Plato’s theory of mimesis is expressed clearly and mainly in Plato’s Republic where he
refers to his philosophy of Ideas in his definition of art, by arguing that all arts are
imitative in nature. Reality according to him lies with the Idea, and the Form one
confronts in this tangible world is a copy of that universal everlasting Idea. He poses
that a carpenter’s chair is the result of the idea of chair in his mind, the created chair
is once removed from reality and since a painter’s chair is imitation of a carpenter’s
chair, it is twice removed from reality. Thus, the artist deals in illusion. Plato thus
rejected imitative art on the foundation that it is a copy or imitation of the unreal. We
may ask; if the Carpenter makes a chair, what does he imitate? And if he imitates
reality, can we call him an artist of a kind? This article therefore argues following
Plato’s analogy that carpentry is an art of a kind and a carpenter is capable of
knowing reality as against the notion that only philosophers are suitable for such a
task.