The Feel of the Real: Perceptual Encounters in Plato’s Critique of Poetry.

Plato’s criticism of the value system conveyed by traditional (esp. Homeric) poetry is grounded on his conviction that the latter has an influence on people’s dispositions and beliefs. The reason why this influence must be resisted depends, first and fore- most, on the morally corrupted nature of the values conveyed: poets are liars and have no knowledge of what they represent. What’s more, the way itself poetry exerts its in- fluence on the citizens’ ψυχή is also dangerous: poets are wizards and their imitations get hold even of ‘the best of us’ in such a way that ‘we surrender ourselves’ to them. How Plato thinks this happens is the question this paper seeks to air. The argument put forward is that, for Plato, the impact of poetry on real life is achieved by means of a mechanism of ‘transportation’, a psychological experience that blurs the boundaries between reality and fictionality. This paper addresses Plato’s concerns about poetic mimesis by examining his claim that poetry appeals to a perceptual mode of cognition and shows that this claim is grounded on Plato’s insights into the similar phenomenal character of mental imagery and stimulus-driven perception.