StatesmanPlato

The Statesman picks up where the Sophist left off, with the Eleatic Stranger now seeking to define the statesman by the method of division. The dialogue divides the arts, separating the statesman's knowledge from that of the shepherd, the merchant, and the general. Political rule, the Stranger argues, is a directive science concerned with the care of human beings in community, and it differs from mere herding in that its subjects are free and rational.

The central device is the myth of the reversed cosmos. In one age the god steers the world directly and human beings need no political order; in the reversed age, the present one, the world spins on its own and human beings must govern themselves. Politics exists because the cosmos is not self-sustaining. The statesman's art is therefore a response to cosmic imperfection, not an expression of natural hierarchy.

The dialogue's most consequential move is its classification of constitutions. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy each have a lawful and a lawless form. The true statesman rules by knowledge, not by law alone, since law is a blunt instrument incapable of fitting every case. But because such knowledge is rare, the Stranger concedes that constitutional government under fixed laws is the best practical arrangement. Plato here qualifies the philosopher-king doctrine of the Republic, making room for the rule of law as a second-best but necessary political form.