What If the Philosophers Ran the World?

Here is an idea we keep returning to. What if all the philosophers came together and gave the world a direction?

It sounds grand, but the reasoning behind it is simple. In the sense Madhyasth Darshan gives it, and the one we explore here, philosophy means finding the design of the universe: how things are, how they fit together, and what follows for how we should live. If some people really have the capacity to see that design and write it down, wouldn't they be more competent than anyone else to run the world according to it?

Isn't it a good idea? We want to take the question seriously, which means looking at what is right about it and what isn't.

This may sound like a dismissal of philosophy. It isn’t. We think philosophy matters more than most of what currently steers the world.

An old idea, for a reason

This is not a new thought. Around 2,400 years ago Plato argued in the Republic that cities would not be free of trouble until philosophers ruled, or rulers became philosophers. The idea has lasted because the problem it answers has lasted.

Look at how we choose who steers today. We pick people who are good at winning elections, building companies, gathering followers or commanding armies. These are skills of persuasion and power. None of them is the skill of understanding. We have built a world that can measure the distance between galaxies and still be run by people who have not been asked whether they understand themselves.

Seen that way, asking the people who seek the design of the universe to give us a direction does not sound naive. It sounds overdue.

Where it gets difficult

The philosophers disagree. If philosophy is finding the design of the universe, and there is one universe, then those who had truly found it should agree. Yet philosophers have argued with each other for as long as there have been philosophers. Disagreement is not always failure; arguing is often how understanding grows. But it does suggest much of what we call philosophy is still opinion about the design rather than sight of it. Put every philosopher in one room and you may not get a direction. You may get a very long debate.

Writing it is not living it. The capacity to write philosophy is not the same as the capacity to live by it. A person can describe harmony beautifully and still be at war in their own home. If understanding is real, it shows up in how a person lives with their family, their work and the people next door, not only in what they publish. That cannot be verified in a day. It takes years of living and working together.

“Someone who has truly seen the design would not need to rule. They would only need to show.”

“Run” may be the wrong word. Someone who has truly understood how everything fits with everything else would see that harmony cannot be imposed. Order enforced from the top turns into force, and force is the opposite of trust. History has examples of people who were certain they knew the right design for society and used power to make everyone else fit it. It has gone badly again and again. Even Plato, by the account handed down to us, tried to guide a ruler in Syracuse and came away disappointed.

Showing is not always enough, though. When someone is being harmed now, a community still needs rules that can be enforced and institutions that can act. Understanding can shape those institutions and make them fairer. It doesn’t make them unnecessary.

What is worth keeping

So is it a good idea? We think half of it is very good.

The half worth keeping is direction. The world does need people whose first qualification is understanding, not winning. It needs their clarity to come before power and money, not after. And it needs that clarity in the places where life is actually lived: in education, in families and in work.

The half to drop is rule. Direction that has to be enforced is not yet understanding. Real understanding persuades by being lived. A family that lives exactly as it says, and whose words can be tested against reality, gives more direction than any council of experts could hand down.

Maybe that is the real test for anyone, philosopher or not, who claims to know the design. Not how well they can write it, but whether it holds in their own home, then in their village, and then a little further out.

And the planet?

The same question decides what happens to the earth. Today, how forests, rivers, soil and air are used is settled mostly by those who win elections, markets and negotiations. Each sets a direction for a few years, the next may reverse it, and the planet absorbs the difference.

It is tempting to wish that experts, or a world authority, would simply run the planet’s affairs instead. The argument above applies here too. A rule imposed from above meets resistance and loopholes, and lasts only as long as it can be enforced. A household, a village or a company that understands its relationship with nature looks after it without being checked. So the direction a sustainable planet needs may come less from whoever is in charge, and more from understanding spread widely enough that it no longer has to be enforced. That is the work we set out in One question, not two.

Over to you

We are not certain we are right about this. Would a world guided by its philosophers be wiser, or only more confident? Who would you trust to give the world a direction, and what would they have to show you first?

If you have an answer, or a better question, write to us or come on the podcast.

Limitations

• We treat Plato’s idea very briefly, and serious readers of the Republic would add a great deal.
• The Seventh Letter, which tells the story of Syracuse, may not have been written by Plato himself.
• We say understanding persuades by being lived, but history also has good people who were simply ignored.

References

1. Plato, Republic, Book V (473c–d)
2. Plato (attributed), Seventh Letter
3. Madhyasth Darshan Paribhasha Sanhita, दर्शन (philosophy), p. 88