Isaiah and Statesmanship

Abstract

Th e practical difficulty of Plato's Republic, one may suggest, is its disregard of statesmanship, at the same time as it reiterates some of its finest principles. The ideal state is a virtuous mon archy ruled by the philosopher-king, with justice defined as a perfect match of talent and position. It is distinguished from actual states in that knowledge as wisdom rules so perfectly and so divinely that law is unnecessary.1 It is much like a heavenly city—at least like a most enlightened despotism. In the Statesman, Plato admitted the necessity of revision. He revealed that the available stock of human intelligence on earth is insufficient for so divine a prospect and that the humanly best solution must be a government of laws that involves human beings in both their formulation and compliance. Studying the Statesman and the later Laws of Plato, one encounters a book of statecraft in which factors of popular assent and participation cannot be overlooked. At the same time, as Aristotle so aptly reiterated, the virtue of knowledge as wisdom possessed by the ideal monarch is not to be discarded but is to be cultivated by the magistrates and all persons in authority who would perform their roles well.2 Statesmanship requires a knowledge both of the true ends of political society and the means by which they may be attained.