Abstract
Since philosophy term technē in ancient Greece is not exactly the same as the concept of art today, it is inaccurate to say that Plato was for or against art, but, at the same time. Plato actually opposed some kind of technē (mainly poetry and painting), and the influence of this stance remained even today. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify which kind of technē Plato exactly opposed. In ancient Greece, it was Plato who firstly proposed technē as a philosophy term on the basis of Pre-Socratic philosophy. So his thought of technē must relate itself to the thought of phusis in Pre-Socratics, meaning that the aspect which Plato thought was contrary to idea and which Plato criticized was exactly the aspect which was contrary to phusis from Pre-Socratic point of view. So, if we match Plato's concept of technē with the modern concept of art, the concept technē of ancient Greece had already included the main three meanings of art today, namely, Art or the Fine Arts in modern Aesthetics, skills which is already contained in technē, and Kitsch in modern Aesthetics which was indeed criticized by Plato. In Plato's time, all these three meanings were mingled in discriminately, and there had not been a context for Plato to distinguish all these three aspects of technē, but at least, it should be understood that Plato was not actually against Art.
First Page
175
Last Page
184
Recommended Citation
Yin, Dehui. 2018. "Was Plato an Art Denier?: Plato's Concept of Technē (Art) and the Pre-Socratic Philosophy Term of Phusis (Nature)." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 38, (6): pp.175-184. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol38/iss6/20
