This essay poses the question of how many rulers are envisaged in Plato’s Statesman. After pointing out that this is a crucial question for issues concerning non-ideal as well as ideal approaches to political rule, the essay focuses on three relevant aspects of rule in the Statesman: the notion of kingly rule, the limitations posed by human nature, and the importance of self-rule. It is shown how each of these dimensions of Plato’s discussion demonstrates the complexity of the question. Particular attention is then given to features inherent to political rule: the need for subordinate functions and a distribution of offices, seen in light of the ends of political rule as helping citizens obtain their potential. It is argued that while the Statesman does not lead to any certain conclusion concerning the number of rulers, and some of its considerations conflict with each other, the text as a whole allows for a fairly broad basis of political rule.

本文提出了柏拉图的《政治家》中设想多少个统治者的问题。在指出这是有关政治统治的非理想和理想方法的关键问题之后，本文着重探讨了政治家中统治的三个相关方面：王权统治的概念，人性的局限性，以及自我统治的重要性。它显示了柏拉图讨论的所有这些方面如何证明了问题的复杂性。然后，应特别注意政治统治固有的特征：从属职能的需要和职位的分配，从政治统治的目的来看，这有助于公民发挥自己的潜力。有人认为，虽然政治家 并未就统治者的数量得出任何确定的结论，并且其某些考虑因素相互冲突，整个案文为政治统治奠定了相当广泛的基础。