Weaving the Statesman: the Unity of Plato's Politicus
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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 4-20-2015 12:00 AM Weaving the Statesman: the Unity of Plato's Politicus Ryan Middleton The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. John Thorp The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Philosophy A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Ryan Middleton 2015 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the History of Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Middleton, Ryan, "Weaving the Statesman: the Unity of Plato's Politicus" (2015). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2760. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2760 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WEAVING THE STATESMAN: THE UNITY OF PLATO’S POLITICUS (Thesis format: Monograph) by RYAN MIDDLETON Graduate Program in Philosophy A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Ryan Middleton 2015 ii Abstract Plato's Statesman comprises three parts: method, myth, and politics. Scholars tend to pivot around any one of these, but seldom address how they fit together. My thesis argues for unity to the dialogue. The method, myth, and politics of the Statesman are connected by a common theme: the correct management of the parts of a whole. Each section in the dialogue concerns the appropriate management of the parts of something. The myth describes a time during which the cosmos was steered by a divine helmsman. By superintending the whole, the helmsman ensured that the parts were correctly organized. The method in the Statesman divides general kinds into their parts. The interlocutors discuss rules for ensuring that the divisions are made correctly, and in this way, the method of division concerns the ability to accurately arrange the parts of a whole. In breaking an important rule concerning the method of division, however, the interlocutors are alluding to the political theory discussed at the end of the dialogue where an argument is made that a true statesman is not bound by the law. Furthermore, genuine statesmanship involves the ability to correctly weave together the disparate elements of a city. In the absence of statesmen, cities can only imitate the rule of statesmanship, much as the cosmos imitates the motion of the divine helmsman in the myth when it is left to its own devices. Thus, each part of the dialogue intersects with the others. And what unifies each of these parts is just that each them concerns the ability to unify disparate parts. Keywords Plato’s Statesman , Statesmanship, Division, Division trees, Constitutionalism, Sovereignty, Greek myth, Cronus, Political theory. iii Acknowledgments I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. John Thorp, for his patience and understanding, and for his advice, without which this thesis would not have come to fruition. I am also grateful to Dr. Kendall Sharp for our many wonderful discussions on Plato, and to Dr. Dennis Klimchuk for his fascinating insights into the political and legal theory. I am indebted to Drs. May Yoh and Steve Robinson for their support and inspiration. And I would like to sincerely thank Dr. Devin Henry for helping to develop the project, and Drs. Berndt Steinbock and Hugh Benson for their animated discussions about Athenian law and Platonic method. Furthermore, I am grateful to Dr. C. L. Murison for his suggestions on ancient weaving technology, and to Dr. Mary Louise Gill for providing me with an early manuscript of her Philosophos . Finally, I am honored to thank my friends, Saad Anis, Amy Wuest, and Dr. Erik Curiel. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Disunity of the Statesman ................................................................................ 1 1.2 Initial Hypothesis .................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Synopsis of the Inquiry into Statesmanship ............................................................ 4 1.4 Digressions .............................................................................................................. 6 1.5 Division and the Statesman ..................................................................................... 7 1.6 The Myth of Cronus .............................................................................................. 10 1.7 Political Matters .................................................................................................... 12 2 Method ........................................................................................................................ 15 2.1 Division in the Sophist and Statesman .................................................................. 16 2.2 The Scope of Division .......................................................................................... 24 2.2.1 The First Stage: Locating the Proper Object ............................................. 31 2.2.2 The Second Stage: Removing Competitors .............................................. 33 2.2.3 Why Non-Dichotomous Division is Needed ............................................ 37 2.3 Summary ............................................................................................................... 42 3 Myth ............................................................................................................................ 44 3.1 Understanding the Myth ....................................................................................... 46 3.2 The Preamble ........................................................................................................ 57 3.3 Practicality and the Myth ...................................................................................... 63 3.4 Imitation and the Myth.......................................................................................... 69 v 3.5 Summary ............................................................................................................... 73 4 Politics ......................................................................................................................... 75 4.1 Political Theory in the Statesman ......................................................................... 79 4.2 Recognizing the Statesman ................................................................................... 92 4.3 Parts Management ............................................................................................... 101 4.4 Statesmanship and its Imitation .......................................................................... 107 4.5 Summary ............................................................................................................. 116 5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 118 Appendix A ..................................................................................................................... 122 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 127 Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................ 132 1 Chapter 1 1 Introduction In the summer of 1992, the third Symposium Platonicum convened to discuss Plato’s dialogue, the Statesman. 1 At that time, the Statesman had received relatively little scholarly attention. But with the conference, interest in the dialogue was momentarily revived. It even resulted in a new translation and commentary by Christopher Rowe. 2 The revival was short-lived, however, and discussion has since tapered. I believe that some of the dialogue’s difficulties were left unresolved, even untouched. Among those difficulties is that the Statesman appears to be topically disconnected. It is at once a discussion of epistemic methodology and a political commentary, inquiring into leadership. And in the middle we find a puzzling myth that tells of the motions of the cosmos. Read by scholars, the dialogue lacks unity—at least on the surface. 1.1 The Disunity of the Statesman This thesis argues that there is a unifying theme—a unity—in the three parts in Plato’s Statesman. By “unity” I mean the functional unity of the respective parts of the dialogue—the way these seemingly unrelated parts work together in the text. Scholarship on the Statesman misses the connection between the dialogue’s diverse parts and typically investigates one or other of them as independent entities. 1 The multi-lingual papers presented there were published in Rowe, Reading the Statesman