The Truth about Gods and Men

In his discussion of Plato's treatment of education in Republic II–III, Mr. Crombie writes that the Platonic Socrates “assumes that we tend to become like the characters in the books which we admire; and this,” he adds, “will never do.” He attributes this alleged assumption to a “simple-minded psychology”, but it is not clear what he thinks the psychology is. His words suggest that we are supposed to become like all of the characters in any book we admire, but since these characters are certain to be unlike each other this cannot be what he means. Again, it is odd that it should be admiration of a book that moves us to become like the characters in it, rather than the fact that it has excited or moved us. The notion one would have expected Crombie to attribute to Plato is rather that we tend to become like characters we admire in books that move us; and perhaps this is what he means. Even so, there is something odd in the notion of admiring a character in a book, since such a character is not a real person. What is really meant must be, I think, that books that move us in certain ways tend to arouse in us admiration for character traits of the kinds typified by the characters sympathetically or powerfully portrayed in those books, and that this admiration then leads us to assume those traits ourselves

Admiration · Art · Character (mathematics) · Epistemology · Literature · Simple (philosophy) · SOCRATES · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Families in Therapy and Culture · Mathematics · Philosophy