Mccabe-chaos and Control

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Review: Chaos and Control: Reading Plato's "Politicus"

Author(s): Mary Margaret McCabeReviewed work(s):

Reading the Statesman, Proceedings of the III Symposium Platonicum by C. J. RowePlato's Statesman: Selected Papers from the Third Symposium Platonicum by PeterNicholson ; C. J. RowePlato: Statesman by Plato; C. J. Rowe

Source: Phronesis, Vol. 42, No. 1 (1997), pp. 94-117Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182547Accessed: 24/09/2008 10:17

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Review Article

Chaos and Control:Reading Plato's Politicus'MARY MARGARETMCCABE

On first reading, he Politicus appearsa dismal dialogue(compared, or example,to the immediacyof both the philosophyand the dramaof the Theaetetus).Thisconversationbetweenthe Eleatic Stranger nd the hopelessly complaisantYoungSocratesseemsunlikelyto captureourimagination;he lengthydiscussionof col-lectionanddivision may do little for ourunderstandingf dialectic;and even thejoke (at 266c, a pun on being a pig and coming last which is marginallymoreamusing n Greek)will leaveus cold. It maybe hardlysurprisinghat"thiswearydialogue,"as GilbertRyle called it, has been left alone by scholars.Howevera recentSymposiumPlatonicum as revived nterest n the Politicus;2this generated wo volumesof papersgiven at the Symposiumand, more impor-tantly,a new translationwithcommentary y Christopher owe.3The newOCT,moreover,gives a freshly edited text.4This materialmakesit immediately learthatthe Politicus shouldnot be dismissedout of hand- even although t standsrevealed as an extremelycomplexcomposition,both from the literaryand fromthe philosophicalpointof view.

I ChristopherRowe, Bob Sharplesand Tad Brennanwere kind enough to read andcriticise a draft of these comments;I am very gratefulto them.2 Old habits die hard;I preferPoliticus (Plt.) to Statesnan, not least to avoid thedangers of archaism (and the impossibility of capturing an extinct species) in theEnglish expression. In deference to Plato, however, I use the expression "the states-man"(rather han "thepolitician")to describe the personwith political understanding.3 Reading the Statesman, Proceedings of the Ill Symposium Platonicum,ed. C.J.Rowe, Sankt Augustin:Academia Verlag 1995. p. 421. DM 98. ISBN 3-88345-634-9[hereafterRS]; Plato's Statesman:Selected Papers from the ThirdSymposiumPlato-nicum, eds. Peter Nicholson and C.J. Rowe, Polis Volume 12, 1993. p. 220. ISSN0412-257X [hereafterPSSP]; Plato: Statesman,with translationand commentarybyC.J. Rowe, Aris and Phillips, Warminster, 1995. pp. vi + 248. ?35/$49.95 hb;?14.95/$24.95 pb. ISBN 0-85668-612-3 hb; 0-85668-613-1 pb. [hereafter Rowe]. I

have eschewed a detailed summaryof each of the papersin the collections, not leastbecause the editors provide helpful introductions.I InRS Nicoll comments on the manuscript radition,and the OCTeditor, Robinson,? KoninklijkeBrill, Leiden, 1997 Phronesis XL/III


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READING PLATO'S POLJTICUS 95

The rich disputeswhich arise in these three volumes are - inevitably- ofa rathermixedcharacter.Rowe's commentary s, as we shouldexpect, complexand extremely scrupulous;t is also, in severalrespects, thoroughlyprovocative(notably n his heterodoxreadingof the mythand in his challengeto a straight-forwardreadingof the politicaltheory of the dialogue). The paperscollectedinthe two volumes are, in some cases, new readingsof individualpassages,andinother cases synopticviews of the dialogueas a whole (PSSP claims to be pri-marilyinterestedn politicalmatters;although hat brief is read with a generouseye). That,of course,is whatwe might expect to issue from a huge InternationalCongress;and many of the individualpapersare both valuable and exciting,notablywhere theyinviteus to reconsider ur dusty old views about he Politicus.Huge International ongressesproducea multiplicityof opinionsandinterpreta-tions;they are not always,however, easy to digest- and the wealth of detailtobe foundin these volumes is not always suchas to produce he synopticview ofthe dialoguewe need for thorough eappraisal.n considering ome of the moreimportantontributions f these volumesto ourunderstandingf the Politicus,Ishallask two questionsof a synopticsort: what is the Politicusabout?And howdoes the dialogue hangtogether?5You mightthinkthatthe answer o the firstquestion s obvious- this dialogue,the second in the trilogywhich beganwith the Sophist and should end with thePhilosopher an unwritten ialogue),6 s aboutthe statesman is the answer o thediscusses the changes made to the Burnet edition, in particulartwo changes whichaffect the myth (at 269e4 and 271d4); see furtherbelow.I There is a furtherquestion of just how this dialogue is to be aligned with the otherdialogues of the late period;and how it fits with the Republic and the Laws. AgainstOwen's radical view of the Politicus (e.g. in 'The Place of the Timaeus in Plato'sDialogues," in Logic, Science and Dialectic, 65-84) see here Kahn's largely unitarianaccountof the place of the Plt. in the Platonic corpusas a whole, RS, and Gill's mod-erate view of Plato's development, RS (discussed furtherbelow). On the place of thedialogue in the rest of the corpus, Palumboconsiders the relation between the Sophistand Plt., RS, while several other contributorsdiscuss the relation between this andotherpolitical dialogues. In PSSP thereare several papers on the relation between thisdialogue and the dialogues about Socrates' execution: these paperstoo tend to be uni-tarian(or else to ignore the possibility that in composing late dialogues about SocratesPlato is engaging on something more complex and reflective than merely giving usanotherchapterin the Socrates story).

6 The importanceor otherwise of the Philosopher, and the significance of the framenarrative o our understanding f the Plt. as a whole is little consideredby the contrib-utors to these volumes; even by Rowe. E.g. Arends, PSSP, takes it as simply obviousthat the philosopheris not discussed here. An exception is Ferber,RS, who considersthe question of the Philosopher in the light of the unwritten doctrines and the viewsof the Tubingen School; hence the cryptic referenceto "the precise truth tself" 284d2.I shall argue thatPlt. is not so much a coded allusion to doctrines but ratheran invi-tation to speculate on the activity of philosophising itself.


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96 MARYMARGARET cCABEsame question or the Sophistso obvious?).7The structure f the dialogue,then,is dictatedby its subjectmatter it advances owards he final definitionat 31 bwhich amplifies the conclusion of 305e: ". . . the one that controls all of these [sc.subsidiarykinds of expertise],and the laws, and cares for every aspect of thingson the city, and weaves everything ogethern the most correctway - this. . . wewould. . . appropriatelyall statesmanship."8t does so, however, n a convolutedway, to say the least. It openswith a framediscussionof the interlocutorsnd ofthe topic of the dialogue (257a-258b)andthe closing remarkmay return o thatframe. Therefollows a laboriousdivision of the statesman 258b-268b),inter-spersedwith a commentary n their methodand its mistakes 260b; 261e-264b;265a-b; 266b-e; 267a; 267c-d;268d-e).9Then the EleaticStranger ffersan elab-orate cosmologicalmyth (268d-274e),againwith a commentary n just how themythrelates o the purposen hand(268d-e;269c; 272d;273e; 274b; 274e).10TheES now insists that this makesclearjustwherethe firstdivisionwent wrong; hisdevelopsinto a complex accountof how we come to know (274e-278e)." Theseconddivisionensues (279a-283b), n which theES promises o revealthestates-man by offering a model: weaving.'2 This culminates in a puzzle about methodonceagain 283b),and henadiscussion f thenature f "duemeasure"so WpIov)13

I Dixsaut, RS, points out that even this account of the ostensible purposeof thePlt. may need modificationif the final speech of the dialogue is spoken by YoungSocrates and not - as Robinson/Rowe tentativelyhave it, by Old Socrates.If the lastspeech is by OS, the dialogue is closed, by a remarksurprisinglybereft of Socraticirony. Dixsaut prefers YS, on the groundsthat this makes the apparentnaivete of thefinal remark obvious. For reasons that will appear below, I think the subtle Dixsautversion is preferable,not least because it maintainsthe rather ndeterminate tatusofthe final definition.8 305e2-6. I use Rowe's translations hroughout.9 Here see especially Chiesa, Cavini and de Pinotti in RS; also Fattal in PSSP.10 Here see especially Brisson, Dillon and Ferrari n RS, with detailedcommentsin

