Plato's Dialogue - The Ion - Poetry, Interpretation, Emotion, and Knowledge
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- čas přidán 16. 01. 2014
- In this lecture video, I discuss one of Plato's shortest works, his dialogue, the Ion (named after one of its interlocutors). This dialogue between the Athenian Socrates and a successful rhapsode, Ion, from Ephesus concerns the connected arts of poetry and interpretation of poetry.
The central question is whether the rhapsode, or even the poet himself, possesses knowledge. . . or whether he "speaks well" and judges who "speaks well" on some other basis. Plato advances the theory that poets, and those who successfully interpret them, experience a kind of divine possession, an ek-stasis that sets them outside of themselves.
00:06 overview, characters, and theme of the dialogue
12:53 a hint about reading Platonic dialogues
14:43 whether rhapsodes possess knowledge or not
25:09 poetry and interpretation as divine possession
36:56 whether poets possess knowledge or not
44:23 the example of Homer
You can access a free online version of the Ion here: classics.mit.edu/Plato/ion.html
You can also hear the Ion read along here: librivox.org/ion-by-plato/
Want to access a course on the Ion, with interactive exercises, handouts, and more? curious.com/gregorysadler/ser...
Gregory B. Sadler is the president and co-founder of ReasonIO. The content of this video is provided here as part of ReasonIO's mission of putting philosophy into practice -- making complex philosophical texts and thinkers accessible for students and lifelong learners. If you'd like to make a contribution to help fund Dr. Sadler's ongoing educational projects, you can click here: bit.ly/KozD2y
New, fairly short lecture on this short (but sweet, or rather rich) Platonic dialogue
Thank you, in college i remember grappling with whether Plato hated artists/poets (however that may translate) or not. As an artist and architect, I wanted to know. I agree with how your summary of what you presented, thank you.
Thank you so much .
@@Xardas_ You're welcome!
Excellent!! I recommend watching these straight after reading the dialogue! Brilliant, confirms some thoughts and helps you to rethink other points you may of missed or not seen as profound. Overall they help to deepen your knowledge of the dialogue, ask questions and think about your own thought process. Brilliant. Thank you for your efforts!
You're very welcome!
Please never delete your channel or these videos. I've started my quest through Western Philosophy, and you've helped me more fully understand what I've read so far, and I plan on sticking with you through Heidegger and beyond. It'll take a while, but at least I know your videos will be here! Thank you so much!
You're very welcome!
Thank you very much for the videos, they've been super helpful for my Greek philosophy classes. I never managed to focus on what my lecturer tries to convey so your lectures are a breath of fresh air.
Well, with your lecturer, you can't stop and rewind! Glad the videos have been helpful -- if you know anyone else for whom they'd be useful, send them my way!
Merci pour toutes les vidéos que vous faites ! C'est vraiment d'une grande aide pour moi qui n'étudie pas la philosophie à l'université mais qui veut quand même comprendre les classiques. (En plus je peux entraîner mon anglais !)
Excellent way to teach it. I enjoyed it immensely!
Wonderful. Watched this just after reading the dialogue (my first by Plato!), and it was so enjoyable. I "got" a lot of it (which makes me childishly proud), but your lecture added so much more colour that I missed. Thank you!
Glad it was useful for you!
After putting it off for quite a while, I finally read my first dialogue. I read Ion on your recommendation and I do think that its a great starting point. I cannot be more grateful to you and your video lectures, they are a gift which will be utilized by posterity!
Glad you got started with Plato!
Thank you for the brilliant and inspiring lecture
Glad you enjoyed it!
I really really enjoy your work, thank you keep posting
Will do
Thank you, prof. Sadler! When you said they treat poets as bearers of knowledge it made much more sense. I thought they were discussing if he was good enough as a poet in today's terms.
Poets today are quite different
I am 60. I remember reading Meno when I was 12. I read the republic in college. I own alittle plumbing company and am presently recovering from surgery. Have profited on your Meno and ion lectures and have enjoyed revisiting several of the dialogues. Thank you.
You're welcome! Hope the recovery is a full one!
I wonder why in "Meno" Socrates does not consider discovery as a means of learning. Everyday in the plumbing trade we have to invent.
Well, in part because he's not setting out a theory that is supposed to encompass every sort of learning
Thank you
Thanks Dr Sadler. Minored in Philosophy in undergrad, your videos helped me through the course and continue to help me understand
Glad the videos have been helpful for you
Just finished ''Ion'' and I try to watch this lecture as preparation to tomorrow discussion about this dialog with my friend.
Judging from first 10 minutes dr Sadler should win prize in contest of philosophical rhapsode, he really bring the story of dialog to life. But in opposition to Ion, I think that he know what he is doing;).
It's interesting, isn't it -- just how hostile Plato and Socrates seem to the very sort of interpretative activity that they themselves are involved in -- and which we have to likewise do, if we want to bring others into the discussions! A sign, in my view, that there's got to be more to the story. . . .
