Statesman

Summary

The Statesman (Politikos) is one of Plato's late dialogues, usually dated to the 360s or 350s BC. It continues the conversation of the Sophist, held the day before: a visitor from Elea, a follower of Parmenides, has defined the sophist, and now, at Socrates' request, he undertakes to define the statesman or king. His partner is a young Athenian also named Socrates, a friend of Theaetetus, while the elder Socrates and the mathematician Theodorus listen. The library text is Benjamin Jowett's translation of 1892, preceded by his long Introduction and Analysis. The Stranger begins with the method of division, cutting knowledge into theoretical and practical, directive and critical, and narrowing the class until the statesman appears as the herdsman of a herd of tame, hornless, two-footed animals. The result is unsatisfying, because merchants, farmers, physicians and trainers all claim to care for the human herd, and because the image of a shepherd fits a god better than a man. To show the error the Stranger tells a great myth. In the age of Cronos the god himself steered the universe, men sprang from the earth and grew younger rather than older, and every creature had a divine shepherd and lived without toil, cities or families. Then the pilot of the universe let go the helm, and the world, turning back on its own course, gradually forgot its maker's instruction and slid toward disorder until the god resumed control. Human rulers belong to our age, the age of Zeus, and are men caring for men, not gods tending flocks. The Stranger then uses weaving as a model, distinguishing the art itself from its many contributory arts. On that pattern he separates the statesman from those who supply the city's tools and goods, from servants and officials, from priests and diviners, and finally from the greatest sophists, the counterfeit politicians who rule existing cities. A long digression on measure distinguishes measurement by relative size from measurement by the due mean, the standard of every art. The central argument concerns law. True kingship is a science, possessed by one or a very few, and the ruler who has it, like a physician or a pilot, could rule without written laws. Law is like an obstinate and ignorant tyrant, unable to fit every case. Yet since true statesmen are rare, cities must keep their laws strictly as a second best. The Stranger ranks six constitutions: rule by one, by few and by many, each lawful or lawless. Lawful monarchy is the best, tyranny the worst, and democracy the worst of the lawful and the best of the lawless. Finally the statesman is separated from the general, the judge and the orator, whose arts he directs. His own work is royal weaving: by education and by marriages he joins the courageous and the temperate natures, which tend to drift apart, into one fabric of the city.

Plot or Argument

• Prologue and the method of division (257a–267c)

  Socrates thanks Theodorus for introducing Theaetetus and the Eleatic Stranger, and the Stranger agrees to define the statesman with Young Socrates as respondent. Dividing knowledge into theoretical and practical, and then by stages into the rearing of herds, he defines the royal art as the herding of tame, walking, hornless, featherless bipeds. Along the way he warns Young Socrates against dividing by unequal parts, as Greeks do who split mankind into Hellenes and barbarians.

• The myth of the reversed cosmos (268d–274e)

  Because many arts claim to care for men, the shepherd definition fails. The Stranger joins the stories of Atreus's sign, the reign of Cronos and the earth-born men into one account. In one era the god guides the universe and all creatures live in plenty under divine shepherds; then the pilot lets go the helm, the world reverses its rotation, and in the present era of Zeus it governs itself, gradually forgetting its maker's teaching, while men must provide for themselves with gifts of fire and the arts from the gods.

• The lesson of the myth and the need for examples (274e–278e)

  The myth shows that the first definition confused the divine shepherd with the human ruler and failed to say how the ruler rules. The Stranger then explains the use of a paradigm or example, comparing it to children learning letters by recognizing them in short, easy syllables before finding them in harder words.

• Weaving as paradigm and the digression on measure (279a–287b)

  Weaving of wool is divided from other arts of defence and clothing, and from the contributory arts of carding, spinning and making tools. The Stranger pauses over complaints that the discussion is too long, and distinguishes two kinds of measurement: relative greatness and smallness, and measurement against the due mean, which every art needs. A discussion should be judged by whether it makes people better at finding the truth, not by its length.

• Separating the statesman from his rivals (287b–291c)

  The arts that supply the city with instruments, vessels, vehicles, defences, amusements, materials and nourishment are contributory, not political. Slaves, merchants, heralds, scribes, diviners and priests serve the ruler but do not rule. A crowd of shape-shifting rivals remains, the chief of sophists, who hold office in the existing cities.

