From: Keith Elis (hagbard@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 11:52:58 MDT
Damien Broderick:
> You've never read Plato, then, on the topic? I assume this is
> what Pfaff or Strauss was referring to: in THE REPUBLIC, he
> famously asked whether `we could contrive some magnificent
> myth that would carry conviction to our whole community' - a
> lie that might serve the greater truth of community.
Also from the _Republic_:
'It is the business of the rulers of the city, if it is anybody's, to
tell lies, deceiving both its enemies and its own citizens for the
benefit of the city; and no one else must touch this privilege.'
Popper liked to use this passage as an example of Plato's appeal to
'collective utility', one of the key ethical tenets of the 'totalitarian
morality' Popper lambastes in _The Open Society_.
I don't know the status of _The Open Society_ in modern philosophy
departments, but I don't think I personally have read a more eye-opening
critique of Plato.
Keith
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