In her introduction to a translation of the Statesman, Julia Annas remarks that as ‘stimulating as Plato’s political ideas in the Statesman are, it is not surprising that the dialogue has been relatively neglected by comparison with the Republic and the Laws’ (Annas and Waterfield 1995: x). A glance at Dimas et al.’s bibliography shows that the situation has improved since then, although the Statesman remains underdiscussed. Thus, the current volume is very welcome.The dialogue is divided into eleven passages running consecutively from its beginning with a chapter devoted to each. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Rachel Barney, Gábor Betegh, David Bronstein, Amber Carpenter, Christoph Horn, Rachana Kamtekar, Gavin Lawrence, Fabián Mié, and Franco Trivigno. Melissa Lane also writes a chapter. There is a lengthy and substantive introduction, to which each editor contributes a section. Although the chapters are more discursive than, for example, the typical Clarendon commentary, each remains tightly focused on the set passage. Given the space available to me, I discuss only two essays. The topics covered in the other chapters range over Plato’s epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, methodology, political philosophy, and psychology.In his fine chapter on Statesman 297B5-303D3 (hereafter, Stephanus numbers without titles refer to the Statesman), Christoph Horn tackles one of the dialogue’s most difficult passages and one of the most difficult issues in Plato’s political philosophy, that is, the topic of changing the laws. The central question that Horn addresses is whether Plato thinks that the legal structures of cities without philosophical rulers are equally worthless or whether he allows at least some genuine value to the legal structures of those cities that (a) have constitutions preserving the actual written instructions left by a knowledgeable lawgiver, or (b) forbid ever changing the legal order, regardless of its quality, or (c) improve their laws by revising them through informed true opinion (177, 186–91). Horn argues that legal structures satisfying one of (a), (b), or (c) have some genuine value.1(c) has the most important implications for Plato’s political philosophy, and Horn makes an excellent case for it. I would add two points as friendly suggestions. First, we might ask what Plato would have to believe if he held that the legal structures of nonphilosophical cities are equally worthless. It seems that he would have to hold that at no point in a city’s history is it possible (i) for an individual or a group to believe justifiably, but fallibly, that a particular legal change would produce a better outcome, and (ii) to bring about such change without its consequences producing a worse outcome. Since some cities’ laws may be deeply unjust, it seems hard to deny (i). Bad laws may foster worse desires in citizens, and Plato thinks that satisfying such desires makes them both stronger and worse. But it is hard to believe that this justifies denying (i). What about denying (ii)? Plato tends to think that changing the laws leads to further legal changes and that the resulting instability would produce worse outcomes. But even if denying (ii) is less implausible than denying (i), it is still an implausible denial.Horn rightly admits that much in 297B5-303D3 suggests the no