Plato's "Statesman": The Web of Politics

In this book an eminent scholar presents a rich and penetrating analysis of the Statesman, perhaps Plato's most challenging work. Stanley Rosen contends that the main theme of this dialogue is a definition of the art of politics and the degree to which political experience is subject either to the rule of sound judgment or to technical construction.

The Statesman, like Plato's earlier Sophist, features a Stranger who tries to refute Socrates. Much of his conversation is devoted to a minute a...