God, man, mousike : An interpretation of Plato's Poietike

Abstract

In Plato's dialogues analogy is thought to be one of the most important method of his thinking. Indeed, it plays a major role in his theory of Poietike. According to his thought, there is a God who should be regarded as the first cause both of being (einai) and of valuableness (e. g. agathon, kalon, dikaion, etc.). This God is called, in his dialogue <<Timaeus>>, a creator (demiourgos) of the universe (kosmos) as the best-ordered. The universe is the most beautiful (kalos) of all beings as the work of the God who is the best (aristos). By the way, mousike is, in the most celebrated sense of the word, one of the best (kallistos) human performances. The beauty (to kalon) of the work produced by mousike is, according to Aristotle, determined by magnitude and order. In other words, the work of mousike in the strictest sense of the word must have a whole and complete body. It is the purpose of this paper to interpret the ontological and theological meaning of the <poiema as to hen kalon> as the imitation of the kosmos, i. e. as the <pseudomikrokosmos>.