Caricatures, Myths, and White Lies

Abstract

Pedagogical situations require white lies: in teaching philosophy we make decisions about what to omit, what to emphasise, and what to distort. We are interested in when it is permissible to distort the historical record, arguing for a tempered respect for the historical facts. We focus on the rationalist/empiricist distinction, which still frames most undergraduate early modern courses despite failing to capture the intellectual history of that period. We draw an analogy with Michael Strevens’ view on idealisation in causal explanation to distinguish between myths and caricatures. The former are distortions of the historical record which undermine students’ understanding of the past, despite having other pedagogical benefits (being illuminative of some other period, or helping uptake of philosophical skills and methods). The latter are distortions which either increase, or are indifferent to, understanding of the past. Myth-making, we argue, is unjustified.