plato: statesman summary

"The Statesman is among the most widely ranging of Plato's dialogues, bringing together in a single discourse disparate subjects such as politics, mathematics, ontology, dialectic, and myth. He overcame Socrates' objection to thought frozen in writing by using the dialogue (dialogos) format, never overtly stating views in his own name. What does the statesman weave, with what kinds of fabric? He complains that because they wanted to be impressive they made a vast myth and really ended up using more myth than they really needed. We must, that is, distinguish contributory or merely instrumental arts, from arts which actually produce a given product. But we must be careful not to too quickly divide humans off from animals, just as it would be foolish to simply divide Greeks from all other humans, for this would be an arbitrary division, like dividing the number 10,000 from all other numbers; the lesson: our ability to invent a common name (for instance for "all numbers other than 10,000") does not make what is named a true class. Along the way a bizarre myth is told about the cyclical history of the universe, and how, when the universe changes the direction of its spinning, time runs backwards. in the Statesman of Plato. These true opinions are to be common convictions about values and standards. Are politicians pig-herders? Everything begins to age backwards; people who are dead and decayed spring from the earth, first as old people and then grow younger [This is where the stories of an earthborn race come from]. Childbirth begins again -- now both people and the universe have to move by their own motions, so creatures have to produce and rear their own young. Nor is that all. McCabe, Mary Margaret. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of “Phaedrus” by Plato. What would be ideal would be to have a way to revise the laws if circumstances change to allow the one with true political knowledge to do so. Book summary views reflect the number of visits to the book and chapter landing pages. In such a case anyone who tried to come up with new forms of medicine, either to act on them or even just to discuss them, would be called a revolutionary, a sophist, a corrupter of the young. �Politike Episteme in Plato�s Statesman.� In Anton and Preus, eds., Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy III, SUNY 1989, 147-67. So they begin to divide the forms of knowledge, the arts (technai, crafts). Yale University Press, 1995. This is only because that classification is organized on a different principle: it goes from most disciplined desire to least disciplined desire and from higher to lower desires. The ideal thing would be to have the statesman be able to accompany each individual throughout every moment of his or her life and tell them exactly the right thing to do, but this of course is impossible, so laws must be used, even though they cannot take into account the circumstances of each individual. Statesman by Plato, a free text and ebook for easy online reading, study, and reference. (Cf. The statesman must treat them as the weaver treats the warp and woof and weave them into a single fabric -- but how? But as terrible as it would be to govern all art by law, it would be even worse to give the control of an art to someone without knowledge and also the wrong motives --such as ambition and party spirit! Examples are kind of like analogies in this way. In order to explain he begins one of the most important divisions in the dialogue, that of the various forms of government. Obviously the latter. The best cities owe their preservation to a rule which although less than ideal is yet desirable in fact: the rule of law. of your Kindle email address below. The Stranger again expresses his dissatisfaction. Fruits came without cultivation; the grass was soft enough to use as beds; people needed no shelter. Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Socrates. The Sophist (Greek: Σοφιστής; Latin: Sophista) is a Platonic dialogue from the philosopher's late period, most likely written in 360 BC. The royal science is a science of herd nuture. People who cannot divide things according to real kinds do not see the difference between these two kinds of art [might it also be vice versa?]. In considering the length of a discourse, we should not compare it to others but regard the mean relative to it -- that is, the suitability of its length for the topic and the purpose. There are also sciences which act or produce -- like carpentry. Without the due measure or mean there would be no arts at all, he now says (neither statecraft nor weaving-- proving that measure is not just "an" art after all. Miller Jr, Mitchell H. The Philosopher in Plato's Statesman. Usage data cannot currently be displayed. Theodorus. The text describes a conversation among Socrates, the mathematician Theodorus, another person named Socrates, and an unnamed philosopher from Elea referred to as the Stranger. Crosson, F. J. Next come soothsayers, interpreters of the gods to men. The Statesman is Plato's neglected political work, but it is crucial for an understanding of the development of his political thinking. To meet our needs the gods gave us