Statesman lacks the mystery of Theaetetus and the rigor of Sophist, but it is the natural conclusion to the trilogy. The first dialogue is a critique of Protagoras and Heraclitus, a careful examination of the faults of relativism. The second dialogue is a critique of Parmenides and the faults of monism. Statesman demonstrates that neither one accurately describes practical human existence, which is ultimately a weaving together of both interpretations. The difficulty is that the two interpretati...

Wacky divisions, fun conclusions. Non-philosophers should just obey the rules. Politics isn't a science. Politicians are blowhards.

Seth Benardete's translation of Plato's Statesman is the translation any student of Plato (who lacks full knowledge of Greek) should make primary use of. His translation is the most literal one, and Benardete's mastery of Greek and his faithfulness to the particulars of the original make it the translation one should have at hand when paying the closest attention to Plato's particulars. In addition to the dialogue itself, Benardete's accompanying commentary can be the source of profound insights...

Review:November 2004Plato's most disturbing political dialogueThis book, the culmination of Benardete's masterful translation of what Jacob Klein was pleased to call `Plato's Trilogy,' includes not only a translation of `The Statesman' but also a superb commentary with notes. (Benardete, btw, is something of a rarity these days, a `non-political' student of Leo Strauss.' This `trilogy' (as Klein would say) in question consists of 3 dialogues; Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman. But, as Benardete poi...

This E-book (a Benjamin Jowett translation) is the last and final Platonic dialogue I’ve read. Jowett says that the Statesman has little of the grace, beauty and dramatic power of Plato’s earlier dialogues, but it is still “the highest and most ideal conception of politics in Plato’s writing.” The ruler is the True Herdsman, the King of Man. Or, rather, the Ruler is God, not man. He alone has knowledge. It is the science of pure knowledge. It is a royal science, the science of rule or command.Jo...

The Statesman by PlatoPlease give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re... This is another book I read for Online Great Books. Again, if it wasn't for the seminar discussion after reading the book, I would have been lost in left field.This is the second of a planned series of three books - Sophist, Statemen, and Philosopher. "Philosopher" never got written. Why Philosopher was not written is fodder for speculation. This dialogue also features the visiting philos...

The Statesman forms an unmissable cornerstone in the political triad of Plato, next to the Republic and the Laws. Its elaboration of the "ship of state" metaphor improves upon the Republic. It continues the discussion around the philosophy of concepts started in the Sophist. The two essays are thematically and historically connected, for the Statesman supposedly takes place immediately after the Sophist. The Statesman combines conceptual analysis with political philosophy.Here, Plato makes a for...

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.

The beginning of this dialogue was pretty boring but once they got into discussing the three types of constitutions; rule by one, few, and many; the dialogue was much more interesting. From this discussion, we learn that the beneficent dictator is the best ruler and also that Plato is not a fan of democracy as it is “capable of nothing of importance either for good or for bad” (348). However, it is the best government if the people are not law abiding since it does the least damage.

I just love this man. Almost read all the dialogues, and I’ll return to him, I’m sure, many times. Wonderful.

I was very disappointed that the new Brann/Kalkavage/Salem translation of the Statesman did not arrive in time for me to read it for my SJC Alumni Seminar this weekend, especially after having just read their Sophist translation. I found this translation to be much less clear and readable, which definitely affected my rating of the book...I was also comparatively unimpressed with the first half of the dialogue itself. Thankfully, over the course of our Seminar, several questions were raised whic...

Eva Brann, Peter Kalkavage, and Eric Salem's translation of Plato's Statesman is a very useful resource that I highly recommend to all serious students of Plato. The same trio collaborated on Plato's Phaedo , which is also very fine. The translation itself is very good: it is clear, and fairly literal—an absolute necessity for the proper interpretation of whom Nietzsche called "the most beautiful growth of antiquity" (Beyond Good and Evil, "Preface"). No translation is perfect, however, and s...

The first two thirds of this dialogue are tedious to a ridiculous extreme.The last third more than makes up for it. Reading Plato can be like riding a roller coaster, ranging from agreement and enlightenment to pure horror at clearly totalitarian suggestions. The real question is, can a true Statesman ever exist and if not, isn't the idea of one dangerous? The Greek idea that government exists to perfect men is just one I will never agree with.

This dialogue touched a bit on several topics such as dialectic, metaphysics, sociology, and the "royal science" of government. I have a more decentralized, individualistic ideal of the role of government than Plato whose rational pragmatism leads him to favor an oligarchy with strict legal enforcement. Nothing really stood out for me about this dialogue.

Mostly a bunch of senseless division that goes nowhere, and then some interesting political thoughts for a few pages. A mixed bag as a dialogue, but certain excerpts are important for tracing Plato's political development into his older years.

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, remind...

A very pleasant work, which I might consider somewhat of a convenient bridge between Plato's 'Republic' and Aristotle's 'Nicomachean Ethics,' 'Politics,' and/or 'Rhetoric.' As is somewhat typical for Plato, the work starts slowly by carefully combing through assorted divisions of the arts or classes, but picks up towards the end in comparing the nature of various governments and the role of the Statesman, politics, and rhetoric. To be fair I did read the first part of the book late at night, so

The end of this book was full of fireworks. The balancing of courage (which, in its extreme, can be too warlike) and moderation (too lethargic in its extreme) has implications in everything from running a government to building a company to understanding a partner. As always, I pick up Plato fearing that the topics may be a bit dusty and require a fair amount of translation to become practical in modernity...and by the end of the book, am scribbling notes nonstop relevant to my day to day life.

The Republic is considered Plato´s magnum opus, I partially agree with that because, despite being the first time that the Theory of Forms is presented in a better shape, the dialectic method and the depth of it are shown in later dialogues. In his elderly years, Plato was set to put his theory to the test in, what I think would have been his real masterpiece, a trilogy of dialectic-hide-and-seek: The Sophist, The Statesman, and The Philosopher. As probably you suspect by now, it is not complete...

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 nami...

This slow starting socratic dialogue is about the different types of government, divided into rule of the one, the few and the many. It tries to show why the enlightened monarch is the best type of government in Platos view and why the other forms fall short of this standard.

Those who rule must do so by balancing the courage and moderation with in the people. This is to be done by statesmen who rule by the rule of law, to prevent tyrannies. Also a bunch on the proper use of language and how to divide class vs. parts. Good stuff.

Read in Cooper ed. translation

I love things about plato

Much better than Sophist.

This dialogue is part of our Great Books Project. Plato leaves no stone uncovered to determine what is a Statesman.

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

Basically, political science is an art, but more importantly, a science.

A few highlights, in no particular order:1. The Stranger's division of things into categories at the beginning is kind of awesome. There are some good points about methodology that contemporary metaphysicians might want to take note of (e.g., it seems awfully anthropocentric to divide the the world into human/nonhuman). The fact that this all ends with the definition of politics that's somewhat hard to take seriously (as the tending of featherless bipeds) is even better.2. Plato's discussion of

This is a somewhat odd member of the Platonic corpus. The myth of the reversal of the cosmos isn’t Plato’s most compelling and doesn’t seem deeply relevant, or at least not completely integral to the book. And the Visitor’s lengthy exposition of the “method of division” doesn’t seem to have enough importance to justify its length. But when the book finally gets to political philosophy it’s substantial and interesting, not least in its relationship with Republic and Laws. I rarely see Statesman m...