Plato, Aristotle, Derrida, and Foucault on Art and Truth

Introduction: Philosophy as Disagreement

Philosophy is often mistakenly viewed as a single trajectory, leading from Socrates to Plato to Aristotle and through the rest of the classical period, hibernating somewhat during the Dark Ages, and being restored again with the Enlightenment thinkers during the Renaissance. This simplistic view of the progress of Western thought could not be further from the truth, however. Philosophy is built on disagreement and the careful, skeptical analysis of other viewpoints, and most of civilization's greatest philosophers find themselves in disagreement with other leading thinkers quite often — if not virtually every time they advance a theory.

This was true of ancient times just as it is now. Socrates was famously killed for propagating many of his beliefs, which ran counter to the prevailing logic and philosophy of the day. It is perhaps less well-known yet arguably more important that Aristotle, who came directly after Plato as the leading philosopher of his age, disagreed on many significant points with his predecessor. Their views on many things — but especially literature and the other arts — are widely divergent and contradictory. Whereas Plato was rather conservative and even dismissive in his view of art, Aristotle celebrated it as a natural part of humanity.

This is, of course, a broad oversimplification of one of the many areas of disagreement between these two philosophers, yet the view is not entirely inaccurate. Similar disagreements persist to this day. Two of the most prominent philosophers of the twentieth century, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, also found themselves opposed to each other on many points, not the least of which was the nature of art and the role of the author. In fact, it has been said that Plato is to Derrida as Aristotle is to Foucault — and such a comparison is not without merit.