It is probably the case that politicians who are encouraged to read the works of the ancient Greek thinker, Plato – particularly The Republic – to learn something there about the prerequisites for being able to govern appropriately and wisely, would scoff at this suggestion, with perhaps a few rare exceptions. More specifically, among these prerequisites Plato counted an understanding of the ‘nature’ of human beings – their ‘soul’ or psuche (where our word, psyche, comes from). To the question of why Plato would consider it essential for rulers to understand the people whom they govern, the answer should be obvious: unless you have a grasp of how these creatures think, what they desire, and so on, your governance may just flounder against the rock of misunderstanding.
