Plato: Ion

Ion

Plato didn’t just write about Socrates—he knew him personally. As a young man from a noble Athenian family, Plato became one of Socrates’ closest followers, drawn to his method of relentless questioning and ethical clarity. Socrates, famously, never wrote anything down, so it was through Plato’s dialogues that his voice survived. In early dialogues like Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, Plato presented Socrates as he lived and taught—wandering Athens, testing definitions, and challenging powerful men on what they claimed to know. These works are as much acts of memory as they are philosophy, written by a student who lost his teacher to a death sentence, but who never stopped asking the questions Socrates set in motion. By witnessing these dialogues, Plato was able to give readers a peek into the concerns of ancient Athenians, and many of those concerns are still important today.

Plato’s Ion is a short but provocative dialogue that explored the nature of artistic inspiration and the boundaries between knowledge and performance. In it, Socrates questioned Ion, a celebrated rhapsode—someone who recited and interpreted Homeric poetry in public, garnered accolades, fame, and money for his support of the classics. Ion claimed to understand Homer better than anyone else, but when Socrates pressed him on whether his talent was a form of knowledge, and whether Ion cared or not, he faltered.

For modern readers, Ion challenges us to ask:

• Do we confuse eloquence with knowledge?

• Can someone be skilled without truly understanding their subject?

• Is inspiration enough—or does real virtue require reason?

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Socrates was uncompromising in this dialogue, but those who still enjoyed art could separate fact from fiction and understand that inspiration found in art can impart knowledge about human emotion which is what motivates a search for knowledge in the first place: we see others as examples who are on the other side of transcendence. Socrates was very aware of how entertaining the poets could be, and flattery was his way into the debate. “Well now, I have often envied you rhapsodes, Ion, for your art. For that it befits your art for the body to be always adorned and for you to appear as beautiful as possible, and that, at the same time, it is necessary to be busy with many good poets and above all with Homer, the best and most divine of the poets, and to learn his thought thoroughly, not just his words, is enviable. Because one could never be a good rhapsode if he did not understand the things said by the poet. The rhapsode must be the interpreter of the thought of the poet to the listeners, but to do this finely is impossible for the one who does not recognize what the poet means. All these things, then, deserve to be envied…Are you clever about Homer alone or about Hesiod and Archilochus too?”

“ION: Not at all, but only about Homer, for that seems sufficient to me.”

“SOC: Why, then, are you clever about Homer but not about Hesiod or any of the other poets? Or does Homer speak about other things than what all the other poets speak about? Didn’t he tell about war for the most part, and about the associations with one another of good human beings and bad ones, and private ones and those in public works, and about gods’ associating with one another and with human beings—how they associate—and about the events in the heavens and those in Hades and the begettings of both gods and heroes? Are not these the things about which Homer has made his poetry? And what of the other poets? Don’t they make poetry about these same things?”

“ION: Yes, but, Socrates, they have not made poetry in a way similar to Homer.”

Socrates focused on Ion’s experience and wondered how people could be so certain about anything unless there has been a scouring of all available material for comparisons. “Dearest Ion, when there are many men speaking about number and someone speaks best, won’t there be someone who recognizes the one who speaks well? Does this same man also know the one speaking badly, or is it someone else? And isn’t this the one who has the arithmetical art? What of this? In a situation where many are speaking about what sorts of foods are healthy and a single person speaks best, will it be one man who recognizes that the person speaking best does speak best while another recognizes that the person speaking worse does speak worse? Or will it be the same man? Who is he? What name is there for him?”

“ION: Doctor.”

“SOC: Let us say then, in summary, that the same man will always recognize who speaks well and who speaks badly when there are a many speaking about the same things. Or if he does not recognize the one who speaks badly it is plain that he will not recognize the one who speaks well, at least about the same thing. Then the same man turns out to be clever about both? Don’t you affirm that both Homer and the other poets, among whom are Hesiod and Archilochus, speak about the same things but not similarly, the former speaking well and the others worse?”

“ION: And I speak truly.”

“SOC: Then, my excellent fellow, we won’t go wrong when we say that Ion is similarly clever about Homer and the other poets, too, since he himself agrees that the same man will be an adequate judge of all who speak about the same things and since very nearly all the poets make their poems about the same things…it is entirely clear that you are unable to speak about Homer by art and knowledge. For if you were able to do so by art, you would also be able to speak about all the other poets too. For presumably the poetic art is a whole, isn’t it? Then when someone grasps any art whatsoever as a whole, for all the arts, the same manner of inquiry holds…There is an art of painting as a whole, isn’t there? And there are and have been many painters good and poor. And did you ever know anyone who is clever at showing what [certain artists paint well] and what [they do not] but is incapable of doing so concerning the other painters—so that when someone makes a display of the works of other painters, is at a loss, and has nothing to contribute but when he is required to give a judgment about [an artist they know], or any other single painter you please, [or sculptors and musicians], he wakes up, pays attention, and finds plenty to say?”

