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Collingwood and Greek Aesthetics

Author(s): Stanley H. Rosen


Reviewed work(s):
Source: Phronesis, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1959), pp. 135-148
Published by: BRILL
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and GreekAesthetics
Collingwood
STANLEY H. ROSEN

writing in The Principlesof Art, has given us an


interpretation of Greek aesthetics that is worth examining in
some detail.' This is true for at least two reasons. In the first
place, Collingwood's work, as in most of his books, is original and
provocative2and it should be more widely studied by those who are
interested in the philosophy of art. In the second place, it is wrong,
which, when combined with the ingenuity just mentioned, makes it
perhapsmore worthy of inspection than many saner accounts. I hope
that this judgment does not seem perverse; it is nothing other than a
reformulationof the old platitude that we often learn more from those
whose views we reject than from those with whom we agree. I am
forced to reject Collingwood's picture of the views of Plato and Aristotle almost in their entirety, yet I believe thatI have learneda good bit
about Plato and Aristotle in doing so; if this is so, it is only a sign of the
truth which lies in platitudes, and not of any scorn for Collingwood. In
the discussionwhich follows, it is my intention neither to deal adequately with the whole of Collingwood's philosophy of art, nor with that
of the Greeks. Apart from its intrinsic interest and the usual questions
of space, the following justification may be given for considering this
part of Collingwood's book in isolation.
Accordingto Collingwood, Book I of ThePrinciplesof Artcontains the
treatise's "empiricalor descriptive work" in which "we have tried, so
far, merely to repeat what everyone knows; everyone, that is, who is
accustomed to dealing with art and distinguishingart proper from art
falsely so-called."2 If the merely "empiricalor descriptive work" has
not been correctly done, as I shall have to contend, then the theory of
art presented in Book III, which dependsupon it, can by Collingwood's
own scheme hardly be satisfactory.The empirical work itself falls into
two parts, a description of what art proper is not, and a description of
what it is. In discussing what art proper is not, Collingwood places
much of the stress of his "description"upon a historical study purporting
to explain how Greek philosophy is in part responsible for current erroneous views and in part has been misinterpreted as a result of these
KR

G. COLLINGWOOD,

Oxford, 1938. Reissued as Galaxypaperback, g9l. All quotationsare from the i9gS
edition, hereaftef abbreviatedas P.A.
2 P.A., pp. 273,
152.
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views. It therefore follows that there must be, according to Collingwood's line of thought, a contradictionin Greek aesthetics, one part of
which is wrong, and has generatedthe false views which, in the course
of time, have been turned back onto the part that is right by those corrupted by the erroneous part. Complicated as this sounds, it is very
much like his procedure, if not his explicit formulation.If Collingwood
is right, then everyone, the Greeks as well as ourselves, is at least halfwrong; andin Collingwood'shands,the halfhasa distressingtendencyof
becoming the whole.
Before turning to the details of the argument, it may be well to
present certain technical terms used by Collingwood throughout, sometimes with dire consequences. The first involves a distinction between
imitative and representationalart: "A work of art is imitative in virtue
of its relation to another work of art which affordsit a model of artistic
excellence; it is representativein virtue of its relation to something in
'nature', that is, somethingnot a work of art." I The second involves a
triple distinction of false kinds of art: (a) the theory that art is a craft,
like cobbling or carpentry: "the power to produce a preconceived
result by meansof consciouslycontrolledanddirected action; 2 (b) the
the theory that art is magic: "Amagicalart is an art which is representative and therefore evocativeof emotion, and evokes of set purposesome
emotions rather than others in order to dischargethem into the affairs
of practical life;

"3

(c) the theory that art is amusement: something

"designedto stimulate a certain emotion (which) is intended not for


discharge into the occupations of ordinary life, but for enjoyment as
something of value in itself."4 All three of these theoriesarerejected by
Collingwood as part of his empirical task.
Collingwoodbegins the negativepart of his work by denyingthat art is
a craft, and in connection with this, that it is representation.This view,
still popular, he tells us, owes its origin to classical philosophy which
"inthis matter, as in so manyothers, has left so manytraces on our own
(thought), both for good and for ill. "s Let us first look at what he has to
say about the Greek theory of =LotrmX)T?Xvv. According to Collingwood etXnv(like the Roman ars) "meansa craft or specialized form of
skill, like carpentryor smithyingor surgery."6 Now this is certainlyone
of its meanings,but by no meansthe only one. It can also nmeancraftiness
in the sense of cunning: for example, in a speech of Lysiaswe read of a
Ibid., P. 42.
Ibid., p. Is.
3 Ibid., p. 69.

