constitutions, virtue and philosophy in plato´s statesman and republic

Northeastern Political Science Association

Constitutions, Virtue &Philosophy in Plato's "Statesman" &"Republic"Author(s): Gerald MaraSource: Polity, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1981), pp. 355-382Published by: Palgrave Macmillan JournalsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3234616 .Accessed: 03/03/2014 10:46

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Constitutions, Virtue & Philosophy in Plato's Statesman & Republic

Gerald Mara Center for Renewable Resources

This article deals with the puzzling issue of Plato's differing classifications of constitutions in the Republic and the Statesman and of his view of the best city. The author rejects the familiar interpretations, which see these differences as minor variations or as the result of changes in Plato's political philosophy in the course of time. It is his position that the differences in the classification of regimes are attributable to differences in their respective advocates, Socrates and the Eleatic stranger, concerning the relationship between philosophy and politics. His comparisons of the psychological theories and political criteria held by the principal characters of the two dialogues reaffirms Plato's support of the position attributed to Socrates.

Gerald Mara is currently a policy analyst with the Center for Renewable Resources in Washington, D.C. His article on Rousseau appeared in the Western Political Quarterly, and his present scholarly work is on Plato's Republic and Aristotle's analysis of moral and intellectual virtue.

I. Introduction: Constitutions, Political Philosophy, and Human Nature

Plato's dialogues, Statesman and Republic, contain two very different discussions of distinct kinds of constitutions or cities, which culminate in two different accounts of the best city. The major presentations in each work are made by different Platonic characters, Socrates in the Republic and an unnamed stranger from Elea in the Statesman. Socrates' discourse occurs in private, outside Athens proper, in the company of some gifted young political men and a fairly renowned teacher of rhetoric. The stranger's discussion is relatively public, in Athens, in the company of two gifted young mathematicians and a renowned teacher of geometry. One of the stranger's listeners is Socrates himself, but his chief inter-


356 Constitutions, Virtue & Philosophy

locutor is a "young" Socrates who does not resemble "old" Socrates in either looks or character. The Statesman occurs after Socrates' indict- ment and before his trial for impiety and for corrupting the city's youth. The Republic occurs between Socrates' attendance at two religious festi- vals. The Statesman contains a justification of Athens' case against Socrates but, nonetheless, prefers the rule of scientific politics over the rule of the democracy. The Republic contains varied defenses of Socrates but, nonetheless, illustrates why certain accusations against him are in a sense true. The Republic's best city ascends from primal needs to philosophy while the Statesman's best city descends from science and in- spiration to matchmaking and childrearing. One could say that the Re- public considers politics among practical men in a philosophic context while the Statesman considers politics among scientific men in a practical context.

These elements of time, place, and persona are important for understanding the "content" of the dialogues, for the discussions themselves are cosmic, yet intimate. Against this backdrop it may seem rather aca- demic, if not somewhat myopic, to devote extensive attention to the dialogues' different classifications of constitutions. But I want to suggest that these elements are central to our understanding of each work. In particular, they are significant if we are to come to grips with Plato's position on the nature of political philosophy itself, in a way the express topic of the Statesman and the implicit theme of the Republic.

Past commentators have recognized the importance of these differing evaluations of cities not only for the Republic and the Statesman but for the Laws as well. But there is considerable controversy over the interpretation of their different features. At least two distinct conclusions predominate.' Campbell 2 and Shorey3 contend that the various constitutional evaluations are relatively minor variations on the same general theme. They reflect a consistent recommendation that the highest theo- reticians, the philosophers, should rule the best city.4 But Morrow5 and

1. There are some notable exceptions which fall outside of these two alternatives. See, for instance, Leo Strauss's discussion of the three dialogues in Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, eds., The History of Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972), pp. 7-63.

2. Lewis Campbell, "Introduction to the Statesman," The Sophistes and the Politicus of Plato (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1867), pp. ix, xvi.

3. Paul Shorey, The Unity of Plato's Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 85-6; idem, What Plato Said, abr. ed. (Chicago: Phoenix, 1967), pp. 266, 358-9.

4. Specifically with regard to the Statesman this same position is maintained by Jacob Klein, Plato's Trilogy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), p. 200; and Rosamund Kent Sprague, Plato's Philosopher-King: A Study of the


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Taylor6 see these variations in regimes as signaling a Platonic departure from the endorsement of philosophic kingship and its replacement with the generalizing, experiential rule of law.

Both interpretations have implications for understanding Plato's position on the possibility of political philosophy. For Plato the possibility of the same human being or human type engaging in politics and philosophy is raised as an explicit question.7 Since political philosophy is not identical with political thinking, this possibility cannot be presupposed or assumed. To meet this issue we need to consider the activity of the political philosopher in light of an overall account of human nature.8 However, this inquiry is not simply an exercise in speculative psychology since the justification of political activity in the Republic, the theoretical endorsement of politics and condemnation of tyranny, depends upon the compatibility of philosophy and politics in the person of the philosopher king. There seems to be a more or less direct line, then, between the classifications of regimes, the justification of political philosophy, and the Platonic analysis of human nature.

In this paper I want to offer an alternative to both Campbell/Shorey and Morrow/Taylor. I suggest that the differing classifications of constitutions reflect the differing perspectives of the characters who present them. The most important of these differences concerns the relationship between philosophic and political activities. Conclusions about the possibility of political philosophy represent the foundations and not merely the consequences of these two different evaluations of cities. Accord-

Theoretical Background (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1976), pp. 100-17.

5. Glenn Morrow, Plato's Cretan City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), pp. 9-10, 153-7; idem, Plato's Epistles: A Translation With Critical Essays and Notes (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1962), pp. 130-7; idem, "Plato and The Rule of Law," reprinted in Gregory Vlastos, ed., Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, vol. 2 (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1971), pp. 144-165.

6. A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (New York: Meridian, 1957), p. 465. The commentary on the Statesman by J. B. Skemp also generally fits this mold but with a slight variation. He says that the Statesman and the Laws are more "realistic" or limited than the Republic but that Plato never deviates in principle from the "ideal" of the philosopher-king. See Plato's Statesman: A Translation of the Politicus of Plato Withl Introductory Essay and Footnotes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952), pp. 54-66.

7. For example at Republic 485al-3; Hippias 281c4-dll. 8. A similar approach is recommended in ethics by G. E. M. Anscombe, "Mod-

ern Moral Philosophy," reprinted in W. D. Hudson, ed., The Is-Ought Problem (London: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 175-195. The application of this sort of analysis to political philosophy is discussed by Stephen Salkever, "Virtue, Obligation and Politics," American Political Science Review 68 (1974): 78-92.



ingly the perspectives of Socrates and the Eleatic stranger themselves need to be investigated. I ultimately suggest that the two differing classifications of regimes provide avenues through which that investigation can begin.

Thus, both the Campbell/Shorey and Morrow/Taylor positions seem too simple to deal with these issues as they arise in the different Pla- tonic analyses of cities, at least in the Statesman and the Republic. I suggest that Plato's different constitutional evaluations are, contra Campbell/Shorey, to be taken seriously as differences not, contra Morrow/Taylor, within changing political opinions but within a complex, consistent position on the relationship between philosophy and politics. Thus, my intention is to conclude by saying something about the importance of Plato's political philosophy in general. Whatever benefits this yields, it runs the risk of ignoring the significance of many of the dramatic details. Accordingly, I conclude the essay by briefly com- paring Plato's general treatment of political philosophy with more modern examinations of the relationship between theory and practice. Hope- fully the questions raised by this survey will suggest why the risk is worth taking.