Rowe; also Carone,Naddaf and Steiner in PSSP." This passage itself reflects on the first division, indirectly.The first division isconducted in a ratherhigh-handed way by the ES with YS cantering along behind.The presentsection discusses coming to know: and invites us to reflecton two things:how did the ES know what divisions to make in the first place? And has his makingthem resulted in YS knowing anythingat all? The characterisation f the interlocutorsis vital to the irony of this point - or else it is reflects the failure of the dialogue asa whole. On this section see Kato, RS.12 In the sequel, of course, the model turns into an element of the definitionof thestatesman;some partof the work done here in the text is on the differencebetweenthe use of an analogy and the use of an image. xapa6eibyga, xtensively discussed at

277dff., is here turned nto a termof art. Is a napLpa6&cyTtranscendent orm?Surelynot: Kato RS is sensible on this, as is Rowe, Introduction.On this passage, of course,see Owen, "Plato on the Undepictable,"Logic Science and Dialectic 138-147.13 Lafrance'sessay on this passage, RS, rightly,I think, argues againstthe view thathere the ES outlines two sorts of measuringskill, roughly approximate o the two sorts


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READING LATO'S OLJTICUS 97(283c-287a) - here at the centre of the dialogue, the ES once again turns his atten-tion to method: the object of the exercise (285d, 287a) is to make the participantsbetter dialecticians. With this in mind he embarks on the third division,'4 whichallows the statesman to be separated off from the pretenders (287b-291c).5 Thenthere is a long discussion of forms of government (29ld-303d).'6 Finally the dia-logue closes with an account of the nature of the statesman's expertise (as theoverarching science) and his ability to weave together the disparate virtues in thestate (303d-31 1c).'7

One account of this sequence, then, is that it is designed simply to secure thefinal definition; the remarks about method which pervade the dialogue are themeans to that end and nothing else. Now, however, the longueurs of some ofthe divisions become almost intolerable; no explanation is given of how the pointof all this is that the ES and the YS may become better dialecticians (285d; 287a);and the relation between this dialogue and the Republic becomes acutely prob-lematic. In the Republic, after all, the king is the philosopher. In this dialogue,apparently, the philosopher is to be the subject of a separate study.But is that appearance a reality? Did Plato intend to write the Philosopher, butnever get round to it (maybe he was busy with the Laws)? Or does the Politicusgive us a view of the philosopher which supplants its separate discussion? Afterall, the interlocutors spend a great deal of their time both discussing philosophicalof mathematics described at Philebus 56-7. The contrast he offers, however, betweenmeasuringquantityand measuringquality tends to obscurethe teleological componentof this passage, central as it is to the dialogue as a whole; and thus to miss is con-nection with the closing pages of the Philebus (esp. 64dff.). Ferbersuggests that if togxptov describes a judgementwe make about concrete particulars, hen it is not thesame in each case, and cannot be exact. This implies, he suggests, that there is a formof the exact. I do not find this implication in the text (indeed, if this is an unwrittendoctrine,then I wouldn't, would I?); instead,I suggest that the account of good judge-ment, of which the discussion of ro glrptov is a part, is central to the new episte-mology of this dialogue.

14 Rowe objects to me in correspondencethat this analysis of three separate divi-sions is disputable (on his view, we have the same division throughout,with eachstage modifying, but not rejecting, its predecessor). On his account the statesman isstill a herder at the end of the dialogue, albeit "of a special kind"; on my account thediscussions of self-determinationand political structuresuggest that the statesman ofourera is not a herdsman or a fatherfigure),but rathercloser to an equal, notably whenit comes to dialectical discussion. His knowledge may be super-ordinate; ut he him-self is not an autocrat,nor is his authoritydefinedin terms of those whom he controls.' Cf. here Brickhouse and Smith in PSSP.16 See here Lane, Gill in RS, discussed below.17 Dixsaut (RS) arguesthat here the function of the statesman is to be distinguishedfrom the functionof the educator. Her paper is otherwiseexcellent; but this aspect ofher conclusions does not convince me; nor does it allow her to drive a wedge suc-cessfully between the Politicus and the Republic. See also Bobonich's detailed analy-sis of the last section of the dialogue, RS.


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methodand doing it. The final definitionof the statesman,moreover,both repu-diates standardpoliticalnotions(e.g. 292c-d suggests that the definitionof theking does not dependon questionsof the size of the citizenry,nor on their con-sent;nor on thedistributionf wealth amongthem,but only on knowledge)"8ndfits well theRepublic'saccountof the sole importance f knowledge or explain-ing bothvirtueand the rightto politicaloffice.If the statesmans the personwhoknows,he will be the philosopheron thisaccount, he Politicusfits theRepublic,butis at odds with thelegislativeprogramme f theLaws).But if thePhilosopherwas never to have been written,since this dialoguehas alreadysaid it all, thenthe Politicusmakes its point as it proceeds,and notjust as the resultof the finalsuccessful division.'9The discussionsof method, then,would be neither nstru-mental nor tangential o the taskin hand;on the contrary, hey are a partof theaccountof thephilosopherwhich is givenindirectlyherein.But in that case a dif-ferentquestionarises: f thePoliticusmerelyresketches he philosopher-king,hyshould Plato bother o write it? If the Politicuscomes too close to the Republic,it looks redundant andeven dullerthanRyle thought what pricethe EleaticStranger nd YoungSocrateswhen we couldhave Socrateshimself?).I shall suggesttwo areasin which thePoliticus transforms ur (Republic tyle)understandingf what it is to be a philosopher:n its teleology;and in its episte-mology. As a consequence, shallargue,the philosophers noweminently uitedto beinga king; althoughkings may no longer aspireto being philosophers.The teleologyof thePoliticusseemsto beginwith themyth.A0hemythappearshere early in the dialogue (as in the Phaedrus,not as in the Gorgias or thePhaedoorthe Republic);t is long(maybeoverlong,as theES pointsout at277a),complex and allusive (at least to the Timaeus2' nd to the work of some pre-Socratics).Y1 hatexactlydoes it show,for the purposesof the discussionof thestatesman?Or - if its connectionwith the discussionof the statesman hows usonly a small partof the pointof the myth- whatotherpurposeof the dialoguedoes it fill?18 But see below; and Clark, RS, Toney PSSP.19 This would make sense of the last speech being delivered by YS, who - exhypothesi - would not (yet) have seen this indirectpurposeof the dialogue.20 Thediscussionof themyth provokessome importantwork in thesevolumes,notablyBrisson's fresh account of his re-readingof the myth, RS, and Rowe's similar inter-pretationof the cosmic cycle; Dillon's paper,RS, on neo-Platonic readings of myth,which asks just how myths should be interpreted;and Ferrari's suggestion, subtlyarguedin RS, on the traditionalaccount of the cosmology of the myth to explain theway that man is a technological animal.21 Forwardor backward?The orthodoxyhere is that the Timaeusis later thanPlt.;

cf. e.g. Kahn, RS. Rowe has a more robust attitude o chronology;and I remainstoutlyunconvincedthat these mattersare areas where we can know more than Plato intendedus to see. It is, of course, dangerousto suppose that,where we find the argumentsorthe theories of the Plt. unclear,the Timaeus is transparent.22 At least to Heraclitusand Empedocles, cf. below.


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READINGLATO'SOLUTJCUS 99At 268c the ES is dissatisfiedwith the division whichsuggests that the king isthe"sole herdsman nd rearerof thehumanherd"becausetheyhave troublewiththe specification"sole":afterall, there are manypretenderso this title, andit isnot obvious thatonly the kinghas a rightfulclaim. The mythis, in the firstplace,designedto showjust how we shouldseparateoff the king from the pretenders.This task is later completedin two phases - at 287b-291c, where the king isdefinednegatively,as doing what the pretendersail to do (he is avteicvra=ct-

Ico; - as I shallargue,"self-determining"); andthen at 292b-294c,wherethe ESfirstexplainsthat the trueking is so by virtue of knowledge;and then marksofftheequitable ule by such a king fromruleby the laws. Themyth s also, it seems,to show how thekingis not a shepherd fter all (275a).23But then it is not imme-diately clear why a detailedcosmology would be needed to explain either theautonomyand the knowledgeof the king, or his difference rom shepherds theRepublicmanageswithout). So maybe the mythhas some further, eparatepur-pose - for example,a discussionof divine teleology,or a seriousexplanationofthe structure f the cosmos.The stranger ecallsthreemythicalphenomena: he reversalof the sunandthestars at the time of the quarrelbetween Atreus and Thyestes;the golden ageruled by Kronos;and the race of those who were once born fromthe earthandnotby reproductionrom eachother.Theyare all, he says, explainedby the samecondition:24Thisuniverse hegodhimself ometimes ccompanies,uiding t on itswayandhelping t move in a circle,whileat other imes he lets it go, when its circuitshave completed he measureof time allottedto it, and of its own accord trevolvesbackwardsn the oppositedirection, einga livingcreature ndhavinghadintelligence ssigned o it by the one who fitted t togethern thebeginning.(269c4-d3)This reversalof the cosmos is the centralexplanationof the mechanismsof themyth, and it is argued, n the firstplace, on metaphysicalprinciple.21omethingwith body cannot remain"permanentlyn the same state andcondition,"norbe"permanentlyhe same";26he universe has body, so it cannot be fixed. On theotherhand, since it is the creation of god, it should be as close to uniformityas possible;this is why "it has reverserotationas its lot, which is the smallest

