Stanley Rosen, Plato's Statesman: The Web of Politics

 

Review (1997?) by

Joseph Martin

[Joe's review of Stanley Rosen, "Plato's Statesman" has been visited 332 times since 14 March 2007]

[See original unedited post to Ontological Ethics]

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Joseph Martin

Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 1:40 PM

To: ontologicalethics@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Plato's Statesman

 

 

Since the discussion [at Ontological Ethics] has quieted down I would like to post something, that might incite some conversation, that I wrote several years ago (1997?) on Rosen's commentary on the Statesman. While there is a difference between what Plato has Socrates say in front of the people (Apology) and in front of exceptions (Republic), there is also a difference between what Plato has Socrates say and what he has his (not very) Parmenidean Stranger say. The Statesman is the 'darkest' piece of writing that Plato ever risked. In this excessiveness it is somewhat reminiscent of Nietzsche's Antichrist. Of course, the Antichrist is far more over the top. But this is explicable because, while Nietzsche faced the very real strengths of the various Platonisms, Plato had no philosophical artifacts to overturn.

Professor Rosen would certainly not endorse what I write below. He would object that I entirely leave out any and all considerations of the metaphysical, by which I mean the meta/onto/theo/genetic whole. He would point out how necessarily partial and stunted such a reading is. In my defense I would say that the Statesman is one of the least, if not the least, overtly metaphysical text Plato wrote. Thus the partial viewpoint is, here at least, justified because Plato himself can be said to (here, at least) justify the eschewing of the metaphysical when discussing the political. Of course, one can counter that if one concedes the above then one is just a hop, skip and jump from my habitual and complete silence on the meta/onto/theo/genetic Whole. Why this silence?

This silence is especially unsatisfying when we realize that the political esoteric, when unmoored from the metaphysical esoteric, comes to judge everything in a political fashion. Indeed what else could it do? Much of the criticism of my understanding of Nietzsche/Plato/Esotericism (over on the Nietzsche list) can be seen to boil down to the fact that neither Plato (Being, Knowing) nor Nietzsche (Becoming, Creating) are silent on the questions of the non-human (I was about to type inhuman!) Whole. I proceed with an almost deafening silence. How do I justify this? In my defense I would say that until one lives in a ‘mythical’ world – a (single) Platonism or Nietzscheanism for the people - all talk of the meta/onto/theo/genetic Whole is political. It is merely a weapon in the war between the various mythical worlds. Most especially when it says it is not.

Addendum: after writing (not posting) the above introduction I sent a copy of my review, sans the above introduction, to Professor Rosen. He very kindly replied and made two points. One, that I take an extreme view of what he said, which is quite true. I addressed this extremism (excessiveness) above. I think the ‘argument and action’ of this dialogue invite an extreme view.

He also mentioned that I left out any mention of the difference between ancient techne, which is defensive, and modern techne, which is offensive. He said, “The moderns use their new techne to strike back against nature, to become free, and in so doing, they take the inevitable path of self-transformation.” I think this an excellent point.

The ancients (for instance, Plato, Farabi) use political philosophy and techne to defend civilization and philosophy—from each other. Moderns, beginning with Machiavelli, use Political Philosophy and Techne to make a new world civilization. This has led to ever-new schemes for the improvement of humanity. Philosophy is attempting to remake the world in its own image. With Nietzsche, this jihad of the philosophers comes to an end. By restoring the importance of myth to philosophy and founding a new world on the myth of becoming/making he brings to a close the enlightenment project. Nietzsche is an ancient, not a modern.

Joe

 

P.S. Forgive the stilted language of the review below. I had planned on sending it out as a review but decided against it. In the unlikely event a list member wants to see more of what I think of Plato/Nietzsche, I would add that I have written more extensively on the comparison of Nietzsche/Plato in messages 59-61 of the Nietzsche and Philosophy list, which is found here:

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nietzsche_and_Philosophy/ [copyedited and reproduced at svAbhinava]

 

Comments are of course welcome [please post at Ontological Ethics]

 

Stanley Rosen, Plato's Statesman: The Web of Politics (Yale University, 1995)

 

Stanley Rosen's beautiful and intricate discussion of the Statesman, one of Plato's later discussions of politics, is as fascinating as it is terrifying. He shows us that Plato is not, at least in the late dialogues, some elevated metaphysician, lost in the clouds like Aristophanes' Socrates, but someone who wonders if ‘celestial’ theory can ever be transformed into earthly practice, and accepts the dire consequences that follow should it not. In this disturbing study, Rosen shows us how the later Plato turned away from his revered teacher, Socrates, doubting the “doctrine of the Ideas as the objects of philosophical Eros,” while turning, with an almost modern concern, to techne (technology), with man as the fabricated animal, or, rather, as the animal in need of fabrication to be complete—to be civilized.

