Of Rule and Office - by Melissa Lane

Book Synopsis

A constitutionalist reading of Plato's political thought

Plato famously defends the rule of knowledge. Knowledge, for him, is of the good. But what is rule? In this study, Melissa Lane reveals how political office and rule were woven together in Greek vocabulary and practices that both connected and distinguished between rule in general and office as a constitutionally limited kind of rule in particular. In doing so, Lane shows Plato to have been deeply concerned with the roles and relationships between rulers and ruled. Adopting a longstanding Greek expectation that a ruler should serve the good of the ruled, Plato's major political dialogues--the Republic, the Statesman, and Laws--explore how different kinds of rule might best serve that good. With this book, Lane offers the first account of the clearly marked vocabulary of offices at the heart of all three of these dialogues, explaining how such offices fit within the broader organization and theorizing of rule.

Lane argues that taking Plato's interest in rule and office seriously reveals tyranny as ultimately a kind of anarchy, lacking the order as well as the purpose of rule. When we think of tyranny in this way, we see how Plato invokes rule and office as underpinning freedom and friendship as political values, and how Greek slavery shaped Plato's account of freedom. Reading Plato both in the Greek context and in dialogue with contemporary thinkers, Lane argues that rule and office belong at the center of Platonic, Greek, and contemporary political thought.

Review Quotes

"[A] meticulous new analysis of Plato's constitutionalism. . . . With the appearance of Melissa Lane's authoritative Of Rule and Office, debate over the evolution of Plato's discussion of the vulnerabilities of political office and the various ways in which rule and office might be understood must be nearly at an end."---Andrew David Irvine, Times Literary Supplement

"A delight to read."---Patrick Rioridan, The Heythrop Journal

"An original contribution to Platonic scholarship. . . . [Of Rule and Office] is a book worth reading, and in full."---Geoff Bakewell, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Excellent. . . . In this monumental study, Lane offers a sophisticated and insightful reinterpretation of Plato's political thinking."---Daniel Vazquez, Greece & Rome

"Winner of the Journal of the History of Philosophy Book Prize"

"Written with extraordinary scrupulousness. . . . With [Of Rule and Office], Plato's ideas of the political are put firmly on the map."---Christopher Rowe, Mind

About the Author

Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics and a faculty member of the Program in Classical Philosophy at Princeton University. She is also the 50th Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College. Her books include Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living and The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter (both Princeton) and Method and Politics in Plato's "Statesman."