The Statesman, or Politikos in Greek and Politicus in Latin, is a four part dialogue contained within the work of Plato. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ...

The text is a dialogue between Socrates and his student Theodorus, another student named Socrates (referred to as Young Socrates), and an unknown philosopher expounding the ideas of the statesman. This unknown philosopher from Elea is referred to in the text as the "visitor". Socrates (Greek: , invariably anglicized assɔkɹətiːz, Sǒcratēs; 470?–399 BCE) was a ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy. ... The term statesman is a respectful term used to refer to diplomats, politicians, and other notable figures of state. ... Elea (Velia by the Romans; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a Greek coastal city founded around 540 BC in Lucania in southern Italy, 15 miles southeast of the Gulf of Salerno. ...

The text is a contination of the dialogue preceding it, named Sophist, which is a dialogue between Socrates, Theaetetus and the visitor. Sophism was originally a term for the techniques taught by a highly respected group of philosophy and rhetoric teachers in ancient Greece. ... Socrates (Greek: , invariably anglicized assɔkɹətiːz, Sǒcratēs; 470?–399 BCE) was a ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy. ... Theaetetus ( 417 B.C. – 369 B.C.) was a Greek mathematician of Geometry. ...

According to John M. Cooper, the dialogue's intention was to clarify that to rule or have political power called for a specialized knowledge. The statesman was one who possesses this special knowledge of how to rule justly and well and to have the best interests of the citizens at heart. It is presented that politics should be run by this knowledge, or gnosis. This claim runs counter to those who, the visitor points out, actually did rule. Those that rule merely give the appearance of such knowledge, but in the end are really sophists or imitators. Politics is a process by which decisions are made within groups. ... Wiktionary has related dictionary definitions, such as: gnosis The word gnosis (from the Greek word for knowledge, γνώσις) has several uses. ... Sophism was originally a term for the techniques taught by a highly respected group of philosophy and rhetoric teachers in ancient Greece. ...

For, as the visitor points out, a sophist is one who does not know the right thing to do, but only appears to others as someone who does. The visitor's ideal of how one arrives at this knowledge of power is through social divisions. The visitor takes great pains to be very specific about where and why the divisions are needed in order to properly rule the citizenry.

See Also

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Statesman

Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... Wikisource – The Free Library – is a Wikimedia project to build a free, wiki library of source texts, along with translations into any language and other supporting materials. ...

External Links

• Project Gutenberg etext of Statesman

References

• Cooper, John M. & Hutchinson, D. S. (Eds.) (1997). Plato: Complete Works, Hackett Publishing Co., Inc. ISBN 0872203492.