Likeness and the Labor of Creation
In this passage from The Sophist, Plato explores the metaphysical nature of being and image, suggesting that to create—whether through divine or human means—is always to give birth to either a true thing or a mere likeness. Each act of creation is relational: it arises when something within turns toward something greater. Just as ancient theories of vision held that the fire within the eye met the fire from the object seen—producing sight—so too the soul, by turning toward the real, participates in being. Creation, then, is like a mirror: the inner light of the soul must face the outer light of the Good for a likeness to be formed. Whether that likeness is substantial or shadowy depends on the clarity of the gaze and the quality of what is pursued. Thus, to be is not simply to exist, but to have turned, united, and given form to what one beholds.
THE SOPHIST
THEAET. Yes.
STR. And corresponding to each and all of these there are images, not the things themselves, which are also made by superhuman skill.
THEAET. What are they?
STR. The appearances in dreams, and those that arise by day and are said to be spontaneous—a shadow when a dark object interrupts the firelight, or when twofold light, from the objects themselves and from outside, meets on smooth and bright surfaces and causes upon our senses an effect the reverse of our ordinary sight, thus producing an image.*
THEAET. Yes, these are two works of divine creation, the thing itself and the corresponding image in each case.
STR. And how about our own art? Shall we not say that we make a house by the art of building, and by the art of painting make another house, a sort of man-made dream produced for those who are awake?
THEAET. Certainly.
STR. And in the same way, we say, all the other works of our creative activity also are twofold and go in pairs—the thing itself, produced by the art that creates real things, and the image, produced by the image-making art.
THEAET. I understand better now; and I agree that there are two kinds of production, each of them twofold—the divine and the human by one method of bisection, and by the other real things and the product that consists of a sort of likenesses.
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* This was the current explanation of reflection. Mirrors and smooth objects were supposed to contain a luminous principle which met on the smooth surface with the light coming from the object reflected. So in the act of vision the fire within the eye united with the external fire.