the gifts of the arts and sciences; from these gifts come everything that we use to replace divine guardianship--the arts substitute for divine control. Its main theme is to identify what a sophist is and how a sophist differs from a philosopher and statesman.Because each seems distinguished by a particular form of knowledge, … Berman, Scott. Rosen, Stanley. VOLUNTARILY ACCEPTED RULE], 282A-283B�DIVISION OF �CAUSES� IN CLOTHES-PRODUCTION, 283C-287B�PROTECTIVE DIGRESSION �DEFENSE AGAINST A MALADY, 283D-285C�DUE MEASURE; 285C-287B --THE PURPOSE OF THE CONVERSATION, 287B-287E DIVIDING OFF CONTRIBUTORY CAUSES AND CAUSES, 287E-289C-- CLASSIFICATION OF �THINGS PEOPLE POSSESS IN A CITY�, 289C-291C�USES THE ABOVE CLASSIFICATION TO PUT ASIDE �CONTRIBUTORY CAUSES� AND SEPARATE THEM FROM �CAUSES�; DISTINGUISHES DIFFERENT ROLES WITHIN THE �CAUSES� � SLAVES, MERCHANTS, LABORERS, SUBORDINATES, INTERPRETERS OF THE GODS, PRIESTS, ETC��IMITATORS AND MAGICIANS��GREATEST SOPHISTS�I.E. Summary General Summary Gorgias is a detailed study of virtue founded upon an inquiry into the nature of rhetoric, art, power, temperance, justice, and good versus evil. �Plato, Statesman 284c-D: An �Argument from the Sciences�� Phronesis 22: 232-234, 1977. He points out that this is based on a bias of point of view (what today we would call anthropocentricism). We also have to make a distinction between voluntary and involuntary rearing of herds; tendance of herds by violent control is the tyrant's art, whereas tendance of herds of free bipeds freely accepted by the herds is the statesman's art. They end up with: a theoretical predirective science that rears land herds of tame, gregarious living creatures that are hornless, noninterbreeding, two footed, wingless. The Statesman should also be compared to Plato's two main other political dialogues, the Republic and the Laws. There follows an intricate discussion of all the advantages and disadvantages of law. Shorey, Paul. The Visitor now seeks the definition of the statesman. Slowing down, they next divide creatures reared in herds into land and water animals, then into walkers and fliers. Then enter the ‘name’ part The king's science is a directive theoretical art; furthermore, since kings issue their own orders rather than pass on those of others, theirs is a "predirective" art. The Statesman is among the most widely ranging of Plato’s dialogues, bringing together in a single discourse disparate subjects such as politics, mathematics, ontology, dialectic, and myth. Now they once again raise the question of the tedium and apparent pointlessness of all this dividing [Remember this is all supposed to be the elaboration of an example]. Reading the Statesman: Proceedings of the Third Symposium Platonicum. (The Laws, left unfinished at Plato’s death, seems to…. In our current age the Universe is spinning by itself, god having let go [The contrast with the Laws, where cosmic Nous lies behind the motion of the heavens, and the context of this myth in this dialogue and the purposes for which it is being used give one a pretty good sense of how Plato uses myth and the status he accords it. The king's art is closer to theoretical science than to manual work. The Statesman, like Plato's earlier Sophist, features a Stranger who tries to refute Socrates. All the other arts (above) are set aside as merely contributory. Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this book to your organisation's collection. That is how we are going to use weaving as an example -- as an example in words of something invisible but intelligible to reason -- the knowledge of the statesman. Plato and Aristotle often connect justice with wholeness. Subject: Summary of Plato's Statesman Category: Reference, Education and News > Homework Help Asked by: shant1560-ga List Price: $10.00: Posted: 29 Nov 2006 17:52 PST Expires: 05 Dec 2006 14:29 PST Question ID: 786801 the Meno]. This era, when all good things come without effort, is the age of Chronos, when God is in charge of the motion of the universe. THEODORUS: And in a little while, Socrates, you will owe me three Dialogues, vol. Scodel, H. D. Diaeresis and Myth in Plato�s Statesman. With the highest class of beings we cannot use visible examples, so we must train ourselves to give and use a rational, verbal account of every subject. Yes. The myth, used previously to fix an error, is now being criticized itself. So all the lesser or imitative constitutions can only be as good as possible if they are ruled by law. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. So the second-best method of government (and the one we are typically stuck with) is to forbid any individual or group to transgress the laws. The statesman's art governs "walking herds". Christopher Gill and Mary Margaret McCabe, 153-78. No, because they work for pay they can have no share in the art of ruling. In commerce, maybe? The first two books of the dialogue consider the proper goal orend (telos) of legislat… One kind of knowledge merely pronounces or judges on a subject (e.g., math). Plato scholars tend to ignore this warning. In particular, moderation and courage. If it is a single office, then the person who fills it should have both characteristics. Statesman Relationships. They intend to use the example by first fully dividing weaving and then using this division as a guide to the division of statesmanship. Review of Kenneth Dorter, Form and Good in Plato's Eleatic Dialogues: The 'Parmenides,� 'Theaetetus,' 'Sophist,' and 'Statesman. The essays in this collection consider these subjects and others, focusing in particular on the dramatic form of the dialogue. But in no time or place could there ever be a very large number of people with the true art of statesmanship (Cf. Now the only elements that remain to be distinguished from the statesman are those that are most akin to him: judges, generals, and (surprise, surprise) rhetoricians. On true opinion as divinely dispensed, cf. In order to explain how examples will help, he must first give an "example of examples". In this state there was also no marriage, no childbirth (things that, like war and crime, make us miserable, but also mature us and motivate us to protect, preserve, and alleviate our plight). please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. The true statesman gives the law to the judge, and the judge�s job is to judge according to it impartially. and Can the latter compete with the statesman? Mohr, Richard. Philebus) to which a given thing must approximate if it is to exist at all -- measurement by the mean or 'due measure'. Dorter, Kenneth. As such, the dialogue both maintains independent significance and relates closely to Plato's overarching philosophical project of defining noble and proper … Vidal- Naquet, P. �Plato's Myth of The Statesman, The Ambiquities of The Golden Age and of History,� Journal of Hellenic Studies, 98, 132-141, 1978. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Mara, Gerald. 8 (1958): 198-218. Things sprang out the earth; so no one had to work for food. This setting is crucially linked to the theme of the Laws. The dialogue seems to be very long and tedious, filled with many digressions, even digressions within digressions. And what's the relation between politics and philosophy? �Justice and Method in the Statesman� in Justice, Law, and Method in Plato and Aristotle, ed. This document was last modified on: The ideas in the Statesman about relative measure vs. due measure could be related to the 'science of measure' idea discussed in the Protagoras and perhaps connected to the difference between the principles of the Limit and the Unlimited in the Philebus; and the idea of due measure should also be connected to the idea of a knowledge of the Good discussed in the Republic and implied in the idea of the 'true arts' in the Gorgias. He claims to be giving the reunited tapestry of which many different mythic ideas once formed a part. 278e, 283c–287c (where 285a–b serves as a compact summary of the method so far). The main problem with law is that it is too general, and rigid by nature, not adaptable to individual circumstances, like technical knowledge is. That influence has much to do with what was wrong with our previous definition]. God assigned the government of particular parts of the universe to lesser deities; over every living herd he assigned its own daimon, its guardian spirit, that provided for all the needs of the herds. Now they are finally ready to use weaving as an example to display qualities of the statesman's craft. In the first stage, there is carding, then the art of the fuller, the art of the darner, and then the arts which produce the instruments of the weaving process. The Stranger also wants to know if the arts of the statesman, king, slavemaster, and householder are one; they answer yes. �Plato on the Origin of Evil: The Statesman Myth Reconsidered.� Ancient Philosophy 16 (1996): 65-83. The Visitor discusses the nature and purpose of examples, and then uses weaving as an example of statesmanship. How? arts that produce carriages (containers). Now the Stranger uses this myth to show two mistakes that were made about the statesman or king. The Stranger makes the point that the political science is so very difficult that only a few in any given generation might have a remote chance of acquiring it; if there are only rarely great chess players, how often can we expect to have great statesman, practitioners of an incomparably more difficult discipline? Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. The Statesman, also known by its Latin title, Politicus, is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato.The text describes a conversation among Socrates, the mathematician Theodorus, another person named Socrates (referred to as "Young Socrates"), and an unnamed philosopher from Elea referred to as "the Stranger" (ξένος, xénos).It is ostensibly an attempt to arrive at a definition of "statesman … This was the big mistake. But the acts performed would have to be truly fair and impartial, undertaken for the citizens' own good, not that of the rulers. [WITH AN ART THAT USES OTHER ARTS], NOR IS HE THE GENERAL, THE RHETORICIAN NOR THE JUDGE [BUT HE MUST KNOW HOW TO GUIDE THEM�KNOWING WHEN THEIR ARTS SHOULD BE EMPLOYED], OBSERVING DUE MEASURE IN ALL OF THIS [IT IS SAID AT 284A-E THAT ALL THE ARTS, INCLUDING THAT OF THE STATESMAN, DEPEND FOR THEIR