II. Regimes: The Surface Features of the Two Classifications The Republic For both Socrates and the Eleatic stranger, as well as in the dialogues in general, the Greek word politeia has a more extensive meaning than its usual English translation, "constitution." It signifies not only the arrangement of political power in a city but also, and more importantly, the unique way of life characteristic of that city. The politeia includes the kinds of things that the city values or rewards, the kinds of goals that motivate the actions of its citizens. Thus, in the eighth and ninth books of the Republic, Socrates compares different regimes by evaluating the different characteristic activities encouraged in each.9 Five different re-

9. I will not attempt to defend or justify the conception of good politics as that productive of human virtue here. However, it is obviously far removed from most modern conceptions. The stranger's defense of this approach in the Statesman seems insufficient since it rests upon an assumed analogy between politike and other arts. (Although the stranger is concerned in his discussion of justice to show how politike and other technai differ.) In general Plato (or Socrates) seems to derive this conception of good politics from at least three premises: first, that all kinds of regimes necessarily encourage particular ways of life; second, that all persons necessarily look to their regimes for assistance in choosing the best way of life; and third, that different ways of life can be evaluatively compared in a rational (demonstrable, binding) way.


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gimes emerge. The aristocracy is, as its name implies, the regime ruled by the best human beings (hoi aristoi), the kings who philosophize or the philosophers who are also kings. The timocracy is ruled by the spirited ones or those motivated by honor, principally attained through victory in war (547c4-9). The oligarchy is ruled by the rich or those at least rich enough to meet a relatively high property qualification (550c7-dl). The democracy is ruled by the demos, that class in the city devoted (not self-consciously) to freedom or the varied and individual pursuit of privately defined goals (562a8-c2). The final regime is the tyranny, the city ruled by the person or persons most strongly influenced by the need to gratify the most intense selfish desires (573a4-b8).

These regimes all promote (with more or less success) the development of the person, who is characteristically motivated by the regime's ruling principle. The aristocracy encourages the growth of the human individual who characteristically performs the highest activities of which the human species is capable. Socrates calls this kind of characteristic virtue or excellence (arete). The other four cities are ranked by Socrates according to how well they approximate the best regime's fostering of excellence. Accordingly the tyranny is the worst regime, even a non- regime, because it promotes no part of human virtue but only human vice.

The Statesman Initially the Eleatic stranger's classification of regimes in the Statesman likewise makes it clear that the best politeia is that which encourages its citizens' virtue. In this dialogue that regime is the one ruled by the statesman (politikos) or the person possessing political science (politike). 1( But although the stranger defines his conception of virtue, he does not elaborate on the imitations of virtue that grow in inferior regimes. The stranger's principal concern is, rather, to prove that the criterion of art or science is the standard for discovering the best regime, superior to the more conventional criteria of wealth, consent, or the rule of written laws (292a6-11; 292c6-10).

However, the criterion of written laws is preferable to its competitors

10. Literal translations of politikos and politike are "politically wise person" and "political wisdom." Both words are derived from polis (city). The politikos is not simply a citizen (any more than a doctor is simply a healthy person), but rather a person who possesses the science of politike. The existence of the politikos is contingent upon the prior existence of politike. The terms "statesman" and "statesmanship" are misleading because of their more modern associations with the concepts of "sovereign state" and "leadership" or "diplomacy."



precisely because human beings possessing political wisdom are so very rare. The stranger praises legal rule because laws and customs, the results of long experience, generally imitate the statesman's science better than most nonscientific cities (300bl-7). For the stranger, two inferior regimes imitate politike through following written laws. They are the kingship and the aristocracy (or the government of the rich according to laws). These two constitutions are closer to the best regime than the next two imitative regimes, the oligarchy or the government of the rich without laws and the democracy. Political science is a difficult science which can be mastered only by one or a few persons (297b9-c6). The achievement of political wisdom depends upon intellectual gifts rather than material resources. The principle of the democracy, however, is equality or the claim that there are no essential differences between persons. The principle of the oligarchy is wealth or the claim that essential differences between persons can be measured by their money or property. While certain individual democrats or oligarchs may be wiser than some kings or aristocrats, the constitutional forms of the monarchy and aristocracy are more open to the rule of the wise than the democracy or oligarchy (311a4-10). The stranger suggests that the chief political opponents to a rule according to science or wisdom are the rich and the many (298e6-10; 298el4-299a8).

But in spite of the wide variations which exist among these four imitative regimes, the stranger still distinguishes all of them collectively from the tyranny, which is ruled by no imitation of science but by ignorance and desire (301c2-9). According to this criterion, the tyranny is the worst regime, not because it fosters human vice, but because it is ruled by the two antitheses to science.

The stranger describes the value of the rule of law somewhat differ- ently later in the dialogue. There the imitative regimes are ordered according to how well they promote a certain kind of freedom, the freedom from oppression that all men desire (302b5-10). The measure or standard here is not the regime governed by science but the regime allowing freedom. In general regimes that are lawful (restrained) are far less oppressive than their lawless counterparts. Accordingly the kingship, aristocracy, and lawful democracy are by far preferable to the lawless democracy, the oligarchy, and the tyranny. The aristocracy and especially the kingship are themselves preferable to the lawful democracy because of the latter's inability to do anything great (303a4-7). The nonoppressive regimes must be strong enough to provide security for their citizens' free existences. This security includes freedom from the oppressions of the competing factions of oligarchs and democrats. The kingship stands apart from these competing factions more than the aristocracy because of the strong religious and institutional supports which


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underlie the king's rule. The king's lawful power also has the advantage of being concentrated power. There is no dilution of authority. Thus, while the stranger is equivocal about the relative worth of the monarchy and the aristocracy according to the criterion of science, he clearly prefers the monarchy according to the criterion of freedom." The stranger differs markedly from the entire liberal tradition from Spinoza onward by arguing that a permissive government is not the most free government. Although the praise of the kingship presupposes the unattainability of the best regime, praise of even the lawful democracy presupposes the lawlessness of all other regimes (303a8-b10). But both of the stranger's criteria are identical insofar as they identify the tyranny as the worst regime. It is both irrational and oppressive.

III. Virtue

The Republic: Philosophy In each dialogue the best city is praised because it fosters human virtue. But beyond this formal agreement Socrates and the stranger appear to diverge sharply over the substantive definition of that virtue. Their for- mally similar portrayals of the best regime also differ with the substance of each conception of virtue.

The question of virtue is introduced in the Republic at the end of book one. Socrates says there is an essential connection between the virtue of a thing and that thing's performing its own appropriate func- tion (ergon) well. A human being, like all other creatures, has a best activity that is peculiar to the species (353d4-e3). Human virtue, then, is indispensable for human beings' being human. Lacking it, the per- formance of the strictly human ergon is impossible. But this formal characterization does not indicate what the appropriate human ergon and its facilitating virtue are. In book one the reader is presented with a swarm of potential human virtues, including piety (exemplified in the speeches of Cephalus), patriotism or political loyalty (Polemarchus), and prudence or good counsel (Thrasymachus). But by the end of book seven our understanding of virtue must undergo a transformation which is by all odds incredible. Socrates says that the best human life is not any of these. Nor is it that life praised by the spirited Glaucon, nor the one practiced by the temperate and public minded Adeimantus. Rather it is the life of intellection, the contemplation and understanding of the most worthy objects of knowledge, the forms and the idea of the good (517a9-c6). From this perspective true human virtue is that which makes such a life possible, the human potential for philosophy or the

11. Statesman 297b9-c6; 301a5-b3; 302dl-3.



love of and search for the truth of being. Thus, although philosophy originally appears in the dialogue as a means for attaining and preserving the best city, in the later books it becomes the very justification for that city's existence. The city's highest purpose is to produce philosophers. The Statesman: Courage and Moderation Virtue is explicitly introduced into the Statesman relatively late in the dialogue (306al-4). The stranger does not discuss virtue as such but rather two particular parts of virtue, courage (andreia) and moderation (sophrosyne). What is striking about the stranger's presentation here is that it is initially neutral with regard to species. Courage is defined as acuteness or quickness in mind, body, or voice; while moderation appears as restraint expressed in the same media (306c12-307b2). These conceptions of courage and moderation apply to all creatures that make sounds or have bodies, not only to human beings. There is not necessarily any human virtue in quickness or restraint. It is therefore necessary to show how human courage and moderation differ from those analogous qualities found in other species.

