Statesman (dialogue)

Socratic dialogue written by Plato

Part of a series on
Platonism
Life Theory of forms Form of the Good Theory of soul Epistemology Political philosophy Euthyphro dilemma Demiurge Atlantis
The Republic
Allegory of the cave Analogy of the Sun Analogy of the divided line Philosopher king Ship of State Ring of Gyges Myth of Er
The works of Plato
Euthyphro Apology Crito Phaedo Cratylus Theaetetus Sophist Statesman Parmenides Philebus Symposium Phaedrus First Alcibiades Second Alcibiades Hipparchus Rival Lovers Theages Charmides Laches Lysis Euthydemus Protagoras Gorgias Meno Hippias Major Hippias Minor Ion Menexenus Clitophon Republic Timaeus Critias Minos Laws Epinomis Epistles Definitions On Justice On Virtue Demodocus Sisyphus Halcyon Eryxias Axiochus Epigrams
Related articles
Commentaries The Academy in Athens Middle Platonism Neoplatonism Allegorical interpretations of Plato Plato's unwritten doctrines Pseudo-Platonica
Related categories
Plato
Philosophy portal
v t e

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (October 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

• View a machine-translated version of the German article.
• Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
• Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,904 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
• Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
• You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Politikos]]; see its history for attribution.
• You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Politikos}} to the talk page.
• For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

The Statesman (Greek: Πολιτικός, Politikós; Latin: Politicus^[1]), also known by its Latin title, Politicus, is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. The text depicts a conversation among Socrates, the mathematician Theodorus, another person named Socrates (referred to as "Socrates the Younger"), and an unnamed philosopher from Elea referred to as "the Stranger" (ξένος, xénos). It is ostensibly an attempt to arrive at a definition of "statesman," as opposed to "sophist" or "philosopher" and is presented as following the action of the Sophist.

The Sophist had begun with the question of whether the sophist, statesman, and philosopher were one or three, leading the Eleatic Stranger to argue that they were three but that this could only be ascertained through full accounts of each (Sophist 217b). But though Plato has his characters give accounts of the sophist and statesman in their respective dialogues, it is most likely that he never wrote a dialogue about the philosopher.^[2]

Contents

The dialogue begins immediately after the Sophist ends, with Socrates (the elder) and Theodorus briefly reflecting on the discussion before the Eleatic Stranger proposes to begin a dialectical investigation with Socrates the Younger into the nature of the statesman. The Eleatic Stranger and Socrates the Younger resume using the method of division employed in the Sophist, pausing to reflect on dialectical methods and a myth similar to the myth of ages.^[3] The interlocutors ultimately offer a complicated account of the statesman through a version of division that entails accounting for the object of inquiry 'by carving at the joints' like a 'sacrificial animal' (Statesman 287b-c).^[3]

Interpretations

According to John M. Cooper, the dialogue was intended to clarify that to rule or have political power called for a specialized knowledge.^[4] The statesman was one who possesses this special knowledge of how to rule justly and well and to have the best interests of the citizens at heart. It is presented that politics should be run by this knowledge, or gnosis. This claim runs counter to those who, the Stranger points out, actually did rule. Those that rule merely give the appearance of such knowledge, but in the end are really sophists or imitators. For, as the Stranger maintains, a sophist is one who does not know the right thing to do, but only appears to others as someone who does. The Stranger's ideal of how one arrives at this knowledge of power is through social divisions. The Stranger takes great pains to be very specific about where and why the divisions are needed in order to rule the citizenry properly.

Texts and translations

• Greek text at Perseus
• Plato: Statesman, Philebus, Ion. Greek with translation by Harold N. Fowler and W. R. M. Lamb. Loeb Classical Library 164. Harvard Univ. Press (originally published 1925). ISBN 978-0674991828 HUP listing
• Fowler translation at Perseus
• Jowett translation with introduction at StandardEbooks
• Plato. Opera, volume I. Oxford Classical Texts. ISBN 978-0198145691
• Plato. Complete Works. Ed. J. M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson. Hackett, 1997. ISBN 978-0872203495

References

External links

• Works related to Statesman at Wikisource
• Quotations related to Statesman (dialogue) at Wikiquote
• Statesman, in a collection of Plato's Dialogues at Standard Ebooks
• Statesman, english translation by Benjamin Jowett public domain audiobook at LibriVox