Key Arguments

• Identifies current maladministration and seeks the least and fewest changes; proposes one great change as both difficult yet possible.
• Claims political greatness and wisdom must meet in one, and one-sided natures pursuing only politics or only philosophy must be set aside.
• Asserts without philosopher-kings there will be no rest for cities nor for the human race, and only then will the ideal city be possible.

Source Quotes

Certainly, he replied. I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one. What is it? he said.

Proceed. I said: 'Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,—nor the human race, as I believe,—and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.' Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing.

Key Concepts

• I think, I said, that there might be a reform of the State if only one change were made, which is not a slight or easy though still a possible one.
• Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,—nor the human race, as I believe,—and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

Context

Introducing the 'third wave' of paradoxical proposals, Socrates states the philosopher-king thesis as the minimal yet radical condition for possibility.

Perspectives

Plato

Affirms the philosopher-king as the political instantiation of knowledge of the Good; unity of wisdom and power secures just order.

Socrates

Frames the thesis as shocking yet necessary; presents it as the least change that cures systemic evils.