Technē and Politeia: The Technical Constitution of Society

Abstract

At the beginning of Western political theory a powerful analogy links the practice of technology to that of politics. In his Republic, Laws, Statesman, and other discourses, Plato asserts that statecraft is a technē, one of the practical arts. Much like architecture, the building of ships and other commonly recognized arts and crafts, politics is a field of practice that has its own distinctive knowledge, its own special skills. One purpose of Plato’s argument was to discredit those who believed that the affairs of public life could be left to mere amateurs. But beyond that, it is clear that he thought the art of politics could be useful in the same way as any other techne, that is it could produce finished works of lasting value. The works he had in mind were good constitutions, supremely well-crafted products of political architecture. Politeia, the title of the Republic in Greek, means the constitution of a polis, the proper order of human relationships within a city-state. The dialogue describes and justifies what Plato holds to be the institutional arrangements appropriate to the best politeia. He returns to this theme in the Laws, a discussion of the “second best” constitution, comparing his work to that of a well-established craft. “The shipwright, you know, begins his work by laying down the keel of the vessel and indicating her outlines, and I feel myself to be doing the same thing in my attempt to present you with outlines of human lives. . . . I am really laying the keels of the vessels by due consideration of the question by what means or manner of life we shall make our voyage over the sea of time to the best purpose.”¹