Ignoble Lie

The split between Philosophy and Political Science has put blinders not only on the former, but on the latter, as well. For example, in the past century, a school of Political Science, primarily inspired by Leo Strauss, has cast Plato as Machiavellian. At the center of this interpretation is, seemingly, the notion of a 'noble lie', a recourse to myth to persuade citizens to do something beneficial to them, because they lack the intellectual capacity to understand that beneficiality. Despite the fact that in the Republic, Socrates, at most, only briefly entertains, without outright advocacy, in a specific context, its possible value, Straussian Allan Bloom's interpretation of Plato's Poltical Philosophy turns on the premise that the entire Republic is a 'noble lie'. Perhaps this self-styled 'Platonist' found the Republic's advocacy of the abolition of private property to be inconvenient, and perhaps the seeming Oligarchical and Plutocratic activities of Neo-Conservatives have been inspired by Bloom's Machiavellian placement of a lie as the fundamental premise of Political Philosophy. But any such interpretation of Plato does not begin to take into account the rest of his Philosophical System, with which his Political Theory is interrelated, a combination which reinforces the plausibility that the Republic is a sincere expression of Plato's views. The Philosophy-Political Science split is no doubt rooted in the priority of Theory over Practice accorded by Plato, a tradition which Phronetocratic Principles, and Formaterialism and Evolvementalism, in general, reject. Recent events suggest that the split has more than Academic implications.