EXISTENCE UPON DUE MEASURE], WEAVING TOGETHER THE MODERATE AND COURAGEOUS CITIZENS WITH THE DIVINE BOND (OF TRUE OPINION ABOUT THE GOOD) AND THE HUMAN BOND (OF ENCOURAGING THE RIGHT KINDS OF MARRIAGES), USING LAWS AS IMITATIONS OF THE TRUTH (ALTHOUGH HIS KNOWLEDGE, THE SOURCE OF GOOD LAWS, IS SUPERIOR TO LAW AND NOT CONSTRAINED BY IT), AND DOING ALL THIS WITH A VIEW TO THE HAPPINESS OF THE WHOLE CITY [311C]. This self-preference indicates that bias based on point of view is a main obstacle to objective divisions. SOCRATES: I owe you many thanks, indeed, Theodorus, for the acquaintance both of Theaetetus and of the Stranger. Agreeing that there is such a thing as a political art (a rather controversial assumption-- cf. Imitative constitutions (the second best forms of government, ranked from best to worst, according to how easy or hard it is to bear living under them): Monarchy-- rule of one, lawfully-- the best, Aristocracy-- rule of the few, lawfully-- the second best, Democracy-- rule of the many, lawfully-- the third best, Democracy-- rule of the many, lawlessly-- the best of the worst, Oligarchy-- rule of the few, lawlessly-- the second from the worst, Tyranny-- rule of one, lawlessly-- the absolute worst. [not knowledge-- that would be impossible for so many -- but true opinion. Next a motley crew -- like wizards and sophists, but who is the group really? The Stranger compares them to instructions given to an exercise class; following the instructions is meant to be beneficial to the average participant. The art of measuring or finding a mean between excess and defect, like the principle of division in the Phaedrus, receives a particular application to the art of discourse. The Laws comprises a conversation in 12 books, set onCrete, among three interlocutors: an unnamed Athenian Visitor(Plato’s spokesman in the Laws), Megillus, a Spartan,and Kleinias, a Cretan. Saini, Damini Sankt Augusin: Academia Verlag, 1995. But in the real world this form of government is extremely unlikely and nowhere exists. But he warns us not to suppose we have the full explanation of the distinction (although he indicates that every subdivision is a portion, but not every portion a true subdivision). Also, the offices of the state should be divided between the two types of people. Each of these two character types has its political benefits and drawbacks; one major drawback is just their tendency to come into conflict. �The Eleatic Stranger: His Master�s Voice?� in Press, Gerald A. This plodding quality is much more obvious and insistent in this dialogue than in any other; in fact, these features are so extremely exaggerated, and attention is called to them so often in the text, that they seem deliberate. To see the ideal the Stranger asks us to imagine a case in which, owing to fear of harm by practitioners of art like doctors or navigators, we decided to make all technical decisions within these arts by law. *Source: Debra Nails, The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. But in the real world the ruler is merely human, and so is imperfect, subject to all the ills of human life that condition our political existence. These three men are walking the path that Minos (a legendary lawgiver of Crete) and his father followed every nine years to receive the guidance of Zeus. They divide arts into arts that do something and arts that prevent something being done; preventive arts into charms and protections; protections into military and nonmilitary; nonmilitary into screens and protections from storm and heat; the latter into houses and shields for persons; the latter into blankets and garments; garments into one piece and compounded of many pieces; compounded into those stitched and those made by another method; this last into those made of vegetable fibers and those made of animal hair; finally, those made of hair combined by their inherent substance. Now it seems they are really done -- but NO! (Chicago, 1977). is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings Amazingly, it seems, types of goodness can clash with each other; different virtues conflict with one another. Rule can be divided into rule by one, rule by a few, rule by many; each of these can be subdivided into law- abiding and lawless varieties. �Constitutions, Virtues, and Philosophy in Plato�s Statesman and Republic.� Polity 13 (Spring 1981): 355-82. This is the origin of the traditions about a golden age. Best constitution: rule by true stateman (philosopher king). These two apparently opposed passages might be thought to indicate a change in Plato's mind -- until, that is, one reads further in the Statesman and clears up that misunderstanding. The Stranger even goes so far as to suggest that the true ruler is free to do anything -- even put people to death -- as long as he does it according to the political art. Now the king's art begins to be divided by its objects or products; its products are living creatures in flocks. (See what I mean about this dialogue!) arts that produce basic materials at their first working. Democracy retains its name in both of its versions, but it too has lawful and lawless varieties. Klein, J. Plato�s Trilogy: Theaetetus, the Sophist and the Statesman. Mara, Gerald. and The Hague: Nijhoff, 1980. He acts as though there were a single art of measurement at first and tries to divide it. When we use letters in words we know to help us identify letters in unknown words, this is like the use of examples. Benardete, Seth.