Plato, Ion

What a pleasure it is to return to inexhaustible literature! This short gem of a dialogue is the beginning of my return to Ancient Greece; on deck now is the Iliad and a modern doorstopper, Tragedy and Hope, recommended to me by David Fabe via Josh Barr.

The Ion appears to be part of a critique of poetry and the poets. Through inquiring if Ion is clever about all poets, not just Homer, Socrates is able to show Ion that the rhapsode's ability is not an art or craft, that it possesses no knowledge, and that in general, the poet does not know what he is talking about. But when one reexamines the argument, specifically with the question how Socrates gets Ion to admit all this, it becomes ever clearer that Socrates uses poorly constructed arguments for his assertions - switching subjects unbeknownst to Ion, ignoring implications, etc. Further, the examples he uses make the question of what τέχνη and ἐπιστήμη are completely unclear, inviting us to consider the possibility that the argument is not intended to be taken seriously, culminating in a twin example of generalship: Ion claims he knows what a general should say to exhort his troops before battle, and this he learned from Homer. Socrates changes the subject again ("So the rhapsode is a general? Seriously?"), mocks him, and ends the discussion, but it is unclear just how a general should learn to exhort his troops, and perhaps Ion's claim is not quite so ridiculous. Through an examination of the general, it seems that far from banishing the poets from the city, they are necessary to form its soul, and provide a vision of the whole for its citizens.

There is more. Homer occupies a special place in Athens; he is an artist who truly formed the soul of man; his depiction of heroic virtue was the standard until Alexander the Great, and his work was about as authoritative to the Greeks as the Bible was to the Medievals. As such, Homer is the commonly received opinion or tradition of the Greeks (Athens' cave, perhaps - what a great cave!), and by focusing solely on him, Ion is the most conventional, unreflective of men. He does not inquire or even seek to inquire whether there might be alternatives to Homer, using him to bolster his own achievements and reputation. Socrates, in investigating the link between art, poetry, and "speaking well or badly" (is this related to knowledge? the word "knowledge" occurs very seldom in the dialogue, hardly an accident), is investigating the very foundation of the city's most dearly held beliefs, what reason there is to hold those beliefs, and whether there might be alternatives: a dangerous business, for it is simple to see such a man as subversive.

I am sure that hardly covers the entire Ion. I have only read it five or ten times, and will probably see more as the count approaches fifty. But it is a good beginning. Reading Plato is like reading nothing else; it is exhilarating, shocking, infuriating, and provoking towards education of the highest sort; a great adventure. This is the first of the Dialogues I have read carefully; one down, thirty four more (plus the Letters) to go.

"As for me, I speak nothing but the truth, as is fitting for a private human being".