Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:37:20.305Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Rule of Wisdom and the Rule of Law in Plato's Statesman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Paul Stern
Paul Stern*
Affiliation:
Ursinus College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recently, the idea of phronesis has assumed great importance among political theorists. This prominence is due to the perception that, contrary to the application of the methods of natural science to politics, phronesis preserves the distinctive character of politics in its refusal to apply inappropriate standards of precision and to find certainty where it does not exist. But precisely because of this, the following question arises: Can we ascertain a nonarbitrary standard of phronesis without denying those characteristics that make it appropriate for the understanding of politics? I address this question by considering the treatment of phronesis (wisdom) found in Plato's Statesman and, in particular, the passage that weighs the relative merits of rule by wisdom and rule by law. In this seminal consideration of phronesis Plato (unlike Aristotle) does not confine his treatment to the practical sphere; even this intensely political passage contains far-reaching reflections on the nature of humanity and the world we inhabit. These explain what we are and what our world is, such that there is a need for this cognitive capacity. As I argue, they express the conditions of phronesis that can provide a guide for its use without negating its essential character.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 91 , Issue 2 , June 1997 , pp. 264 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annas, Julia, and Waterfield, Robin. 1995. Plato's Statesman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barker, Ernest. 1959. The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle. London: Dover.Google Scholar
Beiner, Ronald. 1983. Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Beiner, Ronald. 1994. “Review of Peter Steinberger's The Concept of Political Judgment” Political Theory 22(11):688–92.Google Scholar
Benardete, Seth. 1963. “Eidos and Diairesis in Plato's Statesman.” Philologus 107(3):193–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benardete, Seth. 1984. The Being of the Beautiful: Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Richard J. 1985. Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Bloom, Allan. 1991. The Republic of Plato, 2d ed. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Burnet, John, ed. 1979. Platonis Opera I. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Lewis. [1867] 1988. The Sophistes and Politicus of Plato. Salem, NH: Ayer Company.Google Scholar
Cole, Eve Browning. 1991. “Weaving and Practical Politics in Plato's Statesman.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 29(2):195–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cropsey, Joseph. 1995. Plato's World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Crosson, Frederick. 1963. “Plato's Statesman: Unity and Pluralism.” New Scholasticism 37(01):28–43.Google Scholar
Dorter, Kenneth. 1987. “Justice and Method in the Statesman.” In Justice, Law, and Method in Plato and Aristotle, ed. Panagiotou, S.. Edmonton: Academic.Google Scholar
Franco, Paul. 1990. The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gadamer, H. G. 1986. The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gill, Christopher. 1995. “Rethinking Constitutionalism in Statesman 291–303.” In Reading the Statesman, ed. Rowe, Christopher. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Academia Verlag.Google Scholar
Griswold, Charles Jr., 1989. “Politike Episteme in Plato's Statesman.” In Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy III, ed. Anton, John P. and Preus, Anthony. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. 1979. Communication and the Evolution of Society. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hemmenway, Scott R. 1994. “Pedagogy in the Myth of Plato's Statesman: Body and Soul in Relation to Philosophy and Politics.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 11(07):253–68.Google Scholar
Kraut, Richard. 1984. Socrates and the State. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, Melissa. 1995. “A New Angle on Utopia: The Political Theory of the Statesman.” In Reading the Statesman, ed. Rowe, Christopher. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Academia Verlag.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1984. After Virtue. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Mara, Gerald. 1981. “Constitutions, Virtue, and Philosophy in Plato's Statesman and Republic” Polity 13(Spring):355–82.Google Scholar
Miller, Mitchell Jr. 1980. The Philosopher in Plato's Statesman. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Moravscik, J. 1973. The Anatomy of Plato's Divisions. In Exegesis and Argument. Phronesis, Suppl. vol. I., ed. Lee, E. N.. Assen, Germany: Van Gorcum.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 1986. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roochnik, David. 1990. The Tragedy of Reason: Toward a Platonic Conception of Logos. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rosen, Stanley. 1993. “Plato's Myth of the Reversed Cosmos.” In The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry: Studies in Ancient Thought, ed., Rosen, Stanley. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rosen, Stanley. 1995. Plato's Statesman: The Web of Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rowe, Christopher, ed. 1995. Reading the Statesman. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Academia Verlag.Google Scholar
Salkever, Stephen. 1990. Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice in Aristotelian Political Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Saunders, Trevor J. 1992. “Plato's Later Political Thought.” In The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. Kraut, Richard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Saxonhouse, Arlene. 1992. Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sayre, Kenneth M. 1969. Plato's Analytic Method. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Scodel, Harvey R. 1987. Diaeresis and Myth in Plato's Statesman. Gottingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.Google Scholar
Skemp, J. B. 1987. Plato's Statesman. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.Google Scholar
Steinberger, Peter. 1993. The Concept of Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Strauss, Leo. 1975. Plato. In Political Philosophy, ed. Gildin, Hilail. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Weiss, Roslyn. 1995. “Statesman as Epistemon: Caretaker, Physician, and Weaver.” In Reading the Statesman, ed. Rowe, Christopher. Sankt Augustin, Germany: Academia Verlag.Google Scholar
Zuckert, Catherine. 1996. Review of Joseph Cropsey's Plato's World Interpretation 23(Spring):477–85.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.