Ibid., P. 78.
s Ibid., P. I9.
6 Ibid., P.
s.

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manwith a t6Xv-for adulter). I Or it can refer to a way in which something is acquired, "withoutany definite sense of art or craft."z Furthermore, just as in Englishthere is a differencebetween a craftlike cobbling
andanart or knacklike fishing(asusedwith regardto amateurfishermen),
and just as there is a difference between arts like fishing and arts like
flute-playing,so too do these differences exist in Greek. What unites
these various-instancesin Englishis that all are manifestationsof "technique," an abstractterm which refers to a skilled nmanner
of doing, but
to no specific manner: the manner varies from case to case. The same is
true in Greek. To have a 'xv-1 is to be able to do something 'exvy.x7,
like cobbling, carpentryetc,, are not the only kinds of skilful
and tCXvmL
activity. Collingwood translates xcxvn, then, in an erroneously rigid
manner; perhaps he has been misled by the word "technical," which he
does not want to be associated with art proper, and which is nowadays
usually applied to activities even more complex than cobbling. But there
is, so to speak, a non-technical use of the term. The matter is made clear
by thinking of the colloquial English uses of the word "technique." Just
as Lysias speaks of a r'xv- in adultery, so do we say of a man that his
"technique" in love is excellent. And just as we could not equate a
love "technique" with a cobbler's "technique" without misunderstanding or blurring the meaning of this abstract term, so too would it be an
error to equate the reXvyq
of a poet with that of a cobbler, if we meant
to say thereby that the poet exhibits the same manner of skilful acting
as does a cobbler. But this is what Collingwood would make of the
Greek view, and he is wrong in so "describing" it. Poets and cobblers
both practice teXvat but their techniques are radically different.
What is the case, however, is that Plato and Aristotle describe the
poet as a ,uLd'-n)q or imitator, just as the craftsman (in Collingwood's
sense of the term) is said to be an imitator. Poetry and craftsmanship are
both techniques which share the characteristic of imitating, but it hardly
follows from this that the 'rexv- of the poet is equivalent to the rexv- of
the craftsman. A large share of Collingwood's objections to the view of
re'Xv are based upon this misunderstanding. The term 'rxvnotvLtx)LX
has a whole spectrum of specific meanings, and if Collingwood wishes to
exclude art from all of these meanings, then he must deny that there is
any skill involved in practicing "art proper." That he is very nearly
involved in this absurdity, I hope to show in a subsequent study of his
description of the "facts" of art.
I Lysias,llEPI TOT EPATOSOENOTE (DONOT, 16-17.
2 Liddell & Scott, UnabridgedGreek-EnglishLexicon,
gth Edition.
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Meanwhile,restrictingourselves to an inspection of his description of