The need for this discrimination has been apparent since the beginning of the dialogue. At 261c8-dl the stranger suggests that defining the statesman's science requires defining the kind of creature whom the statesman rules. Young Socrates believes that human beings can be scientifically distinguished from animals by physical or physically de- pendent characteristics. The first methodical division of creatures extend- ing from 264b12 to 266el 1 is a division according to physical categories. The inadequacy of this approach is shown by the first division's con- cluding that statesmanship is nourishment (267dl0-12). However, many arts claim supremacy in the care of the body (267e4-268a4). The statesman's art, on the other hand, is shown to be the principal art that cares for the soul. The most important differences among species are differences among kinds of souls. Defining political wisdom in the dialogue presupposes a definition of the human soul.

However, the statesman's care is apparently confined to a certain kind or class of human soul. In the physical terms of the first division the statesman is concerned with herds (261el-3; 267d7-10). The stranger cares for the souls of political human beings.l2 Quickness and restraint

12. Stanley Rosen also makes this point in "Plato's Myth of the Reversed Cosmos," Review of Metaphysics 33 (1979): 59-85, at 63. Rosen goes too far, though, in suggesting that one cannot speak of creating excellent citizens if one assimilates humans to herd animals. I see no reason why this must be so for reasons indicated in the paper. It all depends upon one's evaluation of excellent citizenship.


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are relevant for political virtue in the sense that they both presuppose and govern the character of certain interrelations. Of course, the stranger also considers quickness or sluggishness of mind as it relates to an idea (262a6-8). But the measure used to determine the kind of quickness or slowness desired in any context is the proper standard, what is fitting or appropriate within the relevant circumstances (284e7-10). For the stranger that standard for political man is a mean between extremes of recklessness and cowardice in dealings with other cities. Excessive courage leads to a foolhardiness which endangers cities and brutalizes individuals (308a4-10). Extreme moderation is the root of cravenness which makes one both contemptible and vulnerable (307b7-308a2). The measure or mean of these two potentially conflicting characteristics constitutes the virtue of the political man's soul. The stranger suggests that the actualization of this virtue is not natural, but must be produced by art (309bl). The statesman's art combines the spirited and gentle elements of the soul by forging two kinds of bonds, one human, the other divine. The human bonds are the city's marriage and childrearing practices (310b2-5). The divine bonds are true opinions about the good and bad, beautiful and shameful, just and unjust (309cl-d3). True opinion ultimately separates the human creatures for whom the statesman cares from other animals and makes them resemble the gods or what is divine (309c9).

There is a real and pointed difference between the stranger's and Socrates' respective portraits of the virtue that is fostered in the best city. The stranger's virtue is not cognitive or intellectual. It is not defined as science (episteme) or prudence (phronesis) but as the mean of courage and moderation. So defined the virtue of political human beings does not appear to be particularly or exclusively human. Animals are also capable of a mean between quickness and restraint. The virtuous product of the best city is also what may be best in animals. However, animals are not capable of opinion. While animals may be judiciously interbred, they cannot be taught opinions about good and bad. But in the dialogue this exclusively human opinion remains a means to a kind of virtue that is not similarly restricted to the human species. Opinion, the cognitive dimension of the statesman's citizens, is valuable for its noncognitive psychic consequences. It does not appear to be desirable for itself. While opinion may arise in divine-like peoples, opinion is not itself divine. Only the immaterial objects of philosophy or dialectic are divine (285e5-286bl). Opinion is an approximation or imitation of knowledge. In the statesman's city the imitation of what is divine or what approaches the divine is used to achieve what may be best in animals.



The best city in the Statesman overcomes deficiencies caused by the harmful extreme parts of virtue. The balanced virtue of the city replaces brutality and cowardice. In the Republic the just city described in book four overcomes the potential rapacity of the feverish city's guardians. These just guardians in a way also reflect what is best in animals. They are like noble dogs who are friendly to comrades and hostile to outsiders (375el-5). Of course, the citizens of the Statesman's city need be less hostile to outsiders because the Statesman does not assume, as the Republic does, the coexistence of many feverish cities. And the Statesman: does not focus on the problem of the internal rapacity of its courageous citizens, as the Republic does, because the Statesman's city assumes, as the Republic does not, generally herded or tamed citizens. The most important difference between these two cities, however, is that the Republic's just city is replaced by what Glaucon calls a "still finer" city, that devoted to philosophy (543c7-544al). In the States- man no such replacement occurs. In part the divine bond of opinion itself prevents such a replacement. In the Republic the citizens of the best city are portrayed as being released from bonds by education in philosophy (517a6-8).

The Republic and the Statesman appear to present two very different conceptions of virtue'3 and two correspondingly different accounts of the best city. It is not grossly distorting to say that Socrates praises a city devoted to a certain kind of philosophy while the stranger endorses a city productive of virtuous politics or practice. But in spite of these differences both portraits of the best city, within the respective contexts of each dialogue, generate similar implications concerning the relation between philosophic and political activities. The regime or constitution is the setting where the Platonic problem of philosophy and politics is developed.

IV. Philosophy and Politics

The development of this problem in each of these dialogues requires more detailed discussion. The Republic's best city is justified by its education of philosophers. However, this justification itself reflects badly upon the characteristic life in the city. As it is presented in books five

13. Skemp, on the other hand, sees no essential difference between the Eleatic and Socratic conceptions of virtue. But consider the difference between the cognitive aspects of each conception. Skemp, Plato's Statesman, pp. 222-3. Sprague also tends to overlook the differences between the virtue produced by the philosopher-king and that produced by the statesman. Sprague, Plato's Philosopher- King, p. 116.


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through seven, philosophy appears to be completely apolitical in its consummate form. The flourishing of philosophy would seem to require only the human intellect and the knowables. At best the city can provide only the preconditions for philosophy, security, and leisure. This activity itself would presumably be carried on far beyond the confines of political concerns in what Socrates often metaphorically refers to as the Isles of the Blessed (519b7-c7). Yet, requiring the philosopher to rule the best city deprives him of that leisure which is essential for philosophy. This leads directly to the interpretation most recently put forth by Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom, that Plato's best politics is contradictory.'4 It requires that the highest injustice be applied to the best human being. Thus, the way of life, which is the chief justification for the city, apparently provides an alternative activity which is both incompatible with politics and more choiceworthy for (strictly speaking) human beings (520e5-521a5).

In the Statesman the "balanced" virtue encouraged in the best city is also clearly inferior to another, better way of life, that devoted to dialectics. Assertions of the superiority of philosophy to political virtue occur in several portions of the dialogue. One of the most pointed of these is in the myth of the ages of Cronos and Zeus, which extends from 268d9 to 274a4. Within the myth the stranger implicitly compares the different ways of life that can be chosen by human beings. He suggests that each of these mythical ages provides a pair of activities between which humans may choose. In the age of Zeus, a harsh, dangerous time, human beings must either submit to the threats posed by the beasts and the elements or institute communities in order to take care of themselves and order their own lives (274d5-6). In the age of Cronos, an epoch in which the needs of humans are satisfied by the gods, men must either engage in idle gossip and pleasure-seeking or practice a certain kind of philosophy. The stranger is clear that one can determine within each pair which kind of activity would make human beings happier. The life of self-ordering is happier than that of submitting to the hazards of fortune. The life of philosophy is happier than that of ease and gossip.

14. Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963), pp. 50- 138; Allan Bloom, trans., The Republic of Plato (New York: Basic Books, 1968), p. 408. See also Stanley Rosen, "Sophrosyne and Selbstewusstsein," Review of Metaphysics 27 (1973): 617-642; Simon Aronson, "The Happy Philosopher-A Counter Example to Plato's Proof," Journal of the History of Philosophy (1972), pp. 383-98. However Aronson's conclusions differ strongly from Strauss's. For a critique of the Strauss/Bloom approach see Dale Hall, "The Republic and the Limits of Politics," together with Bloom, "Response to Hall," Political Theory 5 (1977): 293-330.



