Plato's Eleatic and Athenian sciences of politics

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11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Plato's Statesman and Laws are usually linked together as Plato's later political theory. Yet these dialogues offer contradictory descriptions of the relation between law and reason and thus between political science and philosophy. In particular, the Eleatic Stranger of the Statesman presents an account of the second-best regime that differs from that of the Athenian Stranger in the Laws. The Eleatic Stranger's account of the second-best is wrong; his error follows from his view that politics is insignificant for genuinely human purposes. By comparing human statesmanship to animal herding and explicating its nature through the paradigm of weaving, the Eleatic Stranger contends that the true philosopher is too concerned with individual human natures to care for human collectivities. From his perspective, Socratic or Athenian political philosophy is but sophistry.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)57-84
Number of pages28
JournalReview of Politics
Volume61
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1999

Funding

Funders
University of Toronto
National Science Foundation
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

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