Greek aesthetics, we turn to an error concerning Plato's theory of art.
Collingwood correctly observes that, in the third book of the Republic,
Socrates distinguishesbetween imitative or mimetic and non-imitative
narrativein poetry. I As this passageis of considerable importance to
Collingwood, we must examine it for a moment. The passageis too long
to transcribein its entirety, but here is a resume: Socratessays that all
poetry is a narrativeabout the past, present, and future, and that some
narrativeis simple and some imitative (&itci 'ffpIaLe and 'LIya 8W.
~LLa7ewq). That is, sometimes the poet narrates the experiences of
others in his own voice, and this is imitative narrative; when the poet
distinguisheswhat he hasexperiencedfromwhatothershaveexperienced,
this is simple narrative.The question is now whether to allow one or
both or a mixture of these two forms of narrative in the best city.
The conclusion is that we are to allow a mixture: mainly it will be
simplenarration,but a small part may be imitative when it is a good man
that is the subject of imitation. When the person imitated is bad, then
imitative narrativeis undesirable, for obvious reasons. This judgment
about art is in line with the view that men cannot imitate manythings
well, that is, that each man has his own business to perform, and should
stick to it. Since a part of this business in every case is to be virtuous,
it is sometimes permissible to imitate virtuous acts.
From this Collingwood infers that for Plato, some art is mimetic and
some art is not mimetic. The question, however, is what is meant by
mimetic in this whole discussion. In the literal sense, there can be no
doubt that Collingwood is right. But the following observationmay be
made. Collingwood himself has shown us that mimesis may have two
meanings: imitation and representation.Socratesmay mean by mimetic
oneself as someone
narrative here a narration in which one represents
else, and by simple narrativea narrationin which one does not so representoneself. If this interpretation,or somethinglike it, hasany merit,
it would mean that Socratesis here using ,dpuaLgin a specialisedrather
than in a general sense. Or, should this appear to be over-subtle, we
might say merely that Socratesby his own statementhas not yet worked
out the details of his argumenthere, and so that the details concerning
mimesis will receive their full treatment in Book X.2 (It is this which
Collingwood, as we shall see, wants to deny.) Now the questionwhether
there is any reasonto subject this passageto what may look like casuistry
I

392 d s ff.

2 See 394

d 7 ff.

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cannot be answereduntil we make up our mind about what is said in


Book X. If the literal readingof the passagein Book IIIis consonantwith
Socrates'finalposition in Book X, then there is no problem and Collingwood is entirely right. I will now show, however, that this is not the
case; that the literal reading in Book III is contradictedby the literal
readingin Book X, despite Collingwood's claims. This is enoughfor us
to reject Collingwood, but it is not enough for us to understandPlato.
I canonly show here that either some such interpretationas I have suggested is required, or there is a clear-cut contradictionin the Republic:
whether it is or is not susceptible of resolution on a deeper level, on
this alternative,I cannot now enter into, but hope that my analysiswill
contributesomethingto sharpeningthe question involvedand exhibiting
those of its complexities which are blurred by Collingwood.
According to Collingwood, an "unprejudiced"reading of Book X
in Greek (he rightly mistrusts translations)shows that Socrates (again)
distinguishesbetween mimetic and non-mimetic poetry, and, in this
severer context, nevertheless banishes only mimetic poets from the
city. This is simplynot correct. For, by following Collingwood's advice
and looking at the Greek text, we find that Socrates now explicitly
definespoetry as mimetic:
[fLLlrnT)16X. VEotxev.
M9cxpau)xcp
auyyLyVO4eVvJ 9PaXa ywvva
iovov, Xod xata qvV
T6Trepov,iv 3' Cye?, xa rv 6-V
&XOi5v, 'v 8- Trol'atv
xal raufv.,
Ovvop'c4opev; "Etxo6y', e,

(Pau-X'

In other words, poetry is explicitly defined as imitation by sound


xoata r-Jv &xoiAqv.This passage is never cited by Collingwood, although it is crucial for understanding the passages to which he
does allude. It is especially puzzling to find this reference missing, in the
face of a sudden burst of Greek quotations: he does cite, in a learned
footnote, two passages before ours and three after it (6oo e 5; 6o I a 4;
6o6 a 6; 607 b 2,6) where he says that poetry is critically discussed
without being specified as "representational" - i.e. mimetic - poetry.
Collingwood says: "In every case except one, the qualification is obviously implied in the context. (Little wonder, we may interpolate, in light
of the definition of poetry just noted.) The one exception (607 b 6),
though a very interesting passage, is not one that affects the present discussion. "2 Collingwood's accuracy becomes further suspect when we
note that at 6oo e g, poetry is specified as mimetic, and his argument
I 603 b
4..
I P.A., p. 48, p. 2.

