Plato on Democracy and Political technē

In Plato on Democracy and Political technē Sørensen argues that the question of democracy’s ‘epistemic potential’ was one that Plato took more seriously than is usually assumed. While he famously rejected democracy on the basis of its inherent inability to accommodate political expertise (technē), he did not think that this failure on democracy’s part was necessarily inevitable but a concept that required further examination. Sørensen shows that in a number of his most important dialogues (Republic, Gorgias, Statesman, Protagoras, Theaetetus), Plato was ready to take up the question of democracy’s epistemic potential and to enter into strikingly technical and sophisticated discussions of what both rule by technē and rule by the people would have to look like in order for the two things to be compatible.

Anders Dahl Sørensen, Ph.D. (2014), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, currently holds a Post-doctoral position at the SAXO-institute, University of Copenhagen. He works on ancient Greek political and legal thought.

“This book represents an important contribution to the study of Plato’s political thought and its relationship to its Athenian context, and its careful readings of both Plato’s dialogues and previous scholarship provide helpful additions to current debates.” -Carol Atack, University of Oxford, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.05.25