Kingship and Legislation in Plato’s Statesman

Abstract

One of the main philosophical outcomes of Plato’s Statesman is to define statesmanship as a prescriptive (epitactic) form of knowledge, exercising control over subordinate tekhnai. Against a widespread scholarly view according to which the Statesman offers a radically critical view of laws, this paper argues that the art of legislation (nomothetikē) has pride of place among these subordinate arts which also include rhetoric, strategy, the art of the judge and education.