Plato's Philosopher-King: A Study of the Theoretical Background (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 331 Greater Alcibiades attests. The Phaedo marked the end of Phase I and the beginningof Phase II as Plato developed further the underpinnings for the four theses. None of this, of course, proves the claim that we are dealing with a theory from the historical Socrates, and Sarri recognizes that it does not. He contends that we would have such evidence if we could discover these same theses reflected in writers who were contemporaries of Socrates and Plato, and who were influenced by the former but not by the latter. One such writer Sarri finds in Xenophon. Not that Xenophon is being appealed to as a conveyor of Socratic philosophy; he is not, particularly as a conveyor differing from or competing with Plato. He is approached as simply an observer capable of informing us about the attitudes of people concerning the soul in the period immediately following the death of Socrates. In Xenophon, Sarri finds not only the old conceptions of soul as life, courage, or as the seat of the emotions, but he finds as well the same facets to be found in Plato's Phase I" the soul as the entire personality, as more important than the body, and as an object to be cared for in the pursuit of virtue. In Xenophon, too, is expressed the conviction and the hope, without any compelling arguments to back it up, that the soul is immortal. Further, when these new facets are introduced, they are often introduced as coming from the mouth of Socrates. This is a valuable study, engagingly written and thoroughly documented. Philosophers will find most interest in the segments dealing with the Presocratics and with Socrates himself. A crisp picture emerges of the development of the concept of the soul, a development that is in effect a complete turnabout from the Homeric view of the soul as alien to the personality and thus not related to ethical life, to the view of Socrates in which the soul is identified with the personality and thus is the source of intelligence, of consciousness, and of the ethical dimension of life. On Sarri's account, backed up as it is by the evidence, the development is seen to have followed a pattern, with first one, then another thinker making his contribution, until finally Socrates takes the results of his predecessors' speculation and caps them off with his own original insights. Thus Sarri's work serves to set the record straight against Rohde, who believed Socrates' contribution to the development of the concept of the soul was nugatory, and against Jaeger, Robinson, and others who believed the relationship between the soul and intelligence-consciousnesswas asserted from the earliest period of philosophical thought. EUGENEE. RYAN East Carolina University Rosamond Kent Sprague. Plato's Philosopher-King: A Study of the Theoretical Background. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1976. Pp. 129. $9.95. As the full title suggests, Sprague's book does not attempt to illuminate only Plato's remarks about the philosophical rulers of the ideal city described in the Republic; it seeks also to clarify who the philosopher-king is by analyzing the platonic notion of the techne politike, the art of ruling. The book is interesting, tightly argued for the most part, and helpful. There is much that the student of Plato's political philosophy can learn from Professor Sprague's treatment. It is a mistake, according to Sprague, for one seeking a full understanding of Plato's theory of the best rule to focus exclusively on the three dialogues usually looked to: the Republic, the Statesman, and the Laws. Sprague argues that we can find Plato at work on the notion of the ruler's art in a number of the early dialogues where he is abstracting the common features of the uncontroversially legitimate arts so familiar to Platonic arguments: the doctor's art, the shipbuilder's art, the bridle maker's art, and so forth. Because the ruler's art does not possess all of the necessary characteristics of these other arts, Sprague argues, Plato developed the 332 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY hypothesis that undergirds the political program of the Republic and that is specifically...