change interpretation but does not explain this. Considering the Republic and the Laws may help. Horn remarks that ‘as is well known, the topic of law and legislation is almost absent in the Republic’ (177). But as Julia Annas has, I think, conclusively demonstrated the Republic contains much about legislation and Kallipolis has many laws (Annas 2020: 9–31). Further, both the Republic and the Laws contain passages prima facie suggesting that significant legal change is nearly impossible (Republic 4.445DE, 5.458BC; Laws 6.772AD).2 In the Republic, this seems difficult to explain except as rhetorical exaggeration, since Socrates and his interlocutors set Kallipolis’ laws but, unlike Kallipolis’ philosopher-rulers, lack knowledge of the Form of the Good (Republic 2.378E-379A, 6.506BC).Horn rightly holds that the Laws allows for indefinitely revising and improving Magnesia’s laws, but he oddly claims that it holds that laws are appropriate if they aim either at virtue or a part of it (187). But the passage cited clearly requires laws to aim at all of virtue, not just a part of it (Laws 4.705D-706A). Without seeing this, we cannot explain the Laws’ criticism of Crete and Sparta (1.630D-631D) or the Statesman’s excluding from citizenship those not sharing in all the virtues (308E-310A). The Statesman thus resembles the Republic and the Laws in overstating the case against legal change.In perhaps the volume’s most innovative and philosophically stimulating essay, Rachana Kamtekar examines 305E8-308B9 and Plato’s account of courage and moderation. She suggests understanding courage and moderation in terms of the contemporary distinction between thick and thin concepts. This a subtle idea deserving more exploration. But it raises some concerns.3Kamtekar thinks that Plato holds that we can disentangle the descriptive and evaluative components of, for example, ‘courageous’ so that its meaning is given by C (221):‘Quick’ is purely descriptive, but ‘fine’ and ‘appropriate’ are evaluative. (More precisely, Kamtekar thinks that this is the meaning of ‘courageous’ from 306A12-307D4.)A’s degree of quickness in S is thus necessary for A’s being courageous in S. Is it sufficient? This is suggested by Kamtekar’s claim that satisfying the descriptive component is ‘a way’ of being, for example, fine (223). Plato would reject this however, since A might be wrongly motivated. So Kamtekar should deny A’s sufficiency. Because the evaluative components hold of A, it is a fine action, but these evaluative components are thin concepts and so do not convey information about the motivation.4 It is thus not Plato’s typical sort of an account of a virtue (cf. Protagoras 330A-332B, Republic 4.443C-444E, and Laws 9.863E-864B; this at least approximates virtuous action).But Kamtekar thinks that these accounts of the courageous and the moderate are produced by dividing the fine into, respectively, the quick-and-fine and the slow-and-fine (221). These are real definitions since division is Plato’s method for reaching real definitions. This suggestion, however, faces concerns. First, 306C-307C does not talk of ‘dividing’ the fine. Second, Kamtekar seems to intend this division to be exhaustive (221). This is reasonable since Plato, although he does not think it necessary, emphasizes his clear preference for dichotomous division (Phaedrus 265E-266B; Philebus 16CD; Statesman. 