Plato on the value of knowledge in ruling

This paper transposes for evaluation in relation to the concerns of Plato's Politicus (or Statesman) a claim developed by Verity Harte in the context of his Philebus, that 'external imposition of a practical aim would in some way corrupt paideutic [philosophical] knowledge' (Harte 2018, p. 41). I argue that the Politicus provides a case for which the Philebus distinction may not allow: ruling, or statecraft, as embodying a form of knowledge that can be answerable to practical norms in a way that does not necessarily subordinate or corrupt its epistemic norms. I argue further that while Harte shows that the Philebus develops a view of the ethical value for a knower in being a knower, the Politicus for its part does not develop any view of the ethical value for a knower in being a ruler.