This volume tackles both the apparent lack of unity and the perplexing philosophical content of
the Statesman as it explores in what is now Plato's second account subsequent to that of the
Republic of what would constitute the best society the role and nature of the statesman in it
the art of governance of it the role and nature of its laws the role and status of its female
citizens and how the virtues are interwoven within it along with many other topics including
(in a major Myth) that of the origins of the universe and of humankind. Coming as they do from
often widely differing hermeneutical traditions the authors in the volume offer responses to
substantive and intriguing questions that the dialogue raises which are frequently divergent
but by that very token of much value in any attempt to interpret a complex and multifaceted
work.
