Socrates's metaphor of the three beds
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| - | [[Plato]]'s "bedness" analogy is the beginning of [[ekphrasis]] | + | In [[Book X of The Republic|Book X of ''The Republic'']], Plato tells of '''Socrates's metaphor of the three beds''': one [[bed]] exists as an idea made by God (the [[Platonic ideal]]); one is made by the carpenter, in imitation of God's idea; one is made by the artist in imitation of the carpenter's. |
| - | Plato discusses [[form]]s in ''[[The Republic]]'', Book X, by using real things, such as a [[bed]], for example, and calls each way a bed has been made, a "[[bedness]]". He commences with the original form of a bed, one of a variety of ways a bed may have been constructed by a craftsman and compares that form with an ideal form of a bed, of a perfect [[archetype]] or image in the form of which beds ought to be made, in short the [[epitome]] of bedness. | + | :But would you call the painter a creator and maker? |
| - | In his analogy one bedness form shares its own bedness - with all its shortcomings - with that of the ideal form, or template. A third bedness, too, may share the ideal form. He continues with the fourth form also containing elements of the ideal template/archetype which in this way remains an ever-present and invisible ideal version with which the craftsman compares his work. As bedness after bedness shares the ideal form and template of all creation of beds, and each bedness is associated with another [[ad infinitum]], it is called an "[[infinite regress]] of forms". | + | :Certainly not. |
| - | In developing this in Book X of ''[[The Republic]]'', Plato tells of Socrates's metaphor of the three beds: one [[bed]] exists as an idea made by God (the [[Platonic ideal]]); one is made by the carpenter, in imitation of God's idea; one is made by the artist in imitation of the carpenter's. | + | :Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed? |
| - | So the artist's bed is [[twice removed from the truth]]. The copiers only touch on a small part of things as they really are, where a bed may appear differently from various points of view, looked at obliquely or directly, or differently again in a mirror. So painters or poets, though they may paint or describe a carpenter or any other maker of things, know nothing of the carpenter's (the craftsman's) art, and though the better painters or poets they are, the more faithfully their works of art will resemble the reality of the carpenter making a bed, nonetheless the imitators will still not attain the truth (of God's creation). | + | :I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the [[imitator]] of that which the others make. |
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| + | :Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator? | ||
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| + | :Certainly, he said. | ||
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| + | :And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is '''thrice removed from the king and from the truth?''' | ||
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| + | :That appears to be so. | ||
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| + | So the artist's bed is '''twice removed from the truth'''. The copiers only touch on a small part of things as they really are, where a bed may appear differently from various points of view, looked at obliquely or directly, or differently again in a mirror. So painters or poets, though they may paint or describe a carpenter or any other maker of things, know nothing of the carpenter's (the craftsman's) art, and though the better painters or poets they are, the more faithfully their works of art will resemble the reality of the carpenter making a bed, nonetheless the imitators will still not attain the truth (of God's creation). | ||
| The poets, beginning with Homer, far from improving and educating humanity, do not possess the knowledge of craftsmen and are mere imitators who copy again and again images of virtue and rhapsodise about them, but never reach the truth in the way the superior philosophers do. | The poets, beginning with Homer, far from improving and educating humanity, do not possess the knowledge of craftsmen and are mere imitators who copy again and again images of virtue and rhapsodise about them, but never reach the truth in the way the superior philosophers do. | ||
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| ==See also== | ==See also== | ||
| *[[Platonic idealism]] | *[[Platonic idealism]] | ||
| + | *[[Plato on art]] | ||
| *[[Theory of forms]] | *[[Theory of forms]] | ||
| - | *[[Two steps removed from the truth]] | + | *[[Mimesis]] |
| - | *[[Socrates's metaphor of the three beds]] | + | *[[-ness]] |
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
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In Book X of The Republic, Plato tells of Socrates's metaphor of the three beds: one bed exists as an idea made by God (the Platonic ideal); one is made by the carpenter, in imitation of God's idea; one is made by the artist in imitation of the carpenter's.
- But would you call the painter a creator and maker?
- Certainly not.
- Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed?
- I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make.
- Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator?
- Certainly, he said.
- And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth?
- That appears to be so.
So the artist's bed is twice removed from the truth. The copiers only touch on a small part of things as they really are, where a bed may appear differently from various points of view, looked at obliquely or directly, or differently again in a mirror. So painters or poets, though they may paint or describe a carpenter or any other maker of things, know nothing of the carpenter's (the craftsman's) art, and though the better painters or poets they are, the more faithfully their works of art will resemble the reality of the carpenter making a bed, nonetheless the imitators will still not attain the truth (of God's creation).
The poets, beginning with Homer, far from improving and educating humanity, do not possess the knowledge of craftsmen and are mere imitators who copy again and again images of virtue and rhapsodise about them, but never reach the truth in the way the superior philosophers do.
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