Socrates engages him in discussion and Ion explains how his knowledge and skill is limited to Homer, whom he claims to understand better than anyone alive. Ion has just come from a festival of Asclepius at the city of Epidaurus, after having won first prize in the competition. SummaryIon's skill: Is it genuine? (530a-533c) The muse inspires the poet (Homer in Ion's case) and the poet inspires the rhapsode." Plato's dialogues are themselves "examples of artistry that continue to be stageworthy " it is a paradox that "Plato the supreme enemy of art is also the supreme artist." Plato develops a more elaborate critique of poetry in other dialogues such as in Phaedrus 245a, Symposium 209a, Republic 398a, Laws 817 b-d. Ion, the rhapsode "dangles like a lodestone at the end of a chain of lodestones. Plato's argument is supposed to be an early example of a so-called genetic fallacy since his conclusion arises from his famous lodestone (magnet) analogy. It is one of the shortest of Plato's dialogues. In Plato's Ion Socrates discusses with the titular character, a professional rhapsode who also lectures on Homer, the question of whether the rhapsode, a performer of poetry, gives his performance on account of his skill and knowledge or by virtue of divine possession.
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