Key Arguments

• Form doctrine: when many share a common name, there is a corresponding 'idea or form'; artisans do not make Forms.
• Three beds schema: God makes the one real bed-in-itself; the carpenter makes a particular bed; the painter makes an image of the bed.
• Mirror analogy: by 'turning a mirror round and round' one can 'make' all things as appearances, showing the logic of image-making.
• Conclusion: the imitator is 'thrice removed' from the king and the truth, imitating not reality but the products of artisans, and even then only as they appear from perspectives.

Source Quotes

Will you enquire yourself? Well then, shall we begin the enquiry in our usual manner: Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form:—do you understand me? I do.

True. And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use, in accordance with the idea—that is our way of speaking in this and similar instances—but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how could he? Impossible. And there is another artist,—I should like to know what you would say of him.

What way? An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round—you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror. Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only.

An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round—you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the other things of which we were just now speaking, in the mirror. Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only. Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now.

I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make. Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator? Certainly, he said.

Certainly, he said. And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth? That appears to be so.

Key Concepts

• Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form
• no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how could he? Impossible.
• none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round—you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself
• they would be appearances only.
• then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator?
• the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth

Context

Socrates defines mimesis via a metaphysical hierarchy (Form–artifact–image) and a didactic analogy, applying it immediately to painters and tragic poets.

Perspectives

Plato

Approves the ontological demotion: poetic and pictorial mimesis lacks being and truth relative to Forms and crafts; this grounds aesthetic and civic policy.

Socrates

Uses familiar images (beds, mirror) to fix the status of imitators as far from reality, preparing the ethical-cognitive critique.