Republic 5-6: Plato's Doctrine of the Philosopher King

In this video I examine Books 5 and 6 of Plato's Republic and explicate his notorious doctrine of the philosopher king. I begin by responding to the contemporary ideological confusion surrounding his view. Contemporary "philosophers" take the view to be self-evidently absurd on two counts: 1) the horrors of the 20th century show what happens when rulers attempt to rule through philosophical principles, and 2) politics is a matter of negotiating present power struggles, not eternal principles. Against the first, I note how Plato's definition of philosophy differs from our own. Neither dialectical materialism nor scientistic eugenics would qualify as philosophy in Plato's sense of the term. Indeed, they could aptly be described as anti-philosophies. And, against the second objection, I show that the contemporary view of politics is not the only one on offer. Many other cultures had a spiritual/ metaphysical conception of authority.

I then go on to explain the details of Plato's argument. He shows that when we compare philosophers to non-philosophers, philosophers have the requisite qualities for leadership.

He also explains why the conclusion seems to counterintuitive to his interlocutors by showing why the people called philosophers in his day were either useless to society or politically vicious.

The images used in this video were either created using imgflip meme generator or are in the public domain and can be found here:

[nugzila]

Thanks for posting. Just learning about the philosopher king subject and it’s so fascinating.

[connormargetts]

This is one of the best videos on Plato I’ve come across! Thank you