The Review of Metaphysics

Defending a nuanced position on the role of myth in politics, Tae-Yeoun Keum turns first to Plato’s Republic and then traces the influence of Platonic myth on a number of other seminal works in political philosophy. The central questions motivating the study ask how we are to interpret Plato given the myths that he wrote, and what his legacy can “teach us about the place of myth in political thought.” One central aim of the book is to provide an account of “the compatibility of Plato’s myths with a philosophically coherent political vision.” Also, the author shows that there is a distinct “Platonic tradition of writing and thinking about myth.” The thinkers treated as part of this tradition “shared with Plato a sensitivity to the full range of myth’s potential to be either harmful or salutary for political thought.” Among the harmful influences of myth Keum identifies are the fascist regimes of the twentieth century that relied on various myths to gain the support of the masses, as well as recent efforts by political actors to perpetuate “grand narratives and symbolic frameworks that resist critical scrutiny.” Nonetheless, she defends the claim that the Platonic mythical tradition is a “vision of hope” for the broader role of myth. Rather than arguing for the elimination of myth or for its subordination, Keum shows that Plato’s myths and their legacy portray the necessity for “a more nuanced approach to studying myth than those supplied by existing frameworks” while also leading us to “a more expansive understanding” of what counts as philosophy.

In the introduction, besides establishing the scope and purpose of the study, Keum explores various definitions for myth in general, including both modern and classical conceptions, as well as definitions for types of myth, especially those that are “deep” versus those that can be categorized as “literary.” Besides Plato and others to whom large sections of the book are devoted (More, Bacon, Leibniz, and Cassirer), thinkers who receive notable treatment in this chapter include Comte, Weber, Hegel, Popper, Habermas, Sorel, Jung, Levi-Strauss, Adorno, Horkheimer, Blumenberg, and Nietzsche. Keum returns to many of them throughout, especially in the conclusion.

Chapter 1 begins by addressing negative views about myth in Plato’s Republic, including those of Popper and Annas. Keum sees myths as significant, integral parts of the Republic that are not simply afterthoughts or “rhetorical ornamentation,” but that are nevertheless distinct from other passages in the text. She then draws out similarities between the Myth of the Metals, the Allegory of the Cave, and the Myth of Er, arguing that these three mythical passages are “at their most compelling and [End Page 384] intelligible” when read in relation to one another in a specific way. Though much of her reading of the Myth of Er tends toward the figurative, Keum does not want to negate the legitimacy of a literal reading. She argues that the relationship between mythos and logos in the Republic—that is, between myth and philosophy—is one of significant entwinement, highlighting “the power of myth to reshape the conceptual frameworks through which its audiences imagine themselves and their political reality.”

Addressing the scant treatment of existing scholarship on the continuity between the myths of the Republic, Utopia, and New Atlantis, chapter 2 draws connections between these works. Keum shows that More and Bacon share Plato’s insight that myth can be a “uniquely constructive resource for political thought” and that myth is particularly useful in its capacity to foster “revisiting and reworking” by subsequent myths because of its ambiguity, dynamic playfulness, and critical distance. This chapter also briefly traces the tradition of interpreting Plato allegorically, from the Academic Skeptics, to the Neoplatonists, to Ficino. The chapter ends after treating Bacon’s Of the Wisdom of the Ancients.

Chapter 3 discusses Leibniz’s Petite Fable, which Keum identifies as sharing qualities with the Myth of Er and Cicero’s Dream of Scipio. The...