultimately does notcare whether
either account is true he only cares about the extent towhich each
justifies his special claim to authority. Here we see the
ambi-guity of in play again, and it is clear that Ions own ideas
aboutbeauty only amount to the most superficial kind of
estheticism. Not onlyis Ion not oriented toward the deeper beauty
of truth, but because hispassive submission to the authority of
Homer has left him unable to thinkfor himself, he cannot see any
other alternatives, much less begin to for-mulate them.
As the dialogues in general amply attest, there are many paths
to self-ignorance and many purported authorities promising wisdom.
Platos useof comic technique in drawing Ions character reveals Ion
as a pretenderto wisdom with no self-knowledge. Ion becomes a
ridiculous figure atwhom we are meant to laugh. But the laughter is
hopefully not withoutphilosophical fruit. When we laugh, we
negatively assess Ion for his lackof self-knowledge. More
importantly, the laughter can remind us to takethe opportunity to
reflect on ourselves in order to ensure that we do notfall prey to
the same seduction. Indeed, we are invited to see some of ourown
attitudes towards Homer and poetry reflected in the character
ofIon.89 In showing us the figure of Ion as a comic imposter, and
tying hislack of self-knowledge explicitly to an inauthentic
relationship to Homers
89 There is a danger here, as Nehamas 1998, 48, points out. If
Plato puts an insurmoun-table gap between his readers and the
interlocutors, then this might actually harmthem. Nehamas thinks it
does: he claims that Plato uses irony as a means for lullingthe
dialogues readers into the very self-complacency it makes them
denounce. It isdeep, dark, and disdainful. In my view, Plato evades
this danger through what Miller1999, 2569, calls mimetic irony,
i.e., the partial identification of the audience withthe
interlocutor. While we are surely not meant to identify with Ion
fully, we surelyare meant to recognize certain tendencies in
ourselves that are caricatured in Ion, e.g.,the admiration of great
poets. Blondell 2002, 8893, attempts to refute Millers no-tion on
the grounds that it would be morally dangerous for the readers to
identifywith the interlocutors at all. She rather claims that
readers are meant to disapproveof all but Socrates. Blondells
criticism, in my view, assumes an over-strong sense
ofidentification. The reader might partially identify with the
interlocutor withoutmuch risk. I doubt that there is any danger in
understanding, from a first personalperspective, Ions love of Homer
Socrates himself admits to loving Homer in theRep. (595b-c).
Without some such partial identification at work, it is hard to see
howPlatos pedagogical aims could get a foothold in his
audience.
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poetry, Plato shows us precisely how not to read to his own
dialogues. Ionpasses on Socrates invitation to philosophy. We
should not make thesame mistake with Platos.
5 Conclusion
I hope to have resolved the three interpretive difficulties I
mentioned atthe outset. First, both poetry and rhapsody are targets
of the dialogue, butthe core target is the conception of the poets
as authorities. Second, thecomic presentation of Ion has a
philosophical purpose, namely, portrayingthe deleterious effects on
ones character, if one takes the poets as autho-rities. Third, the
dialogue endorses neither the technical nor the inspiredaccounts,
because they both make poetry out to be authoritative, butrather
gestures toward an oracular model which is anti-authoritative.
Goodpoetry is oriented toward provoking a critical, philosophical
reaction in itsaudience, and it would seek to avoid being cited as
an authoritative storeof wisd