柏拉圖在《理想國》中的詩作批判

Plato’s Critiques of Poetry in the Republic

柏拉圖在《理想國》第十書的詩作批判經常被人詬病，它太過依賴詩作與畫作之間的類比，以致於詩作也顯得是無須認真看待的東西。然而，本文認為，這個觀點是錯誤的；詩作雖與畫作被放在同一個存有層次上看待，但詩作所模仿的，乃是「善的表象」，因此詩作絕對比畫作具有對城邦更大的危害性。此外，由於詩作乃是藉由情感、道德態度以及語言等來模仿行動，因此詩作要比畫作更能創造逼真的道德圖像。最後，本文將論述，《理想國》第二、三書與第十書的詩作批判，乃是一致的；在這兩個批判中，柏拉圖都是負面地看待「詩作模仿」。

Plato’s critique of poetry in Book X of the Republic is often vulnerable to the accusation that it overly relies on the assimilation of poetry to painting. Due to that assimilation, poetry will be presented as something that is too trivial to bother with - a poor thing like scene painting which is not really dangerous to the state. However, I shall argue that this disapproval of Plato is wrong. To be sure, poetry is set by Plato on the same ontological level as painting, in that both are “two removes from the truth,” and both imitations aim at “appearances.” But since what it imitates and creates is the “appearance of goodness,” poetry definitely has a more dangerous effect on the state than painting. Moreover, I shall argue that contrasted with painting, poetry is more capable of confusing the apparent with the real - making the apparent good to be like a real one; for a poetic performance imitates human action not merely in the look, but mainly with such media as feelings, ethical attitudes, and speech. Finally, I will show that the “metaphysical” criticism raised in Book X of the Republic is consistent and continuous with the criticisms in Book II and III, which attack poetry mainly from the moral point of view; in both critiques, Plato is hostile to “poetic imitation.”