 This is not to say that the later Plato denies that humans have a nature, as Rosen points out, “to be partially constructed is already to possess a nature.” Now, this partial construction is the reason humans have a history instead of an irrational brute existence, like deer or wolves. In order to live in the world, not as mere human animals, but as fully human beings, the rules of civilization need to be imposed. Whether those rules are imposed by a king or a people, we will need rules for constructing rules, or our ongoing construction, or, perhaps we should say creation, of civilization (civilized humans) will be flawed. And here is the heart of the matter, Rosen will show us, through a close consideration of the speeches, perhaps we should say monologues, of the Eleatic Stranger, that, according to Plato, there is no foolproof technique, no adequate theory, to construct a civilization, given an unknown future. In other words, the people and their politicians, and perhaps even our philosophers, are faking it. In a world in which the rulers are guessing as much as the ruled, the question becomes who, in each instance, guesses best. So, who can be trusted with the fabrication of civilization?

 Well, since each case will need to be judged on its own unique merits, each action, though grounded in tradition and/or theory, will be based, at best, on an informed guess. There is no science of politics because there is no science of the future. "Because phronesis [right judgment] rules without laws but by making a judgement that is unique in each case, or at least determined in each case by the particular circumstances that cannot be known in advance, it is impossible for the Stranger or anyone else to give a logos, in other words, a detailed description or account, of phronesis or its decisions." Or, in plain English, political knowledge (science) is impossible, which is why the Stranger doesn't bother entertaining questions to which answers don't exist. That a science of man is impossible should not be construed to mean that anyone can rule, or that philosophers will have either nothing to do or nothing to do with ruling. Plato, and his philosophical epigoni, will tell ‘Noble Lies’, what we moderns call ideology, in order to care for the human herd.

 Why? Because without philosophers defending the human herd from the elements (seasons and storms), beasts (wolves), and, as we all know, other human herds (barbarians), humanity itself may well cease to be civilized. But since there is no science of the future why turn to philosophers? Because the people, even the peoples’ leaders, know less, and are worse, than philosophers. Just as ship captains or doctors know more about the sciences of navigation and health, so too philosophers know more about humanity than the average citizen, or, for that matter, the average king. So, perhaps philosophers know more than the people, but are they better? The Stranger tells the story of an assembly that decides it “will no longer submit to this abusive conduct [of captains and doctors] but will ourselves legislate about medicine and navigation, whether or not we know anything about these matters.” Of course, as Rosen points out, the story is a parody of democracy, but all parodies point to something real. Perhaps that reality is the danger of popular rule?

 The reason that the people can't rule is not merely their lack of technical expertise—remember, the Stranger is not denying the utility of technical skill, only its all-encompassing efficacy—but their unruly souls. Even if the people were technically competent they would still be unfit for rule because of their lack of self-control, their slavery to passion. This is why philosophers are better. Rosen will note, “it is extremely odd that, precisely while showing the unruliness of the multitude, the Stranger talks as if it were due to a lack of technical knowledge. This is a thesis of the scientific Enlightenment.” Rosen is right to draw our attention to the modernity of the Stranger, at times he speaks as if he had read Condorcet or Adam Smith, so strong is his certainty that the human situation is manipulable! Rosen's point, however, is that once you know that the people have unruly souls it becomes irrelevant how much skill the people have, or can learn. Knowledge doesn't make bad people better; it makes them dangerous.

 Let us recapitulate, phronesis is unattainable, or, what in the long run amounts to the same thing, unpredictably attainable. We never know when we will be graced with a philosopher. Technos is within reach of a few, but, since it is not wisdom, it is merely an ersatz phronesis. Those that aren't wise rely on (a merely technical) theory. But even technos will never be within reach of the many. Now, that is why we have Nomos, or law, which is a cheapened form of a debased wisdom (technos). Rosen tells us that, “[the Stranger] begins by assuming that the laws should be changed whenever circumstances make it reasonable to do so.” Since everything changes, laws that once were useful, and therefore good, become enormities. The greatest enormity being that once the people have been taught, perhaps we should say trained, in a certain way of life, it becomes almost impossible to change them, to turn them in another direction. Again, phronesis is the best, but since philosophers aren't always around when you need them, we resort to technos, but since theories and their rules are subject to continual revision, with said revisions not always either teachable or an improvement, nomos (law) becomes our last resort, but, as Rosen observes, “conservatism is at best only a tactic,” a miserable war of attrition until a philosopher or an ideology appears. It is interesting to note that Rosen here seems to understand philosophical conservativism as permanent revolution. Yes, it would appear the only choice humanity has is how to come to ruin. But these ruins will also be an occasion for philosophy…