Philosophy and politics are the praiseworthy ways of life within the age of Cronos and the age of Zeus, respectively.15 It is critical to recognize that both desirable human activities are voluntary. There is nothing in our knowledge of the age of Cronos that suggests humans necessarily philosophized. Contrary to the myth told in the Protagoras, politics is not a gift of the gods in the age of Zeus.

However, in addition to making comparisons within each pair, the stranger suggests that it is possible to make comparisons across pairs. The perceptive observer can discover the activity that is most choiceworthy out of all possible activities in both ages. The stranger says that engaging in philosophy would make the humans of Cronos' age happier than those in the age of Zeus who must bear the burden of pro- tecting and directing themselves (272b9ff). Of course, the stranger makes no claim to factual knowledge of how humans lived in the age of Cronos. Indeed that knowledge is inaccessible; we are ignorant of those peoples' desires regarding the sciences and the uses of arguments (272d4-5). We are unaware of the groundings of any philosophizing that might have occurred. There was no physical eros. The path from the love of physical beauty to the love of the beautiful itself was apparently closed. Yet even in light of this ignorance, an image of our ignorance of the complete course of human history, the stranger con- tends that the criterion for the best human life is consistent across epochs.16 If human beings philosophized in the mythical age of Cronos, they were immeasurably happier than modern political men.

According to this "comprehensive" comparison, human beings could refrain from politics and still be human, capable of the most choiceworthy activities open to the human species. Politics is apparently praiseworthy only when compared to its undesirable alternatives. The

15. Interestingly, in the myth the stranger passes over the obvious fact that philosophy is also possible in the age of Zeus. We might say provisionally that the myth seems to point out the differences between philosophy and politics with a sharpness that borders on exaggeration.

16. Thus the presumed impossibility of philosophy in the age of Cronos, as noted by Rosen ("Plato's Myth of the Reversed Cosmos," pp. 78-9) does nothing to diminish its desirability. Incidentally, it should also be noted that the stranger recognizes the absence of work and eros in that age and suggests that philosophy, if it occurred, would have to follow a much different path. The path (conversing with animals) is a comical one, to be sure. However the stranger is led to this path because he and young Socrates have not agreed that the capacity for speech is what separates men from animals. The path also has its serious side, however, indicating a possible connection between perception and philosophy, a connection minimized by Socrates. See also Statesman 263b6 where the stranger suggests the potential inseparability of eidos and meros.


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stranger's use of the criteria of science and freedom, rather than the criterion of virtue, in evaluating regimes is perhaps explained by his relatively low estimation of the virtue that is fostered in the city.

While Socrates' portrait of the virtue encouraged in the best city para- doxically elevates it far above politics, the stranger's analogous conception places that virtue far below the best human life. Both positions appear to agree that the political life is vastly inferior to the philosophic. One is tempted to conclude that the principal difference between the presentations is that Socrates' is ironic and implicit while the stranger's is more or less pointed and direct. However this conclusion fails to account for the very different portraits of the best city presented in the two works. This failure leads us to suspect that both dialogues may be more ambiguous than we immediately assume. It may be suggested that this ambiguity is especially apparent in the treatment of justice (the political virtue) in the two dialogues.

V. Justice The Republic: The Just Man and the Just City The importance of justice is obvious if highly problematic from the outset. The first great question of the dialogue is "What is Justice?" (331clff). Socrates is forced to consider the question indirectly as a means of, or a step in, considering the question of whether justice is desirable for itself or for its consequences (337e4ff). By the end of the dialogue Socrates seems to conclude that justice is a certain arrangement of the human soul (psyche) and that the person who is most just is the philosopher. For Socrates only the philosopher's soul is ordered according to nature with the reasoning element (logistikon) controlling the spirit (thymos) and the desires (epithymiai). Only the philosopher does man's ergon, the work most proper to the species. But this line of argument and particularly Socrates' notable analogy between the city and soul begs one very important question: What is the relationship between this psychic sort of justice and politics? If the philosopher's being just is essentially related to the philosophic life, the possibility of fostering human justice in politics becomes highly questionable.17 If the philosopher is politically just, just in his relationships with other human beings, apparently this justice is simply an accidental or contin-

17. At least some of this difficulty can be traced to an ambiguity in the text of the Republic and in some commentaries about the kind of political activity open to citizens in the best city. See my suggestions in part vIr as to the kind of activity which might be involved.



gent consequence of a certain kind of purely individual psychic harmony.18 The soul and not the city is the place of justice. The Statesman: Science and Justice In the Statesman the role of justice is not nearly so apparent, but its ambiguity in relation to politics and the city is equally overwhelming. At 293d10 the stranger suggests that the statesman can be separated from imitative rulers by virtue of his ruling according to science and justice. The first of these two criteria is familiar in the context of the dialogue as it has developed up to this point. The stranger's concern has been explicitly to define the statesman's science. The criterion of justice seems perplexing in this light because it implies that the true statesman is not definable solely by intellectual standards. Justice might well be needed to limit science in order to guard against its misuse.

However, I believe that the introduction of justice here does not amend the stranger's earlier concentration on science. His inclusion of justice as a definitive characteristic of the statesman immediately pre- cedes his critique of the generality of laws. At 294a7ff the stranger criticizes laws because they fail to address human circumstances with the proper degree of complexity. The deficiencies of generalizing laws are caused by the intricacy of human actions, especially actions of the soul leading to choices of better and worse (294b2-7). The complexity of the soul as compared with the body differentiates the science of caring for many souls from the science of caring for many bodies. While all generalizations leave things out, generalizations about bodies are more reliable than generalizations about souls. It is easier to secure health than virtue through general rules. This conclusion is apparent in the implied comparison of the statesman with the physician or the trainer of groups and the caretaker of herds. The physician or trainer can attain a suitable degree of public health through general physical rules or guidelines (294dll-e3). The herdsman is successful in his care by adapting his actions to the characteristics of his own herd (tes autou poimnes) (268a6-b8). A good statesman, however, must be able to guide each individual citizen toward virtue. While the statesman cannot sit beside

18. Republic 443c7-444a4. The problem of the incidental or contingent character of the philosopher's political justice is left largely unconsidered in the controversy surrounding David Sach's essay, "A Fallacy in Plato's Republic," reprinted in Vlastos, Plato, pp. 35-51. Both Vlastos and Charles Kahn try to show contra Sachs that the philosopher insofar as he or she acts in politics must refrain from pleonexia (extreme selfishness), but neither proves or attempts to prove that the philosopher must be political. See Kahn, "The Meaning of Justice and the Theory of Forms," Journal of Philosophy (1972), pp. 567-79; and Vlastos, "Justice and Happiness in the Republic," Vlastos, Plato, pp. 68-95.


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each person and tell him what to do, he must, nonetheless, be conscious of the particular needs and circumstances of individuals. Science or general rules must be supplemented for the statesman in a way that is not necessary for the physician or herdsman. Science or the knowledge of what is good for the city as a whole must be supplemented by justice or knowledge of what is good or appropriate in individual circumstances.19 The statesman's need for both science and justice is apparent in the discussion of the relationship between politike and the other political arts in the city: rhetoric, generalship, and judging. Each of these arts follows rules for its successful completion. The general knows how to make war, and the orator knows how to persuade. But the excellent general qua general neither knows the proper relationship of war to peace nor decides when it is best to make war and when not. The stranger controls the general precisely because the stranger knows these two things which escape the (legitimately) excellent general. Knowledge of the relationship of war to peace is supplied by a knowledge of what is, in general, good for the city. When there is any choice in the matter at all, the city should not make war if it will make the citizens less virtuous. But knowledge of when making war would be necessary or appropriate for the city's good must be supplied by an understanding sensitive to circumstances. Justice determines when war is necessary for the preser- vation of the city. Justice decides which of the citizens must be persuaded and which of them must be forced. In this sense the statesman's justice would seem to be a cognitive or intellectual capacity, although one far different from the intellectual knowledge of certain rules. In fact the statesman's intellectual justice is not unlike that displayed by Socrates in so many of his conversations. Socrates also makes war and persuades.

