Plato’s Statesman: A Philosophical Discussion

In her introduction to a translation of the Statesman, Julia Annas remarks that as ‘stimulating as Plato’s political ideas in the Statesman are, it is not surprising that the dialogue has been relatively neglected by comparison with the Republic and the Laws’ (Annas and Waterfield 1995: x). A glance at Dimas et al.’s bibliography shows that the situation has improved since then, although the Statesman remains underdiscussed. Thus, the current volume is very welcome.The dialogue is divided into eleven passages running consecutively from its beginning with a chapter devoted to each. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Rachel Barney, Gábor Betegh, David Bronstein, Amber Carpenter, Christoph Horn, Rachana Kamtekar, Gavin Lawrence, Fabián Mié, and Franco Trivigno. Melissa Lane also writes a chapter. There is a lengthy and substantive introduction, to which each editor contributes a section. Although the chapters are more discursive than, for example, the typical Clarendon commentary, each remains tightly focused on the set passage. Given the space available to me, I discuss only two essays. The topics covered in the other chapters range over Plato’s epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, methodology, political philosophy, and psychology.In his fine chapter on Statesman 297B5-303D3 (hereafter, Stephanus numbers without titles refer to the Statesman), Christoph Horn tackles one of the dialogue’s most difficult passages and one of the most difficult issues in Plato’s political philosophy, that is, the topic of changing the laws. The central question that Horn addresses is whether Plato thinks that the legal structures of cities without philosophical rulers are equally worthless or whether he allows at least some genuine value to the legal structures of those cities that (a) have constitutions preserving the actual written instructions left by a knowledgeable lawgiver, or (b) forbid ever changing the legal order, regardless of its quality, or (c) improve their laws by revising them through informed true opinion (177, 186–91). Horn argues that legal structures satisfying one of (a), (b), or (c) have some genuine value.1(c) has the most important implications for Plato’s political philosophy, and Horn makes an excellent case for it. I would add two points as friendly suggestions. First, we might ask what Plato would have to believe if he held that the legal structures of nonphilosophical cities are equally worthless. It seems that he would have to hold that at no point in a city’s history is it possible (i) for an individual or a group to believe justifiably, but fallibly, that a particular legal change would produce a better outcome, and (ii) to bring about such change without its consequences producing a worse outcome. Since some cities’ laws may be deeply unjust, it seems hard to deny (i). Bad laws may foster worse desires in citizens, and Plato thinks that satisfying such desires makes them both stronger and worse. But it is hard to believe that this justifies denying (i). What about denying (ii)? Plato tends to think that changing the laws leads to further legal changes and that the resulting instability would produce worse outcomes. But even if denying (ii) is less implausible than denying (i), it is still an implausible denial.Horn rightly admits that much in 297B5-303D3 suggests the no change interpretation but does not explain this. Considering the Republic and the Laws may help. Horn remarks that ‘as is well known, the topic of law and legislation is almost absent in the Republic’ (177). But as Julia Annas has, I think, conclusively demonstrated the Republic contains much about legislation and Kallipolis has many laws (Annas 2020: 9–31). Further, both the Republic and the Laws contain passages prima facie suggesting that significant legal change is nearly impossible (Republic 4.445DE, 5.458BC; Laws 6.772AD).2 In the Republic, this seems difficult to explain except as rhetorical exaggeration, since Socrates and his interlocutors set Kallipolis’ laws but, unlike Kallipolis’ philosopher-rulers, lack knowledge of the Form of the Good (Republic 2.378E-379A, 6.506BC).Horn rightly holds that the Laws allows for indefinitely revising and improving Magnesia’s laws, but he oddly claims that it holds that laws are appropriate if they aim either at virtue or a part of it (187). But the passage cited clearly requires laws to aim at all of virtue, not just a part of it (Laws 4.705D-706A). Without seeing this, we cannot explain the Laws’ criticism of Crete and Sparta (1.630D-631D) or the Statesman’s excluding from citizenship those not sharing in all the virtues (308E-310A). The Statesman thus resembles the Republic and the Laws in overstating the case against legal change.In perhaps the volume’s most innovative and philosophically stimulating essay, Rachana Kamtekar examines 305E8-308B9 and Plato’s