• Science, law and the six constitutions (291c–303d)

  The usual classifications by number, wealth, consent and law miss the true criterion, which is knowledge. A ruler with the royal science may govern with or without laws, as a physician may treat a patient with or against his will. Law cannot fit every case, like an obstinate and ignorant tyrant, yet in the absence of true rulers cities must keep their laws strictly, as a second best, rather than allow anyone to change them at will. The Stranger ranks the six imitative constitutions and calls their rulers partisans and sophists rather than statesmen.

• The statesman over general, judge and orator (303d–305e)

  Rhetoric, generalship and judging are noble arts, but each is subordinate. The statesman decides when to persuade, when to make war and what laws the judges apply; he rules the other arts rather than doing their work himself.

• Royal weaving of courage and temperance (305e–311c)

  Parts of virtue can be at odds: courage and quickness on one side, temperance and gentleness on the other, and people of each type tend to dislike and avoid the other. The statesman first tests natures by education, then binds them with a divine bond of true opinion about the honourable and the good, and a human bond of intermarriage. Choosing magistrates from both types, he weaves one smooth fabric of the city. Young Socrates declares the portrait of the king, like that of the sophist, complete.

Characters

• The Eleatic Stranger, principal speaker

  An unnamed visitor from Elea, a follower of Parmenides and Zeno, who leads the inquiry by division, myth and example.

• Young Socrates, respondent

  A young Athenian student of mathematics who shares Socrates' name and answers the Stranger's questions throughout.

• Socrates, host and listener

  The elder philosopher, who asks for the definition of the statesman and then listens without taking part in the argument.

• Theodorus, introducer

  The mathematician from Cyrene who brought the Stranger to Socrates and speaks briefly in the opening exchange.

Lessons

• Ruling is a kind of knowledge

  The Stranger insists that the mark of a true ruler is not birth, wealth, numbers or the consent of the ruled, but knowledge of how to care for a city. Like a physician or a pilot, the true statesman is judged by whether he makes those in his care better. This sets a high standard against which every actual government is measured.

  • Why does the Stranger reject number, wealth, consent and law as the defining marks of good government?
  • How far does the comparison of the statesman with a physician hold? Where does it break down?
  • If ruling requires knowledge, who should judge whether a ruler has it?

• Law as a second best

  Written laws are too general to fit every case, and the Stranger compares them to an obstinate tyrant who will not listen. Yet because true statesmen are almost never found, a city does best to hold strictly to laws that came from experience and counsel. The dialogue honours both the ideal of wise rule and the practical safety of law.

  • What is wrong with law, according to the Stranger, and why should cities keep it anyway?
  • Why does he rank lawful monarchy first and lawless monarchy last among the six constitutions?
  • How does the ranking of democracy, worst of the lawful and best of the lawless, follow from his reasoning?

• Weaving opposite virtues together

  Courage and temperance, both good, can pull people apart; the bold find the gentle sluggish, the gentle find the bold violent, and each type marries its own kind until it grows extreme. The statesman's highest work is to bind these natures together by shared convictions about the good and by marriage, so that the city has both energy and restraint.

  • Why does the Stranger think courage left to itself turns to madness, and modesty to paralysis?
  • What are the divine and human bonds of the royal weaver?
  • Can you think of a community that needs both bold and cautious members? How are they held together?

• Myth and method in the search for truth

  The Statesman combines dry, step-by-step division with one of Plato's grandest myths. The myth corrects an error the method had made: the human ruler is not a god herding sheep. The dialogue shows that patient analysis and imaginative story can serve the same inquiry.

  • What error in the first definition does the myth of the reversed cosmos expose?
  • Why does the Stranger say a discussion should be judged by whether it makes us better at discovering truth rather than by its length?
  • How does the example of children learning letters explain the use of a paradigm?

