philosopher kings

Noun

philosopher king (plural philosopher kings)

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. (figuratively) A very wise ruler.
   • 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...1862, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book XI, page 6