�Eidos and Diaresis in Plato�s Statesman,� in Philologus 107 (1963): 193-226. The Sophist and Statesman are late Platonic dialogues, whose relative dates are established by their stylistic similarity to the Laws, a work that was apparently still “on the wax” at the time of Plato’s death (Diogenes Laertius 3.37).These dialogues are important in exhibiting Plato’s views on method and … Plato was born around 427 b.c. The Athenian proposes that the three discussgovernance and laws as they walk along the long road to the temple ofZeus. Do people ever have the right to change the laws by force? Plato’s … In A Stranger's Knowledge Marquez argues that Plato abandons here the classic idea, prominent in the Republic, that the philosopher, qua philosopher, is qualified to rule. The first mistake is that we treated the king as though he were the Daimon of the former era, a god not a mortal; but we cannot use a god for a model, because in our era we can only be ruled by humans. This dialogue is the sequel to the Sophist, completing the trilogy that began with the Theaetetus.Sometimes this trilogy is grouped together with the Parmenides (to which both the Theaetetus and the Sophist seem to refer) as a group of 'Eleatic' dialogues. 9.1", "denarius") All Search Options [view abbreviations] Home Collections/Texts Perseus Catalog Research Grants Open Source About Help. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service. Studies in Platonic Anonymity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Full text views reflects the number of PDF downloads, PDFs sent to Google Drive, Dropbox and Kindle and HTML full text views for chapters in this book. Dorter, Kenneth. What we need to do is to become familiar with the letters in which the universe is spelled out --then we can learn to recognize the same elements when they recur in new and unfamiliar combinations. Method and Politics in Plato�s Statesman. There are different stages in the production process. Roochnik, David. This dialogue is the sequel to the Sophist, completing the trilogy that began with the Theaetetus. Kahn, Charles H. "The Place of the Statesman in Plato's Later Work" in Reading the Statesman, Rowe, Christopher J (ed) Publisher: Academia, Sankt Augustin 1995. Skemp, J. About the dialogue: In the Sophist, which takes place the day after the Theaetetus and was written c. 360 BCE, Plato explores what constitutes sophistry … They take as their example the art of weaving woolens. Regarding this last point-- this tendency we have to rush to judgment on political matters, believing we already know what political wisdom is-- it is instructive to consider the way the Statesman is written. 2019. In Plato: Late dialogues …of the Sophist and the Statesman, to be treated by genus-species division, are important roles in the Greek city; and the Philebus is a consideration of the competing claims of pleasure and knowledge to be the basis of the good life. �Rethinking Constitutionalism in Statesman.� In Reading the Statesman: Proceedings of the Third Symposium Platonicum, ed. ], 294A-302B�PROS AND CONS OF THE RULE OF LAW, 302B-303C�SEVEN TYPES OF CONSTITUTIONS AND THEIR RANKING, 303D-305E�DISTINGUISHING THE STATESMAN FROM THE GENERAL, THE RHETORICIAN AND THE JUDGE, 305E-311C�CLOSING SECTION: WHAT THE STATESMAN MUST WEAVE TOGETHER AND WHY. They generally analyze Plato’s dialogues with a view toward learning his “doctrine of _____.” For example, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman are viewed as “Plato’s theory of knowledge,” “Plato’s late ontology,” and “Plato’s revised political theory.” I think that London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952. And this in turn foreshadows the way certain modern political philosophers looked at things; since we cannot count on people's goodness, we have to build institutions that restrict them [although the moderns take this way of thinking to an extreme that completely changes the goal of politics and the model of citizenship]. But in order to see all the problems in their approach so far, the Eleatic Stranger uses a most unusual device; he tells a fantastic myth of another age, a myth which he claims reconciles the tattered bits of myth and legend whose original relationship to one another have been forgotten. Phaedrus Summary and Study Guide. 264B-267C�SECOND SET OF DIVISIONS [SYNOPSIS OF DIVISIONS SO FAR AT 267B-C], 268E-274E�THE MYTH OF THE REVERSED COSMOS (OR THE MYTH OF THE AGE OF CHRONUS), 274E-277C�CRITICAL REMARKS [FIXING UP THE DIVISIONS: FROM HERD-NURTURE TO HERD-KEEPING; ENFORCED RULE VS. You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches". Gill, Christopher. Bakker, Femke E. Is there an art which decides when and to what extent we should learn or employ other arts? This argument discusses measure, excess and deficiency in the arts. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics.

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