23 But see Rowe's objection to me, above, n. 14.24 nOoq - Rowe has "state of affairs";the sequel allows this to be, not so muchthat the same singularevent caused all three phenomena at once, but ratherthat eachof them when it occurred, is to be explained by a single (type of) cause.25 269d-e is remarkably ike some of the arguments of Metaphysics A.6; comparethe argumentat Phaedrus 245c-e for a similar style.26 Herethe ES uses languagefamiliar fromthe theoryof forms;I shall discuss belowwhether we should just map this material onto middle period metaphysics. See hereBravo's sensible account of how the ontology of the Pit. is related to the discussionsof limit and unlimited in the Philebus, and how both relate to collection and division.


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possiblevariationof its movement," 69e3-4). Any variationn its circularmove-ment shouldbe explained, he ES suggests,as simplyas possible:hence thealter-nationbetween being moved by god and movingunder ts own power(simpler,the ES says, than postulating wo gods to move it in differentdirections: hismethodologyof simplicity s vital to our understandingf what follows).The reverserotationexplainsa seriesof disparatephenomena: eriodsor mo-mentsof destructivechaos (270c-d);the reversalof humangrowth,so that theold becomeyoung andeventuallydisappear270d-e);27nd the fact that peoplewereonce bornfromthe earth,where now theyreproduce exually (271a-c).3 Italso - somehow- explainsthe contrastbetweentwo eras. In the golden age ofCronos,god ruledthe universeand minor divinities ts parts; hentherewas nopainor toil, no savageryor violence.Manand animallived peacefully ogether,pasturedby the gods on food that sprangspontaneouslyrom the earth(271d-272b); in this era, the gods were shepherdsof men. The era in which we nowlive, however,is (said to be) the age of Zeus (andit is to describethis thatthemythis being told, 272d5ff.).Forgod "let go of the steeringoars andretired othe observationpost";29his causeda tremor,and chaos; and then the universe"set itself in order, into the accustomedcourse that belongs to it, itself takingchargeof and masteringboth the thingswithin it and itself, because it remem-bered so far as it could the teachingof its craftsman nd father" 273a-b).In thisera, the universestartsout quitewell, for it has good thingsfrom its creator;butfromitself it gets what is bad and unjust;and as the universeforgetsmoreandmore the lesson it learnedfrom god, so the bad increasesuntil disaster ooms.27 271a: there is an account here of how those who died in the chaos then also agein reverse, very quickly dissolving into nothing.This tale may be pessimistic or opti-mistic, depending on your view: pessimistic if the thought is that disappearing ntonothing is insult upon the injuryof dying by violence, optimistic if in this disappear-ance all the evidence of violence disappears.The overall question to be asked, as I

shall insist, is whetherthis kind of growing backwardsand disappearing s held to bea particularlyunpleasantsort of death (as Brisson and Rowe assume) or a denial ofdeath altogether.28 At 271c2 there is a suggestion that some are exempt from this rebirthwhen godtakes them off "to anotherdestiny." Does this refer to the escape of the philosopherfrom the cycle of reincarnation? f it does, should it not be what happensin this era?Both Brisson and Rowe make somethingof this: but thereis no clear implicationherethat being taken off to some other destiny is a reward.29 It may make a differencewhat exactly is involved in retiringto the observationpost. One thoughtmightbe thatthis is a point of vantage outside the ship;but Brisson,RS 357 n. 29 suggests that it is a lookout on the ship: on his account even when the

universe is left to itself god has not abandoned the universe. Even so there is asignificantcontrasthere between the controlof god when he is at the oars andhis rel-ative helplessness when he is at the observationpost; I shall suggest further hat thistheme of control and independence s exactly the theme, not only of the myth, but ofthe dialogue as a whole.


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READING LATO'SPOLiTICUS 101

Thus over time its control deteriorates, until eventually god, anxious lest his crea-tion should break into pieces,30 takes up his position again at the steering oars(273e), and the whole cycle restarts.3' Once the cosmos has reversed into its pre-sent course, then other things change too. Ageing runs from young to old, growthfrom small to large, birth leads to death (273e). And now it is no longer pos-sible for creatures to grow from the earth "under the agency of others' puttingit together" (274a3); instead human reproduction imitates the self-movement ofthe cosmos.32 The crucial point is this (274b). Human beings, in this era, are lessfortunate than their predecessors because they lack both the care of the god andthe nurture he gave us. The beasts are now wild and competitive, and humansdefenceless,33so that they were at first in great trouble. At this point they receivedgifts from the gods - fire, technology and resources for agriculture, and the abil-ity to teach and learn: these provided the foundations of human society, whereinhumans take care for themselves in exactly the same way as the cosmos does.And to see that was the point of the myth; as well as to show how they wentwrong in supposing the king to be the shepherd of people (274dff.).34

3 Here the description of the difficulties in which the universefinds itself has someaffinitywith the dangers of philosophy: it is in aporia and at risk of falling into the"infinite/indefinite ea of unlikeness."31 At 273e3 there is an echo of the metaphysicalargumentof 269dff.; by virtue ofthe cycle's recurrence, he universe is eternal; here, however, immortality s conferredon it by god - being immortal, ratherthan recurrent, s a divine prerogative,and canonly come from god. The dangersof inconsistencyhere are not, I think, to be pressedtoo hard; but they do tell in favour of an interpretationof the myth which treats itschronological features as allegorical, cf. Dillon RS, Carone,PSSP.32 The expression here is a1Yxoiparopa Elvac. I shall later argue that this is directlyrelated to the later thought that the statesman has, where others lack, self-determina-tion or autonomy.Indeed the Greekexpression av&o1cpa&opxpresses better the notionof independencewhich I take to be at issue, than does the expressiona tcvo'Vog,whichhas ratherthe sense of self-legislating. CompareThuc. 4.63, 6.72, Laws 875b and Pit.

299c for ai6rocpa&tpand Thuc. 2.63, 5.33 for av6ovogto;;LSJ gives the meaning"ofone's own free will" foraurovopo; atAntigone 821; this, I think,is not quite the point.In the Politicus, moreover, autonomy is defined not in terms of free will, but ratherin terms of independence from the mechanisms of causation. Finally, the notion ofbeing self-legislating is not really applicable to the statesmanof this dialogue, who isabove fixed laws. But there is no English equivalent of avroicpa6cp (autocracy issomething quite different)so I prefer"self-determination."33 Several commentatorspoint out the similaritybetween this account and the GreatMyth of the Protagoras; see esp. Narcy in RS. The purposeof such a deliberate echois less easy to discern. Perhaps the least we are meant to notice is the differencebetween the gifts of the gods: for Plato (cf. also Philebus 16c) the gods give us gifts

which are practical or intellectual; for Protagorasthey give us social virtues. In thesequel, I suggest below, Plato supposes that the practice of intellectual virtue has anecessary social component.34 This account of the origins of human intelligence, if the myth is taken literally,


