ΕΙΔΟΣ AND ΠΟΙΗΣΙΣ IN PLATO’S PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

The author attempts to investigate the relation between concepts of εἶδος and ποίησις (form and creation) in the philosophical works of Plato. Although these terms have a deeply rooted connection within the latter “platonist” theory of art, the two аrе not systematically connected with each other within Plato’s dialogues. The philosopher himself shows a significant lack of interest in the ontological mechanisms tying forms with products of creation in a “downwards” direction, as opposed to an “upwards” direction of gaining knowledge starting from empirical objects and reaching out towards the forms. The relation is discussed in different contexts, starting from the most „down-to-earth“ interpretation of ποίησις as “poetry”, and then taking into consideration the concepts of “divine inspiration” from the Ion, the “shift from non- being into being” from the Symposium, as well as the complicated metaphysical and theological implications of creation from the Timaeus and Book X of the Republic. These different accounts on the concepts of form and creation within different dialogues do not give us a “classical platonist theory” of “creation as formation”, but do seem to lay all the necessary foundations for such theories in later philosophy, especially Aristotle’s. Also, these different accounts all seem to be closely tied to Plato’s concept of the Divine, more often than not using a notion of a god (be that the “Creator of Ideas” from the Republic, the Demiurge from the Timaeus, or simply a Muse from Ion) as a the necessary link between these different ontological and metaphysical domains.