A truly neglected political treatise, Plato explores further the themes of expertise and ruling, the moral psychology of the citizen and the defects of political systems that we take for granted. If one is really interested in themes of the Republic with inventive arguments favoring the expert statesman, then I very thoroughly recommend this book.

Difficult to follow

Personally, I found The Stranger’s argument difficult to follow. I get the gist of it, he neatly summarizes his ideal Statesman and King right at the very end, but building up to it was very confusing. I’m not sure if that’s because of this particular translation, or because I’m not familiar with several of the metaphors he uses (e.g. weaving wool). I also found his divisions of things confusing (there are lots of ways to divide the class of animals that live on land besides 4-legged & 2-legged animals).

Part of a trilogy. Follows the first, Sophist. The Statesman sets about defining what separates the Statesman from the Sophist. Apparently the Statesman possesses the kingly art. Who would have guessed?

This dialogue is all over the place. It starts as a relentless (and might I add, somewhat pointless) division and classification (a precursor to the Aristotelian desire for classifying the world) of various activities and things to arrive at a definition of the statesman. Inexplicably, this transforms into a creation-myth, which while interesting, felt unnecessary. Within a few pages, this changes into a discourse on the different types of political systems and the role of the legislator, reminding me of Plato's Laws.

The Visitor considers rule by a king who has "expert knowledge" of statesmanship to be the supreme form of political rule. While we may consider this tyranny, The Visitor (and impliedly, Plato) characterises this as a "benevolent despotism". He considers that a democracy can never have this elusive expert knowledge of a single statesman ruling for all.

Here's my issue with this: there's a central assumption running through the dialogue that "expert knowledge" can possibly be acquired, and can be recognised by others. This is obviously problematic. Nobody should trust any political leader who tells them that they have "expert knowledge" and want to rule on our behalf because of that knowledge. It is this benevolent despotism that acted as a justification for colonisation as a civilising mission in the 18th century. Even if we were to accept that an expert knowledge exists, who recognises it to grant this ruler legitimacy? Surely not the ruler themselves. Which is why a democracy is obviously a more legitimate form of government, arguments on what may be hypothetically better aside.

Even Plato recognises the problem of according legitimacy to such "expert knowledge" by later writing that no actual ruler possesses expert knowledge. Therefore, all current governments must be run by imitators, not very different from sophists, who do not know the right thing to do, but make it appear that they do. Plato recognised that for popular politicians, their image is always more important than their actions.

Statesman is usually classified as a political text, because people largely ignore the classificatory exercise of the first half (perhaps rightly so). However, there are some important perspectives that can be learned from that admittedly tedious beginning.

For example, The Visitor scolds his interlocutor for classifying "humans" and "animals" or "Greeks" and "barbarians" as the binaries of existence. He rightly demonstrates that an animal like a crane may classify the world as "cranes" and "animals" (an early critique of the solipsistic nature of humanity), and people of other countries may consider the Greeks barbarians (the ancient Indians actually did this by calling the Greeks as yavanas (literally Ionians) or mlecchas, which later became the terms used for all foreigners).

The point here is that if our understanding of the world is universal, we must abstract away from ourselves and our communities. We can't divide the world as "us versus them", because then someone else would adopt the same classification and make us, "them". The Visitor's remarks appear, to me, as an important critique of our solipsistic and tribalistic natures.

This was the third part of Plato's Trilogy on Being, with the ostensible subject being about arriving at the definition of a statesman.

Don't let the section where "the stranger" and Young Socrates divide the arts to the point of absurdity discourage you. This dialogue is incredible. Deep insights into the nature of personality and how it affects laws and government; the nature of laws them selves; and finally an inspection of different types of governments and the people who lead them. Well worth your time slogging through the boring middle section.

264e - Zoopolitikon aslinda burada geciyor.

267d - Siyaset - Seyiscilik arasi iliski Karsilastirma https://nisanyansozluk.com/?k=Siyaset

269c - Deizm

271c - Topraktan dogma hikayesiyle zamanin geriye dogru akmasi hikayesini birlestiriyor. Zaman tersten geciyor, oluler canlanip, genclesip, yok oluyorlar. Boylece topraktan dogmus oluyorlar.

272a - Acikca cennet efsanesi. Ama Kronos'un hukmettigi zamanlar olarak anlatiliyor. 271c'deki durumla birlestirilmis.

294c - Yasalari kisiliklestirip cahil ve inatci yoneticilere benzetiyor. Uzerinde dusunulmeli. Neden keyfimiz degisiyor? Neden yasa keyfimize engel olunca cahil ve inatci kisiler gibi davraniyor.

295a - Kanunlarin varligini kisiye gore kural konulmasinin zorlugu oldugunu soyluyor.

295e - Hekim tatile cikiyor, o sirada hastanin yapmasi gerekenleri yazili veriyor. Sonra tatilden erken donuyor ve mesela mevsim degisikligi vs sebebiyle daha once soylediklerini geri aliyor. Bu durumda hasta daha onceki yazili receteyi one surerek yeni receteye karsi cikarsa ne olur? Bu oykuyle kanunlar arasinda bag kuruyor.