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102 MARYMARGARET CCABEThe traditional iew of this myth is that there is a two phase cycle, where thecosmos rotatesnow one way and now in reverse.In the first phase,the reign ofCronos,thingscome from the earth and grow younger; n the reignof Zeus theydo the opposite,comingfrom the intercourse f two parents,and dyingback intothe ground.Brisson,and after him Rowe, have objected to this accountof thecosmic cycle, mostly on the grounds hat this means that the presentcosmos, sofar fromimitating he benevolentrule of god, activelyopposes it; Brisson addsthat this makes a nonsense of the claim that the presentera is also divinelyordered."Moreover, s Rowe pointsout, it generatesa hopelesslypessimisticpic-ture of the worldnow, when thingsjust wind down from bad to worse,and theonly hopeof salvation s Doomsday; here s not account hen to be given of howthe world behavesin a way that fits its being a rationalcreature.What is more,the traditional iew does not explainthe chaos which apparently eginsthe sec-ond era;36or in that era the deteriorationeems to be gradual roma fairly goodbeginning;how is that consistentwith its initiationby destructive haos?37So on the Brissonview, there are threeperiods,the age of Cronos,the uni-verse left to itself and the age of Zeus. In the age of Cronos he universe s ruledby god and its partsby the minordivinities(so thatin that era the divinitiesareshepherdsof men); in the time when the universe is left to itself all divineinfluencehas retreated;hen in the age of Zeus godreturns o thehelm, although

implies hatthereare humans in the age of Cronos who maynot be intelligent(so much or a theoryof recollection;ee here Kato andPrice n RS). Sucha con-clusionmaytell againsta literalreading f the myth;or for the view that hehappi-ness of exercising ne's intellect s notmerely o beexplainedn termsof beinggod'sproduct. Cf. Naddaf PSSP.35 It is, as the ES saysat 272b2, the era"which hey say is in the time of Zeus";and it is an era in which thereare divine gifts (274c5,"thegifts fromthegods,ofwhichwe haveancient eports";f. Philebus 16c5on collection nddivisionas a gifts

fromthegods).However,neither f these claims s unequivocal they may merelyreport hatpeoplesay thisis the age of Zeus, etc., rather hancommittinghe ES tothis being (literally) true;cf. Erler RS 377, FerrariRS 394, n. 17.36 The traditionalistmight say that it does: the chaos is explained by the fact of thereversal,270cd.37 Both Brisson and Rowe offer problemswith the detail of the myth on the tradi-tional view, none of which seem to me decisive against a plain readingof the myth,accordingto the myth's own canons of simplicity;e.g., Brisson arguesthat the marchof the ages and sexual reproductionmust be separated - for reasons that remainunclear to me, except that both Brisson and Rowe seem to think there are two differ-ent ways of being earth-born a good one, being sown in the earth,and a bad one, as

result of what Rowe calls the "traumaof reversal," n the former of which there is nosexual reproduction,but ageing goes in the same direction as in ourera);Rowe claimsthat "moving in the opposite direction"refers to two different directionsat 269c and270b (that "in the opposite direction" should be treatedas a relative expression in adialogue which is good at relative terms, cf. 283, is hardly surprising,maybe).


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READING LATO'SPOLUTICUS 103

the minordivinitiesare no longerclosely involved in the life of man.38Roweagreeswith Brisson'sgeneralprinciple hat thecosmos now shouldbe movinginthe same directionas the cosmos underCronos;so he supposesthatthe periodsof movement in the reverse direction are brief catastropheswhich occur (as aresultof inertialmotion of the mechanismof the universe) ust when god lets goof the universe.Thus in anentirecycle, againthereare threephases: he universemoves first undergod's guidance,thenin the reverse directionas a result of itscorporealnature, hen backagain in the same directionas the firstera, althoughthis time as a result of the intelligentactivityof the world. Here the movementis at first ordered,but laterdeteriorating;ventuallygod takesover again.Now these constructions f the motion of the cosmos need not supposethatthe cosmic myth is takenliterally,as a sequencethat actuallyoccurs in time.39However both Brisson and Rowe seem to supposethat they are literal in someway - these are descriptionsof the cosmos now, which allow us to understandour own universe n teleologicalterms. This modified iteralism,of course,maynot be the rightway to read Platonicmyths:they may offer more or less alle-goricalaccountsof man'scondition;'although heydo requireus to supposethatPlatosomehow or othermeanshis myths to represent he truth.Nonetheless, heBrisson/Roweaccount does place some limitationon the (often uncontrollable)business of interpreting llegory;and it does have some sort of continuitywith

the cosmologies we findelsewhere- notably n the Timaeus.But it turnsa sim-ple story (the traditional one motionforwards,one back) into a complexone(two motionsforward,at least one back);so according o the canons invitedbythe metaphysicalargumentwhich begins the myth,this complexityhadbetterbejustified. What is more, this account of the myth needs to make sense of itsexplicitpurpose,namelyto modify the definitionof the statesmanas a shepherdof men andby markinghim off from the pretenders.38 How, now, does Brisson explains thegifts from hegodsin thisera,whichwereone of the problemshe found with the traditionalview? Brisson argues for this detailby meansof Dies' reading f 271d,& vbv,cat icaxa t6'xouqTaucovroii,o which,heargues,proposes nera wheregodis at thehelm but the minordivinitiesareabsent:andtheonly era thatcouldbe is the era of Zeus.Robinson,RS, p.45, retains he read-ing of Campbell 8' ' ca raX T6o'ou; rav6ov ToVXroon the grounds that this fits thetraditionaliew;he is followedby Rowe,who does not use Brisson'sdetail(that ntheera of Zeusgod is at the helm,but thedivinitiesareabsent),but supposes hatthis alludesto the previous ra. None of thesereadings eemsentirely atisfactory;andeach demands more undamentalnderstandingf theteleology.39 I haveprofited ere fromChristopherowe'sobjectionso my firstview of hisview.40 See here Dillon's illuminating ccountof neo-Platonistnterpretationsf themyth,RS, or other,moregenerallyallegorical,views, e.g. CaronePSSP. Naddaf,PSSP, offersthe followingcarelessargument:ince Plato did not meanthe myth tobe taken literally, it follows that he never believed that there was a golden age, or aperiodic eversal, r earth-born en.


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104 MARYMARGARETCCABEBoth Rowe andBrissonrelyon the thought hatthe presentuniversecannotbeworking n the oppositedirection rom the universeorderedby god, becausethatwouldmake a nonsenseof any teleologicalclaimsthat may be made for this eranow. Teleology only lapses,on their view, in the interimperiodsof chaos, nei-ther in the age of Cronos nor now. This, of course, is to make two separateassumptions:irst,thatteleology (for Plato, or at all) can only be understood ntermsof divineordering; nd second thatPlatosupposes hatthepresentuniverse,as a whole, is explicableas a reflectionof a time of perfectanddivineorder.4'The secondassumptionmight be thoughtwarranted by a (traditionalist)ead-ing of the Timaeus.42ut is the first?In the Phaedo,of course,Socratesrejectshis predecessors'accountsof "whyeach thingbecomesandwhy it perishesand why it is" (96a), on thegrounds hatwhile they tell of the stuffs andthe causesof becomingand perishingandbeing,theyfail to explainhow everything"is as it is best for it to be placed" 99b),norhow "thegood and the necessarytie everything ogether"99c). Socrates s notarguinghere that his predecessors'mechanistic ndmaterialist ccountsarefalse;butjust thattheyareinadequate.The samestoryseems to be told in the Politicusmyth,which is markedlyreminiscentof both the words and the theoriesof thePresocratics.43ut after a mechanisticdescriptionof the cosmos," YS asks just

how the accountof the cosmiccycles fits withthe world he is in now (271c).TheES proceeds o describe hereignof Cronos n termsof thecare thatgod and the1' Carone,PSSP, argues that chaos, even intermittent haos, could never prevail ina Platonicuniverse;consequently,she suggests, the mythcannot be understooditerally.42 Here chronologymay matter: he consensus of these volumes is that the Timaeusis late, and a seriously meant, Platonic account of cosmology. Owen's early dating ofthe Timaeus is now given little credence (although this seems too easy: one thoughtmight be that the Timaeus may be later than Owen thought, but even so not so lateas to post-datethis dialogue - how we place the Timaeus shoulddependon what wethink the Timaeus is doing); but there needs to be deeper considerationof just how

the argumentsof the Timaeus might fit the purposesof the critical period (it is notobvious that those purposes must be served by a straightforward,Platonic, cosmol-ogy). In any case, the interpretationsof the Politicus and of the Timaeus may bethoughtto supporteach other;in that case, there needs to be an independentaccountof what is happeningin this dialogue first.43 Compare e.g. Heraclitus Fr. 31 and 270blO; or the strange claims about godrestoringimmortalityto the cosmos at 273e3 with the view of HeraclitusFrs. 30, 36that fire is etemal, everliving and everdying;or the theme of measure in Heraclitus30echoed both at 269c6 and then again at 283cff.; likewise Anaximanderon the "ordi-nance of time,"Fr. 1, echoed at 273e3; or EmpedoclesFr. 17 with the account of thedouble cycle, throughoutthe myth; or Empedocles 62 on the earth born creatures.

Empedocles- as is widely acknowledged- is the main antecedentof the cosmology;what is less widely acknowledged is how the myth thus constitutes an attack on itsantecedents.4 Even the initial mention of the age of Cronos is silent on its being a golden age,269a7.


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READING LATO'S OLITICUS 105divinities have for their charges. In this period, the good care of the gods ismatched by the automatic appearance of the good things of the earth;45given theabundance and the pleasantness46of the things produced by the earth, the gods'task is to order everything well.

