Abstract

This paper explores Elisabeth’s remark that ruling and studying each demands an entire person, with the aim of understanding why she might think ruling and intellectual pursuits like philosophy are incompatible with one another. While Elisabeth identifies several barriers to philosophizing, she does not suggest that time constraints are an impediment to both philosophizing and ruling. Situating Elisabeth with respect to Plato, Machiavelli, and Aristotle suggests that she holds there are many similarities between governing and philosophizing. The methodology and skill set of a ruler and a philosopher are very similar; both need to organize their thoughts, consider an array of possible alternatives, gather background information, and be decisive; both take virtue, truth, and justice as their ends, and they are driven by a central concern for something other than themselves. Though both can be moved to high emotions by external forces, they can cultivate the self-awareness that can serve in modulating those emotions in a variety of ways. However, a difference lies in the ways in which the objects of their decisions are constrained in time. This difference in turn disposes each to different emotions. Insofar as their lives are tightly integrated, a ruler and a philosopher would have different affective profiles and organize their lives around different principles. In virtue of these differences, a ruler and a philosopher would indeed need to be two entire persons.