Education between the lines: plato’s noble lie

Abstract

The ancient Greek writers spoke little about what was between the lines. Their concern was with what was evident from the lines and, above all, their possible interpretations. That does not mean there was nothing to read between the lines: ancient Greeks were experts at filling in between the lines. The Greek city was a society that regulated almost every aspect of life, including morals, religion, and art. Nevertheless, one activity remained essentially private and transpolitical: philosophy. Indeed, philosophers rejected the dominant ideas of society, even though these ideas were strongly embraced on the surface of their writings. They thus revealed what could not be made explicit, except to a select group of acolytes. Hence the invitation to a hermeneutics of distrust. The objective here is, therefore, to examine the so-called “noble lie”, told by Socrates in the Republic (415a-d), about his proposed stratification of Greek society, to understand the educational system proposed in Plato’s pedagogical work, and its social and political implications for educational work.