Plato, Statesman: Reading Guide

Quotations are from the translation by J.B. Skemp in Hamilton and Cairns. This dialogue is referred to as Pol., short for Politicus, Latin for 'statesman'.

This is one of Plato's more didactic and undramatic dialogues. It is one of a series - Theaetetus, Sophist and Statesman - supposed to be successive conversations among the same set of characters - Socrates, Young Socrates (not Socrates when young, but another person of the same name), Theaetetus, Theodorus, and a Stranger. The Sophist and The Statesman try to define the sophist and the statesman; another dialogue, never written, would have defined the philosopher [Pol., 257a]. The general question is whether there is any difference between sophists, statesmen and philosophers, or are they really the same? [Soph., 217ab].

Constructing a definition

Pol. illustrates the method of constructing a definition by successive division. To define an X (e.g., man), take the largest overall class to which Xs belong (beings), divide that class into its sub-classes and sub-sub-classes (divide beings into corporeal and incorporeal, corporeal into animate and inanimate, animate into rational and irrational) until you come down to the sub-sub-sub-... class which includes all the Xs, and includes nothing not an X: the definition of an X will include the name of the largest class, qualified by adjectives corresponding to the differences by which the successive divisions were made (a rational, animate, corporeal being). At each stage some distinction is made between the class that contains the Xs and other classes, which can then be set aside.

By this method the Stranger and Young Socrates reach the point where they want to distinguish the real statesmen from the Sophists.

Read 291c-293e

A class is distinguished from other classes by means of a 'difference' or 'criterion' (plural 'criteria'). In this passage constitutions are distinguished according as the rulers are one, few or many, and these are further sub-divided into good ('true') constitutions and bad ones. Certain criteria are suggested for the division into good and bad - whether the subjects are ruled with their consent or violently, whether the rulers are rich or poor, and whether or not the rulers rule in accordance with laws; but these criteria are rejected for another - whether the rulers possess the genuine art of ruling. Note the argument that in a 'true' constitution the rulers will not be many, because no art can be acquired by many.

The next section explains why law-abidingness is not the criterion of good government.

Read 294a-295b.

This is illustrated by a story:

Read 295c-296a.

Whether the subjects are ruled with their consent or violently is not the criterion:

Read 296a-297b

While the unrestricted power of one or a few who have the genuine art of politics is ideal, the second-best is for the rulers to be obliged to rule in accordance with laws drawn up by those who have the art:

Read 297b-300c

(Notice that all of these analogies presuppose that ruling can be a genuine art, like medicine or navigation.) A legally regulated practice is not as good as genuine art, but it is better than unregulated ambition and favoritism. 'The laws which have been laid down represent the fruit of experience' - experience is not as good as science (since by experience we know what happens, but not why), but it is worth something.

The real statesman has knowledge; the law-abiding ruler without such knowledge following laws drawn up by a true statesman is guided not by his own knowledge, but by 'true opinions'.

In Meno 96d-98b Socrates distinguishes between knowledge, which is based on an understanding of the reasons why things are so, and a belief or opinion which happens to be true, and suggests that for most practical purposes a true opinion is as good as knowledge. If you want to go to Larissa you will get there if you happen to believe the directions of someone who knows the way. The practical advantage of knowledge is that opinion fluctuate s (half-way to Larissa you may turn back, even though you are on the right road), and it cannot be taught to someone else, since you cannot explain the reason why it is so. If the laws have been made by real statesmen, the law-abiding ruler is following the directions of someone who does know the way.)

Read 300c-303d

Taking the commonplace three-fold classification of constitutions (cf. Herodotus III.80-2), the Stranger sub-divides it into six, which he says are all imperfect constitutions, and arranges them in order of imperfection. The Sophists, imitators of the true statesmen, are the politicians active in these imperfect constitutions. Thus the question raised at 291c - how to distinguish sophist from statesman - is answered.

Another division is now to be made, between the statesman and those who practice genuine arts related to statesmanship.

Read 303d-306e

Statesmanship determines who is to learn what, when persuasion should be used and when force, whether to fight or compromise, and so on - it is the 'architectonic' art (like the architect's in relation to the building trades) which controls and directs the arts of education, rhetoric, generalship etc.

The Stranger now elaborates a metaphor of the social fabric:

Read 306e to the end.

Note the idea that kinds of goodness may clash (306a, 308b), that the need is to combine two kinds of temperaments which are in some way opposed (though both are good) - the thoughtful and the active. (Compare Republic, 411e, 503.)

Notice also the bond of true conviction about values and standards (true belief, as a practical substitute for knowledge (309cd - cf. 301b). Finally, besides persuasion there is also eugenic policy, mating people of unlike temperament.

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