262A-263B). But the courageous and the moderate cannot exhaust all fine items. Yet if it is not dichotomous, the other divisions remain mysterious. Third, just actions must be included in the fine, and, since Plato uses ‘just’ equivalently with ‘virtuous’, just actions must occur within both of what Kamtekar agrees are mutually exclusive divisions of the fine, the courageous and the moderate (219). Fourth, and most worrisome, is that because quick and slow are opposites, Kamtekar thinks that whenever a certain degree of slowness is fine and appropriate, the item is properly called ‘moderate’ and not ‘courageous’ and vice versa (219).5 But this produces unacceptable results. Surely Socrates’s slow retreat at Delium was courageous, and it is highly misleading to call it ‘moderate.’ One might reply that this objection relies on too simple a notion of ‘quick’ and ‘slow’ and that these are inherently evaluative. This reply’s cost is giving up the thick and thin distinction.Kamtekar’s most novel claim is that the courageous and moderate at 306A12-307D6 are ‘kinds’ of ‘actual or true virtue’ (222) and not merely ingredients of it. Kamtekar here places great weight on 306C’s claim that their investigation is among things ‘we’ call fine. Kamtekar thinks this gives us reason to reject the traditional interpretation that the courage and moderation mentioned at 306A12-309A7 are or include natural psychic dispositions that are not genuine virtues, but only become virtues when knowledge or ‘secure true opinion’ is added to them (309D7-310A6). But who are ‘we’?Kamtekar argues that courageous and moderate as used in 306A12-307D6 are instances of ‘ordinary language’ and practice and that ‘it would be a substantial, and … false assumption about ordinary language that we call cases of quickness etc. “courageous” because they are potentially courageous’ (222). I agree that collection often starts from our ordinary classifications. But that is why we often need to correct them (262C-263E). For the courage and moderation discussed at 306A12-307D6 to be potential and not full virtues, it is not necessary that ordinary speakers think that they are only potential virtues. All that is required is that what they believe are real virtues are, in fact, only potential virtues. It would, I think, hardly be surprising for Plato to think that ordinary speakers typically seriously misunderstand virtue often by thinking of it as having some close relation to action types. Finally, for Plato to shift from talking of the courageous and the moderate as true parts of virtue to speaking of the courageous and the moderate as people with two different types of defective characters (after 306A12) is a confusingly abrupt volte-face that conflicts with the natural Platonic assumption that possessing the feature common to courageous items is what makes one courageous. The Eleatic Stranger seems to say as much at 309B6-9.I hope that my discussion of these two excellent articles manages to convey, at least to some small degree, how philosophically rich and simulating this volume is.6

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柏拉图的政治家：哲学讨论

