Rustle in the Bush

1. To Bos, we can only examine the Pre-Socractics in regard to the first antithesis. This is becuase of the negative attitude toward role of imagination, and the relation between reality art holds, which leavs us with a “One-Sided” conception of art as allegory. By the time of Plato, it was common to think of Homer as containing allegorical meaning. Since imitation wasn’t quote developed as a concept, we are left with a cheap allegorical meaning. However, with this idea of allegory (However cheap it may be), ” The allegorical expositions of Homer seem to have been directed to break the force of moralistic criticism, by reducing the content of the poems to a bald scheme of abstract truths.” (HOA, 44). Therefore, moral and metaphysical connections aren’t inherently made in this kind of interpretation
   Allegory in this way for Bosenquet, as an early Greek aesthetic consideration, is a ‘defective symbolism’ because “Form and content are at bottom indifferent to one another” (HOA, 44) and it reveals a disconnect between the idea of ‘imitation’ / mimesis without being able to grasp concrete symbolism.

We’re considering the Socrates of Xenophon’s Memorabilia.

1. Can the Invisible be Imitated (Addressing Ant.1)- The invisible is treated here as mental moods, which can be discerned by conduct and facial expression. While they don’t approach it in the same way Plato will ” ‘Is the unseen imitable?’ is at least suggestive; and the demand for ” expression ” in pictorial art is an important anticipation of later theory” (HOA, 45). However, there may be something interesting in Socrates’ conception that gathering things together, from different originals, elements of beauty that nowhere exist combined. It points to future conceptions that fine art requires something in consciousness beyond untrained perception, that can reveal deeper truths about reality.
2. Aesthetic and Real Interest “Has a beautiful thing as such a real interest?” – So interest to practical or desired ends. It is uncritical in Socrates’ statements. However, it goes on to beg further this question, in the work of Kant.

1. Symbolism – A mystical interpretation of numerical relations is extended in the arts fervently to music, obviously. This helped to satiate the idea that common sensuous reality is the ultimate standard/original. Numbers are ‘imitated’, numbers are the original. Participation comes into play here. Things exist by participating in the abstractions of numbers, but do not represent them.
2. No real/aesthetic considerations were made, though the Pythagoeans did have Concrete Analysis – By concrete analysis we mean these mathematical relations, “However mystic might be its accessory ideas, still the enthusiastic conviction that form and number underlie the structure of the universe imparted a comprehensiveness and audacity to critical analysis such as, on a very different plane of actual knowledge, characterizes modern speculation” (HOA, 47). Bos gives examples of Euclid’s geometry, and then a lost book called The Canon in which the sculptor Polycleites argues the essence of beauty lies in mathematical statues. Along with this, he made a bronze statue (Of which we now only have Roman marble copies) called Doryphoros which was made under the rules of the Canon. However, Bosenquet notes that even these guidelines don’t really contribute directly to rigid aesthetic inquiry, “Enquiry into proportional relations is one thing, the substitution of an abstract rule for creative perception in art is another. It is not at all impossible however that the two were confused, as is constantly the case in the theory of practical men, and that thus the analysis of an abstraction was made to do duty for the analytic criticism of concrete expressiveness.” (HOA, 47).

In Plato, we will both see the first complete system of an art theory (As it inhabits all 3 antithesis) and hints towards conceptions which break it down (Make way for modern considerations).

