philosopher king

plural philosopher kings · alternative philosopher-king

1. human sciencesA 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. figurativelyA very wise ruler.

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

   1987, Stewart Flory, The Archaic Smile of Herodotus

   3 more 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;[…]

   1862, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book XI, page 6

   […] 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, […]

   1871, Benjamin Jowett, transl., Republic, translation of Πολιτεία by Plato

   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.

   1919, John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace