Sei sulla pagina 1di 5

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

PLATO

Plato considers that the human life on this earth is like an ignorant and miserable life in a deep cave.
People have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move from their places or cannot see
around them. There is fire above and behind them and they can see only the shadows falling over the
walls, as in a puppet show.
Due to this limited condition, whatever they see on the wall is taken to be the truth. As they have
been living with this condition for ages, they have no knowledge of the real world outside their cave.
Thus, the images on the wall and the echo of various voices are the ultimate truth for them.

When any one of them is set free and dragged up to the mouth of the cave, he suffers sharp pains.
First, his freed limbs give him pain, and then the toil of climbing upward gives him pain, and then the
daylight of the outside real world dazzles his eyes. He has to habituate himself to the new
surroundings and new objects. As his eyes get adjusted, he begins to see the real truth. Thus, he
considers himself fortunate for having this opportunity to see the truth, and pities his fellow prisoners
who are still living in that dark ignorant world.

Thus, according to Plato, the cave is the world of the senses, which prevents our upward journey to
the world of reality. The upward journey is the rise of the soul into the intellectual world. In this world
of knowledge, the idea of good comes at the end. Once this good is achieved, man gains all things
beautiful and right ethically, and reason and truth intellectually.

Plato is of the opinion that it is the duty of the legislators to use such intellectuals in the management
of the public affairs. At present, only the selfish and ambitious people are interested in
administration. Such people are more interested in their self-gratification than in public service. That
is why a state which is governed by many selfish people is always experiencing unrest. Those
intellectuals, if pulled into public services, will govern the state jointly and therefore there will be
peace, order and progress in such a state.
Toward a Science of Aesthetics

issues and ideas

Arthur P. Shimamura

The nature of aesthetic experiences can be approached from many perspectives. Philosophers,
psychologists, and recently neuroscientists have considered the variety of ways art influences our sensory,
emotional and conceptual processes. Four philosophical approaches are considered: 1) mimetic approach
or how successfully an artwork offers a window to the real world, 2) expressionist approach or how well
an artwork expresses feelings and moods, 3) formalist approach or how well an artwork induces a sense of
significant form, and 4) conceptual approach or how well an artwork conveys intellectual or thought-
provoking statements. Psychologists and neuroscientists have conducted empirical analyses of aesthetic
responses to art. These issues are introduced with a framework for considering our art experience, the I-
SKE framework, which considers the artist’s intention and the way artworks influence the beholder’s
sensations, knowledge, and emotions.
This book could be defined as art criticism. It explores why there is such a thing as style and
what Gombrich believes to be the extraordinarily complex riddle of style. It also explores the
history and psychology of pictorial representation. In this book, one looks at the imitation of
nature, the function of tradition, the problem of abstraction, the validity of perspective and the
interpretation of expression. It covers theoretical issues as well as using science to find
answers.

Gombrich reiterates that his is the stance of the historian, but it becomes very clear that his
historiography is neither simplistic nor neutral. He is at odds with those philosophers (most
notably Plato) who have derided the reality of the image and with those (most notably Aristotle)
who have affirmed that art imitates nature. Of special worth to him from late classical antiquity
is the often-neglected Philostratus, who within his life of Apollonius of Tyana provided a critique
of mimesis (imitation) that gives an account of what Gombrich calls “the beholder’s share in the
reading of the artist’s image.” Gombrich follows the history of thought through the centuries
and divergent cultures against whose background and in whose context specific artistic
creations are to be placed.

The former is a history of the failure to achieve a cultural history. After the matter of setting out
“the term and the thing,” though avoiding “further ’notes toward the definition of culture,”’
Gombrich came to a denunciation of “the Hegelian system,” “Burckhardt’s Hegelianism,” and
“Hegelianism without metaphysics,” phrases which he applied to Heinrich Wolfflin, Karl
Lamprecht, Wilhelm Dilthey, Alois Riegl, Max Dvorak, and Johan Huizinga. Most of these had
come under criticism in the introduction to Art and Illusion, but without this explicit association.
Gombrich’s denunciation has both positive and negative dimensions.

Gombrich either rejects outright or at least perceives that Hegelian “cause” is but the surrogate
for a dismissed “providence” or “destiny,” neither one of which belongs in the historian’s
explanatory vocabulary. Not only is Gombrich anti-Hegelian, but he also appears
antievolutionary. Art and Illusion makes that explicit: “Evolutionism is dead.” Gombrich adds,
however, “But the facts which gave rise to its myth are still stubbornly there to be accounted
for.” There is another notion of Gombrich’s, not without its merit. He says, with apparent
intensity of conviction, at both the outset and the conclusion of his very popular The Story of
Art that “there really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.” What Gombrich was really
seeking was an operational mode which preserved not merely the role but indeed the reality of
the individual human being.

Some larger perspective is gained by observing the “in-betweenness” of Gombrich’s


bilingualism. This oscillation between German and English, on the one hand, gave him his base
as a historian of art, in a broad historical sense vis-a-vis the war-torn twentieth century and in
the specifically contextual sense vis-a-vis the Warburg Institute. On the other hand, it suggests
that his mind remained shaped by its original influences with all their philosophical nuances. His
own bibliography bears this out. He may have read David Hume and added Francis Bacon, but
aside from a stray quote of Alfred North Whitehead or of John Dewey, he seldom seems to
come into philosophical discussion of that twentieth century Franco-American empiricism to
which any modern consideration of the philosophy and psychology of sensation would be
required to refer. Gombrich had been advised—and he seemed to appreciate the suggestion—
that he treat the subject of art “like mathematics.” Yet he remained bound by the tradition of
German Idealism, including the positions of its Anglo-American disciples. This is best seen in his
consideration of G. W. F. Hegel and Immanuel Kant.

Potrebbero piacerti anche