account of courage and moderation. She suggests understanding courage and moderation in terms of the contemporary distinction between thick and thin concepts. This a subtle idea deserving more exploration. But it raises some concerns.3Kamtekar thinks that Plato holds that we can disentangle the descriptive and evaluative components of, for example, ‘courageous’ so that its meaning is given by C (221):‘Quick’ is purely descriptive, but ‘fine’ and ‘appropriate’ are evaluative. (More precisely, Kamtekar thinks that this is the meaning of ‘courageous’ from 306A12-307D4.)A’s degree of quickness in S is thus necessary for A’s being courageous in S. Is it sufficient? This is suggested by Kamtekar’s claim that satisfying the descriptive component is ‘a way’ of being, for example, fine (223). Plato would reject this however, since A might be wrongly motivated. So Kamtekar should deny A’s sufficiency. Because the evaluative components hold of A, it is a fine action, but these evaluative components are thin concepts and so do not convey information about the motivation.4 It is thus not Plato’s typical sort of an account of a virtue (cf. Protagoras 330A-332B, Republic 4.443C-444E, and Laws 9.863E-864B; this at least approximates virtuous action).But Kamtekar thinks that these accounts of the courageous and the moderate are produced by dividing the fine into, respectively, the quick-and-fine and the slow-and-fine (221). These are real definitions since division is Plato’s method for reaching real definitions. This suggestion, however, faces concerns. First, 306C-307C does not talk of ‘dividing’ the fine. Second, Kamtekar seems to intend this division to be exhaustive (221). This is reasonable since Plato, although he does not think it necessary, emphasizes his clear preference for dichotomous division (Phaedrus 265E-266B; Philebus 16CD; Statesman. 262A-263B). But the courageous and the moderate cannot exhaust all fine items. Yet if it is not dichotomous, the other divisions remain mysterious. Third, just actions must be included in the fine, and, since Plato uses ‘just’ equivalently with ‘virtuous’, just actions must occur within both of what Kamtekar agrees are mutually exclusive divisions of the fine, the courageous and the moderate (219). Fourth, and most worrisome, is that because quick and slow are opposites, Kamtekar thinks that whenever a certain degree of slowness is fine and appropriate, the item is properly called ‘moderate’ and not ‘courageous’ and vice versa (219).5 But this produces unacceptable results. Surely Socrates’s slow retreat at Delium was courageous, and it is highly misleading to call it ‘moderate.’ One might reply that this objection relies on too simple a notion of ‘quick’ and ‘slow’ and that these are inherently evaluative. This reply’s cost is giving up the thick and thin distinction.Kamtekar’s most novel claim is that the courageous and moderate at 306A12-307D6 are ‘kinds’ of ‘actual or true virtue’ (222) and not merely ingredients of it. Kamtekar here places great weight on 306C’s claim that their investigation is among things ‘we’ call fine. Kamtekar thinks this gives us reason to reject the traditional interpretation that the courage and moderation mentioned at 306A12-309A7 are or include natural psychic dispositions that are not genuine virtues, but only become virtues when knowledge or ‘secure true opinion’ is added to them (309D7-310A6). But who are ‘we’?Kamtekar argues that courageous and moderate as used in 306A12-307D6 are instances of ‘ordinary language’ and practice and that ‘it would be a substantial, and … false assumption about ordinary language that we call cases of quickness etc. “courageous” because they are potentially courageous’ (222). I agree that collection often starts from our ordinary classifications. But that is why we often need to correct them (262C-263E). For the courage and moderation discussed at 306A12-307D6 to be potential and not full virtues, it is not necessary that ordinary speakers think that they are only potential virtues. All that is required is that what they believe are real virtues are, in fact, only potential virtues. It would, I think, hardly be surprising for Plato to think that ordinary speakers typically seriously misunderstand virtue often by thinking of it as having some close relation to action types. Finally, for Plato to shift from talking of the courageous and the moderate as true parts of virtue to speaking of the courageous and the moderate as people with two different types of defective characters (after 306A12) is a confusingly abrupt volte-face that conflicts with the natural Platonic assumption that possessing the feature common to courageous items is what makes one courageous. The Eleatic Stranger seems to say as much at 309B6-9.I hope that my discussion of these two excellent articles manages to convey, at least to some small degree, how philosophically rich and simulating this volume is.6