Melissa Lane

Socrates’ refutation of Thrasymachus in _Republic_ Book 1 is usually read as hinging on the nature of _technē_ (often translated as ‘craft’ or ‘skill’; I translate as ‘profession’). This paper argues that it hinges at least as much on a link drawn between _technē_ (or at least between a group of therapeutic _technai_), and the phenomenon of rule (_archē_, noun; _archein_, verb). It is this move by Socrates that ultimately enables him to sublate Thrasymachus’ original definition. Whereas Thrasymachus had offered a claim about the political domination by the strong over the weak, Socrates invokes a general claim about rule as such to argue that the advantage of rulers can lie only in exercising their rule as completely and perfectly as possible. It is the nature of rule and not the nature of crafts or professions alone that generates this result.

Chapter 10 focusses on _Statesman_ 303d4-305e7 and considers the Visitor’s seemingly three definitions of statecraft in the dialogue: 305c10-d5, 305e2-6, and 311b7-c7. By focusing on the role of the _dunamis_ of given forms of expertise, and the metaphorical method of smelting metals at work in this section of the dialogue, it argues that a definition of statecraft (_hē politikē_) as ruling, caring, and weaving is reached in 305e2-6 and then fleshed out in 311b7-c7 by the explication of the _ergon_ (task) which it is the role of that _dunamis_ to accomplish. This is broadly consonant with a passage in _Republic_ 5 identifying any given _dunamis_ in terms of that over which it is set and what it accomplishes (_apergazetai_), a schema filled out in the _Statesman_ by explicit reference to the _ergon_ of a _dunamis_ (305c4-5). Political expertise is not a passive body of knowledge but rather actively and precisely organized toward the realization of its distinctive task.

This chapter defends two hypotheses about the extent to which we find a conception akin to ‘self-knowledge’ in Plato: (i) that the kind of second-order cognitive condition of interest to Plato would not be a post-Cartesian kind of privileged first-person access or authority, but rather a second-order assessment of the extent to which the self is a knower, achievable by effort and reflection; and (ii) that, in contrast to a post-Humean perspective, the Platonic self who is fully a knower would qua knower be motivated to realize that knowledge in action. The first is defended by showing how awareness of the extent of one’s knowledge is dramatized in the _Apology_ and _Protagoras_, in its achievement in the former, and in the breach, in the latter. The second is defended by appeal to an account of the ‘rule of knowledge’ in the _Protagoras_, unpacked with the aid of Aristotle’s _Nicomachean Ethics_.

Framed by the _Symposium_, with its central portion being an account of _Republic_ VI, this chapter begins by considering, and rejecting, Alcibiades' proposed programmatic solution to the Socratic problem — that Socrates does have knowledge, and is concealing it. The alternative account which Socrates gives of himself in _Republic_ VI, as one of the natural philosophers possessing the natural virtues, is then detailed, with an eye both to the light it sheds on Socrates and to its function in the context of the unfolding argument of the _Republic_. The chapter then returns to the _Symposium_ to consider the detailed description which Alcibiades gives of Socrates' behaviour, the actions that allegedly manifest true virtue: for although his solution to the Socratic problem is flawed, his speech contains the materials needed for the correct solution. What he describes is remarkably similar to the natural virtue of _Republic_ VI, 485-7, conforming better to this account than to his own proposed explanation. The role of natural virtue and the nature of the philosophers in Plato's work are examined.

It is argued that the Crito hinges on the relation between words and deeds. Socrates sets out a standard of agreement reached through persuasive argument or words. In this case the argument is deliberative: a general shared principle (do not do wrong) is juxtaposed to a particular minor premise (this act of escape is wrong) to reach a conclusion (do not escape). Crito baulks at the perception of the minor premise. At this juncture the Laws of Athens are introduced, who set out a standard of agreement established instead by deeds. Both standards apply to Socrates, constituting the drama of the dialogue

Ilya Somin argues that in light of the public's rational political ignorance we should make government smaller. But his account of the phenomenon of rational ignorance does not justify his policy prescription of smaller government; on the contrary, it implies that we should revamp the current framework of democratic institutions. This is because, since Somin fails to set out a principled basis on which to value democracy even in the face of rational ignorance, he cannot explain why we should want any democratic government, however small it may be. If rational ignorance is as grave a challenge to democracy as he takes it to be, it would seem to demand either radical institutional innovation or, alternatively, an abandonment of certain democratic principles. By not explaining why we should value citizens’ involvement in politics at all, and why we might therefore draw different policy conclusions than he does himself, Somin's book ultimately fails to do full justice to the important questions that it raises.

This article replies to five critical comments (along with a substantive introduction) of the monograph by Melissa Lane, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was published by Princeton University Press in 2023. Topics discussed include the nature of constitutional rule for Plato; Plato’s attitude to democratic suspicions of rule; the topics of accountability, motivation, and knowledge, and the extent to which Platonic political thought can adequately address them; and Lane’s positioning of her study as a service conception of rule akin to Joseph Raz’ service conception of authority, and the extent to which this brings her close to the legal theory of Adrian Vermeule. In the course of discussing challenges and criticisms on these topics, Lane defends her book’s criticism of principal-agent analyses of rule; elaborates, in light of other recent scholarship, her thesis that (Platonic) rule is for the good of the ruled; and develops her characterisation of Plato as a realist as well as an idealist, arguing that his political theory is in fact well suited to provide the kind of normatively illuminated realism for which more sophisticated political realists have called.

Can ordinary citizens in a democracy evaluate the claims of scientific experts? While a definitive answer must be case by case, some scholars have offered sharply opposed general answers: a skeptical versus an optimistic. The article addresses this basic conflict, arguing that a satisfactory answer requires a first-order engagement in judging the claims of experts which both skeptics and optimists rule out in taking the issue to be one of second-order assessments only. Having argued that such first-order judgments are necessary, it then considers how they are possible, outlining a range of practices and virtues that can inform their success and likelihood, and drawing throughout on ancient Greek insights as well as contemporary social psychology and sociology of knowledge. In conclusion the ethics of democratic judgment so developed is applied to the dramatic conviction of the members of an Italian scientific risk commission in L'Aquila

A new reading of Plato’s political thought Plato famously defends the rule of knowledge. Knowledge, for him, is of the good. But what is rule? In this study, Melissa Lane reveals how political office and rule were woven together in Greek vocabulary and practices that both connected and distinguished between rule in general and office as a constitutionally limited kind of rule in particular. In doing so, Lane shows Plato to have been deeply concerned with the roles and relationships between rulers and ruled. Adopting a longstanding Greek expectation that a ruler should serve the good of the ruled, Plato’s major political dialogues—the Republic, the Statesman, and Laws—explore how different kinds of rule might best serve that good. With this book, Lane offers the first account of the clearly marked vocabulary of offices at the heart of all three of these dialogues, explaining how such offices fit within the broader organization and theorizing of rule. Lane argues that taking Plato’s interest in rule and office seriously reveals tyranny as ultimately a kind of anarchy, lacking the order as well as the purpose of rule. When we think of tyranny in this way, we see how Plato invokes rule and office as underpinning freedom and friendship as political values, and how Greek slavery shaped Plato’s account of freedom. Reading Plato both in the Greek context and in dialogue with contemporary thinkers, Lane argues that rule and office belong at the center of Platonic, Greek, and contemporary political thought.