La verdad en política: sobre mentira y política en algunos diálogos platónicos

The thesis of this paper is that truth in politics is intersubjectively consti-tuted within a set of relationships irreducible to the oppositions of truth and falsehood or veracity and lying. First, I examine the link between factual truth and politics, and argue that this sort of truth pervades our experience and tends to become background knowledge. Second, I pro-pose a reading of Plato’s Apolog y according to which the truth in politics is grounded on an intersubjective normative and epistemological hori-zon, which is vicariously communicated as gesture. Third, in relation to P l a t o’s Republic and Gorgias, I inquire about the semantic connections between fiction and lie and assert that the expression of the truth in poli-tics requires a poetic endeavor, which blurs the lines separating veracity and lying. Finally, based on Agamben’s interpretation of Plato’s Hippias Minor, I conclude that the institution of the truth in politics requires diverse expressive and interpretive capacities.