Opponents of Plato, such as materialists, have claimed that t

In the last book, Book X, Plato criticizes poetry and the fine arts. Plato feels that art is merely the imitation of the imitation of reality, and that poetry corrupts the soul. Socrates says that artists merely create things. As an example, if a painter draws a couch on his canvas, he is creating a couch. But the couch he creates is not the real couch, it is nothing but a copy of an ordinary, physical couch which was created by a craftsman. But the ordinary, physical couch is nothing more than an imperfect copy, or image of the Form of Couch. So, the couch on the canvas is nothing but a copy of a copy of the real couch and is therefore three times removed from reality. Socrates then goes on to explain that an artist's knowledge is also third-rate. If an artist is painting a picture of a table, for example, he is copying a table that has been manufactured by a furniture-maker, and this furniture-maker has more knowledge of the table than the painter does. But there is someone who has ever more knowledge about the table, the person who wants to have the table made. He is the one who gives the furniture-maker instructions to follow when making the table, according to its purpose for the buyer. So, the buyer of the table knows more about the table than the furniture-maker, and the furniture-maker knows more about the table than the painter. Socrates believes that only philosophers have the first-hand knowledge of things, since they believe in The Forms. Socrates also denounces Homer. Socrates feels that in his writing, Homer has pretended to be people he is not, such as a politician, general, businessman, teacher, and philosopher. Socrates feels this is wrong because Homer is claiming to be able to perform these functions that he has written about, but never really performed himself. He feels that Homer is abandoning "reality". Plato feels that poetry has no place in his Ideal State, and should be banished until it can show itself to be a friend of philosophy.

he ideas were nothing more than names people have attached to the objects they perceive. Names of individual objects and of classes of objects are merely ways of organizing perceptions into knowledge. People see one animal they decide to call "dog." All similar animals are called "dogs," and a whole category of animals is thereby named without any reference to eternal ideas or forms. Materialists insist that all activities of mind and emotion are based on physical properties. One example of accounting for this is that thought is only the function of a material brain and caused by electrical connections within the brain tissue. Materialism states that all matter is made of atoms, which are limitless in number, and the different appearance of objects are a result of the difference in size and shape of atoms and by the different ways these atoms combine. When the conclusions of nuclear physicists are taken

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Approximate Word count = 1958
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)