Meaning of philosopher king | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A hypothetical ideal ruler, trained in philosophy, who has a full understanding of the Platonic ideal of the Form of the Good, and uses this for the benefit of the state.
2. A very wise ruler.
   figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“He flies much about from place to place; now at Potsdam, now at Berlin, at Charlottenburg, Reinsberg; nothing loath to run whither business calls him, and appear in public: the gazetteer world, as we noticed, which has been hitherto a most mute world, breaks out here and there into a kind of husky jubilation over the great things he is daily doing, and rejoices in the prospect of having a Philosopher King;[…]”

“[…] what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream[…] that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, […]”

“But if the President was not the philosopher-king, what was he? After all he was a man who had spent much of his life at a University.”

“This philosopher king contrasts sharply with the cruel tyrant, who plays a memorable role in other parts of the Histories.”

CEFR level