“ION: No, by Zeus, surely not.”

Socrates noticed the excitement that art inspired in people and it was the psychoanalytic glue of imitation of super powers, drama, and characters that were able to move beyond obstacles that no audience member could transcend in real life. A celebration of wish fulfillment. Gods are projections of archetypes for skills needed for survival. The gods show us the way. They appear as role models for imitation that glue in the mind but those images often lack the process on how to gain the necessary skills to get to the finished result. Entertainment motivates action, but unless there’s practical experience to learn from, the inspiration doesn’t take hold in action because make-believe makes skill acquisition seem easy, so the audience remains passive. Then when you add the effect that imitation had on the audience, you get at the danger that Plato was pointing to: earning money, fame, and power based on lies.

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“For it is not art in you that makes you able to speak well about Homer, as I just said, but a divine power which moves you, [like a magnet]. For this stone not only draws iron rings to itself but puts a power in the rings as well to do the same thing the [magnet] does—to draw other rings to them, so that sometimes a very long chain of iron rings is strung hanging one from the other. But in all of them the power depends on this [magnet]. In this way also the Muse makes some men inspired herself, and through these inspired men, others are gripped with enthusiasm and form a chain. All the good epic poets speak all their fine poems not from art but by being inspired and possessed, and it is the same for the good lyric poets. Just as those carried away by [ecstatic imitation of the God-like and powerful] are not in their right minds when they dance, so also the lyric poets are not in their right minds when they make these fine songs of theirs. But when they launch into melody and rhythm, they are frantic and possessed, like Bacchic dancers who draw honey and milk from rivers when they are possessed but cannot when they are in their right minds. And the soul of the lyric poets works in this way, as they themselves say. For the poets tell us, don’t they, that culling their songs from fountains flowing with honey and certain gardens and glens of the Muses they bear them to us just like bees, flying as they do. And they speak the truth. For the poet is a light thing, winged and sacred, unable to make poetry before he is inspired and out of his mind and intelligence is no longer in him. For as long as this is his possession every human being is unable to make poetry or oracular utterance. Since they make poems and say much that is fine about things, just as you do about Homer, not by art but by divine dispensation, each is able to do finely only that to which the Muse has impelled him—one making dithyrambs, another encomia, another choral chants, another epics, another iambic verses—while with regard to the rest, each of them is ordinary. For they say these things not by art but by divine power. For if they knew how to speak finely by art about one of them, they would be able to do so about all the rest. On this account the god takes away their intelligence and uses them as servitors along with soothsayers and diviners of the gods so that we hearers may know that these men, who are without intelligence, are not the ones who say things worth so much but that god himself is the speaker and gives utterance to us through them. The greatest proof of the argument is Tynnichus, the Chalcidean, who never composed any poem worth remembering other than the poem which everybody sings and which is very nearly the finest of all songs, being simply, as he himself says, ‘a discovery of the Muses.’ In this man the god especially shows us, it seems to me, so that we need not be in doubt, that these fine poems are not human nor belonging to human beings, but divine and belonging to gods, and the poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, possessed by the one who holds each. To show this, the god on purpose sang the finest lyric through the most ordinary poet. Do I seem to you to speak the truth, Ion?”

“ION: Yes, by Zeus, to me you do. For somehow you lay hold of my soul with these speeches, Socrates, and I believe that the good poets are interpreters of these things from the gods through divine dispensation.”

“SOC: When you are speaking epics well and most amusing the spectators, are you then in your right mind? Or do you become beside yourself, and does your soul think it is at the scene of the deeds of which you speak in your inspiration?”

“ION: When I speak of something pitiful, my eyes fill with tears, and when of something frightening or terrible, my hair stands on end from fear and my heart leaps.”

“SOC: Shall we assert that this man is then in his right mind who, adorned with rich raiment and golden crowns, cries in the midst of sacrifices and festivals, although he has lost none of these things, or who is frightened while standing before twenty thousand friendly human beings, although no one is stripping or harming him?”

“ION: No, by Zeus, certainly not, Socrates, to tell the truth.”

“SOC: Do you know then that you work these same effects on most of the spectators?”

“ION: Indeed I do know it very finely. For I look down on them each time from the platform above as they are crying, casting terrible looks and following with astonishment the things said. I must pay the very closest attention to them, since, if I set them to crying, I shall laugh myself because I am making money, but if they laugh, then I shall cry because of the money I am losing.”

