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鈥檚 major political dialogues鈥攖he Republic, the Statesman, and Laws鈥攅xplore 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鈥檚 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鈥檚 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.
Awards and Recognition
- Winner of the Journal of the History of Philosophy Book Prize
Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics and a faculty member of the Program in Classical Philosophy at 91桃色 University. She is also the 50th Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College. Her books include Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living and The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter (both 91桃色) and Method and Politics in Plato’s “Statesman.”
"[A] meticulous new analysis of Plato’s constitutionalism. . . . With the appearance of Melissa Lane’s authoritative Of Rule and Office, debate over the evolution of Plato’s discussion of the vulnerabilities of political office and the various ways in which rule and office might be understood must be nearly at an end."鈥擜ndrew David Irvine, Times Literary Supplement
"Written with extraordinary scrupulousness. . . . With [Of Rule and Office], Plato’s ideas of the political are put firmly on the map."鈥擟hristopher Rowe, Mind
"A delight to read."鈥擯atrick Rioridan, The Heythrop Journal
"An original contribution to Platonic scholarship. . . . [Of Rule and Office] is a book worth reading, and in full."鈥擥eoff Bakewell, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"Excellent. . . . In this monumental study, Lane offers a sophisticated and insightful reinterpretation of Plato’s political thinking."鈥擠aniel Vazquez, Greece & Rome
“Plato the constitutionalist is an unfamiliar figure. In Melissa Lane’s major new contribution to the understanding of ancient Greek political thought, however, even the Republic’s philosopher kings and queens turn out not to be self-certifying absolute rulers, but principally custodians of safeguarding processes for the rigorous selection and training of other officers that they themselves have successfully undergone. Of Rule and Office makes Plato’s explorations of the accountability of government in Republic, Statesman, and Laws weighty contenders, in searching scholarly debate of exemplary courtesy, with those current in contemporary political theorizing.”—Malcolm Schofield, author of Plato: Political Philosophy
“This compelling and contributive work revises the early history of constitutionalism through theoretically bold and analytically careful explorations of the centrality of rule as office to a wide array of antique philosophical, historical, dramatic, and oratorical sources, with special focus on Plato's Republic, Statesman, and Laws.”—Jill Frank, Cornell University
“This is a stimulating and engagingly written work that offers a new understanding of Greek ideas of public offices and ruling. A significant contribution to the field.”—Sara Forsdyke, University of Michigan
“Scholars of public management and the state will benefit from spending serious time with Melissa Lane’s On Rule and Office, where she compellingly links a thick notion of accountability to positions of governance.”—Daniel Carpenter, Harvard University
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