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hopelessly confused when we further observe that at 607 b 2-6 (interestingly separated by Collingwood as two passages rather than given as one),
the whole passage is extremely relevant. In it, Socrates states that we
were right to expel poetry (unqualified) from the city, such being her
nature ('rota'rrvJ oi'aov) - i.e. that she is mimetic. It is not nmimetic
poetry in opposition to some other poetr), which is being expelled, but
rather poetry which is being expelled because it is mimetic. This is
clear from Socrates' allusion to the long-standing quarrel between philosophy and poetry. As the whole argumnentshows, the quarrel is over the
claim to knowledge. And poetry, since it merely imitates, does not, according to Socrates, knou about the things which it imitates. Poetry's
nature is mimetic; as such, it makes a false claim to knowledge, and so,
as partisans of philosophy, we nmustexpel it from the city. This issue
will shortly be raised again.
Meanwhile, let us notice one last passage which Collingwood translates within the laws of grammar, but in such a way as is not only not
required by the sense of the words, but which is incompatible with
Socrates' argument. At 607 c 5, Socrates says that "pleasure-producing
poetry and inmitation"will be accepted once miore if it has arguments to
defend itself from the charges brought against it. Collingwood translates:
"poetry for pleasure's sake, i.e. representation." The Greek reads:
xxat
7rp68 '8OVv ltTjLX
Now, xcd can mean id est, but its
LL[)at.
usual meaning in such a context is "and"; there would be no reason to
think of id est here, given the whole context, unless we were trying to
read Collingwood's interpretation into the text. But this interpretation
has now been disproved, with respect to Book X.
It should now be evident why I was worrying the meaning of ,uuvcaL4 in
the passage summarized from Book Ill. If we may take the argument just
preceding as established, then, as I pointed out, we must either face a
contradiction in the Republic, or resolve it, either very subtly or very
simply. I have suggested a simple solution, and must let the matter
stand there. I turn now to a second point at which Collingwood is
apparently justified in part of his interpretation. At 607 a ff., Socrates
seems to contradict the whole surrounding argument by saying that
some forms of poetry will be allowed to remain in the city. The Greek
sentence reads:
xP... eL8eVOL 8' &rr oaov [.ovov [IJvou4 Ozozi xac "yxcop 'rozc
MyOoZ 7M0CWX rXpOC&CxTr&Ov
rCI 7ro'?LV.

i.e., "one must know that of poetrv only such hymns to the gods and
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encomia to the good may be admitted to the city." What this means is
that poetry as an independent endeavor has been banished from the city;
certain poems which are consistent with the moral and political character
of the city - in other words, which can serve as propaganda - will be
retained. There is no real contradiction here, although I grant that the
language is confusing because Socrates has not bothered to invent a new
term for propaganda-art, which is certainly quite different from the art
which has been expelled. But let us recall the passage in the Laws, wherein the Athenian stranger says that the laws of the city will be its lyric
poetry. I It is in this sense that the present passage must be understood.
The nature of poetry, as practiced by unregulated poets, which caused
it to be banished from the cit), is perfectly useful when it is employed
as a tool of the city. Most important, however, is the fact that, by retaining some poems within the city, it is not thereby argued that these
poems are no longer mimetic. At the very least, Collingwood would
have to admit that, if he is right about Book III, then he is wrong about
Book X, since the poems retained, as encomia to the good and hymns to
the gods, obviously satisfy the criterion of good imitative narrative laid
down in Book III.
So far, then, we have discussed Collingwood's analysis of art as XVJ,
and of Plato's theory of the mimetic nature of art. In the arguments to be
considered next, these errors are combined in a way which generates
further misinterpretations, and which culminates in an omission of what
is Plato's major point with respect to art. Collingwood says that Plato
and Aristotle "took it for granted that poetry, the only art which they
discussed in detail, was a craft," that is, a craft like cobbling, carpentering or weaving. "The poet is a kind of skilled producer; he produces
for customers; and the effect of his skill is to bring about in them certain
states of mind, which are conceived in advance as desirable states. The
poet, like any other kind of craftsman, must know what effect he is
aiming at, and must learn by experience and precept, which is only the
imparted experience of others, how to produce it"2. This view of art is
said to be the predominant, if not the only, Greek view: "There are
suggestions in some of them, especially in Plato, of a quite different
view, but this is the one which they have made familiar, and upon which
both the theory and the practice of the arts has for the most part rested
down to the present time."3
I

Laws, 8 ii C-D; 817 B ff.


