Brief note on philosopher-kings

 

One of the keys to Plato’s Republic is to note that it is primarily a work concerning the interior organisation of man (a psychology and anthropology) and only by extension, or parallel, about the polity. Socrates sets out to find “justice” (dike) – a proper order - in a man, and at one point proposes that it might be easier to find this by expanding the inquiry to a city of men, the state. The entire work is built on this inner/outer, microcosm/macrocosm parallel and should be read in that light. It is a naïve reading to suppose that the descriptions of various political constitutions are some sort of programme. In context, most importantly, they are metaphors for inner states and human types. 

 

It is hard to say where Plato himself stands in it all, although we can say this: the man=city parallel implies, as a first principle of Platonic political philosophy, that governance ought to conform to human nature, that there ought to be a tight correspondence between the inner organisation of man (Plato assumes that there is one, a reality, that is, by nature) and his outer social organisation. The purpose of the outer is to allow the inner to flourish and be the best of what it can be, which is justice (fittedness). We can argue over what this human nature that a polity should reflect is and is not, and debate what social constructions (or misconstructions) we mistake as ‘natural’ and so on, but a core tenet of Platonic political philosophy is that there is a bedrock nature – human beings are not just sludge that you can successfully mold into any shape you want – and that good government is measured by the extent to which it accords with that bedrock reality. 

 

To be clear, Plato regards that bedrock reality to not only be man’s animal nature and appetites, but to consist of man’s higher faculties as well. Plato offers an expanded view of human nature, insisting (against merely natural or utilitarian views) that man is both a physical and metaphysical being. It is the fullness of man and the totality of human potential that suffers under bad political constitutions and flourishes under good ones.

 

Regarding the so-called philosopher-kings that rule over the best of polities, they correspond to the highest faculty inherent in human nature – that part of us that loves wisdom above all things. Do you want to be ruled by people who are themselves ruled by base and mean appetites? In any case, Plato seeks objective government, where the best course of action isn’t obscured by vested interests and where the rulers are beyond corruption. Plato is so concerned about nepotism that the philosopher-kings are forbidden from knowing who their children are. Moreover, these philosopher-kings are so in love with wisdom that they don’t want to be rulers. They don’t seek power as tyrants and dictators do. They exercise power rarely and reluctantly. (Would you rather sit around contemplating Beauty, or go to policy meetings?) For Plato, politics is civil war. His philosopher-kings are a device to bring civil war to an end.

 

But, you say, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The problem of power is a central theme of the Republic too. We encounter the modern suspicion that power is all there is. Power, as Chairman Mao said, comes from the barrel of a gun. On one reading of the Republic, Plato seeks the best possible solution to that aspect of the human predicament, at root. The Republic is best considered a thought experiment on this problem. Does anyone have any better ideas?

 

While we are on the topic, I want to say here that I doubt the entire story of Plato trying to teach philosophy to the tyrant of Syracuse. I take a skeptical view of all aspects of the received biography of Plato, including the autobiographical letters, especially where they are in tension or open conflict with the evidence of the dialogues. There is not the slightest notion in the dialogues that Plato supposed you can take a miserable reprobate like Dionysius of Sicily and magically convert him into a philosopher-king by teaching him some arithmetic and geometry. Yes, Socrates instructs a slave boy in squares and angles at one point to show that nous is innate, but he doesn’t turn him into Archimedes. Plato did not believe you can turn a tyrant into a philosopher-king. In Plato, tyranny is not a path or prelude to ideal government. The tyrant has a wretched soul - 729 times more wretched than a wise man, in fact.

I doubt the whole story. It seems post hoc to me. The Seventh Letter is bogus anyway. The misguided do-gooder story is exactly the sort of drivel that people made up about philosophers and it was then carried on and padded out by subsequent dim-wits across the centuries. It probably began as a joke. Ironic, no? We severely underestimate the number of jokers, liars and dim-wits in our chains of textual and cultural transmission. I don’t believe for a minute that Plato thought he could train philosopher-kings, or even that philosopher-kings were possible, perhaps not even  ever, and certainly not in Plato’s age which, on the evidence of the dialogues, he thought as remote from the rule of philosopher-kings as it was possible to be. The whole story is built on the naïve reading, or misreading, of the Republic as a practical programme for political action. My reasoning is simple: The Republic is plainly not that, only dim-wits read it like that, therefore I think the story is rubbish and attributable to dim-wits.

 

And let’s get a more mature grip on things than the cheap reductionism that says that Plato thought of politics as civil war because of what he saw his uncles get up to and then the abuses of the Athenian democracy. Sure. Sure. But if there was one thinker who transcended his age it was Plato. Give him some credit.


The same goes with tiresome gags about how Plato made philosophers into kings because he was a self-serving philosopher himself much as plumbers might think plumbers should rule the world.

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Here though I am slightly sympathetic to the fact that the entire idea of the philosopher-kings does invite unmeasured ridicule and has received much of what it deserved over the centuries. Plato sees the humor too, I'm sure. He knows it's ridiculous. "Let's put Socrates in charge." Lol. Like in the Parable of the Ship in the Republic where the layabout star-gazer is the only one onboard who knows where they're going. It offends all common sense, but that's where the thought experiment goes.