I have an exam tomorrow and u totally saved my life right now! In the class I've heard magnet, art, rhapsode and divine inspiration but couldn't figure it out, now thanks to u I can pass my course :))
+elif ak Good to read!
Hangi üniversitesi
You're amazing.Thanks for sharing !
You're welcome!
It's nice to see such a thorough treatment of Ion. This has been one of the more interesting dialogues for me.
Music/poetry/art all seem to scream Truth freely and yet the performers' lives tend not to be as virtuous as one would expect if they had actual knowledge of Truth/the Good. So Ion helped clear up some confusion for me there.
Glad it was helpful for you.
@@GregoryBSadler thanks & thanks for your videos, you're a good teacher
Always rewards a re-read! (And this is worth a re-watch later too 😊) ❤️
It’s certainly a great dialogue
Thanks a lot. Very good information. Helped me with my Philosophy of Arts final.
Glad to read it!
Thank you so much for this video ...this is very helpful for my tomorrow 's exam and I'm from India ...and it's hard for me to understand Plato......so thank u so much.
You're welcome
Just started Literary Theory course. This has been extremely helpful. Thank You so much Sadler...
Glad to read it!
obrigado professor, ajudou bastante! ! ! ! aluno filosofia UFPE.
Glad the video was useful for you
Excellent. I just embarked on a self directed study of philosophy. I studied this at school but It was very superficial, although we touched on most of the major themes along the lines of Russell’s history of western philosophy
Glad it was useful for you!
@@GregoryBSadler I’m doing as you suggested. Ion then Meno. At school we went right into the Republic, but only touched on the well known issues/ the cave, forms and the line. Never the other dialogues. I picked up Ion yesterday. Did a quick read to orientate myself. Now I’m ready for a more inspectional read. Many thanks
This is great thank you so much
You're welcome
2021 Helping me with my upcoming colloquium, big thanks from Serbia!
Glad it’s useful for you
Horowitz said some pianists played certain compositions better than he did. For those compositions, he just did not have much of a feeling for them. He did not name the compositions.////// In Fellini's "Satyricon" there is short scene of a rhapsode reciting Homer at a dinner party.///There is British production of the "Oresteia" that is in English but tries to be as authentic as possible. If you type "Agamemnon 1983," you should probably see it. All male cast; they all wear masks. The man who plays Clytemnestra sounds like John Hurt. Thank you for your videos.
Thank you very much!
You're welcome!
Thank you very much. Nice video
You're welcome!
Hi Dr. Sadler.
On my read of the Ion i found the stance on poetry and art extremely fascinating - but i also felt like this was just an introduction to something Plato could have discussed and wrote a whole lot more about.
Here's my question - does Plato discuss art or the divine nature of poetry elsewhere in his work? Is this idea in Ion expanded on or are we as the reader meant to mull over it ourselves and lead to our own conclusions of the nature of Poetry/ Dance etc.
Many thanks
Yes. You'll want to read more Plato
I can't stop crying your channel is so great thnx
Glad you enjoy the channel - that's the first time I know of that it has provoked that reaction, though
Gregory B. Sadler He's secretly Ion.
If Plato/Socrates distrusted poets and rhapsodes, imagine what he would say about our modern society, where "movie stars" and "rock stars" and "celebrities" are idolized and held up as role models. Plato would probably say we lived in a society that has completely lost the plot.
Well, the good news from a Platonic perspective is that you can never really be entirely cut off from the forms, right?
Yes that's right. So his ultimate "message" is that we should keep seeking Truth no matter what the circumstances or general state of society.
Very nice
+Arumugham Natarajan Thanks!
very nice
Thanks
brilliant
Thanks!
You are a talent professor i wish i can be like you
Thanks - we all have our different roles
Gregory B. Sadler i do study English literature so i might be a professor one day in Classics or Criticism
Indeed - and a good bit of philosophy gets done in departments other than philosophy
Gregory B. Sadler yes you are right Dr gregory
would the second assumption change the outcome if it was argued that the arts mostly have different subject matters instead of completely different?
Yes - that's a big assumption on Socrates' part
@@GregoryBSadler Your resources are very valuable. I watch your videos after I have read the dialogue, which helps me synthesise the literature. Thanks Greg.
Nice
Thanks!
isn't the dialog a note from platon while listening to socrates ? its written by platon but does not represent platons philosophy.. or am i wrong?
It's definitely not something that would be Plato's notes from listening to Socrates. And this dialogue certainly does represent Plato's philosophy, which is found in his dialogues.
Where would this line of Divinity end with respect to the audience? Socrates says that the audience is the last ring under the sway of the magnet, but what of the spectator who gives an outline or speaks to another about the influence he took from the rhapsode? Would this chain of divinity end, or is the purpose of the gods to have an infinite influence upon the citizens of the earth?