2 P.A. p. i8-19.
3 Ibid., P. I9.

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There are at least two thingsradicallywrong here. First: let us assume


that the Greekshad only one majorview of art - namely that it is yTj.
Here Collingwood's rigid translationof the term leads him to misread
the Greeks. It is the point both in the Apologyand in the tenth book of
the Republic,to mention the most famousinstances, that the poet, as an
imitator,is inferiorto the craftsmanwho makes things like shoes and
tables, or to the skilled general who leads men in action, or to the
political leader, and so forth. We have only to turn to the Greek text
to see what the case is. Let us take it as established by our previous
argument that, in the last book of the Republic,
-all poetry is mimetic.
Socratesexplains, in terms of his theory of Ideas, that the user of an artifice is the one who may be expected best to understandit, and not its
maker (i.e. the craftsmanas Collingwood uses the term.) But the maker
is carefullydistinguishedfrom
thepoetor imitator,whohas leastknowledge
of
all. Plato writes:
ou're &pOC
E?a't

09XL Oe

CL 0
p0&
8OO
aLL'Ltr

7tcpL

6v

av

vuLL[LY

,tp4s x&XBo4YN7tOVtpW.
-

,,

OUX

?OLXEV.

- XOCPICgL
av

'o ?'V

`
7r0t4)GE& AJ1-TLXOq rpO4

oPECV srpl Jv &v notj.

In the rest of this crucial passage, it is elicited that the imitator, having

no knowledge of any value concerningwhat he imitates (rOv -r V.L[LYrtX6V


p.ae7v

elaVatL
`iLov

X6you

nrpL

xTv vLLteZ-ou) is,

in the famous phrase,

third from the truth (-s ae 81&,LuteutaOL


.6Tv
LV
IoUTo oi 7rEpl rpio v pvTi
Collingwood collapses two distinctions in reporting
Mno-rTq &?)rn0OLmx;).
on Plato's theory of art. First, it is true that the word for poet (7otoLrrq)
means "maker," being derived from the verb "to make" (noLmw). But it is
quite clear now that Plato wants to distinguish two kinds of making, that
of the craftsman and that of the poet. Second, and related to this, both
the poet and the craftsman are imitators, but again they practise two
distinct kinds of imitation. The craftsman (or the man of action) imitates
the Idea, whereas the poet imitates the artifact or the action. The
collapse of these distinctions probably follows from the initial misinter-

pretation of exvzY.
Further, the whole issue of art pivots upon the central problem of
knowledge. Plato is not writing (nor Socrates speaking) as an aesthetician, but as a political philosopher. The question here, then, is of the
political function of art, and ultimately, of its epistemological status.
I

602

a 8

if.

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As the reference, cited above, to the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry makes clear, and as all of Socrates' discussions of art
for making is
support, the artist is subject to the delusion that his r6yyis
a
delusion
and
this
usually
of
knowledge,
equivalent to the possession
shared by the artist's audience. Since, from Socrates' viewpoint, the
artist does not know, and rather tends to corrupt his audience because of
the persuasiveness and pleasantness of art, he must be expelled from the
best city; art will be practiced now by the guardians or priests in accord
with right reason. I Nowhere does Socrates suggest that craftsmen (as
such) should be expelled from the city; it is the poet or artist who must
go, and for the reasons given. The poet's lack of knowledge makes his
t&epv-politically dangerous in a way that the texv- of the craftsman is
not; even should the craftsman, who is also an imitator, be subject
to the delusion that he knowsby imitating, he has not got the power of
persuading his fellow citizens of this error. Who would take seriously
a cobbler's claims that cobbling is really philosophy? But that the poet's
claims are very, very seriously regarded, we need not take Socrates'
word; we have only to consider the role of the artist in contemporary
society.
Thus far I have tried to separate the r?yvy of the craftsman from that of
the artist. But there is a second difficulty here. The view that art is a
Texv1 in any sense is by no means the only, qr even the most exclusively
important, of the views present in Plato's dialogues. Equally, perhaps
even more famous, and in the long run at least as influential, is the view
at all, but rather divine inspiration. This theory
that art is not a -rXywv'
is developed in the Ion. It is related to the preceding theory with respect
to epistemology: once again it will emerge that the artist has no real
knowledge. In interrogating the rhapsode Ion, Socrates proceeds to
develop the argument that, in order to judge speeches about things, we
must first be experts about the things themselves 2 Poets - and rhapsodes - speak of many things, about none of which they are expert.
When we want to know about medicine, we consult a doctor; when we
want to know about war, we consult a general, and so on. But we never
consult the poet about these things, even when he imitates perfectly
war or sickness. And should we wish to know about poetry itself, we
I See Phaedrus 271 C ff. for a description of how to speak and write 'reXvLxtq; one
must know the differentnaturesof the men & the kinds of argumentto which they will
respond, when to speak and when to keep silent, etc. In other words, one must be a

philosopher. Compare 277 B-C.


