ABSTRACT
Philosophers have always been reliant on fiction, and always prone to deny or disguise that reliance. Plato had much to say about the harmful effects of fictional representation, its tendency to substitute plausible myths for the rational pursuit of wisdom and truth. Yet Plato not only made use of illustrative fables but cast his entire philosophy in the form of fictional dialogues, composed with an almost novelistic sense of narrative shape and structure. That he knowingly embraced this patent double-standard is evident from his passages on poetry and fiction in The Republic.1 Fables are bad, says Socrates, if they misrepresent the gods as behaving cruelly, practising deliberate deceits upon mortals or changing shape at whim. Better stifle such influences at source by censoring the poets-even Homer-where they fall into scurrilous nonsense. There remain the good fables, those which Socrates is given to approve for their respecting divinity and the citizenly virtues. Yet Plato makes plain his own attitude of enlightened rationalist scepticism. The myths are little more than handy devices for inculcating piety and obedience among those incapable of rising to abstract philosophic truth.
