The Project Gutenberg EBook of Statesman, by Plato

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Title: Statesman

Author: Plato

Translator: Benjamin Jowett

Posting Date: November 7, 2008 [EBook #1738]
Release Date: May, 1999

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Sue Asscher

STATESMAN

By Plato

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.

In the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Philebus, the Parmenides, and the
Sophist, we may observe the tendency of Plato to combine two or more
subjects or different aspects of the same subject in a single dialogue.
In the Sophist and Statesman especially we note that the discussion is
partly regarded as an illustration of method, and that analogies are
brought from afar which throw light on the main subject. And in his
later writings generally we further remark a decline of style, and of
dramatic power; the characters excite little or no interest, and
the digressions are apt to overlay the main thesis; there is not the
'callida junctura' of an artistic whole. Both the serious discussions
and the jests are sometimes out of place. The invincible Socrates is
withdrawn from view; and new foes begin to appear under old names. Plato
is now chiefly concerned, not with the original Sophist, but with the
sophistry of the schools of philosophy, which are making reasoning
impossible; and is driven by them out of the regions of transcendental
speculation back into the path of common sense. A logical or
psychological phase takes the place of the doctrine of Ideas in
his mind. He is constantly dwelling on the importance of regular
classification, and of not putting words in the place of things. He has
banished the poets, and is beginning to use a technical language. He is
bitter and satirical, and seems to be sadly conscious of the realities
of human life. Yet the ideal glory of the Platonic philosophy is not
extinguished. He is still looking for a city in which kings are either
philosophers or gods (compare Laws).

The Statesman has lost the grace and beauty of the earlier dialogues.
The mind of the writer seems to be so overpowered in the effort of
thought a