Table Of ContentIn Praise of Plato’s
Poetic Imagination
In Praise of Plato’s
Poetic Imagination
Sonja Tanner
Lexington Books
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Tanner, Sonja, 1972–
In praise of Plato’s poetic imagination / Sonja Tanner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBn 978-0-7391-4338-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBn 978-0-7391-4340-7 (electronic)
1. Plato. 2. Imagination (Philosophy) I. Title.
B395.T17 2010
184—dc22 2009053718
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Contents
Prologue vii
Introduction 1
1 a History of the ancient “Quarrel”—The Philosophical “Side” 19
2 on the “Side” of Poetry in the ancient “Quarrel” 59
3 Imagination in the Sophist 89
4 The Pharmacological Structure of the Imagination 129
5 The Unity of Form and Content in Platonic Dialogues 177
6 Imagination and the ancient “Quarrel” 207
Bibliography 233
Index 243
v
Prologue
Whether we know the language or not, in a sense we all speak Greek.* It was
Greek thinking that began to elucidate the dialectical nature of thought—as
logos—out of which come concepts and oppositions that generate meaning in
many of our own languages. From the Greeks we have learned to speak of dif-
ferences between originals and images, Forms and particulars, eternal and mor-
tal, the rational and irrational, being and becoming, and the ontological and the
ethical. Based on our understanding of Plato through aristotle, Platonists and
others, we carry on a tradition of privileging one half of these dichotomies
(namely the originals, Forms, the eternal, reason, becoming, and ontology) over
the other. The immutable, the Forms, the rational—these are to be focused on.
This is what philosophy proper should attempt to understand. Simultaneously,
we forget that any such privileging is itself ethically founded.
Such privileging supports ideologies of domination.** Thereupon we feel
justified in sacrificing particulars for the sake of what we see and worship as
the Form. We are able to denigrate one gender, ethnicity, or time because we
see it as more irrational, for the sake of the other. Further, we believe that the
delineations we make in such classification are simply ontological, and there-
fore true. If our systems of classification and privileging are not simply factual,
then our understanding of the world and our place in it are also compro-
mised. We proceed on the assumption that the strands of logos can be disen-
tangled, and that one can be studied to the exclusion of the other. and yet we
vii
viii Prologue
continue to do philosophy on the very grounds and in the very languages that
have enabled such ways of thinking. returning to the Greeks has the potential
to further mire us in the same ways of thinking we attempt to counter, but
equally, such a return is of vital importance if we are ever to move beyond
such ideologies.
This book is a return to one of the most influential and best known
amongst Greek thinkers, the one that most people can name even without
having studied philosophy. as such, it is hardly unique. and though I have
alluded to grand possibilities in another return to the Greeks, its potential is
but for far more modest and far less lofty goals. nonetheless, being clear about
such goals gives definition and purpose to the book and situates it within a
larger project.
notes
* The “we” in this statement refers to Western cultures. I do not mean to attribute
universality to Greek thought or to its legacy. If the image of Platonic dialogues this
book sketches is accurate, however, it is interesting to note how insights such as the
unity of opposites mark a coincidence of ancient eastern and Western thought.
** This phrase is adopted from Long (2004).
Introduction
This work is an attempt at raising questions that will contribute to a produc-
tive understanding of not only Platonic thinking, but of our own. It aims at
disturbing what we often see as clear delineations between such concepts as
self and other, original and image, and form and content. I hope to effect such
a disturbance by examining the role of what may be an unlikely and seldom
referred-to suspect in Platonic dialogues—the imagination.
The “discovery” of the imagination has been attributed by some to aristo-
tle, and indeed, Plato writes fairly little explicitly on eikasîa and phantasîa.1 as
Butcher describes it, “The Greek imagination of the classical age is under the
strict control of reason, it is limited by a sense of measure and a faculty of
self-restraint.”2 But perhaps imagination is not the sort of thing which ratio-
nal exposition is most adept at elucidating. Perhaps imagination eludes the
grasp of strictly rational procedures. If so, it is likely to exceed the rational
restrictions operating within any work—whether dialogue or book. The aim
here is not in any way to control or to pin down imagination. It is not ulti-
mately subject to control, and doing so would be once again to privilege rea-
son, understood in a narrow sense, over imagination. nonetheless, language is
flexible enough to permit at least an adumbration of images of the imagina-
tion, leaving open the possibility of writing about the imagination by way of
its very products. at the same time, its very products—images, metaphors,
and myths—illuminate the role of imagination in Platonic dialogues. Such
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