The aim of this work is, as the text indicates, to present the critique of the artist undertaken by Plato and Diderot. Despite Plato launch his criticism of poetry in The Republic within an ethical-political context; and Diderot, in his turn, in The Paradox of the Comedian, within an aesthetic register, there is an analogous position of the two philosophers regarding the subject. Among many similar points observed between them, we focus our vision into two of them that seemed to us fundamental to such criticism: the notions of pathos and ideal. In both Plato and Diderot one observes that the figure of the artist is always thought of in relation with these notions. Although at first glance, we could be tempted to conclude that, in this relationship, the ideal is presented as an antipode of the passions, we can see more closely that these oscillate: sometimes they show up as a hindrance, sometimes, as a positive reference within the respective critiques; the key to appease this conflict will be temperance (sophrosýne). In view of this, we propose, with this work, to investigate and explain this unstable relationship that one finds in an analogously form in those philosophers.
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