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A New Interpretation of the Noble Lie

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A New Interpretation of the Noble Lie JOSEPH GONDA | 71 A New Interpretation of the Noble Lie Joseph Gonda Associate Professor York University, Glendon College, Philosophy Department [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6332-2611 ABSTRACT At Republic 414b, Socrates asks “Could we… contrive … one noble lie …?” Most plausibly, these words imply that there is one noble lie. Following these words, the Autochthony Claim asserts the Best City’s citizens are equally brothers, and the Myth of Metals asserts that brother justifiably rules over brother. The article argues that the Autochthony Claim is the “one” noble lie. This conclusion derives from showing that the two assertions are not only a normative exercise about what the Best City should do but are also descriptive insofar as they describe the behaviour of worldly polities in Plato’s day and ours. Keywords: Noble Lie, Sole, Normative, Descriptive. https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_21_5 72 | A New Interpretation of the Noble Lie 1. INTRODUCTION day and in the 21st century. The Noble Lie is not only a pair of normative assertions limited to At Republic 414b8-c2, Socrates asks, “Could Socrates’ City; the assertions are also descrip- we … contrive … ‘one’ noble lie to persuade tive statements that, as we will see, are about above all even the rulers, if not them, then the Plato’s day, today, and many other times and others in the City (ἐν)?” This question entails places. Settling on an answer as to which part that there is one Noble Lie. What follows are is the Noble Lie begins with two assertions. two logically independent propositions. The This perspective doubles the problem. It yields first, which is introduced as a Phoenician im- four assertions. port that paints the City’s denizens as earth- I argue that HC is true insofar as it is a born, culminates in the Autochthony Claim normative assertion about the Best City, and (henceforth AC). It asserts that all of the City’s that AC is false insofar as it is a normative as- inhabitants, guardian to blacksmith, must see sertion about the City, and its successor, the one another equally as brothers, as if born from Best City, because it enjoins their citizens to the same mother.1 The second culminates in believe a false normative claim. I conclude that the Hierarchical Claim (henceforth HC). It as- AC, insofar as it a normative assertion about serts that brother justifiably rules over brother the City, is the Noble Lie. But I also contend because their souls are admixed either with that AC and HC are true insofar as they are gold, or silver, or a combination of iron and descriptive assertions about normative prac- bronze. AC and HC are logically independent; tices of many worldly polities in Plato’s day, both can be true or both false, or one can be historically, and in our day. true and the other false. The text entails that one must be false; it does not assert that both are false. Which one is false? Socrates refers 2. THE NOBLE LIE’S CONTEXT to AC and HC jointly as a “myth.”2 It does not follow from this that their logical independence Immediately preceding the Noble Lie, is mortgaged; the Myth of Er contains many Socrates sets out for the first time the nomen- logically independent propositions without clature for two of the City’s three classes. This mortgaging its character as one myth (621b8). formally reifies the three classes.4 Those who Many commentators discuss the Noble Lie had formerly been called “guardians” are for on the assumption that both parts are false. A the first time calved off into guardians and minority either explicitly or implicitly deals “auxiliaries”; this is its first of 13 uses in the with it as myth, relegating the word “lie” to a Republic (ἐπικούρους, 414b4). This is a signi- metaphorical use. Catherine Rowett privileges ficant moment in the argument. It marks the HC as the Noble Lie. Julia Annas implicitly point where the City’s three classes become privileges AC.3 explicit and its fictive rulers’ implicit existence There is a complication that doubles the becomes explicit through their being separated problem of deciding which part is the lie. It from the two other classes, one of which is na- opens a new perspective on the Noble Lie. I med for the first time. After doing so, without argue that the Noble Lie is not only a pair of explanation, Socrates immediately turns to the prescriptions or recommendations for the City; Noble Lie. Why does he do so? To the best of my it also describes facts of everyday life in Plato’s knowledge, the scholarship has not addressed JOSEPH GONDA | 73 this question.5 Plato does not disappoint