A Stranger's Knowledge: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman
The Statesman is a difficult and puzzling Platonic dialogue. 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. Instead, the dialogue presents the statesman as different from the philosopher, the possessor of a specialist expertise that cannot be reduced to philosophy. The expertise is of how to make a city resilient against internal and external conflict in light of the imperfect sociality of human beings and the poverty of their reason. This expertise, however, cannot be produced on demand: one cannot train statesmen like one might train carpenters. Worse, it cannot be made acceptable to the citizens, or operate in ways that are not deeply destructive to the city’s stability. Even as the political community requires his knowledge for its preservation, the genuine statesman must remain a stranger to the city.

Marquez shows how this impasse is the key to understanding the ambiguous reevaluation of the rule of law that is the most striking feature of the political philosophy of the Statesman. The law appears here as a mere approximation of the expertise of the inevitably absent statesman, dim images and static snapshots of the clear and dynamic expertise required to steer the ship of state across the storms of the political world. Yet such laws, even when they are not created by genuine statesmen, can often provide the city with a limited form of cognitive capital that enables it to preserve itself in the long run, so long as citizens, and especially leaders, retain a “philosophical” attitude towards them. It is only when rulers know that they do not know better than the laws what is just or good (and yet want to know what is just and good) that the city can be preserved. The dialogue is thus, in a sense, the vindication of the philosopher-king in the absence of genuine political knowledge. 


 

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A Stranger's Knowledge: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman
The Statesman is a difficult and puzzling Platonic dialogue. 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. Instead, the dialogue presents the statesman as different from the philosopher, the possessor of a specialist expertise that cannot be reduced to philosophy. The expertise is of how to make a city resilient against internal and external conflict in light of the imperfect sociality of human beings and the poverty of their reason. This expertise, however, cannot be produced on demand: one cannot train statesmen like one might train carpenters. Worse, it cannot be made acceptable to the citizens, or operate in ways that are not deeply destructive to the city’s stability. Even as the political community requires his knowledge for its preservation, the genuine statesman must remain a stranger to the city.

Marquez shows how this impasse is the key to understanding the ambiguous reevaluation of the rule of law that is the most striking feature of the political philosophy of the Statesman. The law appears here as a mere approximation of the expertise of the inevitably absent statesman, dim images and static snapshots of the clear and dynamic expertise required to steer the ship of state across the storms of the political world. Yet such laws, even when they are not created by genuine statesmen, can often provide the city with a limited form of cognitive capital that enables it to preserve itself in the long run, so long as citizens, and especially leaders, retain a “philosophical” attitude towards them. It is only when rulers know that they do not know better than the laws what is just or good (and yet want to know what is just and good) that the city can be preserved. The dialogue is thus, in a sense, the vindication of the philosopher-king in the absence of genuine political knowledge. 


 

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A Stranger's Knowledge: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman

A Stranger's Knowledge: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman

by Xavier Márquez
A Stranger's Knowledge: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman

A Stranger's Knowledge: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman: Statesmanship, Philosophy, and Law in Plato's Statesman

by Xavier Márquez

Overview

The Statesman is a difficult and puzzling Platonic dialogue. 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. Instead, the dialogue presents the statesman as different from the philosopher, the possessor of a specialist expertise that cannot be reduced to philosophy. The expertise is of how to make a city resilient against internal and external conflict in light of the imperfect sociality of human beings and the poverty of their reason. This expertise, however, cannot be produced on demand: one cannot train statesmen like one might train carpenters. Worse, it cannot be made acceptable to the citizens, or operate in ways that are not deeply destructive to the city’s stability. Even as the political community requires his knowledge for its preservation, the genuine statesman must remain a stranger to the city.

Marquez shows how this impasse is the key to understanding the ambiguous reevaluation of the rule of law that is the most striking feature of the political philosophy of the Statesman. The law appears here as a mere approximation of the expertise of the inevitably absent statesman, dim images and static snapshots of the clear and dynamic expertise required to steer the ship of state across the storms of the political world. Yet such laws, even when they are not created by genuine statesmen, can often provide the city with a limited form of cognitive capital that enables it to preserve itself in the long run, so long as citizens, and especially leaders, retain a “philosophical” attitude towards them. It is only when rulers know that they do not know better than the laws what is just or good (and yet want to know what is just and good) that the city can be preserved. The dialogue is thus, in a sense, the vindication of the philosopher-king in the absence of genuine political knowledge. 


 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781930972797
Publisher: Parmenides Publishing
Publication date: 06/07/2012
Edition description: 1st Edition
Pages: 420
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Xavier Márquez teaches political theory and political science at Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand. He specializes in the history of political thought, and has published pieces on ancient as well as modern thinkers. He is a native of Caracas, Venezuela.

Table of Contents

List of Figures xi

Preface xiii

Introduction 1

Why study the Statesman? 4

The themes of this book 9

The distinction between statesman and philosopher 11

Statesmanship and the stability of the city 22

The absence of the statesman 24

Law as cognitive capital 26

The structure of this book 29

Some remarks on reading Plato 34

Chapter 1 Weaving 41

Divisions 44

The structure of the statesman's genealogy 46

Theory and practice 57

Chapter 2 Human Beings 69

Young Socrates' mistakes 70

The first mistake 74

The second mistake 77

The third mistake 84

The Stranger's corrections 87

The problematic "interbreeding" of men 88

The legitimacy of rationality as a criterion of division 90

Tameness and conflict 91

Statesmanship and animality 94

The long way 98

The short way 103

Shepherds and specialists 104

Willingness vs. unwillingness 111

Chapter 3 Cosmos 119

An alternative view 123

Sources of the myth 129

The motion of the universe: 269c-270b 134

The god at the helm: 270b-272b 139

Effects on animals 140

Effects on human beings 146

Evaluating the age of Cronos: 272b-272d 150

The universe under its own power: 272d-274d 157

Effects on the cosmos as a whole 158

Effects on animals 162

Effects on human beings 166

Chapter 4 Knowledge 177

Techne and episteme 178

Knowledge and opinion in the Republic 192

Knowledge and opinion in the Sophist 201

Imitating knowledge 205

Knowledge and paradigms: 277d-279a 209

Knowledge and measure: 283b-287b 218

Chapter 5 Law 233

The scarcity of statesmanship and the need for law: 291d-296a 238

Political regimes and the scarcity of political knowledge 238

The inadequacy of law 250

The need for law and the scarcity of statesmanship 254

Law as an image of wisdom: 296a-303c 259

The justification of force 260

Law as the codification of experience 267

Imperfect political regimes 294

Chapter 6 Statesman 303

The Rhetorician, the General, and the Judge: 303d-305c 304

The rhetorician 310

The general 312

The judge 314

The statesman and the problem of conflict: 305d-311c 315

The conflict between the parts of virtue 318

Weaving the virtues, educating the citizens 324

The web of politics 337

Chapter 7 Knowledge and Politics: A Conclusion 341

Character and expertise 346

Doubts 350

The ontological objection 353

The epistemological objection 358

The political objection 361

The vindication of the philosopher-king 364

Bibliography 367

Index Locorum 381

General Index 387

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