Key Arguments

• The prior rule that 'one man can only do one thing well' applies to imitation: 'no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one.'
• The same person cannot excel at serious civic life and many imitative roles; even tragedy and comedy cannot be mastered by the same persons, nor rhapsody and acting.
• Human nature is 'as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies.'
• Guardians must dedicate themselves 'wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State,' so their practice and imitations must align only with their craft.
• Imitation shapes character: 'Imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature,' risking that they 'come to be what they imitate.'

Source Quotes

And go we will, he said. Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any? Certainly.

Certainly. And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one? He cannot.

They are so. And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied.

Quite true, he replied. If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession—the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind?

If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession—the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? Yes, certainly, he said.

Key Concepts

• has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many
• no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one
• human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies.
• lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate
• Imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind

Context

Book III: From the specialization principle, Socrates argues for restricting guardians’ mimetic practice to suitable models to avoid character corruption.

Perspectives

Plato

Integrates mimêsis into psychological formation: form shapes ethos; limiting imitation to virtuous models protects the thumos and aligns with the city’s functional order.

Socrates

Pragmatically narrows guardians’ repertoire: imitation is potent habituation, so it must be confined to courageous, temperate, holy, and free characters.