So, philosophers tell noble lies, myths and/or ideologies in order to make civilization possible, which, perhaps, is nothing more than putting off the day of ruin. As Rosen says, “A myth is a story, it is a fiction, something that is not true. And yet this untruth, which we hesitate to call a falsehood, is able to communicate deep truths.” One is forced to wonder if myths do communicate deep truths, or simply cause deep truths to be embodied, or lived, by the people. The Stranger, when choosing metaphors, will compare the craft of the statesman to weavers, doctors and gymnasts, crafts that operate on the body and its behavior. As Rosen says, “Politics is oriented toward the body; but philosophy, or the genuine art of statesmanship, is oriented toward the soul.” Perhaps philosophy cares for the citizens' bodies because they have no souls? This would go a long way in explaining why modern philosophy, with a clear conscience, turns humans into artifacts. Humans are things anyway. Or, as Nietzsche said, “We are entering the phase of the modesty of consciousness.” It amazes us that to this day one can meet people who read those words as libratory! The coming practitioners of human husbandry will know how to evaluate those words far better than we do.

 What have and what will these practitioners of human husbandry, philosophers, or their imitators, attempt to do? Why, the same thing the practitioners of animal husbandry do every day—the improvement of the breed. It is with these fragments that we shore up our ruins. This is not to say that the Stranger is a proto-Hitler, obsessed with the creation of a ‘pure’ race. On the contrary, not only are the Stranger's concerns ‘psychological,’ not racial, but Rosen shows that the Stranger’s great problem, or goal, is not purity, but mixing. The Kosmiotes, well ordered and proper behavior, “and andreia, manliness ... which is more extensive than courage but includes it,” are what is in need of mixing. Since, according to the Stranger, people are born into either one or the other of these two great families, and, if left on their own, people would marry (breed) only within their ‘family’, then the city would be left with ennui on the one hand, madness on the other. And not only will this lead to the enslavement of the city, but eventually to all cities, and then, to the self-destruction of civilization itself.

 In order to avert this catastrophe, these differences must be mixed by philosophers and statesmen. But Rosen reminds us that in the Republic, “Socrates makes use [of the metaphor] of the noble hound to explain that the guardians must be fierce or sharp with their enemies and gentle or orderly with their friends.” And he goes on to point out that by speaking of the guardians as noble hounds, “Socrates admits the impossibility of finding sharpness and gentleness in the same human being.” We are left wondering if even philosophers are fully human, or are they too the product of philosophical intervention?

 So, the city, like the citizen, is a product. Unlike Aristotle, Plato does not believe that Man is the political animal. Rosen tells us, “It is not the city or product of weaving that is natural, but the materials from which it is woven.” The city is the result of the intervention of philosophers, who, faced with the unsouled people, invent salutatory myths, so civilization doesn't disappear from the face of the earth. The citizens are the product of the rhetoric (education) of the statesmen in this philosophically produced city. The consequence of the consequences of these interventions, human history, is that humanity has become the product of a product, or the shadow of a shadow.

 

I wrote my review of Rosen’s Commentary on Plato’s Statesman when I was attending a technical school in the mid-nineties. I hadn’t been to school for twenty years and was only there in order to get a job, oops – I mean my Associates in Computer Science/Technology. It was very boring. Since I was one of the few that seemed to understand code (‘C’ Language), I was constantly helping other students by scanning their code looking for misplaced semi-colons. Oh boy!

Since I had recently purchased a copy of Rosen’s Commentary (Hardcover – Dammit! I prefer soft-cover whenever it’s available. I underline and make notes and thus render every book I own perfectly worthless.) I dedicated my spare time to that. At the time I wrote the review, I was very interested in the question of who, if anyone, should rule. Looking back I can see why Professor Rosen found the review extreme. (The extreme is always the partial.) I also have read, in the intervening time, Benardete, Klein, Miller, and Lane on Statesman/Sophist and if I were to do a reading of Sophist/Statesman, I would emphasize much more loudly metaphysical and epistemological issues.

In a new reading of Sophist/Statesman I would (off the top of my head) try to draw out the differences between the Stranger and the Sages, Materialists and the ‘friends of the forms.’ The question of the difference between making/knowing would also receive more scrutiny. Is making (forcing non-being to be) the only response possible for philosophy, genuine philosophers, when they realize they can never fully know anything? In other words is the move from knowing to making a triumphant acknowledgement (and enjoyment) of human creativity or is it simply a retreat to the effectual, as Machiavelli might say?

I would also try to understand how this mixing of the real, the new (non-being, nothing) and philosophical reason might subvert the Socratic or Hegelian dialectic in unpredictable ways. I would then emphasize that power, the ‘turn to power,’ is not simply an obsession of the Statesman (individual and dialogue) but this concern is foreshadowed by the ‘argument and the action’ of the Sophist too. I would also obsess over arguments of utility wherever they might appear. To get a better idea of how I would today take the argument I would suggest looking at my comparison of Plato and Nietzsche.