But this inclusion of justice as one characteristic quality of the statesman is paralleled by its diminution as a characteristic quality of the statesman's citizens. At 309d9-e3 the stranger suggests that a naturally courageous nature tempered in the best city comes to partake of just things. In the same way the naturally gentle natures balanced by the city come to be more prudent (309e5-9). The statesman's own qualities of science and justice seem to be only approximated in the statesman's citizens. Nowhere is it suggested that the statesman's city is capable of producing other statesmen. Insofar as the statesman is just, he must be so through some other medium than his own city. In this sense justice becomes in a way apolitical in that it is not an expectable psychic consequence of residence in even the best city.

Thus, in both dialogues the political status of justice becomes ex- 19. Cf. Rosen, "Plato's Myth of the Reversed Cosmos," p. 68.



tremely problematic. Both Socrates' elevation of philosophy above politics and the stranger's lowering of political virtue below the best human life appear to rob the city of its most political characteristic. It becomes questionable as to whether the best politics can exist without some essential relation to philosophy or dialectics. The ambiguous status of justice and the best politics is also reflected in the very personages who lie at the heart of the political pronouncements in each work, the philosopher king and the statesman. Both Socrates and the stranger suggest that these two figures participate to some degree in philosophy, although the suggestions are made in very different ways. In contrast to the separations of philosophic and political activities, Socrates' connecting of the ruler and the philosopher is direct and explicit, while the stranger's linking of the statesman and the dialectician is subtle and implied. In the Statesman both the statesman and the dialectician are concerned with things superior to the body or the senses.20 The statesman is most concerned with securing the virtue of his citizens' souls, while the dialectician is most concerned with the highest things which have no bodies (ta asomata).

How can Plato explain or justify the philosopher king's and the statesman's participation in these two ways of life? Must it be coerced?21 Is the philosopher's love of truth gratified by the exercise of his extraor- dinary intellectual gifts when ruling?22 Or is such an involvement in politics explained by some nonphilosophic principle such as patriotism?23

20. Seth Benardete points to a similar resemblance between the statesman and the philosopher. See "Eidos and Diairesis in Plato's Statesman," Philologus (1963), p. 107. What is needed here is an account of what separates politike from other arts and propels it toward philosophy. The relevant difference may be politike's capacity to be directive toward the good (304a7-d3). For the stranger there is a certain resemblance between what is good and what is true. See, for instance, his description of the highest immaterial things (ta as6mata) as the fairest things (ta kallista onta) at 286a6-7. Rosen ("Plato's Myth of the Reversed Cosmos") discusses the similarities and differences between the two ways of life in the most detail and on the whole very convincingly. Klein makes, but does not defend, the claim that "The Statesman cannot help being a 'Philosopher'" (Plato's Trilogy, p. 177). Sprague hints at an ambiguous relationship between the dialectician and the statesman but does not pursue it (Plato's Philosopher-King, p. 106).

21. Cf. Aronson, "The Happy Philosopher," p. 394; Strauss, The City and the Man, pp. 124-5.

22. Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision (Boston: Little Brown, 1960), p. 44. See also Rosen's case for philosophic hybris in politics in "The Role of Eros in Plato's Republic," Review of Metaphysics 19 (1965): 452-475 at 459.

23. In other words for the philosopher politics may be only affectively or psy- chologically defensible. The strongest support for this alternative is probably Apology 30a4-5. See Thomas G. West, Plato's Apology of Socrates (Ithaca: Cor- nell University Press, 1979), p. 171.


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These represent some of the more frequently suggested answers to this question of philosophic involvement in politics.24 But selecting any one of them implies that politics can be praised as a purely instrumental or, at best, relatively desirable way of life. The point is not simply that most persons are incapable of philosophy. The great distance between politics and the best way of life renders the political or practical way of life pointless or self-contradictory, a condition epitomized by the denial of justice to the city. According to this view, it may be impossible to draw any theoretical or principled distinction between the best citizen or statesman and the worst tyrant since both are confined to an existence that is not theoretically defensible.25 This perspective questions the sense or appropriateness of searching for a serious Platonic moral or political philosophy. The immense superiority of the apolitical philosophic life seems to render comparisons between moral and immoral acts or just and unjust societies trivial or, at best, nagging necessities for the most truly human being. However unpleasant these consequences might be, their acceptance seems unavoidable unless we can suggest an alternative explanation of the Platonic relationship between philosophy and politics from the perspective of the best way of life.

VI. Common Virtue and Private Virtue

But what other Platonic alternative is available? To deal with this question we need to consider the more general philosophical psychology that is presented throughout the dialogues. But is this search even possible? Does it not presuppose that Plato is a systematic philosopher? And is this not to presuppose far too much? To be sure, Plato does not present his readers with either an explicit or implicit "ethical system." But his dialogues are images of human beings speaking and acting in human situations. The dialogues reveal varieties of human activity. It is not implausible to seek a general or comprehensive Platonic picture of human activity as it emerges "between" dialogues, through certain examples or models of human activity. Perhaps the strongest internal evidence that justifies such a project is found in the last three books of the Republic where Socrates presents a general political teaching by

24. A case for each of these alternatives is made in different dialogues. How- ever, all of them (compulsion, hybris, and affection) relate essentially to feelings which Socrates dismisses as not having any determinative or binding importance in the identification of the good life at Republic 581c7-582a6.

25. Cf. Salkever, "Virtue," p. 83.



means of an analysis of certain modal human types or certain hypothetical individuals.26

In the Republic and in the dialogues as a whole Plato presents at least three distinct types of human activity represented by three types of individuals. There is, first, the activity devoted to serving the self,27 to securing material and psychic rewards. This is the activity praised in its extreme form by Thrasymachus in book one and presupposed by Glaucon in his telling of the Gyges story in book two. Other particular characters in the dialogues who praise or exemplify this sort of activity include Alcibiades,28 Callicles,29, Critias,3" and Meno.31 The second type of action is political or public action, individual activity guided by con- sideration of the common good (however defined). Such Platonic figures who characteristically act in this way include Adeimantus,32, Chaero- phon,33 and perhaps Theaetetus.34 The third kind of activity is philosophy, the way of life of the person in love with truth or being, the way of life embodied perhaps by Parmenides.35

In the Republic and elsewhere Socrates is firm in his praise of the latter two kinds of life insofar as they sublimate or control the first kind. Both the city and being require a certain kind of forgetting of the body or the ego. But both the Republic and the Statesman raise serious questions about the psychological compatibility of the two kinds of sublimation. Apparently the human propensity for selfishness (or vice) can

26. Presentations in this or a similar form are frequent throughout the dialogues. Besides the instances in the Republic, see Socrates' discussion of virtuous and vicious ways of living in the myth of the Gorgias 523al-527a4 and his ordering of kinds of human beings in the story of the souls, Phaedrus 248c2-e3. This Socratic use of personal types is not confined to hypothetical or unnamed persons. See his employment of historical Athenian statesmen in Gorgias 515b7- 517bl and Meno 93a6-94e3. On the general importance of drama and images for assessing the dialogues see John Sallis, Being and Logos: The Way of Platonic Dialogue (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1975), pp. 21-2.

27. This is selfishness broadly understood. There are many important differences between the Platonic characters who act in this way. For instance the Gorgias' Callicles seems more concerned with personal safety than with the ac- cumulation of power. Compare Callicles' speeches at 510a6-e3, 511b7-c5; 522c4- 6, and 525e3-5 with Polus' praise of Archelaus at 470d7ff. and with Republic 573b.