朱莉娅·安纳斯 (Julia Annas) 在她对政治家译本的介绍中评论道，“尽管柏拉图在政治家的政治思想令人振奋，但与《理想国》和《法律》相比，对话相对被忽视也就不足为奇了”（安娜斯和沃特菲尔德1995 年：十）。看一眼 Dimas 等人的参考书目就会发现，从那以后情况有所改善，尽管政治家仍未得到充分讨论。因此，当前的卷非常受欢迎。对话分为十一段，从一开始就连续运行，每一章都有专门的章节。除了编辑之外，撰稿人还有 Rachel Barney、Gábor Betegh、David Bronstein、Amber Carpenter、Christoph Horn、Rachana Kamtekar、Gavin Lawrence、Fabián Mié 和 Franco Trivigno。Melissa Lane 也写了一章。有一个冗长而实质性的介绍，每个编辑都贡献了一个部分。尽管这些章节比典型的 Clarendon 评论更具散漫性，但每一章都紧紧围绕固定段落。鉴于我可用的空间，我只讨论两篇文章。其他章节涵盖的主题涵盖柏拉图的认识论、伦理学、形而上学、方法论、政治哲学和心理学。在他关于政治家 297B5-303D3 的精彩章节中（此后，没有标题的 Stephanus 数字指的是政治家），Christoph Horn 处理了一个对话中最困难的段落之一，也是柏拉图政治哲学中最困难的问题之一，即改变法律的话题。霍恩提出的核心问题是，柏拉图是否认为没有哲学统治者的城市的法律结构同样毫无价值，或者他是否允许那些城市的法律结构至少具有一些真正的价值，这些城市 (a) 宪法保留了实际的书面指示由知识渊博的立法者制定，或 (b) 禁止改变法律秩序，无论其质量如何，或 (c) 通过知情的真实意见修改法律来改进法律 (177, 186–91)。霍恩认为满足 (a)、(b) 或 (c) 之一的法律结构具有某些真正的价值。1(c) 对柏拉图的政治哲学具有最重要的意义，霍恩为此提供了一个极好的案例。我想补充两点作为友情建议。第一的，我们可能会问，如果柏拉图认为非哲学城市的法律结构同样毫无价值，他必须相信什么。看来他必须坚持认为，在一个城市的历史上，任何时候都不可能 (i) 个人或团体可以合理但错误地相信特定的法律变更会产生更好的结果，并且 (ii)带来这样的变化，而其后果不会产生更糟糕的结果。由于某些城市的法律可能非常不公正，因此似乎很难否认（i）。糟糕的法律可能会在公民中滋生更坏的欲望，而柏拉图认为满足这些欲望会使他们变得更强大和更坏。但很难相信这可以证明否定（i）是正当的。否认（ii）怎么样？柏拉图倾向于认为改变法律会导致进一步的法律变化，而由此产生的不稳定会产生更糟糕的结果。但即使否认 (ii) 比否认 (i) 更不可信，它仍然是一个不可信的否认。Horn 正确地承认 297B5-303D3 中的很多内容暗示了不变的解释，但没有解释这一点。考虑共和国和法律可能会有所帮助。霍恩评论说，“众所周知，共和国几乎没有法律和立法的话题”（177）。但我认为，正如朱莉娅·安纳斯 (Julia Annas) 最终证明的那样，共和国包含很多立法，而卡里波利斯 (Kallipolis) 有很多法律 (Annas 2020: 9-31)。此外，共和国和法律都包含初步证据表明重大法律变更几乎不可能的段落（共和国 4.445DE，5.458BC；法律 6.772AD）。2 在共和国，这似乎很难解释，除非是修辞夸张，因为苏格拉底和他的对话者制定了 Kallipolis 的法律，但与 Kallipolis 的哲学家统治者不同，他们缺乏善的形式的知识（Republic 2.378E-379A，6.506BC ).Horn 正确地认为法律允许无限期地修改和改进 Magnesia 的法律，但他奇怪地声称它认为如果法律旨在美德或美德的一部分，那么法律是适当的 (187)。但是引用的段落明确要求法律针对所有美德，而不仅仅是美德的一部分（法律 4.705D-706A）。看不到这一点，我们就无法解释法律对克里特岛和斯巴达的批评 (1.630D-631D) 或政治家将那些不分享所有美德的人排除在公民身份之外 (308E-310A)。因此，政治家在夸大反对法律变革的案例方面类似于共和国和法律。在也许是该卷最具创新性和哲学启发性的文章中，Rachana Kamtekar 审查了 305E8-308B9 和柏拉图对勇气和节制的描述。她建议根据粗细概念之间的当代区别来理解勇气和节制。这是一个值得更多探索的微妙想法。但这引起了一些担忧。 3Kamtekar 认为柏拉图认为我们可以解开“勇敢”的描述性和评价性成分，因此其含义由 C (221) 给出：“快速”纯粹是描述性的，但“很好” '和'适当'是评价性的。（更准确地说，Kamtekar 认为这就是 306A12-307D4 中“勇敢”的含义。) 因此，A 在 S 中的敏捷程度对于 A 在 S 中勇敢是必要的。它是否足够？Kamtekar 的主张表明了这一点，即满足描述性成分是存在的“一种方式”，例如，美好 (223)。然而，柏拉图会拒绝这一点，因为 A 的动机可能是错误的。所以 Kamtekar 应该否认 A 的充分性。因为评价成分适用于 A，所以这是一个很好的行为，但这些评价成分是薄弱的概念，因此不传达有关动机的信息。4 因此，这不是柏拉图对美德的典型描述（参见 Protagoras 330A -332B，共和国 4.443C-444E 和法律 9.863E-864B；这至少近似于良性行为）。但 Kamtekar 认为，这些关于勇敢者和温和者的描述是通过将罚款分别分为快速和-好的和慢而好的（221）。这些是实数定义，因为除法是柏拉图得出实数定义的方法。然而，这一建议面临着担忧。首先，306C-307C 没有谈到“分割”罚款。其次，Kamtekar 似乎打算将此划分详尽无遗 (221)。这是合理的，因为柏拉图虽然认为没有必要，但强调他明显偏爱二分法 (Phaedrus 265E-266B; Philebus 16CD; Statesman. 262A-263B)。但有勇有中，不能尽善尽美。然而，即使它不是二分法，其他部分仍然是神秘的。第三，正义行为必须包括在罚款中，而且，由于柏拉图使用“正义”等同于“美德”，因此正义行为必须发生在 Kamtekar 同意的罚款、勇敢和温和的相互排斥的划分中（219 ). 第四，最令人担忧的是，因为快和慢是相反的，Kamtekar 认为只要一定程度的缓慢是好的和适当的，该项目就被恰当地称为“适度”而不是“勇敢”，反之亦然 (219).5 但是这产生不可接受的结果。苏格拉底在 Delium 的缓慢撤退肯定是勇敢的，将其称为“适度”是极具误导性的。有人可能会回答说，这一反对意见依赖于过于简单的“快”和“慢”概念，而且这些概念本质上是评价性的。这个答复的代价是放弃厚薄的区别。Kamtekar 最新颖的主张是 306A12-307D6 的勇敢和温和是“实际或真正的美德”（222）的“种类”，而不仅仅是它的成分。Kamtekar 在这里非常重视 306C 的说法，即他们的调查属于“我们”称之为好的事情。Kamtekar 认为这给了我们拒绝传统解释的理由，即 306A12-309A7 中提到的勇气和节制是或包括不是真正美德的自然心理倾向，但只有在知识或“可靠的真实意见”被添加到它们时才会成为美德（ 309D7-310A6). 但是“我们”是谁？Kamtekar 认为 306A12-307D6 中使用的勇敢和温和是“普通语言”和实践的实例，并且“这将是一个实质性的，并且......关于我们称之为快速案例的普通语言的错误假设等“勇敢”，因为他们有潜在的勇气' (222)。我同意收藏通常是从我们普通的分类开始的。但这就是为什么我们经常需要更正它们 (262C-263E)。对于在 306A12-307D6 中讨论的勇气和节制是潜在的而不是完整的美德，普通演讲者不必认为它们只是潜在的美德。所需要的只是他们认为真正的美德，实际上只是潜在的美德。我认为，柏拉图认为普通演讲者通常会严重误解美德，认为美德与行动类型有某种密切关系，这不足为奇。最后，对于柏拉图来说，从谈论勇敢者和温和者是美德的真正部分，转向谈论勇敢者和温和者作为具有两种不同类型的缺陷性格的人（在 306A12 之后）是一个令人困惑的突然转变，与柏拉图式的自然假设，即拥有勇敢物品的共同特征就是使人勇敢的原因。Eleatic Stranger 似乎在 309B6-9 中说了很多。