Those are all questions that take us beyond the scope of the dialogue. Not to say that they're not good or interesting questions, but not ones that could be resolved just no the basis of the doctrine worked out there.
One could also ask about how rhapsodes learn their art from each other -- if indeed they do. The best that would seem to be possible, given this understanding of poetry/interpretation and divine possession, would be that they also act like the iron rings for each other.
Quite nice to mull over, it's true. Gives a good range as to why such penetrating insights -- from the poetry and philosophy from classical antiquity -- should stand the test of time. Those who are perhaps a bit ingrained of the first Muse to act as a mouthpiece, so as not to let the clout expire unto the ether.
From the classroom to the dinner table, we hope to right set the clasps in finding any kind of relevance of the ancient acumen to the present. I'd like to think it worked this way. As Socrates said: every person, no matter their disposition, is a source of knowledge. It's just a matter of arousing that leviathan -- that Muse -- from its slumbers.
Great lecture as always, Professor. Thank you.
When was Plato's Ion published?
Back in Plato's day. Super-easy to google
I don't understand English very well but I know that you doing well
Thanks!
Is it normal to have a huge problem with the way Socrates categorizes different arts? For example, he criticizes the rhapsode who specializes in a single poet, and says that unlike a doctor or fisherman, he doesn't have knowledge of his entire art. A surgeon specializing in heart surgery can still be said to practice the art of medicine without being qualified to perform surgery on the brain. A heart surgeon might not be able to tell you if a brain surgeon is doing a good job, just like an expert of Homer's poetry might not be able to tell you anything about Hesiod's poetry. A fisherman who specializes in freshwater fishing can still be said to practice the art of fishing without being qualified to deep sea fish and wouldn't be able to tell you if a deep sea fisherman is fishing well.
I'd say there's no need to "have a huge problem", since that seems rather hyperbolic as a response
There are definitely some issues and problems to raise with Plato's treatments of types of knowledge
Definitely a bit hyperbolic as I'm just starting out in studying philosophy and got excited that I actually had something to say haha. I was wondering if you recommend reading Ion early-on in the study of Plato specifically because it's relatively easy to raise questions about the logic for a beginner? Anyway, thanks for all the videos!
I usually recommend reading the Ion early on, both as a kind of "practice ground" and because it's very short
So, the one who can speak well can also strategically choose to base parts of his speeches or arguments on what can be regarded as a "myth" (as can be the Illiad and Odyssey), refusing to his audience the opportunity of using their mind, their reason, and driving them through this emotional possession wherever he's planned to, right?
Is it the introduction of the criticisms about the use of myths in a dialogue as a corruption of the intellectual debate?
An example of it could be an antic athenian politician saying that the people of the city should have this typical behaviour instead of this other one, because so did the heroes of the Illiad.
I'm thinking this by linking 534-a and 535-d, I'd be glad to know your opinion about it.
I'd say you're reading more into this than is likely intended
@@GregoryBSadler Yes it's quite interpretative, nowhere in the dialogue this issue is explicitly raised.
But as I also like to be quite attentive to the form, I've thought while reading that Socrates' way of speaking to Ion was quite offensive, as if Ion was the precursor of his arch-foes the sophists.
It's the first one we meet in Plato's work who actually speaks well but without any knowledge, that's why I was talking about an "introduction" of this criticism.
I don't know Plato well enough, should get back to work, thank you for your answer!
Isn't Socrates a little unfair towards Ion? Ion is an interpreter of Homer not a poet. Ion doesn't claim to be a poet but does claim to know Homer well, which he must in order to be a rhapsode right?
Socrates makes arguments that, were Ion a bit more on the ball, he could have seen to be bad ones
so what are the 3 main ideas here?
Here you go - czcams.com/video/OV_T8Emyf6I/video.html
Couldn’t the same argument made against the poet also be made against the philosopher, mainly because philosophy has the same dependency of talking about subjects in which there is talk of but no intimate skill of the subjects in question?
Joe Holiday Yes it could.
But, as I’m sure you’ve realized, it’s a flawed argument that Socrates is making
Those demn interlocutors
Ion -plato summary in tamil(literary. Criticism
Moni Sha No idea what you’re talking about here
gratias tibi ago!
You're welcome!
If there is truth in Plato's Cratylus regarding the "correctness" of names, then couldn't this Ion of Ephesus also be a "John"? If a John is an interpreter that confines his interpretations to a single author because he appears to lack the ability to interpret others, then couldn't Philo of Alexandria also be a John? The "experts" seem so dense it amazes me. They just follow what they are taught by others and never try to put all the pieces together into a context the makes sense. Plato was a Sophist who used Socrates as his "veil" and Plato's dialogues are discussions of metaphoric relationships that help in the decipherment of Sophist allegory. Of course if this became widely understood, then all those PhD's in Philosophy would become worthless pieces of paper and the world would be turned upside down (the "below" is brought to the "above").
I have a very different experience with (many) experts, I suppose