28. Gorgias 519a7-b2; Symposium 216a2-5. 29. Gorgias 484c5-486c3. 30. Charmides 162c1-163c10. 31. Meno 78b13-c13. 32. Cf. Adeimantus' eagerness to censure the lasciviousness of the poets for the

city's sake in Republic, bk. 3. 33. Gorgias 447a7-bl; Apology 20e10-21a5. 34. Theaetetus 142aff. 35. Theaetetus 183e3-184a2; Sophist 216al-5, 237a3-b4.


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be subordinated to one of two other human potentials, to common action which cannot exist without a political community or to the most private human capacity, philosophy, which requires only a human mind, the forms and the idea of the good. The problem raised by the two dialogues therefore is the problem of reconciling the common with the (most) private activity of human beings, the problem of saying what kinds of human capacities are subsumed within individual human arete.

The importance of reconciling these two human capacities is suggested at several points in the Republic. On several occasions that reconciliation is emphatically rejected as impossible. This is done, first, in the speeches of Thrasymachus. Much later the same position serves as the implicit theoretical basis of Adeimantus' attack upon the philosophers in the name of the city (487a10-d7). Does Socrates challenge this theoretical basis to show a possible compatibility between private and common human dimensions? One passage hinting this is an exchange between Socrates and Adeimantus in book six. Socrates says that the true philosopher ought to avoid involvement in the affairs of corrupt cities. Bloom's translation renders the exchange in the following way:

Socrates: Rather just like a human being who has fallen in with wild beasts and is neither willing to join them in doing injustice nor sufficient as one man to resist all the savage animals-one would perish before he has been of any use to city or friends and be of no profit to himself or others. Taking all this into calculation he keeps quiet and minds his own business-as a man in a storm when dust and rain are blown about by the wind, stands aside under a little wall. Seeing others filled full of lawlessness, he is content if somehow he himself can live his life here pure of injustice and unholy deeds, and takes his leave from it graciously and cheerfully with fair hope. Adeimantus: Well... he would leave having accomplished not the least of things. Socrates: But not the greatest either ... if he didn't come upon a suitable regime. For in a suitable one he himself will grow more and save the common things along with the private.36

36. Republic 496dl-497a4. See also Socrates' (emphatic) remark that in the best city the philosopher will also mind the political things. Sallis (Being and Logos, pp. 453-4) suggests that this is purely the founding of a city within one- self. To a certain extent this is surely true. But I also suggest that the interaction between Socrates and Glaucon (which Sallis also emphasizes) is itself a political relationship, illustrating the kind of politics that could occur in the best city.



A complete inquiry into Plato's treatment of this issue in the Republic would require a painstaking analysis of the later books, and this task does not fit within the scope of this essay. But I shall attempt to present one portion of the analysis, implicitly arguing for the reasonability of the larger project. Socrates' classification of regimes is ideal for this purpose, and its use allows a comparison with the very different perspective on the same question which seems to hold sway in the Statesman.

VII. Regimes and Human Nature The Republic: Virtuous Regimes I suggest that the classifications of regimes in the Republic and the Statesman present two different interpretations on the relationship between the common (political) and most private (philosophical) dimensions of human nature. Let us first consider Socrates' presentation. The five regimes of the Republic are ranked according to their different abilities to encourage human virtue. The first and best regime is capable of producing philosophers. As noted earlier, philosophy appears to be the most private of human acts. However it is important to recognize that philosophy as generated in the best city has certain common aspects, visible in the education that is provided to potential philosophers. For example, it is not unreasonable to suspect that such an education often requires a certain kind of compulsion, forcing a student along a path that is good for him. A certain degree of inequality also seems unavoidable since not all potential philosophers are of equal intelligence. Differ- ent stages of this education require different kinds of common virtue although in uncommon guises. Students must be courageous enough to keep questioning and moderate enough to proceed only as far along as is appropriate. Responding to these differing needs requires a certain kind of classical political justice, the unequal dispensing of unequal benefits to unequal recipients.

These very brief considerations suggest that the virtue encouraged in Socrates' best city necessarily includes certain common human capacities, those which require the continued presence of the city for their development and exercise. This has special importance for the subsequent evaluations of the inferior cities. They can be ordered according to their abilities to encourage certain common human virtues.

Consider the relationship among the timocracy, the oligarchy, and the democracy. Socrates suggests that, far from encouraging philosophy, the timocracy and the oligarchy stifle it. Instead the timocracy develops a certain kind of courage in its citizens owing to its devotion to honor. This is most obviously the courage of the warrior in combat. But it is


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also courage more broadly understood, preserving opinions about the just and the unjust in the face of pleasure and pain (429b6-e6). Like- wise Socrates says that the oligarchy rewards a certain kind of moderation, the austere frugalness which satisfies only the necessary desires (554c7-e2). Very significantly, Socrates argues that both of these regimes are superior to the democracy, the regime which permits philosophy.37 If suitability for the exercise of philosophy were the sole criterion for praising cities, the democracy would be the closest approximation to the best city. Of course, the philosophy that occurs in the democracy does not exist because of the conscious design of the city. And, on at least one occasion, Socrates implies that it is inferior to the kind of philosophy that would be generated in the best regime (520bl-c7). Nonetheless, if we take Socrates' praise of the timocracy seriously, we are forced to admit that there may be an essential resemblance between that city and the best regime, a closer resemblance than that which connects the best city and the "philosophic" democracy.

There is not adequate space here to discuss this resemblance in detail. However, I believe it relates to the way in which each city encourages a certain kind of moderation. In the best city philosophers subordinate their bodily and egoistic desires to the cognitive desire to know being. In the timocracy the best citizens sublimate their bodies and their egos to the city's good. It is true that this sublimation is done for the sake of honor and that it is very often warlike. But in several places in the dialogue Socrates suggests that warlike behavior can be corrected in such a way as to preserve its positive benefits. One notable example of this is his redefinition of political courage in book four. What had been helping friends and harming enemies in war becomes preserving opinions about the just and the unjust in the face of pleasure and pain. The best political courage is praiseworthy because of its resemblance to moderation. And Socrates' description of the good man's characteristic actions in the last pages of book nine (591a3ff.) describe the actions not of a philosopher, but of a moderate (nonwarlike) gentleman, a "tamed" citizen of the timocracy.

One word of caution, however. This ordering of cities which places the timocracy next to the best city is not a suggestion that the common dimension of human virtue is more important than the private (philosophic). It is a suggestion, however, that philosophy is approximated with less difficulty outside of suitable regimes than are the nonphilosophic dimensions of the best citizen's virtue. At Republic 496a10-c4

37. Republic 557c2-el. The praise of democracy here may be only partially serious. cf. Strauss, The City and the Man, p. 133.



Socrates mentions five separate circumstances which could protect a philosophic nature from corruption. But at Meno 99e4-8 he says that a person who is politically virtuous in Athens is so because of divine fate (theia moira).

Let us summarize. Socrates' classification of cities in the Republic suggests that human virtue encompasses both private and common capacities of human beings, those capacities which require, as well as those which transcend, the city. This perspective allows Plato or Socrates to make a theoretical distinction between the life of political virtue and the kind of existence praised by Thrasymachus. Politics or the city can be recommended because they approximate the common dimension of the best life for human beings. The Statesman: Science and Free Regimes The stranger's classification of cities in the Statesman, on the other hand, seems to deny the possibility of a compatibility between common and private human capacities. According to the stranger's criterion of science, virtue is primarily of interest because it is the definitive product or sign of the scientifically ruled city. The life of virtue in the city does not itself seem to be an essential dimension of the best human life. The best human life is a divine concern to know the proper objects of knowledge. The most divine condition of peoples or cities is, on the other hand, opinion (309c6-9). The best life for man is lived away from cities.38 The most human being becomes, like his advocate, a stranger.