2 Ion, S3 b ff.

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would consult, not a man who is a good reciter of Homer, for instance,
but one who knows about poetry as such, by skill and systematic
xoc ia npv).I When we do interrogate poets on
knowledge (t6Xwvjn
the mattersabout which they write, we find that they do not understand
them (as Socratesrecounts in the Apology).How, then, do poets make
poems.?It cannot, as we havejust seen, be by rxv, for then they would
know the things which they are able to describe. (It is now assumedthat
a reXvLrqhas some knowledge about his production, probablywhat is
called secondaryknowledge in the Republic- not true knowledge, but
better than that of the poet). The answer is this:
Vrowreq yap
ovtrs

OZ 'r TCI)Ve'7CV

xoaL xCtCx6VoL

7COLJTL

7toiV'r

o &yOoO1
LXOuTC0OLQoL

0. &yaOol

TMUOC T&

oux 'ex evq

ax'

evoeoL

XoXO AeyoUaL 7Mt0LY)paLo,


XOcL OL

JCaurcq.

"Allgood epic poets speakall their beautifulpoems, not from craft, but
through their being inspired and possessed, and the same is true for good-

lyric poets."2 The poet must be E`XcppoV (out of his mind) before he can
7roLSLV(poetise).

ad

Thus, the poets speak as messengers for the gods (oA


'
dLai trv Os@v); the god himself speaks
epptvi5

=OL-?yol ou8E'v &'

(O OE64oc4

E'LV O Xeycow).3

The view that poets are divinely inspired, then, denies that art is a
r6xvn, but, like that view, also denies that the poet has knowledge. The
first part of this view (the second is usually forgotten) has had a considerable influence in the history of aesthetics, both in its orthodox and
in its more extravagant interpretations. That Plato does not take it literally is, I think, clear from the bantering tone of the whole dialogue.
(This is of course not to say that it has no significance for Plato.) We
may note one decisive passage. Socrates says to Ion at 53 2 d 6:
. eV 7OtUEaTC
M\X&aoCpo?0
0
Cpaol xac U,7txpLTML xod &v up?L
?'V.CZ O'L
Oere rok7roL .Lcxroc,sy&) 8K oi'rv &;Xo6: wro i ?kyo, otov CLxbo L86Y TV
iVOpCOWOV.

"You rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose work you sing, are wise,
but I speak nothing else than the truth, as is fitting to an ordinary man."
That the poets are not aoyop6requires little argument; in the Socratic
doctrine, not even the philosopher can make this claim. The aocplO of
the poet would, of course, be that of the gods who speak through his
lips. But if the poets speak coypEo,whether it is theirs or not, we ought to
study their divinely inspired poems rather than the mundane treatises of
lI Ibid.,
2
3

532 c 6.
Ibid., S33 e S.
Ibid., S34dff.

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philosophers and other "technicians." Nowhere does Socrates say that