That was the state of affairs under Cronos, and we know what things are likenow. So, the ES (suddenly) asks, which life47is the happier? When YS is unableto answer, the ES's answer is famously surprising and opaque.48

... if, with so much leisure available to them, and so much possibility of theirbeing able to get together in conversationnot only with human beings but alsowith animals - if the nurslings of Cronos used all these advantages to do phi-losophy . . . the judgement is easy, that those who lived then were far more for-tunate than those who live now; but if they spent their time gorging themselveswith food and drink and exchanging stories with each other and with the ani-mals of the sort that even now are told aboutthem, this too, if I may reveal howit seems to me, at least, is a matterthat is easily judged. (272b-c)

The ES may mean that the men of the golden age would have been blissful doingphilosophy; even without it they are pretty fortunate compared to us. Or he maybe suggesting that nothing about the easy life of the golden age can make up fornot doing any philosophy.49The rhetoric of the passage tells in favour of the claimthat whoever does philosophy is better off than whoever does not.-I But then how

aScx&o6aro;at 271dl, 27M1e,272a5, 274c2 is paralleled by a,&r&apc; sed of thedivinities at 271d7. There is, I think, only one passage which suggests directly thatthe produceof the earth is itself a productof god's benevolence, namely 273b7; other-wise, there is a fairly generalcontrastbetween the raw materials of life, and the orderimposed on it by everyone else.46 There is, of course, already some sort of teleological claim in the description ofthe raw material in the age of Cronos, and its difference from the difficult physicalcircumstancesof the age of Zeus. However there is not, apartfrom the general claimmade in the passage in my previous note, any explicit claim thatthe material s alreadydivinely ordered,before the gods do their pasturingof humanbeings.47 It is, I take it, vital to the development of the point of the myth that this ques-tion about the happy life is asked over and over again in Plato; and that it is posed,not as a question about a period of time, or an era, but as a question about the livedlives of individuals.I Cf. e.g. Erler, RS, Carone PSSP, Steiner, PSSP.49 Tad Brennan suggests a stoicising version to me: the good things of life, as theyare representedby the golden age, are indifferent o happiness.so This interpretation s, I think, reinforcedby the language of judgement: if we aresupposed to judge of two which is the happier;the choice is easy, the ES suggests,both in the case of the golden age philosophersand in the case of the golden age glut-tons. If the second case is still fortunate,even thoughnot as fortunateas the first, theease of the judgement would, surely, need qualification.It is, I take it, significant thatin this dialogue - as in the Philebus - the theme of making a judgement about livesis matchedby discussion of the importanceof judgement in a life.


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106 MARYMARGARET cCABEexactly is that eitherrelevantto or explainedby the mythof the cosmos? Andwhy is this questionaboutwhat life is best to live posedso abruptlyn the middleof a myth to modify the definitionof the statesman?5'If the myth of the cosmos gives us, as Brisson/Rowehave it, two phaseswhichrunin the same direction the age of Cronos,wherethe runningof the cosmosis smooth and pleasant;and the age of Zeus whereit is more fraughtand dan-gerous52 thenlife now is a poorimitationof life then. Then the choice of livesis obvious:pick Cronosany time,andwithany qualification.f, contrariwise,hechoice of lives tells us thatphilosophymakesall the difference o whichera weshouldprefer, hen theremaybe something o be said for the life underZeus afterall. But in thatcase, is the myth explainedby havingtheera of Zeus a poor imi-tation of the era of Cronos?Or by having the age of Zeus run in reverse to itsgolden predecessor?Brisson/Rowe, suggested, suppose that teleologyis either the same thing asdivine creation,or an imitationof it. In the Phaedo,two otherteleologicalclaimsappeared: ne an appealto intention "Why s Socratesstayingin prison?""Be-causehe decidedto.")andone an appealto order "Showme that theearth s inthe middlebecauseit is best so")." Eachof these is distinctfrom,if compatiblewith,5'a theistic teleology (consider, or example,that ordinaryhumanpracticalreasoning s teleologicaleven if thereis no god; or that natural cology may bein itself worthmaintaining, ven if the presentbalance tself evolved by virtueofantecedent auses, antecedent auseswhich maynotinclude he divine).The orderof the cosmosunderCronos s a good thingeitherbecausegod madeit thatway,or becauseit is well-ordered.But once god has let go of the cosmos,the orderstartsto disintegrate ndbe threatened.f the secondera is one of decaying ele-ology, what sort of life couldwe call happy?And undercircumstancesike that,whom shouldwe ask to ruleus? If, on the Brisson/Roweaccount, he secondera

s' We should bearin mind that the life worthliving is recalledat 300a in an aston-ishingly independentremarkby YS, that the life in a state with an embargoon inquirywould not be worth living.

52 Hardto see, of course, why that should be so on Brisson's account,when god isstill in charge even if the divinities are absent.53 Comparehere the discussions e.g. at Grg. 504ff. of the well-orderedsoul, whichis worth having just because it is well-ordered,not because god made it thatway.I4 Compatible,that is to say, undersome circumstances. f, however, a theistic tele-ology fully explains or determineseverythingthathappens,it may be hardto see howan independent account of practical reasoning could be maintained (the Stoics, ofcourse, had trouble with this one). And if one cites the value of a naturalbalance, theclaim that it is createdmay be inimical to the very notion of balance itself (not least,

for example, if the balance is one which changes in a stable way over time). I leaveout of considerationhere a functionalistteleology (such as I take Aristotle'sgenerallyto be) which looks to the proper functioningof each species independentlyof theirplace within the whole system. There are, of course passages where Aristotle seemsmore inclined to an ecological view; perhaps Phys. 11.8, and also Pol. 1256b15.


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READING LATO'S OLITICUS 107

imitates hedivine, why shouldtherebe any questionabout ndividual ives? Andwhy would there be any disputeabout the natureof the king in such an era -surelyhe should imitatehis divine predecessors, nd be a shepherdof men?Consider hreepointsof comparisonbetween the two eras:ageing,remember-ing and reproduction.n the age of Cronos,on the traditional iew, the processof ageing goes in reverse(270d-271c; 273e-274a);55o people emergefrom theearthold, and grow young.56 o death no longerholds sway:the fear of dying,when ageing is reversed, s done away with. The Phaedo, of course,frees us fromthe fear of dying by philosophy;herethe peopleof Cronoswill becomeyoungerandyounger,moreand more naiveand childlike.They may be going in the rightdirection or the facile assumptions f modemageism;but it is the wrongdirec-tion for the purposesof philosophising,whichneedstime andexperience.57On any view when the eras are reversed, here remain but dim memories ofwhathas gone before (271b; 273b);moreover, f life is lived backwards, hereisno place for memory.58 his mightbe a good thing if we are only interested nthe pleasuresof the moment;but we need memory,as well as the other processesof reason,for structuring life (cf. Philebus21c). Indeed he Theaetetus uggeststhatmemory s a condition or being who we are (e.g. 166aff.);on that accountthe creatures f thegolden age areephemera, ightly nterested nly in eatinganddrinking, ince no otheractivityis availableto them.

On any view, the mythcontrasts he way people are born: from the earth in

ss Cf. n. 36 above; both Rowe and Brisson suggest that there are two phases ofearth-bornpeople, one of which ages from young to old, the other in reverse. Rowetreats the emergence of grey-beardsas a sign of decaying teleology (as in Hesiod).But here the greyness disappears as the creatures grow younger. Likewise those whodie by violence in the age of Zeus come alive again and then vanish quickly - so thatthere is nothing that remains of the murder.That seems to me to be the opposite ofdecaying teleology."6 There is, I suspect, a telling parallel here with the odd argumentof the Par-menides that when we grow older we grow older than our younger selves. Rowe istroubledby this, noting an apparent ack of fit between the idea that souls are seedsat 272e3 and the birth of grey-beardsat 273el0. The interpretation f the grey-beardsas an Hesiodic nightmare, however, is itself to beg the question about the nature ofthe teleological claims offeredhere; and Plato is, of course, quite able to turn or evento reverse an old story to his own advantage.S7 Unlike myths, of course: compare the ES' exhortation to the extreme youth ofYS at 268e with his complaint in the Sophist (243aff.) that ancient myths treat theirhearers as children- that is, they patronise them.S8 Cf. Ferrarion this; compare 270e with the increasing forgetfulness of the uni-verse in our era, 273b. Tad Brennanobjects to me that the thought that memory isincompatiblewith ageing backwardsdoes not take account of how we remember sto-ries from the previousera (271a); but here it is people in our era who remember hen,not the people then who rememberus.