“SOC: You know, then, that this spectator is the last of the rings which I said get their power from one another through the [magnet]? And you the rhapsode and actor are the middle, and the top is the poet himself, but the god through all these draws the soul of human beings wherever he wishes, transmitting the power from one to the other. And we name this ‘being possessed,’ and it is very nearly that, for he is held. You are one of them, Ion, and are possessed by Homer, and when someone sings from another poet, you fall asleep and are at a loss for something to say, but when someone utters a song of this poet, you wake up immediately and your soul dances and you have plenty to say. For you say what you say about Homer neither by art nor by knowledge but by divine dispensation and possession…About which one of the things Homer speaks do you speak well? For surely you don’t speak well about them all.”

“ION: Know well, Socrates, that I do about them all.”

“SOC: Doesn’t Homer in many places have many things to say about the arts—for example, about charioteering? Tell me, then, what Nestor says to his son Antilochus when he urges him to be careful at the turn in the horse race in memory of Patroclus. And who would judge better whether Homer speaks these words rightly or not, Ion, the doctor or the charioteer?”

“ION: The charioteer, surely.”

“SOC: Because this is his art or for some other reason?”

“ION: Because this is his art.”

“SOC: For presumably we won’t know by medicine what we know by piloting, will we? Nor will we know by carpentering what we know by medicine. Then whoever does not have a certain art will not be able to know in a fine way the things of that art which are finely said or done, will he? Would you or a charioteer, then, know in a finer way about whether the verses you just recited were finely said by Homer or not? And the rhapsode’s art is different from the charioteer’s? Then according to your account the rhapsode’s art will not know everything, nor the rhapsode either.”

“ION: Everything, except, the things that are appropriate.”

Analysis

Socrates then grilled Ion and concluded that he was a fan of Homer but not an expert. The actor and poet rely on the emotions of the character in a story as they carry out those skills but there’s no evidence of knowledge of the skills themselves that would make life better. There is a silver lining in that good art improves from research, otherwise it’s escapism. As benign this may be for many, Plato did not find it so because of art’s influence on the audience. There were skills indeed on offer with poets but in the realm of techne, or practical knowledge, they were only demonstrated in the realm of writing and art, to make stories beautiful, but not real. “The Ion would seem to be an integral—and therefore authentic—part of what may be called Plato’s programme to show that traditional poetry, being mimetic of the imperfect world as we know it, and a fortiori rhapsodes, imitators of imitators, should be rejected, and should not be admitted to a state if that state is to be well governed.”

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This of course was the kind of philosophy that would undermine the world order and so people like Ion who had swagger and confidence, who basked in the glow of the beloved Homer secondarily, he was supported by the Greeks. “In spite of [Socrates’] caution he was finally put to death by the community for investigating the things in the heavens and under the earth rather than accepting Homer’s account of them. In the failure of Ion to meet the test Socrates puts to him we see the reason why Socrates was forced to undertake a private study of the things in the heavens and under the earth.” Yet his behavior could not be anything but public considering “he chose the statesmen and the poets, [in Apology], because they are men whose very activity implied knowledge of the whole. Thus the commands of statesmen imply that they know what the good life is, and the tales of poets tell of gods and men, death and life, peace and war. Socrates discovered that statesmen and poets knew nothing but that the artisans did in fact know something. They could actually do things such as making shoes or training horses, and by their ability to teach their skills to others they proved they possessed knowledge. Nevertheless Socrates preferred to remain ignorant in his own way rather than to become knowledgeable in the way of artisans, for the latters’ knowledge was of partial things, and their pride of competence caused them to neglect the human situation as a whole. However, Socrates did learn from the artisans what knowledge is and hence was made aware that those who talk about the whole do not possess knowledge of it. The choice seems to be between men who talk about the whole but are both incompetent and unaware of their incompetence, and men who deal with insignificant parts of the whole competently but are as a consequence oblivious of the whole. Socrates adopts a moderate position; he is open to the whole but knows that he does not know the answers although he knows the questions. In the Ion, he applies the standard of knowledge drawn from the arts to the themes treated by poetry, thus showing wherein poetry and the tradition fail and what stands in the way of such knowledge.”

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In a way, Plato didn’t dismiss art in total, as long as artists put effort into their research, interviewed and surveyed experts, as well as attempted to acquire first hand knowledge of different forms of techne. Ideally, art that would be allowed in Plato’s republic would be the kind that could suggest realistic ways of attaining well being and morality that wouldn’t undermine his enlightened polis that maximized the Good. The work of artists would be a bore if they provided days of training in techne, but if they pointed to those who did have practical knowledge, they could provide their techne in how all the pieces of a polis fit together, especially the statesmen, in a way that maximized the Good. This way artists and statesmen wouldn’t have to live multiple lifetimes to gather all the practical knowledge of the realm before they wrote a play or drew up a political structure.

The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues – Thomas L. Pangle (Editor) – Plato: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780801494659/

Rijksbaron, Albert (2007). Plato, Ion or: On the Iliad.

Lorenzo Ferroni, Arnaud Macé​, Platon Ion. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2018.

Philosophy: https://psychreviews.org/category/philosophy03/