The Philosopher-Politician: An Analysis of the Future of Democracy

Left: Philosopher Statue at Columbia University. Photo courtesy of InSapphoWeTrust.

Right: Politicians posing for a photo. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Images.

The relationship between the political and the philosophical has always held a murky place in the minds of thinkers and leaders. While philosophy has played a role in politics since the time of Plato and Aristotle, the term “political philosophy” didn’t arise until the late 1800s. Originally derived from the study of social philosophy, political philosophy as a discipline focuses on the “philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life—our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic system and our pattern of family life.” Political philosophy is interested in asking the bigger questions of politics: is this institution consistent with our state’s moral objective? What does it mean to a free citizen that possesses a right to justice in our state? 

The particular realm in which political philosophy lies is even harder to establish than its definition. Even more so, the notion of “the politician” has never been explicitly intertwined with that of “the philosopher” in the same way that the disciplines of politics and philosophy have been united. Perhaps the closest that history has come to a “philosopher-politician” was Confucius in the sixth century—but even then, Confucius only briefly held public office. Plenty of scholars like Max Weber, Niccolo Machiavelli, Plato, and Aristotle have theorized about a “philosopher-politician” with a unique set of skills to both present the right answers in politics and ask the right questions in philosophy. 

However, this kind of leader has yet to show their face in modern politics. With the deterioration of political systems, institutions, and structures around the world, it is high time that society encourages the development of the “philosopher-politician” mindset and establishes an electoral mindset that stimulates intellectualism, not populism. 

The first thing, then, is to establish what can be said about the modern politician. While it should be noted that not every politician can be described the same way, there is a general attitude and charisma that seems to attract the modern electorate—a recipe for a successful candidate. In the 1930s, Max Weber described this kind of politician as one ruled by bureaucracy. The modern politician to Weber, then, is simultaneously a product of bureaucracy and an active figure in maintaining said bureaucracy to promote their own agenda—namely, reelection. The politician is not concerned with asking questions about the state of affairs or seeking knowledge beyond polling and statistical measures of the wants of their constituents. 

This mindset is not necessarily the fault of the individual politician. The system upon which most modern democracies are founded values productivity and compromise on passing legislation in order to accommodate ever-growing populations and issues. The mindset fostered by this system generates a kind of will amongst the citizens to elect those that they think will be the best at “getting things done.” Simply pushing something through to the next committee or out on a ballot takes priority over philosophizing about the issues at hand, creating a “machine” like the political system that Weber theorized. 

Ironically, the modern productive politician is actually neither productive nor the best suited for combating political issues today. When all politicians attempt to complete political tasks protecting their own individual interests, competing interests nullify any productivity at all. The philosopher-politician must not prioritize productivity over thought nor compromise over morals. This figure can be equated with Weber’s “politician of responsibility” or “realization,” someone who is uniquely situated to hold political office, not because of their mass voting appeal but because of their ability to stand up against the irrationality of the pseudo-productive politician. More importantly, there are two methods of political action that the philosopher-politician takes: first, they take into account the deficiencies of the public, and second, they do not burden the results of their own action on the public. At first, this may seem like the philosopher-politician is not to be held accountable by the public, but this is not the case. Philosopher-politicians have a unique set of abilities that the pseudo-productive politician and the voting masses do not have: the philosophical thinking that requires time, patience, and devotion to the public. The pseudo-productive politician, in their effort to maximize the amount of legislative output, does not have the time nor the patience to engage in theoretical analysis. More importantly, they do not have the innate devotion to serve the masses, who also do not always have the time, as a collective, to engage in the questions that political philosophy asks. It is the duty of any politician in a representative democracy to serve the masses, and the philosopher-politician is uniquely skilled to do so, not because of their charismatic or popular appeal but because of their desire to strategize about political issues that have potential impacts in the long term as well as the short term. The philosopher-politician doesn’t require certain training or knowledge, diverging from Plato’s concept of the philosopher-king; according to Weber, philosopher-politicians are held to the same standards for removal as current politicians, and, most importantly, they are not monarchical. 

But why are philosopher-politicians and thinking democracies necessary? The Carnegie Endowment for International Relations argues that “not only are doubts about the value and wisdom of democracy getting a much wider hearing than they were a decade or two ago, so too are voices arguing that authoritarian regimes might be more capable and effective.” The masses are losing faith in the pseudo-productive politician who posits their legislative output as indicative of their ability to represent the public interest and instead are turning to those that promise even more radical immediate change. The philosopher-politician is in a unique position to help curb this movement towards the extreme because, while the authoritarian may be able to push through change quickly, the change is ultimately a negative one since so much time is spent getting it through the next political hurdle that no thought is actually put into the change in the first place. The ideological notion of a philosopher-politician would create another kind of radical change: slower and more thoughtful processes of politics and legislation. The philosopher-politician model provides the much-needed application of the principle that “slow and steady wins the race” to politics. 

Sophia Lander (CC ‘25) is a staff writer at CPR and plans to study Philosophy and Political Science with a focus on post-19th-century social and century political philosophy. She is originally from California but has lived across the world—most notably in Taiwan and the United Kingdom.