Audimo, kaip tekstą organizuojančio elemento, vaidmuo Platono Valstybininke. Weaving as a text arranging element in Plato’s Statesmen

Abstract

The Statesman is Plato’s neglected political work, but it is crucial for the understanding of the development of his political thinking as well as extending the understanding of his other works. The dialogue Statesman combines two or even more subjects and different aspects of the same subject; the dialogue likewise contains a central section on paradigm and measure which affects the passage between the statesman as a shepherd and the statesman as a weaver. It is ostensibly an attempt to arrive at the definition of the statesman as a ruler who has political power called for a specialized knowledge.This article analyses the dialogue itself, seeks relation to the other Plato’s writings as well as to old archaic and essential symbols, which are found in many different traditions and represent the text as a web, as a cloth referring to many different layers of the text. Also there is put an emphasis on linguistic and stylistic analysis, which is based on comparison of compounds, terminology, specific terms of weaving as well as some astronomical terms. There is also given a wide comparison of weaving which appears as one of the most essential elements of the text which interweaves all its layers and binds together its philosophical, textological and cultural issues as a continuous unity.