Politician (On the Art of Kingship)

Author: Plato
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-12-01
Features: Eight years ago in early spring, I began to translate Plato's dialogical work The Statesman. Although the focus of this text, as its title suggests, is on "politics," what truly interested me at the time was the "philosophy" discussed as a digression in the dialogue. When I encountered the category of "Medium" for the first time in the history of Western philosophy here, an unexpected and genuine intuition arose. It was like a piece of firewood, long gathered and yearning to burn, striking a spark—it guided my wandering thoughts to find a new light in the darkness once again. Through "Medium," I found a shortcut to understanding "Forms," which confirmed my previous speculation about "Forms" born from a pursuit of value, and also allowed me to compare it with Confucius's "Doctrine of the Mean," suddenly realizing the profound meaning behind such philosophical teachings as "The Mean is the highest virtue" and "In the world of states and nations, positions can be shared, honors can be renounced, and the edge of the sword can be crossed, but the Mean is impossible." This academic connection, which I often reflect upon, is both intimate and silent—it once revealed itself in the preface I wrote for the first publication of my translation: "In The Statesman, the discussion on the length of the dialogue process led to the topic of the 'standard of the Mean' or 'Medium.' This digression on the 'skill of the statesman,' in Plato's philosophical legacy, holds greater value than the entire conclusion about the statesman's skill or even the binary method he used to define it. It is the emergence of 'truth' from the 'convenient' gate, and through the guidance of this ray of light, we can hope to enter the mysterious and strange world of 'Forms' along a path that avoids too many errors."