ABSTRACT
Governments base their authority ultimately on popular acceptance of their legitimacy. So governments have an interest in what people come to believe about the basis of their legitimacy, and in the processes by which these beliefs are taught and developed. In a well-ordered society, however, the government also has an interest in the inculcation of true beliefs and in the avoidance of ideology and false consciousness. What, then, is the relation between the government’s interest in civil education and its commitment to truth and to the principle of publicity-that is, the principle that government should be conducted in the open, and that the successful conduct of public business should not depend on the public being misled about the basis on which it is conducted? Early in our tradition, we find some consideration of these questions in the work of Thomas Hobbes. In Leviathan Hobbes devotes considerable attention to the topic of “Civill doctrine,” that is, the body of theory, principle, value and understanding that needs to be taught in the schools and universities, and to be widely accepted in society, if the social and political structure is to survive and do its work.