Context

Plato wrote the Statesman in the fourth century BC, when Athens had restored democracy after the oligarchy of the Thirty in 404–403 BC and the Greek cities were repeatedly at war, while tyrants such as the Dionysii ruled in Syracuse. His own attempts to advise Dionysius II, with his friend Dion, in the 360s ended in failure. The dialogue's concern with the scarcity of true statesmen and the value of law belongs to this experience. It is set in Athens shortly before Socrates' trial in 399 BC, following the dramatic sequence of the Theaetetus and the Sophist.

Composition

Ancient and modern scholars place the dialogue among Plato's late works, after the Sophist, to which it is the announced sequel, and before the Laws, on stylistic grounds. A proposed third dialogue, the Philosopher, was never written, or at least does not survive. Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Oxford, included it in his translation of The Dialogues of Plato, whose third edition appeared in 1892; the library text reproduces that translation with Jowett's introduction and analysis.

Reception

Aristotle's Politics takes up and revises the Statesman's sixfold classification of constitutions. Later Platonists read its myth as an account of providence and the cosmic cycle. Modern scholars disagree about how its praise of rule by knowledge relates to the Republic's philosopher-kings and to the Laws' emphasis on fixed law, some seeing a shift in Plato's views and others a consistent ranking of ideal and second-best. Its account of the statesman as weaver of diverse citizens has also attracted renewed interest in recent political theory.

Comparisons

• the-republic

  The Republic's philosopher-kings rule by knowledge of the good, and the Statesman agrees that true rule is a science; but the Statesman spends far more effort on what to do when such rulers are absent, defending law as a second best.

• plato-laws

  The Laws works out in detail the second-best city governed by strict laws that the Statesman recommends when no true king is available, and it too stresses blending opposite temperaments in marriage and education.

• politics

  Aristotle's division of constitutions by one, few and many, each in a correct and a deviant form, develops the Statesman's six constitutions, though he makes the common good rather than law the dividing line.

• hesiod-theogony-and-works-and-days

  Hesiod's golden race living under Cronos without toil is one of the old stories the Stranger takes up and reinterprets in the myth of the reversed cosmos.

• timaeus

  Both late dialogues picture the cosmos as a living whole made by a divine craftsman; the Timaeus describes its construction, while the Statesman imagines its maker letting go of it and taking hold again.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The first definition of the king as herdsman of featherless bipeds, and why the Stranger himself finds it laughable.
• The myth of the age of Cronos, when the god steers the cosmos, and of our age, when the pilot lets go the helm.
• The paradigm of weaving, with its many contributory arts, used to separate the statesman from his rivals.
• The comparison of the statesman with the physician and pilot, and the thought experiment of a city that regulates doctors by vote.
• The closing account of royal weaving, which binds courageous and temperate citizens into one fabric.

Key terms and names

Eleatic Stranger

The unnamed visitor from Elea, a follower of Parmenides, who leads the dialogue in place of Socrates.

Division (diairesis)

The method of defining by splitting a class into two and following one branch, used throughout the first part of the dialogue.

Paradigm

An example, here weaving, used to understand something harder by comparison, as children learn letters in easy syllables.

Age of Cronos

In the myth, the era when the god guided the universe and men were born from the earth and lived without labour.

The due mean

The standard of the appropriate, against which every art measures excess and defect, distinct from mere relative size.

Royal science

The knowledge of ruling, which directs subordinate arts such as generalship, judging and rhetoric.

Royal weaving

The statesman's work of joining bold and gentle natures through education, shared convictions and marriage.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Who are the speakers of the Statesman, and how is this conversation connected to the Sophist?
2. Comprehension What happens to the cosmos and its creatures when the god lets go of the helm in the myth?
3. Comprehension How does the Stranger rank the six constitutions?
4. Interpretation Why does the myth show that the herdsman definition was a mistake?
5. Interpretation Why does the Stranger both criticize law and insist that cities obey it strictly?
6. Interpretation How does the paradigm of weaving shape the dialogue's final picture of the statesman?
7. Big Question Should a truly wise ruler be bound by laws? What does the Statesman answer, and do you agree?

Faith Connections

• Ezekiel 34:1-16 (Scripture)

  God condemns the shepherds of Israel who fed themselves and promises to shepherd his flock himself; the Statesman likewise reserves the true shepherd's role for the divine and treats human rulers as men among men.

