Plato's View that Philosophers Should Rule

The famous philosopher Plato holds that the world should be ruled by true philosophers. This idea involves a great deal of wisdom and have been studied by many philosophers. It will be discussed in this essay.

Plato not only has the opinion that philosophers should rule, but also has developed a whole theory to support this. According to Plato's masterpiece the Republic, there are three distinctions between philosophers and non-philosophers and these are important factors which to some extent, determine philosophers' absolute ruler position. Firstly, unlike most lovers of beautiful things, philosophers in addition love beauty itself, which is the Form introduced by Plato. Secondly, philosophers live in the real world, non-philosophers in their dream world. Lastly, philosophers are people who have true knowledge,, but counterfeit philosophers only have beliefs or opinions. Plato further conceives a model containing images of the Sun, the Line and the Cave to strengthen his theory. To elaborate, this model mainly illustrates the relation and difference between knowledge and ignorance, dream and reality.

As for Plato's viewpoint of distinctions between philosophers and non-philosophers, I argue that this is enough to note that philosophers should rule and they can run the world in the most balanced state. This is not purely because philosophers have knowledge, which others don't, but also because there are no better alternatives for them. Cross (1964) says that the difference between true philosophers and their rivals is that true philosophers know reality of which many counterfeit philosophers' 'reality' is appearance. This means true philosophers grasp the eternal and internal knowledge of things and this knowledge acts in real world as theorems and axioms do in mathematics. They are the rules that determine how everything in the world works. So a philosopher's mind is like an abstraction of non-philosopher's thoughts. But this kind of abstraction or high level of understanding is somewhat away from practice. They can't adjust their knowledge with times, so there exists a distance between their knowledge and the real world (Pappas, 1995). However, as is known to all, what play the fundamental role in the world are the natures of things and only philosophers can reach them. So despite their limitation of practical knowledge, philosophers are still more qualified to rule than any other people because they are fundamentally correct.

Plato's model of the Sun, the Line and the Cave also indicates that philosophers have the utmost intelligence and should rule the world. Because it basically shows different levels of the world – the visible and the intelligible. Cross (1964) perceives the model that those who stand at the top know the Form of the Good – the Sun, knowledge – the top of the Line, and truth – one who receives education and has broken out of the Cave. This model also to some degree, proves the point that philosophers being the rulers mainly because there are no better alternatives for them – they are on the top, despite the fact that this point of view might be slightly different from Plato's original meaning of philosophers being the rules.

All in all, although there might arise many explanations, there's an agreement that philosophers have the highest level of knowledge and should rule the world in order to achieve the most balanced state of the world.


References

Bobonich . C, “Why Should Philosophers Rule? Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Protrepticus”, Philosophy, Stanford University, Available at:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=11DEBBE7A2E0E52611522068E4C2DA0E.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=1031904

Cross. R. C, Plato's Republic – A Philosophical commentary, London, New York St Martin's Press, 1964.

Pappas Nickolas, Plato and the Republic, from the Republic of Plato translated by Allan Bloom, 1995.

Plato, The republic, edited by G.R.F. Ferrari ; translated by Tom Griffith, Published by New York. Cambridge University Press, 2000.