Comments on: Plato on Lying

By: Curzon

Curzon — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 05:16:37 +0000

CGW: quite an awesome addendum to Dr. A. R. Wallace’s comment!

By: Curtis Gale Weeks

Curtis Gale Weeks — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 01:08:16 +0000

Dr., what a comeback!

Understanding the truth is more important than merely having the truth: a vast number of citizens are incapable of putting the truth in context; so a telling of the truth becomes a telling of a lie, for them. (It may leave the lips as a truth but enter the ear as a lie.)

Still, the problem comes into focus when we ask who will be responsible for telling what lies, what truths. I suppose we need an ombudsman or three.

By: Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace

Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 11:46:51 +0000

This of course brings to mind the great quote from Winston Churchill “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. “

By: Gabriel Mihalache

Gabriel Mihalache — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 08:26:16 +0000

Once a few centuries in the history of the world, there comes a major philosopher and points into a direction. I’m thinking of Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Popper. Alway… seduced by the eloquence and smarts of the philosopher the world goes in that direction. In fact, major philosophers point where we SHOULDN’T go.

Philosophers are the most intelligent but also the most misguided people in the world. Philosophical problems and propositions (and quotes!) exert a sort of bewitchment over us, not because they picture the world but because they appeal to our prejudices regarding the mechanisms of the world (not just metaphysics).

Regarding The Republic… I think Popper has got it right (and for him that’s a major event!)… Plato is a frustrated dictator-wannabe, having his own real-life political aspirations foiled.

The Noble Lie is jutified by an analogy between citizen and child, State and parent. The same analogy is found in the Socratic dialog Crito (or was it the Apology?). This analogy makes a career with these 2 (I picture them as Sith lords, “Always 2, a master and an apprentice”) :-)

As for the “public good,” if it’s meaningful to talk about such a thing (I don’t think so) then Plato’s picture in the Republic is not something the contemporary thinker would consider meaningful. (In his future society there would be no poets because emotions are bad, reason is the path to salvation, blah blah)