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Oct 28, 2026
Plato the Lawgiver
On Ancient Constitutionalism
Summary
What keeps political power aimed at the good of those it governs? Melissa Lane, Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton, joins host Ryan Shinkel to discuss her book Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political (Princeton UP, 2026). She distinguishes rule, any hierarchical relationship of direction, from office, which is bound by term limits, eligibility requirements, limited powers, and accountability.
Lane argues that the Republic, far from Karl Popper’s vision of unconstrained power, is a book about constitutional design: its very title, Politeia, meant a city’s offices and laws, and Plato surrounds his rulers with legal safeguards rather than trusting virtue alone. The conversation also takes up the noble lie, the written law code of the Laws and its dawn-meeting council, and the Statesman’s account of weaving a city divided between hawks and doves — a problem we’d now call polarization. Lane closes on why no AI can do the work of reading Plato for you and an invitation for listeners to live with these texts themselves.
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