In what direction would Plato justify lying? About the pseûdos in the Republic

Abstract

The work offers an analysis of the meanings of pseûdos in Republic. Faced with consequentialist or totalitarian interpretations, the general hypothesis is that there exists in Rep. an adequate form of lógos pseudés and, therefore, the acceptance of the device. The particular hypothesis is that the true opposition occurs on two levels: on the one hand, at the internal level of the soul, truth and genuine pseûdos (ignorance) are opposed, and, on the other, in a secondary sense, at the level of the lógos the so-called “pseûdos in words” appears. On this second level, there is an opposition between a pseûdos in words that is a reflection of the ignorance of the soul and the “pseûdos noble”, which is guided by a fundamental truth. The usefulness of the noble pseûdos is linked in Platonic terms to the truth and, therefore, to the good of the soul. For this purpose, firstly the two mentioned types and their classes in Rep. will be discriminated and, secondly, we will offer an interpretation of the “pseûdos in noble words” to understand its characterization as useful and its analogy with phármakon.