Statesman

Author: Plato · Year: c. 4th c. BCE (trans. C. J. Rowe, Hackett 1997) · Type: dialogue

The sequel to the Sophist: the same unnamed Eleatic Visitor continues, now with Young Socrates answering, to define the politikos — the possessor of expert knowledge of how to rule a city justly. The hunt proceeds by division (diairesis), but the Statesman is as much a treatise on method as on politics (Cooper): its excursuses — the corrective re-cutting, the myth of the reversed cosmos, the paradigm of weaving, and the science of the due measure (to metrion) — are "second thoughts" that the editor compares to the Sophist's being/not-being digression. Its political conclusions are deliberately un-Republic-like: the one correct constitution is rule by the knower (with or without law), law is an explicit second-best, and — since no actual city has the knower — the best real government is one led by a knowing imitator. The work closes by redefining statecraft as the art that interweaves the opposed civic temperaments (courage and moderation) into one fabric.

Core Arguments

  1. Claim: The statesman's art is a kind of knowledge (epistēmē) — theoretical and directive, not manual; the king rules by mind, issuing his own commands. Because: his power "has little to do with the use of his hands" but with "the understanding and force of his mind" (259c); theoretical knowledge is re-divided into "judging" vs "directive," and the king is placed under the self-directing directive (260a–e). Against: a practical politician denies ruling is detached spectator-knowledge — which forces the directive refinement. Location: 258b–260e.

  2. Claim (the failed first definition): the statesman is the herdsman who rears the human herd — the "featherless biped." Because: directive knowledge generates living things, reared in herds; the long diairesis cuts to the two-footed hornless land-herd (264a–266e). Against: refuted by the rival claimants — "merchants, farmers, millers and bakers… would loudly contend" they too rear the herd (267e); the king is "singled out from among tens of thousands of others who dispute the title" (268c). Location: 261b–268c.

  3. Claim (methodological self-correction): cut so that each half is a real class (eidos/genos), not a mere part; prefer to bisect "through the middle." Because: dividing humanity into "Greek + barbarian" gives a name without a class (262c–e); "it's safer to go along cutting through the middle of things" (262b); "a class is necessarily also a part… but not that a part is a class" (263b). Against: the rule is heuristic — some things must be cut "limb by limb, like a sacrificial animal" (287c). Location: 262a–263b; cf. 287c.

  4. Claim: The myth of the two cosmic ages (Cronus/Zeus reversal) diagnoses the error in the first definition: the all-providing herdsman-nurturer belongs to the divine age of Cronus, not to the human statesman. Because: the myth is applied — "we replied with the shepherd from the opposite period… a god instead of a mortal" (274e–275a); "this figure of the divine herdsman is still greater than that of a king" (275c). Against: the myth is openly "play, told to children" (268d–e) — its work is diagnostic, not probative. Location: 268d–275c.

  5. Claim (the crux): there are two arts of measurement — (a) relative magnitude (greater/less, things measured against each other) and (b) measurement against the mean / due measure (to metrion, to prepon, to kairon) — and every craft depends on (b), without which the crafts and their products cease to exist. Because: denying non-relative measure "will destroy both the various sorts of expertise and their products" (284a); the arts guard against excess and deficiency "not as something which is not, but as something which is" (284b) — defended by explicit parallel to the Sophist's rescue of not-being. Against: a Protagorean holds all measure relative (man the measure); the Visitor insists on a non-relative standard, "everything that removes itself from the extremes to the middle" (284e). Location: 283c–285c.

  6. Claim: The criterion of the correct constitution is not number, wealth, consent, or legality, but knowledge; so the one correct constitution is rule by the knower (with or without laws), and law is a second-best — the best is that the wise kingly man rule, because law is general and rigid where human affairs are dissimilar. Because: the doctor analogy — a doctor is a doctor "whether they cure us with our consent or without it… according to written rules or apart from" them, so long as on the basis of expertise for our good (293a–c); "the best thing is not that the laws should prevail, but rather the kingly man who possesses wisdom" (294a); law "resembles some self-willed and ignorant person" (294c). Against: Young Socrates balks that rule "without laws was harder… to accept" (293e); the majority say one must persuade, not force, the city — the Visitor presses that forcing the genuinely better (like a forced cure) is correct. Location: 291a–297a.

  7. Claim (final definition): the kingly art does not itself act but controls its "kindred" subordinate arts (generalship, judging, rhetoric), knowing the right time (kairos); its proper work is interweaving the two opposed parts of virtue — courage (the warp) and moderation (the woof) — which are naturally hostile and breed faction. Because: the "astonishing" thesis that parts of virtue "are extremely hostile to each other" (306b) is argued from the over-courageous dragging cities to ruinous war and the over-moderate sliding into enslavement; the king binds them by a divine bond (true opinion through education) and human bonds (cross-type intermarriage), producing "the most magnificent and best of all fabrics" (311b–c). Against: the common unity-of-virtue view, that the parts of virtue are "amicably disposed" (306c), denies the premise; the eugenic marriage-direction is independently contestable. Location: 305d–311c.

Argumentative Movement

The dialogue moves by diairesis that fails and self-corrects: a first division yields an absurd result (the statesman as one more herdsman among rival nurturers), and the remedy is not a better cut but three excursuses — a myth (to see why the cut went wrong), a model (weaving, to see what statecraft is), and a meta-science (the due measure, to see how long and how to divide at all). The political definition is reached only after the method has been repaired; method and content advance together.

