ABSTRACT
Plato’s Republic provides with a familiar vantage point from which to begin to consider the philosophical underpinnings of democratic monarchy. Plato’s words are too incomplete and ambiguous to allow such an expectation. Democratic monarchy would best foster rational living in the different conditions which might obtain: when no, few, many or all people have the innate potentiality to become philosophers in Plato’s sense. In contrast to Hegel’s “dialectic” which is primarily conceptual and Marx’s which is primarily historical in execution, Plato’s “dialectic” refers to a method of enquiry. Plato is satisfied that he has given a philosophically adequate definition of “justice” as “proper functioning”. Plato’s philosopher must presume that each person, either is, or may become a self-controlling dialectical reasoner. In addition, democratic monarchy would provide the best framework both for testing the validity of Plato’s several assumptions and for coping with the reality whatever it might be.