The stranger's criterion of freedom is likewise distanced from a criterion of political virtue. This can be illustrated by a comparison with Socrates' treatment of freedom in his evaluation of the democracy in the Republic. For the stranger freedom is principally the freedom to inquire. This is not confined to the freedom to inquire into political things, which constitute a small and relatively insignificant portion of things in the universe (285d5-7). To be sure, the stranger says that all inferior regimes ought to allow political philosophy. But his ordering of the free inferior regimes does not give priority to those most favor- able to political philosophy. The best inferior regime according to the criterion of freedom is the lawful monarchy. The lawful monarchy does not, like the democracy, contain a storehouse of regimes that can serve as a suitable base for political inquiry. Furthermore, the lawful monarchy constrains political inquiry in a way that the democracy does not.

38. Both Benardete and Campbell see the stranger articulating the superiority of philosophy to politics in terms of the superiority of a certain kind of private life over the common or public. Statesman 308cl-8, 311b7-c8. Benardete, "Eidos," pp. 205, 215, 219-20; Campbell, The Sophistes, p. 190, n. 9.


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The monarchy presupposes the strength of ancestral religious institu- tions. But political philosophy demands that the political relevance of the gods be proven or justified. Of course, the lawful monarchy thus constrains not only political philosophy but also philosophy as such; but philosophy as such can be practiced in private, while political philosophy always becomes public or visible.

However, the lawful monarchy is also necessary to temper or control those whose freedom extends beyond philosophical inquiry. The lawful monarchy is the most effective restraint of political factions. Philosophers and other private men need the security that the lawful monarchy provides to engage in their free activities. But aside from their need for security, these private people can differ significantly among themselves. The stranger's criterion of freedom is neutral with regard to the particular kinds of peaceful private activities that can be practiced by free persons. Thus the stranger and young Socrates can join in the search for the free regime even though young Socrates values freedom for the sake of the useful arts and their products rather than for philosophy (299d6-300al). Freedom is not political in this sense in that its pursuit does not require common values or characters.

This perspective on freedom is in sharp contrast to that of Socrates who, in his classification of regimes, praises freedom as the freedom to talk about virtue and politics in the storehouse of cities (557d3-el). Of course, Socrates' subordination of the democracy consequently sub- ordinates his praise of freedom. But in the Republic the freedom to talk about virtue is in a sense subordinated to virtue itself. In the Statesman the freedom to talk about virtue is subordinated to the freedom to inquire into the whole of things in the universe, apparently a more worthy object of attention than the virtue of the city. Ways of Life: Socrates and the Stranger In the Statesman, then, the stranger's criteria for classifying regimes seem to be those of a private man or a human being whose completed activities lie beyond the city. This essential privateness seems reflected in the stranger's method of inquiry in the Sophist and the Statesman. In the Sophist the stranger implies that his method as a method has no political or moral purpose. He prefers to make long speeches unless an interlocutor is docile (Sophist 217c9-dl). He contrasts his own procedure of separating like from like with that of the well-born sophist who separates good from bad and must of necessity employ the method of question and answer.39 Implicitly the stranger draws a fundamental

39. Kenneth Sayre argues that this difference is indicative of the key difference between Socrates and the stranger. For Sayre this difference emphasizes Plato's



distinction between philosophers and moralists and a corresponding distinction between the most private and common forms of human discourse. The stranger's guiding of young Socrates through the search for the statesman may require young Socrates to exercise a certain dis- cipline. Good dialectics require a tempering of hastiness (262a10-c ).40 But this guiding appears to be a guiding to the theoretical ability to separate like from like, apart from any obvious moral purpose.41

Contrast this with the famous Socratic method. In his characteristic way of proceeding, Socrates at different times claims to pursue a theoretical goal, a moral goal, or one that somehow incorporates both. In the Phaedo he claims to seek primarily the causes of things; 42 in the Apology he says that his investigations are intended for the moral im- provement of those who join him in question and answer; 43 and in the Theaetetus his method appears to aim at both purposes.44

adoption of an analytic approach to replace the Socratic or elenctic. For reasons that I set out in the text this view seems questionable. See Sayre, Plato's Analytic Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), pp. 150-4. Sallis (Being and Logos, pp. 477-8) argues that this search for the sophist ironically or comic- ally discovers the philosopher in the person of the well-born sophist. But this seems difficult to square with the stranger's explicit portraits of the philosopher in both the Statesman and the Sophist. It presupposes an acceptance of Socrates' complex way of life as essentially philosophic.

40. There is no suggestion that young Socrates' interactions with the stranger will make him morally better. Theaetetus, after conversing with Socrates in the Statesman's companion Socratic dialogue, will be less harsh with his fellows (Theaetetus 210b12-c4). But young Socrates' harshness is emphasized at the end of the Statesman (309a8).

41. See especially Statesman 285d5-7, where the stranger indicates that the discussion is for the sake of making him and young Socrates better dialecticians. The philosopher's concern with being or truth is mentioned at 286d8ff. in explicit connection with the ability to divide by classes. By contrast see the claim at 284c2-5 that the statesman's knowledge of the fitting is confined to practical affairs. At 284b8-c2, the stranger analogizes the statesman's concern with the fitting (to metrion) with the sophist's concern with not being.

42. Phaedo 96a5-d7. 43. Apology 29e3-30b5. West says that Socrates must ultimately fail in this

attempt because he does not know what virtue is. (West, Plato's Apology of Soc- rates, p. 220). But this seems too blunt in light of the action in many of the pedagogical dialogues, including Socrates' humiliation of Protagoras and his more than matching wits with the likes of Euthydemus and Gorgias. Most importantly, at Meno 98bl-6, Socrates says that he knows there is a difference between knowledge and opinion. This knowledge is not inconsiderable for an educator. Socrates' "failure" may be that he cannot extend his influence over the few to influence over the many. But Socrates himself seems aware of this (Apology 3 1e5-32a3).

44. Theaetetus 150b7-151d7, 210b12-c9.


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Of course, the primary question as to the relationship between these two dimensions of the Socratic method remains. Are they interdepen- dent? If so, what sort of interdependence is involved? Or is their co- presence simply a coincidence which is neither explicable or replicable? Although the importance of these questions can scarcely be overem- phasized, I must avoid considering them in any detail here. I believe that it is demonstrably foolish, however, to ignore Socrates' ambivalent or ambiguous character in considering Plato's treatment of philosophy and politics.

Thus, Socrates' classification of cities reveals a political as well as a theoretical dimension. The description of the degeneration of the timocracy into the oligarchy seems in part directed toward Adeimantus who, much more than Glaucon,45 resembles the timocratic man, the open praiser of honor and the secret lover of money. This combined with the rejection of the basis of Adeimantus' attack on philosophy in the name of the city seems designed to persuade Adeimantus to re-evaluate his opinion regarding the relative value of philosophy among different ways of life. Likewise, Socrates' praise of philosophical happiness and con- tempt for tyrannical misery is intended to convince Glaucon, the erotic man and thus the potential tyrant, of the incompatibility of the highest human happiness with the most vicious injustice. Socrates' classification of regimes reveals a kind of justice not obviously identical with the Socratic description of purely philosophic justice.46 It is the multidi- mentionality of Socratic justice which may explain the perplexingly ambiguous discussion of the relation of philosophy to politics in the Republic. A certain kind of justice requires that Socrates make philosophy appear incompatible with politics for Glaucon. Given his disposi- tion and his training, factors outside of Socrates' control, he will not refrain from meddling in the affairs of Athens,47 the city on earth, unless he believes that the best life is to be found in the city within himself, an image of the city in heaven.

Socrates' characteristic activity reinforces the suspicion that for Plato the most common or political activity is a certain kind of education.48

45. Cf. Republic 548d13-549a9. 46. Cf. Strauss, The City and Man, p. 132. 47. Republic 592b4-5; Seventh Letter 338bff. Strauss discusses Socrates' failure

to dissuade Glaucon from the life of tyranny in The City and Man, p. 63. This failure is partially mitigated because Socrates does not enter into the discussion of the Republic willingly (327bl-c12).

