Panel Title
Platonic images: where the truth lies
Start Date
10-12-2013 11:00 AM
End Date
10-12-2013 12:00 PM
Abstract
Plato taught us that the image, as a matter of principle, cannot be the truth. It is well-known that the same Plato, more than anyone else, did put images at the core of the philosophical landscape. And the importance of platonic images is not only due to the large number of their occurrences, nor is it due to the literary talent which they reveal; it also comes from the prominence of the pictured objects themselves.
Now the most paradoxical object that Plato submits to the revealing power of images is the truth itself. Several texts, often very famous, represent it through images: in particular the symbol of the Line, the allegory of the Cave, the image of the Sun, the comparison of the two kinds of works of art in the Sophist. Through what kind of imagery does Plato tell us exactly what the truth is? From metaphor to analogy, what are the picturing methods chosen to represent this essential and enigmatic concept? Actually, this concept in the Dialogues, and in particular in their images, is far from systematically receiving the same meaning. How then to articulate the selected kinds of images with the meanings of truth that Plato wants to convey? Can we go as far as perceiving a correlation between the various meanings he assigns to the idea of alethes or aletheia (in Republic VI or VII, Sophist, Phaedo), and the various kinds of images he uses to say it?
Platonic images: where the truth lies
Plato taught us that the image, as a matter of principle, cannot be the truth. It is well-known that the same Plato, more than anyone else, did put images at the core of the philosophical landscape. And the importance of platonic images is not only due to the large number of their occurrences, nor is it due to the literary talent which they reveal; it also comes from the prominence of the pictured objects themselves.
Now the most paradoxical object that Plato submits to the revealing power of images is the truth itself. Several texts, often very famous, represent it through images: in particular the symbol of the Line, the allegory of the Cave, the image of the Sun, the comparison of the two kinds of works of art in the Sophist. Through what kind of imagery does Plato tell us exactly what the truth is? From metaphor to analogy, what are the picturing methods chosen to represent this essential and enigmatic concept? Actually, this concept in the Dialogues, and in particular in their images, is far from systematically receiving the same meaning. How then to articulate the selected kinds of images with the meanings of truth that Plato wants to convey? Can we go as far as perceiving a correlation between the various meanings he assigns to the idea of alethes or aletheia (in Republic VI or VII, Sophist, Phaedo), and the various kinds of images he uses to say it?