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In this thesis, 'Why did Plato banish poets from his
Republic?' is both the main question and a start point from
which I try to understand Plato's philosophy. By the first
chapter 'How did Plato introduce his criticisms of poets?', I
divide Plato's criticisms into three parts: justice, truth, and
religion. As to justice, Plato's clearly classfied order faced
the chaotic Greek world. Considering the aspect of culture, the
chaotic Greek world couldbe characterized by poems and poets.
Second, Plato's justice implys his thoughts about 'truth', and
that is : he asked eternal truth against the chaotic becoming
world. As to 'truth', Plato thought that poets did not have real
knowledge, and they were not able to say truth at all. What
seems true might be false. Poets just said surface truth. Plato'
s philosophy is seekingfor the real truth below the surface. But
why could Plato insist seeking for eternal truth and believe
that it must be there? The key is logos (reason).Here, logos
becomes the king. Philosophers' logos defeats unreasoning poems,
defeats the poems which are full of Muses' divine wisdom. And in
the process of questioning, we can see that the philosopher(
Plato) started to dialoguewith his cultural background by
criticizing poets. The philosopher has comeback to this world
from the world of ideas.
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