Political Reluctance: On the Noble Lie in Plato's Republic

Olof Pettersson

E-LOGOS, 2014, vol. 2014, issue 1, 31 pages

Abstract: As is well known, the rule of the philosophers is what ultimately completes the political project in Plato's Republic. Only if the philosophers accept to rule, may the city see the light of day. Yet, as is equally well known, the philosophers are reluctant to rule. But ruling is what they are designed to do. Their entire education was constructed to prepare them for this task. And therefore, as Plato's repeatedly puts it, they will need to be compelled. How? As this paper sets out to argue, it is what Plato calls the noble lie that does the job. Established in the philosophers' souls during their childhood, and tested like "gold in the fire", it is only the city-love established by the noble lie that can counteract their otherworldly desire for truth and knowledge. Designed to imbue their souls with a sense of responsibility and care, the noble can outweigh their political reluctance, and turn their eyes back to the city.

Keywords: Plato; Republic; noble lie (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://elogos.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.e-logos.375.html (text/html)
http://elogos.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.e-logos.375.pdf (application/pdf)
free of charge

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:prg:jnlelg:v:2014:y:2014:i:1:id:375:p:1-31

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Katedra filosofie, Národohospodářská fakulta, Vysoká škole ekonomická v Praze, Nám. W. Churchilla 4, 130 67 Praha 3, Česká republika
http://elogos.vse.cz

DOI: 10.18267/j.e-logos.375

Access Statistics for this article

E-LOGOS is currently edited by Miroslav Vacura

More articles in E-LOGOS from Prague University of Economics and Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Stanislav Vojir ().