Philosopher-King on a Leash: Combining Plato’s Republic, Statesman and Laws in the Justinianic Dialogue On Political Science

Abstract

Late antique political Platonism was not unoriginal in its thought. The paper takes as an example the Justinianic dialogue On Political Science (ca. 550), which creatively engages with Plato’s political works. It shows that the dialogue tries – and manages, as I argue – to combine two apparently inconsistent Platonic models: what I call the “divine” model, in which a philosopher-king endowed with divine knowledge rules unhindered by civic laws; and the “human” model, characterized by the rule of law. The divine model comes mostly from Plato’s Republic and Statesman; the human one, from the Laws. On Political Science demonstrates that its (anonymous) author was acquainted with these three Platonic texts, in addition to other texts. That is philologically noteworthy, but also philosophically interesting: the dialogue manages to integrate the two models into a common framework. It puts forward an original political model, in which a philosopher-king, although endowed with divine knowledge, still has to be bound by civic laws because of his human frailty. The article concludes by discussing the polemical import the dialogue could have had in its Justinianic context.

What Is Wisdom? Sketch of a TOP (Tree of Philosophy) Theory

“…If someone claims to be wise, but also seeks, because of their self- or other-perceived wisdom, absolute power, watch out! Plato’s concept of unrestrained philosopher kings, proposed in The Republic , however nice it may have sounded to Plato in theory, has never worked out well in practice (de Nicolay, 2022).…”