Abstract

This dissertation examines the practice of deception and its specific relationship to political life: the types of lies justified as politically useful; the assumptions about politics, speech, and reality that such lies reveal; and the seemingly necessary but destructive connection between lying and politics itself. The dissertation begins by examining the place of lying within politics. The first chapter looks at the on-going use of the terms in public life, their meanings and synonyms in "ordinary" English. It then juxtaposes the thought of Vaclav Havel to that of Hannah Arendt, both of whom address the possibility of some sort of "truthful" politics. ;Each of the next three chapters undertakes to analyze the work of a political theorist who places the connection between politics and truth or politics and deception at the center of human action. Chapter Two looks at Plato's use of the "noble lie" in the Republic. Plato's account, often used to justify "lies for the public good," is analyzed in light of its place in the dialogue as a whole. Socrates uses the noble lie as a way of slowly habituating his interlocutors to the idea that the "truths" that such lies institute, and the "justice" enacted by their use, are faulty conceptions for political life. ;Chapter Three examines Machiavelli's use of deception: both his own authorial deceptiveness and his understanding of false appearances in politics, especially the use of conspiracy. While he is best known for advocating deception "from above," that is, the ready use of deceptive appearances by the prince, the chapter focuses particularly on Machiavelli's concern with the potential use of deception "from below"; by those out of power and resentful of their position. ;Chapter Four turns to an account of truth, specifically Nietzsche's genealogy of how the "will to truth" emerged from the ability to lie. Nietzsche's account has much in common with the etymological history of the words "truth" and "true" in English. For Nietzsche as in "ordinary" English, the word "truth" begins as a notion of a mutual promise among members of a community. The chapter then takes up the act of promising and its relationship to the will and to the possibility of failure. Nietzsche's "sovereign individual," who, in the Genealogy of Morals, "retains the right to promise," is compared with the figure of Don Juan, who makes promises only to break them. ;Throughout the dissertation, the issue of resentment, specifically resentment of time, emerges as a factor motivating the use of deception. For Plato, it is resentment of the unchanging past which motivates the use of lies in which the past is erased, and citizens are born out of the earth. For Machiavelli, deception is an option for those who live in bad times, times upon which "fortune does not smile." Deception is thus a tool to handle resentment of the present. For Nietzsche, promises provide bridges into an unknown, and therefore threatening, future. A "philosophy of the future," such as Nietzsche attempts to provide, requires people strong enough to love the risks involved, to hold to their commitments, and to take responsibility for maintaining the shared human world