we are to do this; his instructions are exactly the reverse. As a lover of
wisdom, we may safely assume that Socrates does not then believe the
poets to speak it, and so we are not to take literally his injunction that
they are divinely inspired. What he is really saying, for better or for
worse, is that poets are ignorant, and that their ignorance is akin to
madness. I This does not mean that he denies their great gifts, but
simply that his concern with poetry, as in all the dialogues, is epistemological.
Why does Collingwood never refer to this theory of art as divine
inspiration? It would be base to suggest that he omits it because it does
not suit his interpretation; and in fact, it could actually be made harmonious with one aspect of that interpretation. If artists are said to be
divinely inspired because one wishes to account for their ignorance,
and consequently for their danger to society, we might rejoin that this
is to misunderstand the function of art proper, which, as Collingwood
holds, serves no political end. This is one criticism which he enjoins
against Plato, who, he says, discusses amusement art, which I have
defined above as the stimulation of an emotion for pleasure in itself, not
for release into practical life. And Plato was wrong, he continues, to
think that "the evils of a world given over to amusement could be cured
by controlling or abolishing amusements. "2 Presumably the error is
corrected by Aristotle in the Poetics, who speaks there as the champion
of "poetry for pleasure's sake, that is, representation" (Republic607 c),
called for by Socrates at 607 d. Apart from the errors already discussed,
it is missing Plato's most important point not to see that he explicitly
criticizes all art, and that the distinction between imitative and other
narratives in Book III of the Republic rests upon a different, more
"technical," and so, less general usage of the word.
Thus, Collingwood is mistaken in thinking (a) that Plato does not
discuss "art proper" (whether he does so correctly or not is another
matter), and (b) that Plato wants to criticize, of the false kinds of art,
not "magic" or religious, but only "amusement" art. Contrary to Collingwood's assurance, Plato's criticism is intended to hold up against
magic art, which, we recall, is representative and evokes specific
emotions in order to discharge them into practical life. In many ways,
I It is often the case that philosophers (such as Spinozaand Maimonides), in attributing
prophecy to the imagination,find a correspondingdepreciation in the intellect of the
prophet.
2P.A. p. 98.

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this is the least comprehensible of Collingwood's errors, because it is


precisely against the effect of art on "the affairs of practical life" that
Plato is legislating. It seems safe to say that, if art had no such effect,
Plato would not have expelled it from his best city. Plato may, of course,
have confused magical art with art proper, but Collingwood would still
be wrong in his reading of Plato. Certainly Plato did not think that art
proper has no consequences in practical affairs. To decide whether Plato
or Collingwood is right would be the subject of a long and separate
inquiry. We may not care to agree with Plato, but we must see that he
is, as a political philosopher, a radical enemy of art, or what comes to the
same thing, of philosophically unlegislated art. This position of Plato's
has nothing to do with his own status as an artist, or as a lover of and
commentator on art. It has to do with the place of art in the best city,
and because Collingwood does not appreciate this, he is led to the
absurd view that, for Plato, poetry is equivalent to shoe-making, to the
confusion of Plato's extremely complex analysis of the epistemological
character of art, and to a misunderstanding of the relation between the
work of Aristotle and that of Plato with respect to art.
Aristotle could not possibly be the sort of defender that Collingwood
suggests he is, because Aristotle's subject in the Poeticsis quite different
from Plato's subject in the Republic. In the Poetics, Aristotle is not concerned to show the epistemological clharacter of art, nor the place of
art in the best city, but gives instead an analysis (limited, perhaps) of the
function of art (through the most important - for him - example of
poetry) in actual cities. When Aristotle comes to discuss the place of
art in the best city, as he does in Books VII-VIII of the Politics, his position is in essence, though not in degree, that of Plato: art has as its end,
not merely amusement, but moral training, and as such it must be subject to political restrictions. I will not quarrel with Collingwood that,
in Aristotle's case, art is described as a t6xv, for Aristotle has no theory
of art as inspiration - i.e. as atechnical. But we must recall our previous
discussion of the meaning of the term eyxv-. Aristotle is if anything more
insistent than Plato in differentiating activities according to their function. If we consider only the doctrine that the end of art is xVoxapaLq,it is
clear that the -rxvn of art is radically different from the -TxV- of cobbling,
for example, which has as its end the repairing of shoes. When we turn
to the Politics, we find that xa&ocpa6L is only one end of art; another is
instruction (-aLc).
Aristotle, contrary to Collingwood, does not
limit xacOapatc to "amusement art" or representational drama. ArtI

See for example the distinction with respect to the use of the flute at 3+i a 38.

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forms may share a plurality of ends, depending upon the context of


their use. Flute-playingmay amuse,purify or instruct, and how we are
to behave toward it depends upon the purpose we have in mind. It is
with respect to instruction, the same end with which Plato is always

concerned, that Aristotle recognizes the need for regulatingart. In an


interesting discussionabout the degree to which different kinds of artforms are able to represent states of character, he even pursues this
need with respect to art-forms which aye least representative in this way:
7t?pi T9V TOUcv OccopEav,
aeZ A TM
oG ,L~v &XX'6aov &LOC(9peL XX
llotu'ao)voOertpsv rouq Vtouq, &XXX'ra floXuyvc'Toux&vet 'nc OMor rc-Ov
ypoacp6cv~i6v

&

,11roncot6v ,crrv TOLX6O.