the is present in the passage above. The reference to expectation that this passage introduces the Phoenicia and the assertion that autochthony Noble Lie. With AC and HC as backdrop, the occurred in many places and times imply that Noble Lie complements the introduction of the it was a cross-cultural phenomenon (414c4- newly minted Auxiliaries and Rulers by focu- 5). Pelling provides evidence for this empirical sing on their practical obligations.6 claim.8 Vincent Rosivach surveys widespread references to autochthony in the Athenian de- mocracy. He explains that the root meaning of 3. THE AUTOCHTHONY CLAIM autochthony, αὐτόχθων, is “indigenous” and “always having the same land.” He describes Could we … contrive one noble lie to how it incorporated several strands of the “ear- persuade … the city? … Nothing new … thborn” theme, the most important of which but a Phoenician thing, which has already was Erechtheus.9 Euripides’ Phoenician Women happened in many places … but one that attests to the fact that the sowing of dragons’ has not happened in our time … I’ll try teeth was Theban and not part of Athens’ to persuade … the city, that the rearing self-interpretation.10 Once more, AC is Plato’s and education we gave them were like generalization, cast in a literary form appro- dreams; … while, in truth, at that time priate to its context, that describes the fact of they were under the earth within, being autochthony in his day, which Socrates puts fashioned and reared and their arms and forward as a normative principle of the City. other tools being crafted. When the job 2. 414b7-e6. Socrates proposes that he will had been finished, then the earth, which try to persuade the City’s inhabitants that their is their mother, sent them up. And now, as rearing and education were but dreams, while though the land they are in were a mother in truth they were in the earth being moulded and nurse, they must plan for and defend for citizenship. In describing the suppositious it, if anyone attacks, and they must think dream-like character of their formative expe- of the other citizens as brothers and born rience, he uses two names for this oneiric un- of the earth. derground. It is initially called the “earth” (γῆς, 414d7); this is the customary word to denote You had good reason, he [Glaucon] said, something independent of human existence, for being ashamed … to tell this fal- much like ocean or sky. When it is named a sehood. (414b7-e6) second time, another word is used that treats a part of the earth as an object of human inte- In order to show AC’s descriptive character, rest. The word “land” is used (χώρας, 414e3).11 I first turn to discussing Autochthony’s role This usage reflects the purpose of this part in Plato’s day, and, second, a reading of the of the tale. The Auxiliaries must be prepared passage above. to defend this “land” as if it were a mother, 1. Autochthony in Plato’s Day. Christopher and, to do so, must hold that fellow citizens Pelling writes, “Autochthony … mattered in the are “brothers” (ἀδελφῶν, 414e5). fourth and fifth century …. It was of course AC’s purpose has two facets. First, it isolates particularly connected with Athenians (but not a sub-class of the earthborn – the Auxiliaries, confined to Athens) ….”7 This empirical claim the City’s Myrmidons. This is in keeping with 74 | A New Interpretation of the Noble Lie the implicit undertaking that the Noble Lie will for which I make an argument in what follows. further the understanding of the City’s newly Glaucon does not offer a rationale for his as- minted classes: Rulers and Auxiliaries. Second, sertion that a falsehood has been asserted.13 it sets an affective desidertatum for well-func- Plato allows for a mélange of motives – tioning Auxiliaries. They must psychologically “mixed motives” would be inaccurate – for fuse citizenship with brotherhood. This does Glaucon’s judgement. Glaucon’s forthright not imply that AC is not part of the whole City’s opposition to AC finds an explanation in some ethos, only applying to the Auxiliaries; rather facts of his day. The Theban allusion conveyed the Auxiliaries are, so to speak, the predomi- by the Cadmeian reference could have been nant element of the citizenry because of the jarring to Glaucon, if he shared in anti-Theban role they play. This is made clear by Socrates’ Athenian sentiments. This would be compoun- summary statement of the Noble Lie: ded with Socrates’ picture of autochthony that ignores Ion, Erechtheus, and Athenian myth, When these earth-born have been armed, which was part of contemporary Athenian con- led by the rulers … to a military camp versation.14 Glaucon could have been put off from which they can control anyone not by this unexpected mix of allusions.
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