298 - 299 - Iki pasaj da bir olcude gunumuzun durumunu, bir olcude de gelecegimizi (AI) anlatiyor. Tastan sutunlar ve mermer levhalar uzerine kurallari yaziyorlar. Gorev suresi belli, kurayla ya da secimle yapiyorlar ve mahkemeler onlari yargiliyor. Arada Genc Sokrates bu duruma iliskin negatif cumleler soyluyor. Ama sonra justify etmeden hava donuyor ve kanunlar olmasi gereken seyler haline geliyor.

303 a-b - Kanunsuz yonetimi ayiriyor boylece tek, bazi ve hep'ten 6 yonetim cikariyor. Monarsi, Tiran / Aristokrasi, Oligarsi / Iyi demokrasi, kotu demokrasi. Kanunlara uyulursa en iyisi monarsi diyor, kanunlara uyulmazsa en iyisi demokrasi diyor.

308 - 309 - 310 Enerjiklik ve itidal arasinda bir dengeyi yaratan devlet adamindan bahsediyor.

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Δεν σταματάει να με εκπλήσσει η ανακάλυψη όλων και περισσότερων αντανακλάσεων της σκέψης του Πλάτωνα στη νεωτερική και σύγχρονη συγκρότητη της κυριαρχίας.

I didn’t actually read this particular version, but I read a version in a complete works of Plato. I have used this version just to log something on my Goodreads book list. I have read all 26 of Plato’s authentic works, however, I didn’t read them all in the complete works of Plato. I just used the complete works of Plato to fill in the remaining books I hadn’t read.

Bello perché ancora una volta Platone ricorre a un favoloso mito per spiegare il fulcro delle sue idee.
Interessante perché traduce l'ideale politico Platonico delineato nella Repubblica in uno stato pratico che tenga conto del caos e dei pregi e difetti delle persone.
Attuale perché fa riflettere mettendo a confronto i "politici" di oggi con i politici senza virgolette. :)

Even though we are losing my beloved Theaetetus, Statesman might be the most pleasant one from Eleatic dialogues to me. I am not sure, how to rate accessibility of this dialogue, because to me, it felt that Statesman was more comprehensible than his predecessors (meaning Theaetetus and Sofist), my thoughts kept slipping away to all the things I have to do yet. (I can’t really blame that on Plato, though…) Still I would say, that the beginning is a little slower, Visitor (I found the English namings of this actor highly interesting, I chose to use “Visitor” in my review simply because is the one closer to the Czech word “Host” – meaning “guest” – that is used in Czech translation I read of the dialogue. Also, “Stranger” is really giving me more existentialist vibes then I would like in Plato…) is starting once again with the diairhetic method and while this passages aren’t hard to read (if you are not analysing them of course), reading them doesn’t bring me much pleasure. But there are some light moments… The commentary (at least in my edition by František Novotný) brings us a gossip from Diogenes Laertios, how he plucked a rooster and them he proclaimed it to be Plato’s human… (Am I the only one who thinks it funny? Well… alright…)
But then it suddenly gets so much better and I am once more reminded, what genius Plato is (passage 294 a-d really is the top for me…). My enthusiasm ended in me transcribing almost the whole page, but that would be quite redundant in this review. Instead just one quote that concludes the whole passage of the critique of the laws:

So that which is persistently simple is inapplicable to things which are never simple?

For the ones who didn’t read it, I would like to add that Plato is no anarchist, he knows that in our situation the laws are necessary, but he also sees their weak spots which is something I don’t really see much today. (But I am not going to delve into this bitterness of mine, or I would get side-tracked…)
My interest cooled down a little bit after that, but this time, I wouldn’t say it wasn’t for not being interesting enough, but simply because I attended a lectures on Statesman and so there weren’t really a lot of new things – that doesn’t make those passages less beautiful. The analogy of weaving is very poetic, even if surprisingly harsh in places. But there is one more passage I would like to mention for the emotional impact it had on me. And that is the moment when the Visitor starts to describe Athenian establishment in very parodical way and criticize it openly with Younger Socrates. Criticizing Athens and democracy isn’t really something new in Plato’s work, but there was something different about it this time. It was so bitter, that it really convinced me of the theory, that Plato wrote this “trilogy” in a deep personal crisis. The usually emotionally separated and at the most lightly ironical Visitor disappeared and the one who spoke was Plato himself. Younger Socrates really cap it all with his last commentary:

Surely anyone who consents voluntarily to hold office under such conditions would richly deserve any penalty or fine that might be imposed.

I had to say, that this part was without a doubt the funniest part of the otherwise quite dry Eleatic dialogues – even if it is a quite niche type of humour. On the other hand, it also left quite bitter aftertaste.
After writing this and thinking it through in the process, I have to say that I like this dialogue more than I originally thought, it might be one of my favourites of Plato and I would like to return to it someday in the future. But that is partly a consequence of me liking the themes it discuses. I have a soft spot for political philosophy, but it also re-evaluates dichotomic dividing and contradictory opposites, which is a concept our society is still struggling with. But that also is a theme for some other time…