Kevin Cherry has written a serious and thoughtful book that addresses an enduring question: What is or ought to be the purpose of politics? Although different answers to this question continue to animate modern and postmodern politics, Cherry traces the contours of these more familiar disputes back to a comprehensive exchange about the nature and purpose of politics, one that was largely responsible for the emergence of political philosophy in the West. He offers a new way into an old question by uncovering the presence of a sustained debate between Plato's Statesman and Aristotle's Politics.

Whereas scholars have long noted that Aristotle opens the Politics by taking issue with the Eleatic Stranger's claim in the Statesman that there are no essential differences in despotic, household, and political rule, Cherry argues that this initial disagreement is only the tip of the iceberg. He maintains that Aristotle's dispute with the Eleatic Stranger in the beginning chapters animates not only the entirety of Book I but also the Politics as a whole. The dispute reemerges in Book IV, where Aristotle offers his view of the best feasible regime, and again at the beginning of Book VII, where it illuminates perplexing aspects of Aristotle's dialectical consideration of the best life, particularly the portrayal of the philosophic life offered there. Aristotle introduces his own philosophically informed paradigm for politics by criticizing, on the one hand, the hegemonic tendencies accompanying political life and, on the other, the politically detached philosophic perspective advanced by the Eleatic Stranger. The major contribution of Cherry's book is to draw Aristotle's partially hidden dialogue with the Eleatic Stranger out of the shadows, and in so doing, to make visible an underlying dispute governing Aristotle's study as a whole.

A second distinctive aspect of Cherry's study is the manner in which he addresses Plato's Statesman. Acknowledging his indebtedness to the scholarly work of Catherine Zuckert (now published in her magisterial Plato's Philosophers, 2009), Cherry distinguishes the thought of the Eleatic Stranger not only from that of Plato's Socrates but also from Plato himself. He contends that the Eleatic Stranger is a representative of an influential fourth-century B.C. philosophic school of thought, one that both Plato in the Statesman and Aristotle in the Politics deem worthy of serious and sustained attention. Whereas the dominant reading of the Statesman attempts to render it in some way compatible with Socratic views usually associated with Plato, Cherry maintains that several of these readings are simply inconsistent with the text. For example, Cherry takes issue with those scholars who conflate the Eleatic's image of the statesman as someone who weaves together “the moderate and the manly” with Socrates' insistence that the true art of politics involves “soul craft.” Although this interpretation is attractive in its consistency and initially plausible on the basis of what is usually believed about Plato, Cherry argues that in fact the Eleatic Stranger never suggests that the duty of a statesman is to care for the souls of citizens (p. 53). In fact, he argues that the statesman, unlike the Eleatic philosopher himself, is primarily concerned with the bodies of citizens and the preservation of the city.

Cherry goes on to show that careful analysis of the Statesman on its own terms reveals that several apparent points of agreement between the political teachings of this Platonic dialogue and Aristotle's Politics are not what they seem. While both make use of a sixfold regime typology, praise lawful democracy, and refer to political wisdom (phronēsis), careful examination of these apparent similarities reveals deeper and more fundamental differences. The Eleatic Stranger's use of a sixfold regime classification proves to be no more than a “by-product” of the fundamental division in politics. His primary division is between the “one true regime,” constituted by rulers possessing “true knowledge or science” (alēthēs epistēmonas), and all the other regimes, which are merely “imitative.” The Eleatic Stranger does observe that all regimes are ruled by one, a few, or many, and that each can be further distinguished by whether such rule is lawful or lawless. These distinctions, however, are emphatically secondary; they become necessary only insofar as conditions of human existence prevent the realization of the only correct (orthēn) regime.

Similarly, whereas many recent commentators maintain that the Eleatic, like Aristotle, presents lawful democracy as the best possible regime, Cherry points out that the former explicitly identifies “lawful monarchy” as best, and goes on to show how and why rule by the statesman is not limited by the rule of law. These differences between the Eleatic and Aristotle derive in some part from the very different ways in which they understand phronēsis or practical wisdom. Cherry argues that the Eleatic insists that the true statesman possesses “knowledge or science” (epistēmē) rather than phronēsis, and that the latter is more consistently used with reference to the philosopher. In sharp contrast, Aristotle distinguishes different levels of phronēsis that include both the “higher political phronēsis” necessary for lawgiving and a more accessible version that some multitudes can acquire through shared deliberation.

The rejection of these (and other) specific teachings of the Eleatic Stranger derive from Aristotle's more fundamental rejection of his political philosophy as a whole, together with the perception of the natural world on which it is based. The reason the Eleatic philosopher maintains that there is no essential difference among despotic, household, and political communities is because all have (or should have) preservation as their primary purpose due to the hostile and increasingly disordered forces of nature. It is at this point that the fundamental difference between the Eleatic and Socratic understandings of the purpose of politics comes most sharply into view. Whereas the former is primarily concerned with the preservation of human life and unquestioning adherence to those (usually imperfect) laws most apt to secure that purpose, Socrates insists that the true political art is primarily concerned with the cultivation of souls. Socrates' preoccupation with, and provocative exploration of, political beliefs about the human good effectively loosens the hold of precisely those political opinions most apt to secure the authority of law. From the point of view of the Eleatic philosopher, Socrates' dialectical encounters with individuals about the good, noble, or just is in fact both philosophically suspect and politically subversive (p. 156).

The last two chapters explore two ways in which awareness of Aristotle's sustained engagement with the Eleatic Stranger contributes to our understanding of both Aristotle and the purpose of politics. First, it allows us to understand the nature and limits of Aristotle's better-known critique of Socrates in Book II of the Politics. Without in any way softening his criticism of Socrates' proposals in the Republic, an awareness of Aristotle's more comprehensive dispute with the Eleatic Stranger also brings to light the fundamental agreement between Aristotle and Socrates on both the purpose of politics and the necessity of philosophy for its realization. Second, Cherry concludes his study with an exploration of the ways in which contemporary debates about the purpose of politics might benefit from awareness of the scope and radical character of this dispute among the Eleatic Stranger, the Platonic Socrates, and Aristotle.

Although not everyone will be convinced by the argument of Cherry's clearly written book, his careful reading of the Statesman, illuminating engagement with Platonic and Aristotelian alternatives, and thoughtful consideration of existing scholarship amounts to an argument that serious students of political philosophy will need to take into account. While the author does make demands on his readers, he also rewards their efforts by opening a fresh perspective on a central political question of enduring importance.