On top of that now, the scientific community has grown considerably and enjoys a very remarkable diversity in its internal organization and practice of science. Today, discussing this relation has become of particular relevance, even more so as stakeholders other than politicians have to be taken into consideration. In the same dialog, SOCRATES defines 'philosophers' as 'those for whom the truth is the spectacle of which they are enamoured'. Here is what PLATO wrote in a dialogue between SOCRATES and GLAUCON: 'Unless, said I, either philosophers become kings in our states or those whom we now call our kings and rulers take to the pursuit of philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction of these two things, political power and philosophical intelligence, while the motley horde of the natures who at present pursue either apart from the other are compulsorily excluded, there can be no cessation of troubles, dear GLAUCON, for our states, nor, I fancy, for the human race either.вЂќ

PLATO discusses it explicitly in Book V of the Republic, a reference in human thinking written some 2500 years ago. One can find thoughtful contributions on this matter from many different authors in the course of History. Indeed the issue of the relation of intellectuals (in Ancient Times вЂintellectualsвЂ™ were called вЂphilosophersвЂ™, today one would tend to say вЂscientistsвЂ™, and this is the terminology I will use here) with rulers has drawn attention in many different historical contexts. This gives me an opportunity to reflect on the community I belong to, the scientific community, and its relation with society at large around an issue that has always occupied humans since the Ancient Times, namely Power. The subject I would like to address today is not a new one but it has become more topical in the last century and in the present one in several contexts, some truly dramatic, some less so. However, the Mandate of Heaven philosophy carried on throughout ancient China.Simon Initiative Distinguished Lecture, Carnegie MellonДistinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Zhou ruled until 256 BCE, when the state of Qin captured Chengzhou.

The Zhou needed to erase the various small states of prehistoric China from history, and replace them with the monocratic Xia Dynasty in order for their Mandate of Heaven to seem valid (i.e., to support the claim that there always would be, and always had been, only one ruler of China). The need for the Zhou to create a history of a unified China is also why some scholars think the Xia Dynasty may have been an invention of the Zhou. The godsвЂ™ blessing was given instead to the new ruler under the Zhou Dynasty, which would rule China for the next 800 years. In other words, the Zhou believed that the Shang kings had become immoral with their excessive drinking, luxuriant living, and cruelty, and so had lost their mandate. The Zhou claimed that their rule was justified by the Mandate of Heaven. Instead, rulers were expected to be good and just in order to keep the Mandate. The Mandate of Heaven did not require a ruler to be of noble birth, and had no time limitations.

The Chinese character for вЂњTian,вЂќ meaning вЂњheaven,вЂќ in (from left to right) Bronze script, Seal script, Oracle script, and modern simplified.

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