Mardi 17 février, 18h-20h, Salle Pasteur (1er étage du Département de Philosophie, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm 75005 Paris)
"Ethics and Politics in Plato’s Noble Lie"
The Noble Lie proposed by Plato for his Just City in Republic Book III has been much misunderstood. It is an argument addressed to the political elite of the City ; it attempts to persuade them that the City’s survival as a just community depends on full class mobility and genuine meritocracy, which it is their duty to ensure. To motivate them it appeals to an ideology of fraternity and civic solidarity ; what makes the Lie a lie is that it falsely presents this fraternity as naturally given. As such the Lie poses an awkward ethical and political problem for Plato and, if he is right, for our own aspirations to civic solidarity and justice as well.
Jeudi 19 février, 10h-12h, Salle Cavaillès (Esc. A, RDC, ENS, 45 Rue d’Ulm 75005 Paris)
"Knowledge and Guardianship in Plato’s Republic"
Scholars sometimes worry that Plato’s Guardians in the Republic are ill-equipped to rule his Just City ; for their education focusses on dialectic, which deals with Forms, but political rule deals with particular problems and circumstances. The key to resolving this worry is to see that the Guardians practise a craft [technê], namely Guardianship [phulakikê]. This ’technical’ conception of political rule explains many features of Plato’s account of the Guardians ; in particular, it resolves the worry about the general and abstract character of their knowledge, since it is the nature and indeed the point of craft to express general knowledge in reliable particular actions.