Tae-Yeoun Keum’s Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought is a study well suited to the moment. The convergence of pandemic conspiracy theories with populist narratives of globalist malfeasance shows that the desire for stories that give meaning to our collective experience is alive and kicking (if not exactly well). We are told we’re moving into a post-truth age. Yet cries of ‘fake news!’ suggest that truth remains an ideal, even as it is obscured by the mythmaking of others. But whom to trust in such a situation? Can we count on our philosophers to get rid of the dross and to locate the truths that form the bedrock of our communities?
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