• 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 (Scripture)

  Paul's body of many different members, each needed by the others, parallels the royal weaver's task of uniting bold and gentle citizens who would otherwise despise one another.

• Colossians 1:17 (Scripture)

  In Christ all things hold together. The myth's picture of a cosmos that decays when its maker lets go invites comparison with the Christian teaching that creation is continually upheld.

• Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II, q. 96, a. 6 (Great Conversation)

  Aquinas asks whether one under a law may act beside its letter, and answers that when the letter would harm the common good in an unforeseen case, its purpose should be followed; this develops the Statesman's worry that law cannot fit every case.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Ruling is an art defined by knowledge of what is good for the city; one with that knowledge could rule better than any fixed law, which cannot fit every case; but such rulers are almost never found; therefore existing cities should keep strictly to good laws, while the true statesman's distinctive work remains the weaving of diverse citizens into one community.

Rhetorical device: paradigm (extended analogy). The art of weaving wool, introduced at 279b, is divided from its contributory arts and then becomes the model for the statesman's final task, binding courage and temperance like warp and woof (310e).

Debate: Resolved: that rule by a wise person unbound by law is better than rule by law.

Memory Work

And this therefore is the worst of all lawful governments, and the best of all lawless ones.

never to allow temperate natures to be separated from the brave, but to weave them together, like the warp and the woof, by common sentiments and honours and reputation, and by the giving of pledges to one another

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain how the myth of the reversed cosmos, the paradigm of weaving and the comparison with the physician each contribute to the Stranger's final definition of the statesman.

Comparison with The Republic: Compare the Republic's philosopher-king with the Statesman's royal weaver. How does each dialogue treat law, education and the problem that wise rulers are rare?

Medical Lens

Medicine is the Statesman's most important analogy for ruling. The Stranger argues that a physician is a physician because of his knowledge, whether he treats patients with or against their will, by cutting, burning or other painful remedies, and whether he follows written rules or not; so too the true ruler. He then imagines a city that, distrusting doctors and pilots, summons an assembly of laymen to vote rules for treatment and navigation, inscribes them on tablets, audits practitioners each year and punishes anyone who inquires beyond the written code. The passage is a vivid fourth-century picture of the tension Plato sees between expert judgment and fixed regulation, and it can be read alongside Hippocratic concern for adjusting treatment to the individual patient and season. Plato is using medicine to think about politics, so the passages tell us about Greek attitudes to physicians, consent and written prescriptions rather than about clinical practice in detail. The herdsman of the opening division is also called the physician, midwife and musician of his flock.

• 267e–268b

  Rivals of the royal herdsman include physicians and trainers, while the true herdsman is himself the physician and midwife of his flock.

  Physicians Doctors
• 293a–c

  The physician who heals with or against the patient's will, by cutting or burning, as the model of rule by knowledge.

  Physicians Doctors Surgery Medical Ethics
• 295b–296c

  A physician or trainer going into a far country leaves written notes for his patients, and on his return should be free to change them if circumstances have changed.

  Physicians Doctors Ancient Medicine
• 298a–299e

  The thought experiment of an assembly of laymen legislating rules for medicine and navigation, with annual audits and penalties for inquiry beyond the written code.

  Physicians Doctors Medical Ethics

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Retell the myth of the reversed cosmos from the point of view of an earth-born man growing younger in the age of Cronos as the god's hand lets go.

• Classroom

  Build the Stranger's table of six constitutions on the board, by number of rulers and by lawfulness, and have students place historical governments they know into the cells, explaining each choice.

• Essay

  The Stranger says the statesman must weave together bold and gentle natures. Describe a team, school or family where this weaving succeeds or fails, and explain why.

Further Reading

• Sophist, Plato

  The dialogue held the day before, with the same Eleatic Stranger.

• Plato: Statesman (trans. C. J. Rowe), Plato

  A modern translation with commentary.

• Reading the Statesman: Proceedings of the III Symposium Platonicum, Christopher Rowe (ed.)

• The Being of the Beautiful: Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, Seth Benardete

  Translations with commentary on the three dialogues.

• Politics, Aristotle

  Develops the sixfold classification of constitutions.