"But insofar as there is a difference in looking at these works, let the


young not see the works of Pauson, but those of Polygnotus and any other
painter or sculptor who may portray moral character. ", And that Aristo a species of poetic drama is
totle does not limit "representation"
'v 8= 'ooLZ UL6xeaV Oavoz4 EalL
made clear by the very next sentence:
V,
6
L,
,nMra 'Wv , O\v xc't -rot'', v,a

"Musical compositions are in essence imitations of states of characters.


This is clear."2 So far, then, Collingwood is wrong in his view of the
intention of the Poetics, he is wrong about Aristotle's doctrine of XaOmpapt
and he is wrong about Aristotle's doctrine of tL?aLq. This last error
must be examined more carefully.
Collingwood poses the question: did Aristotle think of art as "essentially representative?" This, as we know, is Collingwood's way of asking
whether for Aristotle art is mimetic. Collingwood answers himself:
"He makes it clear at the beginning of the Poetics that he did not. He
there accepts Plato's familiar distinction between representative and
non-representative art... " 3 We have already seen that this distinction is
not so familiar. But, we may ask, does Aristotle accept this distinction in
the Poetics regardless of whether Plato does or not? Here is the sentence
which leads Collingwood to say "no":
XOal 4) 8LOupOLo8aeXC8
a' Xocl T7q rpCyc3LzX7CO'VJaqL
e7roWOLEM
XOCL
XOd'r71 OCi'XIJTLXY
TUy&xvUoaV
7teXcaot
7C'LOT7
XLOXpLa'TLXY5
7q

7OL7TLX'

OicatLt1LPL4aCL4'

auVOXOV.

"Epic, tragic, comic and dithyrambic poetry, the majority of flute and
lyre music, are all in general mimetic."4 Now even in the face of the
'

POl. 1340 a
a 25
p. go.

22.

2 1340
3 P.A.

4 Poetics, 1447

a 13.

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fact thatapparentlysome formsof flute and lyre music are not mimetic,
it must be transparently clear that this exception is insufficient
for invalidating the claim that Aristotle considered art "essentially
representative." And there are no exceptions to the view that he
considered poetry as essentially representative. The strongest case that
Collingwood could in reason have made would be this: for Plato, not
all poetry is mimetic; for Aristotle, not all music is mimetic. Were this
the case, it would not transform the Poeticsinto a "Defence ... of
RepresentationalPoetry"I as though Aristotle recognized any poetry
which is not mimetic. As a matter of fact, Aristotle asserts in the first
TXXL
line that he is speakingof poetry as such (7cept -OLYTLXTJ ocu> -r
,tiovdt83v au'rr),2 all of which, to repeat, is mimetic. We have already
discussed the first part of Collingwood's hypothetical case. As for the
second, two lines may be taken. The first, and admittedly less satisfactory, is that the exception noted is too trivial to take seriously. It
would perhapsmake more sense to say that those forms of flute and lyre
music which are not genuinely "artistic"are not mimetic, than to conclude that art is not essentiallyso. But fortunately, this passagedoes not
stand alone in the Aristoteliancorpus; we have just inspected a passage
from the Politics which Collingwood does not seem to have known, in
which music is declared to be manifestlymimetic. Since this passageis
utterly unambiguous,and since Aristotle never amplifieswhat he means
by saying "mostflute and lyre music" in the Poetics, nor gives any examples of music which is not imitative, but only of music which is, I
submit that either the suggestionwhich I have made, or one something
like it - stylistic caution, perhaps- is the correct explanationof the
case. I do not insist upon my suggested reading, but only that Collingwood's interpretationof Aristotle's theory of art is as grossly inaccurate
as his interpretation of Plato. But finally, it should be urged that, as
always, Collingwood is provocative and valuable in his analysis, which
notices what are admittedly ambiguities in Greek aesthetic theory.
1 P. A.
2

Poetics)

p. sp.
I447

a i.

The PennsylvaniaState University

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