Le Politique Incertain: Pouvoir et Philosophie dans la République et les Lois

According to a current reading of Plato’s political philosophy, the Republic and the Laws propose a set of measures to remedy the evils of the cities. Among them, the alliance of power and philosophy is undoubtedly the most massive and famous. My claim is that such a reading fails to recognize that the functional centrality of the philosophy and the philosopher in Plato’s political thought goes hand in hand with their structural precariousness or uncertainty. As a result, Plato’s political philosophy in these two dialogues deals less with how to found a just city than with the uncertainty of politics itself - politics understood here as the institutional space arranged for the optimal development of the human being.