1. Symbolism/Imitation – Plato is dealing with two strains of monism. Abstract science (Heraclitus/Parmenides/Xenophanes) and abstract mysticism (Pythagoreans). Therefore, Plato appears ‘as a prophet’ of a dualism that separates nature/intelligence, sense/spirit, and which in effect turns the perceptible universe into a symbol of Ideas. Thus, following the Allegory of Rep. Book VII the sun and its light are a symbol of absolute good, and its utterance, respectively. (There is a GREAT article to be found here, which shows this in the example of Michaelangelo, as well as a Rennaisance depiction of the Allegory for reference at the bottom of this Plato segment) However, it wasn’t this firmly symbolic. We can say as to their interpretation the real sun actually didn’t symbolize truth, I suppose this is what is mentioned in the Pre-Socratic segment about allegory being a hollow symbolism. So we can’t even say because of this that the Platonic myths are symbolic, they are allegorical in the still older sense (Like the original human in the Symposium, the Gorgias myth, the myth in the Timaeus). As he says himself ” ‘A man of sense ought not to say’ the Platonic Socrates concludes the great myth of the Phaedo, ‘nor will I be too confident, that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true.” (HOA, 48) (End of Phaedo) But we do see some examples of this. Formal Beauty – The last chapter dealt with formal beauty as embodying the principle of unity. ‘Imitation’ is the word used to describe the embodiment of spiritual ideas into sensuous form (Unity in all arts and crafts, as well as natural objects). Musical Symbolism – What may shock us is the claim that certain rhythms or melodies are ‘imitations’ of types of life/temper. However, we can trace the idea that it is of the man expressing it, which comes from the idea that a man of a certain type can have a narrative reproduced of him. Beauty that is more than formal – Beauty is spoken of positively as the manifestation of intelligence. Usually where genius is concerned, the creative and critical are distinct, and truth gathered by creative imagination is of a different kind than by methodic reason. But, this doesn’t do much as Plato is firm that the imitative artist ranks fr below a true lover of beauty, i.e. the Philosopher. So more than likely, fine art is not (Of the) beautiful for ol’ Aristocles.
2. Aesthetic Interest – Bosenquet: “In those concrete forms of representation which we think the higher arts, he (Plato) was unable to distinguish the pleasure of expressiveness from the practical interest of morality, which he desired to see predominant, and from the pleasure of realistic suggestion which he utterly condemned.” (HOA, 53). We see the problem formulated as deciding whether pleasure is ‘expected to rise from the sheer expressive effect of the aesthetic experience’ or if it is connected to associations between the existence of real objects of which the appearance reminds us’ (HOA, 50). So for this, we must return to Plato’s contrast between art which has an object to give (Base) pleasure, and art which has its object to make moral improvement. However the last should have made clear this moral improvement is not for the sake of aesthetic interest. It is in regards to pleasurable presentation and between pure/impure modes of this presentation. Pleasure is noted as an essential element of the impression which beauty is a valued embodiment of. However, this is reliant on Plato’s contemporary distinction between a) The sense-perception it gives rise to; Eye and ear b) Cases in which the sense-perceptions avoid spurious desire, and refer directly to the pleasure of formal beauty (Music, Geometry, ‘Theoretic Senses’) ERGO, a difference is made between b1) The ‘Negative’ implication that the ‘Theoretic’ senses having naught to do with the material consumption of the object presented and b2) The ‘Positive’ implication that the ‘Theoretical senses’ and no other sense (Except for maybe touch/muscular sense, I find a strong example in Rep, 412a). can recognize structural unity, the principle of beauty’s expressiveness. But representative/imitative art’s fault isn’t just what it aims at and generates in pleasure, the aim condemned is pleasure as such, ‘Pleasure at any price and in anything’ (HOA, 52). Cookery as an ironic example compared to art, as a form of ‘flattery’ (Or, in our terms, pandering like how Food gives us a semblance of feeling good unlike medicine, like how cosmetics are to gymnastics ). To do this means to rid poetry of poetic form, because Plato must align it as a result of his definition of beauty into the moral sphere. “If Plato’s “beauty” is an abstract purpose or principle, his “love of beauty” is a refined enthusiasm for real purposes or principles; if his ” beauty ” is a value or import felt in the world of sense-perception when taken simply as expressive and not as a means to any end, then, and then only, his love of beauty is an aesthetic delight not concerned with the real existence of its objects.” (HOA, 53). VIA “A pure affection for a good and attractive friend, or an enthusiasm for the cause of order or of knowledge, is likely to be attended by refined perceptions, but it is not in itself the same thing as a feeling for beauty” (HOA, 53). So there is a bifurcation where the love-philsophy of Plato bounces between the abstract concrete idealism a) Abstract – If beauty is beyond the sensuous world, we can not distinguish between beauty and the object of will/knowledge b) Concrete – If beauty is in the sensuous world it is an a definitive sphere of appreciative perception (Moral standing) “What we have to bear in mind is that moral purity in the purpose of art or beauty does not constitute aesthetic purity, though moral impurity in the purpose of art or beauty does constitute aesthetic impurity.” (HOA, 54).
3. Concrete Criticism – The real advancement of Plato’s theory isn’t that we can find glaring holes, but that he advancent prescient and lasting questions within a whole. (System?). In Plato’s case, it consists of a difference between imitative arts in the sphere of sculpture, painting, poetry, etc, untied by said difference from productive trades, and for the problem, their value presents to the highest concerns of life. (The principle of unity, as seen in the good coming to being through beauty).