Plato on the view of the craft

Platon (Cratylus, 389a-389d; see also Gorgias 503e; Timaeus 28aff):

Socrates asks:

„What has the carpenter in view when he makes a shuttle? Is it not something the nature of which is to weave?

Well, then, if the shuttle breaks while he making it, will he make another with his mind fixed on that which is broken, or on that form (ekeino to eidos) with reference to which he was making the one which he broke?

Then we should very properly call that the absolute or real shuttle?

Then whenever he has to make a shuttle for a light or a thick garment, or for one of linen or of wool or of any kind whatsoever, all of them must contain the form or ideal (eidos) of shuttle, and in each of his products he must embody the nature which is naturally best for each?

And the same applies to all other instruments. The artisan must discover the instrument naturally fitted for each purpose and must embody that in the material of which he makes the instrument, not in accordance with his own will, but in accordance with its nature. He must, it appears, know how to embody in the iron the borer fitted by nature for each special use.

And he must embody in the wood the shuttle fitted by nature for each kind of weaving.

For each kind of shuttle is, it appears, fitted by nature for its particular kind of weaving, and the like is true of other instruments.“

Platon (Timaeus, 28f):

Timaeus: The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect.

Plato on the Philosopher

Republic, 500B-E

“For surely, the man whose mind is truly fixed on eternal realities has no leisure to turn his eyes downward upon the petty affairs of men, and so engaging in strife with them to be filled with envy and hate, but he fixes his gaze upon the things of the eternal and unchanging order, and seeing that they neither wrong nor are wronged by one another, but all abide in harmony as reason bids, he will endeavor to imitate them and, as far as may be, to fashion himself in their likeness and assimilate himself to them.”

“If, then some compulsion is laid upon him to practise stamping on the plastic matter of human nature in public and private the patterns that he visions there, and not merely to mould and fashion himself, do you think he will prove a poor craftsman of sobriety and justice and all forms of ordinary civic virtue ?”

“But if the multitude become aware that what we are saying of the philosopher is true, will they still be harsh with philosophers, and will they distrust our statement that no city could ever be blessed unless its lineaments were traced by artists who used the heavenly model?”