Against Platos Aesthetic Theory as Imitation: A Case Study in Architecure

Gregory R. DeadyWayne State University4.26.2013

Plato, throughout the dialogues, seems to have spilled a considerably small amount of ink on the topics of art and aesthetic appreciation. Even so, his sentiments on the topic can be culled mostly from his Theory of the Forms, if not entirely from the sparse arguments he makes in The Republic specifically Book X. Though he does discuss art, in a way, in Ion, his focus there is primarily on poetry, which I will not concern myself with here. His brief discussion on visual art is rather bleak for the artist, as it at least prima facie denounces him as some imposter, forming a cleft between the viewer and the Forms. In this paper, I endeavor to do three things: to explore Platos treatment of visual art through Charles Karelis Plato on Art and Reality; to demonstrate that Platos theory on art does not apply to most forms of art; and finally to use architectural aesthetics as a case against Platos theory, ultimately poising his arguments against himself.