Aspect of Plato for Poets and Rhapsodists in the Dialogue of “Ion”

This particular paper refers to Plato's effort in the dialogue of “Ion” to prove to the homonymous rhapsodist that his skill in rhapsodic art – and especially in Homer – is not a result of professional art and science, but is due to divine power. Socrates in this Platonic dialogue develops the theory of divine inspiration. A divine impulse occupies the poets and then the rhapsodists to “emerge out of themselves” and to become the unconscious mouthpiece of a higher power that temporarily occupies them and inspires them to interpret their poems. In fact, Ion protested in a special way – and for the first time in Plato's work – the controversy of poetry and philosophy, aiming to make a meaningful reference to the superiority of the “crown of the sciences”.