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108 MARY MARGARET MCCABE

one era and from sexual intercourse n the other.59 his reflectsthe ways of lifein the different ras. When man lives on what natureproducesautomatically, ehas no need for social intercourse ither,60ince he is safe from dangerand pro-tected by the benevolentdaimones.In the exigent circumstances f the age ofZeus, by contrast,humanbeings need each other, both to reproduce nd to stayalive. It is only in the age of Zeus thatotherpeople matterat all. Of course,Platooften uses sexual intercourseand reproduction s a metaphoror philosophicalactivity. Here, however,there is a direct and literalparallelbetweensexual andsocial intercourseand philosophicaldiscussion;for each activity requiresotherpeopleas partners6'this is denied for the age of Cronos at 27 e; and the giftsof the gods to the men of this era include teaching and education, 274c).62Philosophical iscussion,moreover, equires ach participanto be able to remem-ber what has been said and to preserveconsistencyand for each to be able tointeractwith the other.For the backwards reatures f thegoldenage, this wouldbe impossible.63 o can we judge which life would be happier?In the Theaetetus Socrates described the life of philosophy: "It is not possible,Theodorus,or badto perish; or there must always be somethingwhich is over

against good; nor is it possible for bad to take up residence among the gods;instead it necessarily frequents mortal nature and this place here. So we shouldtry to flee this place and go there as quickly as possible. And flight is likening togod as much as possible; and that likening is becoming just and holy with rea-son" (176a). Likening to god is not the same thing as becoming the product ofgod's good order. The two eras of the myth allow a contrast between the well-run cosmos and the disordered one; and they allow a comparison between theordering activity of god in the age of Cronos and the activity of the philosopher

s9 Cf. n. 37 above. Brisson and Rowe must argue that there is no direct parallelbetween the reverse process of ageing and the means of reproduction,because theyboth suppose that ageing backwards,which implies being born grey-haired, s decay-ing teleology. My suggestion is that this is only true when we think about worth interms of doing philosophy; in ordinaryterms there would be a great deal to be saidfor ageing backwards. Expertadico.

60 The "need for talk" in the golden age is left as an open question at 272d5; butthe starting point of the myth is that in the golden age men had no needs at all.61 The partnership f philosophical discussion is parodied,I suggest, in the discus-sion between the ES and YS; here the openingdiscussion of the dialogue makes somesuggestions about just what conditions are necessary for a good discussion: it ain'tenough to be called Socrates.62 Cf. above n. 33. This myth leaves out what Protagorassuggested were the giftsof the gods: ai&k and ticrq. suggest that this is because this myth argues that tak-

ing others as partners s a consequence of the circumstancesof the age of Zeus - thatis, they are explained by the myth, not by the deus ex machina device of gifts fromthe gods.63 It is hard to see, indeed, how they could lay claim to a life at all; they are likethe molluscs of the Philebus which feel pleasurebut never rememberor plan.


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READING LATO'S OLITICUS 109in the age of Zeus. It is not for the philosophero become a functioningpartofthe well-runcosmos, or to join the decay of the cosmos as it runsdown;but toimitate god. What sets god apart(as it sets Reasonapart n the Timaeus) s hiscontrolover the work of necessity.What sets the philosopher part,I suggest,ishis abilityto orderhis world independently f the chaos of its mechanismas itruns down. A largepartof the Politicus is designedto explainthis claim for thephilosophern our era:firstlyto explainhis self-determination;nd secondlytoexplainjust how his ordering eflects the activitiesof god.The ES suggeststhat therearetwo mistakes n the early stagesof the division:the mistake of supposingthat the statesman s a shepherd;and the mistake ofbeing unable to markhim off from the pretenderso his title. How is are thesemistakesrectifiedby the myth?If thestatesmans a shepherd, e is wronglyassimilated o god, and his chargesto a herd;' and if he is a shepherd,here s no clearaccountof just how he shouldrule over a whole state (cf. e.g. 275a3; the "whole humancommunity ogether,"276b). This mistake s, it appears,systematic and more thanthe errorof treat-ing a mortal as a god). One thought,which comes easily to the modem mind,mightbe thattheimportant ifference ies in theconsentof his subjects;65y virtueof the difficultiesof this era, the only way that the statesmancan go about hisbusinessis by ruling over free men, who agree to his rule. However,the matterof politicalconsent,orfreedom, s, it seems,notpartof the definition f the states-man(cf. e.g. 293aff.);' so why shouldit matter hat the statesman's ubjectsarenot a herd?This may be an issue, not so much of politicalliberty, but of theintegrityand separateness f the otherpartners n the state,which makes themsuitableinterlocutors,ither for making political or philosophicalarrangements.Sheep and cattlejust feed and enjoy themselves- like the backwards reaturesof Cronos, they never end up "inquiring rom all kinds of creatureswhetherany one of them had some capacity of its own that enabledit to see betterinsome way than the rest with respectto the gatheringof wisdom"(272c).67 t is

' Again, this may reflect on whether the two eras are similar, or contrary; or mymoney here the mistake is explained by their contrariety;cf. 274e11.65 Clark,RS.66 The title of Clark's suggestive paper, RS, suggests that he has misread this pas-sage ("Herdsof free bipeds");but the content of the paper shows that he takes Plato'spoint. Toney, PSSP, reads 293a, via Skemp's translation,as saying that it is indiffer-ent to the statesman whether the citizens consent to his rule. Rowe's translation,onthe other hand, suggests that it is indifferentto the question of defining the states-man whether we consider the consent of the citizens; the preceding speech of the ES,293a2-4, suggests that his topic is the search for the statesman,not the statesman'sview of his citizens. Rowe seems to be right; the whole dialogue is concemed withwhat contrasts are significant for division; so here, the matter of consent (as in thecase of doctors) is tangentialto our understandingof their expertise.67 The theme of inquirywill recur;see below and compare the inquirywhich thepeople of Cronos should do, 272c3, with the inquirythat is actually being done in the


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110 MARYMARGARET CCABEthe abilityto cooperate sexually, socially and intellectually whichmarksoffthe humanbeingsof this era fromthe herdsof Cronos; t is this kind of paritybetweenthe membersof the state which is impliedby the need to form statesunder hedifficult ircumstancesf theageof Zeus."g s a consequencehestates-man and the subjectsof the era of Zeus are like each otherwheregod and thenurslingsof Cronos are unlike. For the statesmanand his subjectssharebothnatureandeducation 275c).69Despite the appearance f 276e, then,the questionof political ibertyandcon-sent is not, I suggest, a crucialone in the politicaltheoryof the Politicus.Butthereis a questionof freedom here- namelythe freedomof the men of Zeusfrom theirown circumstances.Will the workingof the universe ake themover,or aretheyto assertthemselvesagainst t? This is not so mucha problemof freewill as one for teleology:againstthe (sometimesdecaying)constraints f neces-sity,can manpursuehis own gooef In themarking ff of the pretenderso states-manshipfrom the true statesman he ES makesclear that it is the statesman'spursuitof his own purposeswhich is vital to our understandingf who shouldrule.First he returns o the stageof the divisionwhich suggested hatthe states-man is "self-directing." his led them to supposethat the statesman s a herd-rearer; ndthenlet openthe gates to the pretenders275d). So how is thewedgeto be drivenbetweenaireixtaxTrt and herd-rearing?The passagewherethe claims of the pretenderso be a statesmanarerepudi-ated startsunpromisinglynough,with a discussionof weaving (279a-283).Thisallows the ES to make two points,vitalto rejecting he pretenders:ne aboutcau-sation,the otheraboutexpertise. f we maydistinguishbetweenthe end to whichsome objectis the means("thesesocksare to keep me warm"),we mayalso dis-tinguishbetween the skills which provide he meansandthose whichcontrol heend. Likewise,we may distinguishbetweenskillswhich aredeployedto achievetheends of others(theskills,forexample,of the heraldor thediviner)",nd thosedialogue tself,275c6-7;comparehe ES' insistence n discussion atherhanpaint-ing witha broadbrush,277a-c.

61 At 271e8-272a3 he absenceof bothfamiliesandconstitutionsn the age ofCronos eems to have two explanations:hatpeoplewerebornfrom the earth,andthat heyrememberedothing f whatwent before.The firstmayexplain he absenceof families,but s irrelevanto the absenceof constitutions,o thesecondmustbe theaccount f whytherewereno constitutions. omparehedescriptionf thegiftsfromthegods in the age of Zeus- fire,technology ndagriculture;hegodsdo notgivethe social or politicalvirtuesas Protagorasmaginedt. The ES replacespoliticalvirtueswith "anindispensableequirementor teachingandeducation"274c6): hepolitical irtuesarereplaced y intellectualnes.Onceagain, hisreflects n thebusi-ness of philosophicaliscussion:Zeus' peoplehave the necessary apacities or it;Cronos'peopledo not.69Arendsmisleadingly,n my view, characterisesoliticalrelations n termsofpower, PSSP.

