Persuasion, Falsehood, and Motivating Reason in Plato’s Laws

History of Philosophy Quarterly 33 (2) (2016)
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Abstract

In Plato’s Laws, the Athenian Stranger maintains that law should consist of both persuasion (πειθώ) and compulsion (βία) (IV.711c, IV.718b-d, and IV.722b). Persuasion can be achieved by prefacing the laws with preludes (προοίμια), which make the citizens more eager to obey the laws. Although scholars disagree on how to interpret the preludes’ persuasion, they agree that the preludes instill true beliefs and give citizens good reasons for obeying the laws. In this paper I refine this account of the preludes by arguing that the primary purpose of the preludes is to motivate correct action, and that for citizens who lack rational-governance this is achieved via useful false beliefs. That is to say, in many cases, the prelude functions as a “noble lie” (γενναῖον ψεῦδος).

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Nicholas Baima
Florida Atlantic University

Citations of this work

Justice in the Laws, a Restatement: Why Plato Endorses Public Reason.Samuel Director - 2018 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (2):184-203.

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References found in this work

The Open Society and its Enemies.Karl R. Popper - 1952 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 142:629-634.
The Greeks and the Irrational.E. R. Dodds - 1951 - Philosophy 28 (105):176-177.
The Laws.J. B. Skemp - 2010 - Harmondsworth, Penguin. Edited by Trevor J. Saunders.
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Γενουστησ.John Burnet - 1900 - The Classical Review 14 (08):393-394.

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