An annotated and modified version of the translation published by Aris and Phillips Ltd. A model of accuracy and fluency, Christopher Rowe's translation of Statesman--as modified for publication in Plato, Complete Works (Hackett Publishing Co., 1997)--is now available in a student edition, with a brief introduction, notes, and a select bibliography.
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The Statesman by Plato
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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 philosopher who interacts with “Young Socrates,” who is a young friend of Socrates. Socrates has only a few lines at the beginning of the dialogue.
The visiting philosopher again applies the taxonomic approach to identifying what makes for a statesman. The visiting philosopher concludes:
“VISITOR: Then let us say that this marks the completion of the fabric which is the product of the art of statesmanship: the weaving together, with regular intertwining, of the dispositions of brave and moderate people—when the expertise belonging to the king brings their life together in [c] agreement and friendship and makes it common between them, completing [311c] the most magnificent and best of all fabrics and covering with it all the other inhabitants of cities, both slave and free; and holds them together with this twining and rules and directs without, so far as it belongs to a city to be happy, falling short of that in any respect.
Plato. Plato: Complete Works (p. 402). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Well, gosh, that's nice, but a little bit impossible to achieve in our fallen world.
The dialogue itself is not easy to follow since it seems to jump tracks periodically. However, the reader does get a nice discussion of the various forms of government - monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy and their distorted counterparts. This is a review of Plato's Republic and a preview of some of Aristotle's writings.
