Reason And Emotion In Plato’s Ethical Poetics

In Platonic studies, Platonic poetics is one that attracts lots of attention and arguments. Plato discusses poetry in many of his dialogues, mainly including Republic, Ion, Laws, Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Protagoras and etc. Concerning studies on Platonic poetics, the dispute mainly focuses on the complex relationship between philosophy and poetry. Some claim that Plato opposes poetry in order to construct his philosophical doctrine, some recognize Plato’s role as a philosopher-poet, and some explain Plato’s contradictory attitudes towards poetry. However, previous studies have not yet clarified the ethical nature of Platonic poetics. In Platonic dialogues, the relationship between poetry and philosophy is represented by the relationship between emotion and reason in Platonic ethics. Therefore, under the background of the quarrel between poetry and philosophy, this thesis aims to demonstrate the ethical nature of Platonic poetics by taking Platonic poetics as the object of study, Platonic ethics as the approach, reason and emotion as the starting point.There are three parts in this thesis-introduction, body and conclusion. The introductory part includes literature review, research questions, methodology and organization of the thesis. In this part, studies abroad and at home concerning Platonic poetics are analyzed in detail, on the basis of which, three research questions are presented.The body of this thesis is composed by three chapters. Chapter 1 puts forward Plato’s rational requests towards poetics by constructing the relationships between reason and poetry, between reason and poets and between reason and audience. Rational poetry should present the reality and virtues of gods in content and oneness and simplicity in style. Rational poets should have correct understanding towards knowledge. Rational audience should pay attention to their souls and cultivate virtues. Chapter 2 depicts the emotional characteristics of ancient Greek poetics by constructing the relationships between emotion and poetry, between emotion and poets and between emotion and audience. To Plato, ancient Greek poetry depicts the appearances of gods in content and emphasizes innovation in style. Ancient Greek poets are imitators. They are ignorant and divinely inspired. The audience of ancient Greek poetics pursue pleasure by nature and lack virtues. Chapter 3 demonstrates that the ethical nature of Platonic dialogues as poetics is poetics of goodness. In Platonic ethics, goodness is achieved by the dialectical relationship between reason and emotion. Goodness is the combination of reason and emotion, but goodness is closer to reason. At the same time, Platonic dialogues provide the possibility of a "dialogue" between philosophy and poetry. Based on the dialectical relationship between reason and emotion and the possibility of dialogue between philosophy and poetry, Platonic dialogues can be regarded as poetics of goodness. Platonic dialogues in content and form are good poetry, Socrates and Plato are good poets. The aim of good poetry and good poets are to cultivate the dialectical ability of interlocutors in dealing with the relationship between reason and emotion, making them good citizens of city-state.In the conclusion part, this thesis points out that in the context of the ethical decay of ancient Greek society, from the perspective of reason, Plato depicts the rational characteristics of poetics. Then, from the perspective of emotion, Plato analyzes the emotional characteristics of ancient Greek poetics. At last, from the perspectives of reason and emotion, this thesis demonstrates that Platonic dialogues as poetics are poetics of goodness by the dialectical relationship between reason and emotion and by the dialogue between philosophy and poetry.