A Study On The Plato's Throught About Kingship

As a famous philosopher and politician of ancient Greece, Plato's political theory existed mainly in his three works——the Republic, Politicians and Laws. In this paper, by analyzing the related paragraphs in these three works, the author brings forward that Plato developed his theory from the Republic to Laws, which is a development of The Kingship Thought.The rule of Philosophy-king put forward by Plato in his the Republic is a kind of The Kingship Thought. For one thing, the thought is an authoritarianism based on Philosophy-king's perfection of morality. For another, it is based on the perfection of morality and holism of his utopia. In this political system, there is no individual freedom of thought and action at all. In Politicians, Plato affirmed Kingship was the true political system. At the same time, in order to concentrate about reality, he thought Monarchy ruled according to law was the perfect reflection of Kingship in reality. Moreover, in laws, the virtue and authority of the law replaced the virtue and authority of the Philosophy-king. So, from the Republic to Laws, the evolution of Plato's thought changed in the form, but did not change in essentially. In the form, the rule of Philosophy-king change into the rule of law, but in essence, the authoritarianism based on virtue is eternal.Plato was a thinker who concerned about the reality. The time of his life was very turbulent, and at that time, individualism was very popular. Therefore, from the idea of justice, he proposed his Kingship to resume national order. However, he went to extreme in the process of pursuing justice. The extreme would lead to the political injustice inevitably.