Key Findings

  • The Platonic "ideal ruler" is not one figure. The politikos is an architectonic directive craft keyed to kairos and the mean — distinct from the Republic's philosopher-king (dialectical ascent to the Good). The Statesman is "second thoughts," a middle term between Republic and Laws. See claims#plato-statesman-ideal-ruler-vs-philosopher-king (candidate).
  • Law is a second-best, not the ideal. The best is the knower's case-by-case wisdom; written law is the indispensable substitute only because the knower is absent — and the best actual government is one led by a knowing imitator (a "sophist," in the Sophist's precise sense).
  • The due measure (to metrion) is the condition of every craft. Non-relative measure — the fitting, the right amount — is what statecraft, weaving, and all technai depend on; an ontological commitment defended by parallel to the Sophist. See the-mean.
  • The Statesman refines the Sophist's method: cut at real classes (not arbitrary parts), bisect through the middle but concede that not everything bisects ("limb by limb"), and subordinate division to "becoming better dialecticians" (285d).

hekousion / bia — silent key (276e, 291e)

The voluntary/enforced (willing-vs-forced) cut is the constitutional taxonomy's load-bearing differentia, though Plato deploys it sparingly and never theorizes the pair as such. At the first correction it splits caring/tending into enforced rule (tyranny) and voluntary rule (kingship), faulting the earlier definition for having wrongly classed king and tyrant together (276e). It then recurs as the rule-by-consent/by-force axis that helps sort the six imitation-constitutions — yet the dialogue ultimately subordinates it: the doctor analogy (the expert cures rightly "with our consent or without it," 291e–293c) makes knowledge, not consent, the sole criterion, so the willing/forced distinction does decisive sorting work while being demoted as the constitution's ground.

Concepts Developed

  • statesmanship — the royal/political art (politikē technē) as architectonic ruling knowledge, and its self-image as weaving the civic fabric (warp = courage, woof = moderation).
  • the-mean — to metrion / the two arts of measurement; the non-relative measure as the condition of existence of every craft (283c–285c).
  • collection-and-division — the Statesman's methodological refinements of the Sophist's diairesis (cut at real classes; "limb by limb"; class ≠ part; division for dialectical training).

Concepts Referenced

  • plato-sophist — the inherited diairesis and the not-being parallel (284b); the dramatic prequel.
  • plato-theaetetus — "yesterday's" conversation; Young Socrates replaces the rested Theaetetus.
  • peras-apeiron — the Philebus measure-ontology, a same-author cousin of to metrion (limit imposed from above by nous vs. the mean as the internal standard of each craft).
  • mimesis — the six inferior constitutions as imitations of the one correct one; the imitator-government.
  • tripartite-soul — the opposed warp/woof temperaments (the spirited/courageous, the gentle/moderate) prefigure the Republic's spirited and appetitive parts in an ethical-political key.

Key Passages

"the power of any king… has little to do with the use of his hands" (259c) "it's safer to go along cutting through the middle of things" (262b) "whenever there is a class of something, it is necessarily also a part" (263b) "we replied with the shepherd from the opposite period… a god instead of a mortal" (274e–275a) "the idea of a 'model' itself in its turn also has need of a model" (277d) "not as something which is not, but as something which is" (284b) — the mean's being "everything that removes itself from the extremes to the middle" (284e) "the best thing is not that the laws should prevail, but rather the kingly man" (294a) "we are no less inclined… to say they are doctors, so long as they are in charge of us on the basis of expertise" (293c) "they are extremely hostile to each other and occupy opposed positions" (306b) — the parts of virtue "the most magnificent and best of all fabrics" (311b–c) — the civic weave

What's Not Obvious

  • The myth of the reversed cosmos is a diagnostic instrument, not decoration. It is told as "play," yet its sole argumentative job is to locate the mistake in the first division: the all-providing herdsman is the god of the age of Cronus, so the human statesman cannot be defined as a nurturer of the herd (274e–275c). A "myth" does the work a corrected premise would.
  • Plato here makes law a second-best and lets the knower override even his own written law. The doctor who goes abroad, leaves written prescriptions, then on returning would countermand them "offering his expertise as law" (296e–297a) dramatizes that the rule of law is a concession to the absence of wisdom — a striking tension with the Republic's and the Laws' legalism. See claims#plato-statesman-ideal-ruler-vs-philosopher-king (candidate).
  • "Weaving" is not just an analogy for method but the content of statecraft. The same word (sumplokē) names the Sophist's weaving of Forms into logos and the Statesman's weaving of hostile citizen-temperaments into one fabric — one figure across two registers. See statesmanship and motifs (§"weaving / sumplokē / interweaving (Plato)").

Critique / Limitations

The directive-knowledge thesis assumes the requisite expertise is instantiable, though the dialogue concedes no city has it. The due-measure doctrine's central ontological claim (the mean "is") is owed on the Sophist parallel rather than independently demonstrated. The eugenic weaving-program (state-engineered intermarriage; exile or death for the uneducable, 308e–310a) is among the most resisted parts of Plato's politics. The raw text carries a garbled triplication of the "two-footed" cut (266e–267c), recovered from the intact instance.

Connections

Sources

  • Statesman, trans. C. J. Rowe, in Plato: Complete Works (Hackett, 1997), Stephanus 257a–311c; raw file lines 8496–10389.
  • Depth layer: wiki/sources/.extraction-plato-statesman.md.