A place for art? A clarification of Platonic aesthetics.
Plato seems to get a bad rap when it comes to his views on art. Many first time readers are quick to protest, How could someone that so many people revere as the father of Western thought hold such a low estimation of the arts, specifically that they have no place in a perfect society? To think that this is all there is to Platonic aesthetics is to vastly oversimplify the matter. Hopefully a clarification of why Plato seemed to feel this way will help determine if there really is no hope for art in Plato’s world
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