48. The clearest statements of this can perhaps be found in Socrates' descriptions of himself at Apology 29dl-30b5; Theaetetus 150b7-151d7; and particularly Gorgias 521d6-el; and his corresponding criticisms of the Athenian statesmen at



It is their education which in part differentiates the philosophers of the best city from those that come from no regime (520bl-c2). And this same dimension partially distinguishes Socrates from the stranger, at least in terms of their methods of inquiring. The complex nature of Socrates' way of life should make us reluctant to accept too uncritically the Strauss/Bloom claim about the incompatibility of philosophy and politics for Plato. The stranger's presentation in the Statesman provides a clear argument for the superiority of philosophy to political things based on the tension between the most private and most common human virtues. However, Socrates' way of life or method or nature provides a clear counterexample to the stranger's conclusions, an example of an essential relationship between philosophy and politics in the activities of one human being. Indeed, given the dramatic setting and the characters, one might speculate that the stranger's implicit criticism of the democracy is an image of a kind of criticism that might be tolerated in Athens. His theoretical "distance" from the regime and his audience of mathematicians stand in marked contrast to the immediately relevant and necessarily insulting features of "citizen" Socrates' criticisms that are announced to partisans or lovers of the democracy like Anytus and Callicles. One might go further and hypothesize that the stranger himself, in his scientific and apparently dispassioned encounter with the democracy and with cities in general, is a kind of image of a Socrates who might be able to both survive and converse in Athens but who would do so at the cost of his peculiar public/private harmony.49

VIII. Conclusion: Politics and Philosophy and Theory and Practice The many important differences between the classifications of cities in these two dialogues need not be explained by an historical development within Plato's philosophy but may be accounted for by the differing perspectives on philosophy and politics of Socrates and the Eleatic

Gorgias 516d8-elO; and Meno 99e4-100a9. The model of politics which these descriptions generate differs extensively from that suggested by Gregory Vlastos' interpretation of Socratic political justice as the avoidance of pleonexia. Com- pare Vlastos, Plato, pp. 70-7, 92, with Socrates' description of the true ergon of the good citizen (agathou politou) at Gorgias 517b2-c2.

49. Among other things, this speculation accounts for Socrates' almost total silence throughout both the Statesman and the Sophist. It also lends tinges of both irony and hybris to Socrates' characterization of the stranger as an elenctic god at Sophist 216b7. This elenctic god uses refutation to expose lazy arguments, not to improve the virtue of the speakers as Socrates claims to do in the Apology. This kind of god is also said to observe or look down upon (kathoran) human actions, implying detachment.


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stranger. The Campbell/Shorey interpretation of these differences seems altogether too simple to account for their complexity. And the suggestions of Morrow and Taylor seem to prevent any serious comparison of the merits of these competing perspectives. As I have tried to argue here, however, such a project of comparison is both necessary and possible if we are to begin to clarify Plato's treatment of the relationship between politics and philosophy and, thus, of the possibility of political philosophy itself.

In suggesting that Socrates' classification of regimes in the Republic and his own way of life show a compatibility of philosophy and politics, I have not sought to give an account of the theoretical structure of that compatibility. I have simply tried to suggest that there are sufficient reasons for exploring the topic further in the relevant texts. The bulk of this work remains to be done. But a useful conclusion to this introductory essay may be to indicate how that structure differs appreciably from more familiar treatments of the problem of philosophy and politics or, in more contemporary terms, theory and practice in political philosophy.

First, Plato clearly differs from Hobbes50 and Spinoza51 by denying that human practice is subsumable within geometrical or mathematical theory. The discussions of human action in both the Statesman and the Republic portray practice as being far too fluid or individual to be con- verted to the rigorous truth of mathematics. However, neither does Plato endorse Edmund Burke's counterclaim that politics is immune to any scientific or theoretical investigation and only accessible to historical experience.52 Plato's politike is, instead, a kind of science that is particularly suited to the study of changing human things. Politike is not equivalent to either dianoia or pistis on the Republic's divided line. Less metaphorically, Plato rejects both the claim that practice is totally accessible to theory and the position that practice is totally impenetrable to any kind of scientific inquiry.

Second, Socrates' discussion of the private and common human dimensions in the Republic challenges claims like Nietzsche's that the theoretical life is radically opposed or hostile to practice.53 For Plato, a choice apparently need not be made between sound philosophy and some form of virtuous politics. At the same time, he would also deny the completeness of attempts like Hannah Arendt's to evaluate politics strictly on its own terms without reference to a philosophical or con-

50. De Corpore, pt. I, chap. 6, cap. 6. 51. Ethics, pt. 3 (beginning). 52. Reflections on the Revolution in France (Garden City: Doubleday, 1961),

p. 74. 53. Adrian Collins, tr., The Use and Abuse of History (New York: Bobbs Mer-

rill, 1957), p. 11.



templative alternative.54 The private (philosophical) human dimension may surely stand alone more easily than the common (political). For this as well as for other reasons, there is a tremendous temptation to leave philosophy out of political analysis. But in the passage at 496dlff. in the Republic Socrates implies that neither theory nor practice is fully complete and, thus, understandable without the other.55

However Plato's attempts to relate philosophy and politics emphatically do not mirror phenomenological or historicist methods, which ultimately seek to collapse or overcome differences between the two ways of life. Plato does not follow Heidegger's path of delving to a primordial condition that is the source or basis of all varieties of human action.56 In the Republic intense eros can be recognized as a basic psychological component of both philosophy and tyranny (573b7-8). And all kinds of cities have their conceptual as well as their historical roots in identical physical needs (369b5-7). But Plato is clear that the differences among completed activities and cities are much more important than these genetic similarities. Nor does the Platonic position involve an Hegelian dialectical emergence of a way of life that encompasses both theory and practice within a complex web of identities and differences.57 Philosophy and politics are not snapshots of a single human activity at different stages of its historical development. Different ways of life and different regimes make up the discrete and fundamental units of analysis (or premises) of Plato's political philosophy. Clarifying their interrelations with a view to choosing those that are best constitutes the project that is first for us, one that is neither avoidable nor easily completed.

54. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 324-5.

55. It could be suggested that this constitutes one important difference between Plato and Aristotle. Although Aristotle differs vastly from Arendt, he clearly favors a more autonomous or self contained evaluation of politics than Plato. See Politics 3.3.

56. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Maquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 238, 347-8.

57. In "Sophrosyne and Selbstbewusstsein," Rosen clearly indicates that Hegel's Absolute Spirit successfully reconciles theory and practice in a way that is impossible for Plato. This may be true. But what dialectical transformations of philosophy and politics need to occur before that reconciliation? The activities of Hegel's best citizen and his possessor of Absolute Knowledge are enormously different from Plato's political and philosophic ways of life. It is far from obvious that the former pair is preferable as a set of human activities. Nor is it clear that there are no convincing Platonic or classical objections to the dialectical logic of Hegel's Science of Wisdom.


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Issue Table of ContentsPolity, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1981), pp. 353-535Front MatterEditorial: The Torch Passes Again [pp. 353 - 354]Constitutions, Virtue & Philosophy in Plato's "Statesman" & "Republic" [pp. 355 - 382]Political Value Judgments of Children: An Application of Moral Development Theory [pp. 383 - 409]Calhoun's Concept of the Public Interest: A Clarification [pp. 410 - 424]Electoral College Misrepresentation: A Geometric Analysis [pp. 425 - 449]Principles & Violence [pp. 450 - 465]Justice Deserted: A Critique of Rawls' "A Theory of Justice" [pp. 466 - 483]Review ArticlesPublic Policy & Administration: New Perspectives on a Perennial Issue [pp. 484 - 494]Germany & the Balance of Power [pp. 495 - 504]

Research NotesThe Supreme Court & the Power of the Legal Profession [pp. 505 - 523]The Suspension of Foreign Aid: A Macro-Analysis [pp. 524 - 535]

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constitutions, virtue and philosophy in plato´s statesman and republic

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