70 Cf. hereBrickhousend Smith n PSSPwho,reflectingn Vlastos,askjusthow


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READING LATO'S OLITICUS 111which determine their own ends - it is only the person who determines his ownends who may count - the argument suggests - as "self-directing." Such a per-son should also be distinguished from the chimerical figure of the sophist, whohas no self to direct (291c). But the self-determination of the statesman is thenexplained by virtue of three features of his expertise: firstly (294ff.) that his knowl-edge is reflected in judgements which are accurate for the moment and for theindividual case; secondly, that his knowledge is systematic - this is what enableshim to bring the community together (306aff.); thirdly that his knowledge, becauseit is complete, enables him to delegate: he is not himself engaged in politicalactivity, but instead on advising others what to do (310e).7'

What, then, is the political theory of the dialogue? How far is the Politicusabout politics at all? Suppose your doctor suddenly became malevolent, or yourpilot ill-willed; suppose that all the experts, in a sudden revolution, became evilself-seekers.72We might try to defend ourselves against them by establishing rulesthey must not break, or by setting ourselves up to determine what should be theright treatment, which the best voyage. We might (in this parody of the emer-gence from the state of nature) even establish democratic institutions; furthermore,we would - to protect ourselves further- decree that no-one is to do any researchor experiments, on pain of the extreme penalty. This would - as YS is startledinto pointing out - make life not worth living. Worse still, perhaps," would be

the divinercould have a skill at all, where in the Apology they are castigatedfor theirignorance.They conclude that Plt. allows that"divinationcan be the source of impor-tant moral truths." t is, I think, a mistake to try to map isolated argumentsof the Plt.directly on to the claims of earlier dialogues; Plato's interest in the issue of technaiis neithersingle nor simple - and at Plt. 279ff. he is worried about the autonomyofthe diviner, not his truths.71 Cf. the claim in advance at 292b, that this expertisewill be "concerned n a sensewith makingjudgementsand controlling,"which anticipatesthe first and the thirdfea-tures of statesmanship.The careful discussion of individualjudgement at 294ff. leads

in to the crisis of the constitutions, 300a.72 298ff. Both Lane, RS, and Gill, RS, discuss this thought-experiment.Lane sup-poses that it is designed to make us see just how dangerous is the inflexibilityof therule of law; and how it may lead to the kind of repressiondescribed at 300a. Gill, bycontrast, sees the experiment as "bizarre,"f it supposes that there should be commu-nities which forbid the practice of skills or science; but Athens in 399 may have beenone such.73 Our understandingof this passage, 299eff., depends on whetherwe suppose thatin the thought-experiment he rule of law is establishedon the basis of some exper-tise; or on the basis of no good evidence whatever. Gill, for example, seems to take300blff. to offer some mild recommendationof the constitutions,that they are basedon experience and tradition(cf. e.g. Skemp/Ostwald,"the fruit of long experience").Rowe insists that at 300blff., the notion of Eitpa s not approvingbut at best neutral,at worst pejorative from a Platonic perspective ("on the basis of much experiment").Rowe thus takes the second voyage pessimistically. Gill, by contrast, supposes that


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112 MARYMARGARET CCABEthe case wheresomeoneignoresboth the expertsandthe ruleof law; thenchaoswill follow.The issue hereseems to be, in part,the purposeof the thought-experiment.sit designedas a palliative,a (back-handed)ustification f law?In thatcase, per-haps,the emphasis ies in the way the experiment onstrues he expertsas beingcapableof malevolence,a return o the old questionof how far an expert n jus-tice mightbe the most competentat doing wrong; alternativelyandconsonantwith the earlierclaim that the questionof consentis immaterial o the centraldefinitionof the statesman) t is designedto showjust how damaginga generalmistrustof expertisemay be (hence the familiarrhetoricof dissatisfactionat298a2ff.).'4Or is it designed o pointto justhow radical he claimsforthe states-manare in this dialogue?Is the Politicusendorsingconstitutionalism,r reject-ing it?Gill arguesthat the answerto this questionis to be found in the dialecticalstrategyof thedialogue,291-303.75 he ES firstunderminesYS's unthinkingom-mitment o traditional iews ("constitutionsre, roughlyspeaking,a good thing,especiallywhen therearetyrantsabout")by suggesting hat if the statesman oeshaveobjectiveknowledge, henno constitution as a claimagainsthim.Afterthethoughtexperiment,however,the ES suggeststhat thereare indeed grounds orendorsingsome kind of constitutionalism.Where knowledge s absent,constitu-tions are all we have;they are"copies"of the ideal.76Lane77rgues hatthepolitical heoryof the Politicus s radicallydifferentromtheRepublic.First of all, the artof the statesmans defined n termsof his graspof the xatpo', the rightmoment(his artis, that is to say, irretrievablyarticularand immediate); or this reason he practises udgement;and the particularityfthere is somethingto be saved for the rule of law: it may be inflexible,but it is basedon some kind of principle:the second voyage is second-best.71 If we accept the teleology of the central passage of the dialogue, knowledgeknows the right measure,and so produces udgementswhich are directedat the best;it is, of course, always a question whether Plato really ever shows that this impliesthat the knower must have a good conscience.

7S Gill persuasivelyanalyses the entire section as a piece of dialectic;and he arguesthat the citizens of the fixed constitutionsallow there to be objective political knowl-edge; but prevent its discovery in their institutions.This still - in my view - makesthese fixed constitutionsvery grim candidatesfor "second-best": specially in a dia-logue which suggests that even the easy life of the golden age would be dismal com-paredto the life of the philosopher.76 Lane points to how differently"imitate" s used here from elsewhere in Plato:forhere it is a central featureof the imitationto remain fixed. So this sort of imitation,

at 300e, misses what is centralto the knowledge it imitates, namely its sensitivity toeach situation;such an imitation is bound, therefore,to fail. Likewise, Rowe arguesthat this fixity is itself inimical to the best life (the same point, perhaps, s made aboutthe writtenword at Phaedrus 276ff.).1 In an excellent paper,RS.


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READING LATO'SPOLITICUS 113his judgements s not to be enshrinedn written aw. But this kind of judgementdoes notgive riseto authoritarianism;nstead, he taskof thestatesmans to teachthe warringpartsof the stateto worktogether.Hereagain, the PoliticusandtheRepublicpartcompany.TheRepublichas a staticview of the perfectstate,whereconflictingpartsarekept segregated.The Politicus, by contrast, ees the conflictof differentvirtues(belligerenceand pacifism,for example)as a necessaryanddynamicfeatureof the state,whose smoothworking(by meansof the educationof the citizens)is the productof the statesman'sart.The truestatesman,on thisview, is no autocrat:nsteadhe is someonewho enablesthe citizensto integrateand governthemselves:78 to do real politicsis to do it yourself."'79

BothLaneandGill supposethatthere s a finalattemptn the dialogueto dealwith theexigencies of political ife, with thedifficultiesof being in thestate wherethe philosopher-kings absent.This may be where the Politicusimproveson theRepublic:not so much by replacing he philosopher ing, as by allowingthere tobe stablestateswhichare non-ideal.Rowe, on the otherhand,supposestheretobe an immensegulf betweeneven the best states (which stick to the establishedlaws) and the philosophical tate (runby knowledgeand good judgement).Oneitheraccount, thereremainsan issue aboutjust how the politicaltheory of thedialogue- whether t is construedas pragmatic rjust pessimistic fits with therest of the dialogue.If - as I have suggested the bulkof thedialogueup to thispointhas beenconcerned o discussthe life of the philosopher,why should Platonow turnto the discussionof these second-bestconstitutions?f YS is right tosuggestthat life in thesefixedconstitutions s unliveable even if, hyperbolically,life in states with no law at all is worse), how can they be second-best?Con-versely, how can the philosopher urvive in any state, if constitutionsare theenemyof inquiry?Whatdoes any of this politicaltheoryhave to do with collec-tion anddivision?80If knowinghow to ruleis like knowinghow to weave, thenthe politicalexpertwill know how to integratethe cloth. We might easily see how the skills ofrhetoricmightbring that about(by, for example,persuadinghe subjects o con-sent to be ruled);but that is not at issue here. So what sortof knowledgewouldunifythe state?8'Thedialogue nsiststhatknowledge s suppliedby (definedby?)

78 This fits the emphasis, n the centralpassagesof thedialogue, on self-determination.9 This is Lane's cash-value for the weaving metaphor n politics. Like Dixsaut andArends, she rightly insists on the way it brings unity to the state.10Kahn,for example, suggests thatcollection and division is the differencebetweenthe Plt. and theRep.: thatthe dialogues do not differ in theirmetaphysical assumptions,only in their account of philosophical method: ".... in the latest period Plato neverdepartedfrom his fundamentaldichotomy between being and becoming, between theinvariantreality of the Forms and the changing realm of the visible world ... But thepractice of dialectic looks quite different in Plato's later works, once the method ofhypothesis is replaced by the proceduresof Collection and Division." RS, p. 55.

81 The closing pages of the dialogue m-iightead us to suppose that the statesman


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114 MARY MARGARETMCCABE

the methodof collectionanddivision:which is, afterall, a methodof fully articu-lating and makingcoherenta subjectmatter.This is given severalexpansions nthe methodological igressionsof the dialogue- first wherehaphazard ivisionsaredistinguished romnaturalones (262bff.);andsecond wherethe ES comes todiscuss measureand the art of measurement.82 ere the preliminarycontrastbetween"what s measured"elatively o something lse - largerelative o small,fat relative to thin- and what is "in due measure"which allows a value judge-ment of what is measured83enerates wo interconnected ccountsof the art ofmeasurement: ne evaluativelyneutral, he otherteleologicallyexplained.8" henthese two artsmay be seen as vitally connected o the methodof collection anddivision,just because thatmethodworks, not only by dividingthings from eachotherrelatively,but by doing so according o thenatural oints- according o duemeasure according o what is genuinelya partof some ?-8o;(compare263aff.with 285aff.).But when this happens, he philosopher s able, notjust to take thesynopticview of the fieldhe discerns,but also to pick out individualpoints n it:collectionanddivisionbothsystematises nd individuates.Thenotionof measure-ment,that is to say, is a featureof the propermethodof collection anddivision;which is itself a systematicexpertise,articulatingwhatever s its subjectmatter.But in that case two further onsequencesbecome clear.Firstly, he methodofcollectionanddivision,thetruemethodof philosophy, ust by virtueof its evalua-tive components itself a teleological science.Secondly,suchan expertiseread-ily lends itself to accurateudgementn individual ases, becausethe very pointsof divisionaredetermined orjudged teleologically.So one who hadsuchanexpertisewould be ideallysuitedto practise hejudgementsof equitywhich theES says arecentral o any properaccountof the statesman'sknowledge 294aff.);and those individualudgements reonly properlypractised y someonewithsuchexpert knowledge. Only such a person,moreover,will be able to practisetheneedsto be a psychologist;ut hereagainthe issue is knowledge,not persuasion.Dixsaut is sensible here.82 This passage is, I think, underestimatedby Lafrance,RS." We should not too readily suppose that if this gives, against a sophistic rela-tivism, an objective accountof value, that the value so described is also transcendent.Tordesillas, RS, well documents Plato's critiqueof the sophists here; he is too ready,however, to see this in strong unitarian erms- perhapsas a consequenceof readingthis materialthrough neo-Platonising spectacles, e.g. "Le kairos de ce passage corre-spondraitau Bien de la Republiqueou, si l'on veut considererd'un pointde vue stricte-ment temporel, A l'exaiphnes du Parmenide,"p. 107. Compare the more judiciousapproachof Lane, RS.94 Fattal, PSSP, seems ratherdisappointedat the importanceof teleological criteriafor division in Pit.; and his account of collection and division suggests that its objec-tive is to pick out individualrealities understood,I think,as transcendent orms. Thisunderestimates the importance of the introduction of weaving, which replaces thepiecemeal account of division of the first half of the dialogue with the sort of sys-tematicityneeded for an expertise.


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READING LATO'SPOLTICUS 115

architectonic cience which is demandedof the statesman n the finalpageof thedialogue.85 or we shouldnot make the mistakeof thinkingabout collectionanddivision as a kind of primitive oundationalism, or yet as a trivial processofclassification.If collection and division enablesthe philosopher o define someparticulartem,it does so by givinghim systematicunderstandingf a whole sub-ject. And that systematicunderstandings provided,not becausecollectionanddivision derives the less primitive rom the more so (in the way demandedbyfoundationalism)ut becauseit is offersa holistic accountof whatknowledge s.Knowledge, hat is to say, is like weaving,not like constructing building, oun-dationsup. In thatcase, only the knowerhas thekindof systematicgraspof whatmatters understanding hich is also teleological)to rule a stateby delegating, ohave authority n the city by virtue of his overarching cience. Thatperson, wemay now see, is the same personas the one who can do collection and division.So the statesman s thephilosopher.And formy moneythisclaim brooksno com-promise:only statesrunby thephilosopher's ood judgementwill producea polit-ical life worthliving.But then if the politicaltheoryof the Politicusdeploresany but the staterunby the true statesman,s the statesman he philosopher-king?How far does thisaccount - if I am right - merely echo, or polish up, or make practicable and sen-sible the provisions of the Republic?11Where the Republic gives us the complexeducation of the guardians, it could be said, the Politicus gives us a method ofdialectic87that might even be practised (one day) by the Young Socrates - so thePoliticus is less idealised. The philosopher-kings of the Republic may seem tolack concem with the minutiae of every day life in the city (their main interestis in the grandiose schemes of the Forms), where the statesman needs to concern

85 The Republic, n many accounts, says that the philosopher should be the kingbecause only the philosophergrasps the first principles (the Forms), so that only thephilosopher can be reliably right when it comes to mattersof state. The same dia-logue, however, seems to suggest that the objects of the knowledge of the philosophermust be clearly distinguishedfrom those of belief, which is the sort of cognition wecan have of the here and now: but then if in the here and now we can only believe,it is hard to see why the philosopher should be any better off here and now than therest of us. If we take even a modified unitarianview of the relation between thePoliticus and the Republic,this two worlds problem is still with us. But the Politicus,far more than the Republic,is concemed with individualdecisions - uncontrovertibly,the here and now. This may be good reason to reject a unitarianaccount.I Gill has some sensible things to say on the limitations of comparingon dialoguewith another, given the radically differentpurposesof the Republic, the Politicus andthe Laws. I suggest here, however, that we should do well to contrast the epistemol-ogy of the Republic and that of the Politicus.

87 There is an old issue here: is Collection and Division reasonably described as amethod? Does it have heuristic value? (cf. the Meno's paradox type puzzle in KatoRSabout how we get an "anticipative grasp of the target";Fattal does not mentionthis problemof interpretingCollection and Division.)


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READING PLATO'S POLITICUS 117

absencefrom the dialogue.Collectionand divisionis not a textbookclassification.Insteadt is anepistemologybased on two features: ystematicunderstanding;ndindividualgood judgement.Those two features are exactly what the Socraticmethodof discussionpromotes; nd they are exactlywhat theES is trying o instilin YS.90That is why this dialogue is as much the Philosopher as it is theStatesman. n the Republicthe goodnessof the best life was explained n termsof the view of the forms9'and the influenceof the Form of the Good on the lifeof the philosopherhere,more than anywhere, he happinessof the philosophicallife is explainedin termsof the philosopherbeing someone who has come toknow, not someonewho is engagedon the difficultbusinessof doing philosophy).In the Politicus,by contrast, hejudgementof the lives in the mythsuggeststhatit is the activity of philosophicaldiscussionwhich explains happiness.In theRepublic,the self-determinationf the philosopher ould be explainedby virtueof the fact thathe was free of the demandsof the physicalworld; andthat free-dom was a consequenceof his knowledge: easonrules in the philosopher's oul,and all chaos is eliminated.In the Politicus,self-deterninations imitatinggod;andimitatinggod is beingableto achieve controldespitethechaosof the materialworld out there; t is beingable to see and carryout one's own purposesagainstthe background f the stuffs of the cosmos,whether hey be orderlyor otherwise.In that case too, the good life of the philosophers notexplainedby virtueof hisknowledgeof some other,transcendent eingswho guarantee ternity,purityandtruth;nstead he good life is a matterof the personwho lives it; and that is bestdoneby doing philosophy.Doing philosophy,moreover,s no longer describedntermsof emerging rom the darkness o the light of the forms; nstead t is a mat-ter of discussionanddeliberation, ood judgementand awarenessof due meas-ure:philosophy s what philosophers o, no longerwhat they see.King'sCollegeLondon

90Onceagain he question f whospeaks hefinalwordsof the dialoguemay herebe significant,specially f the finalwordsmiss thepoint.91 See herethesalutaryemarks f Kato,RS, p. 163, n. 4.

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