Tag: Laws

Topics

Major Works

  • Laws

    - Recommended translation: The Laws of Plato, trans. Thomas L. Pangle (Basic, 1980; University of Chicago Press, 1988).
    This is the best edition of the Laws available in English. Thomas L. Pangle’s edition also includes an extended interpretative essay that introduces the work. Excerpt: Athenian To whom do you ascribe the authorship of your legal arrangements, Strangers?… More

  • Republic

    - Recommended translations:
    • Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
    • Plato. The Republic. Translated by Tom Griffith. Edited by G. R. F. Ferrari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
    Excerpt: “What you say is very fine indeed, Cephalus,” I said. “But as to this very thing, justice, shall we so simply assert that it is the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another, or is to do these very things sometimes just and… More

Other Works

  • Minos

    - Recommended translations:
    • "Minos," trans. T. Pangle in The Roots of Political Philosophy, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Cornell, 1987).
    • "Minos," trans. M. Schofield in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Hackett, 1997).
    Excerpt: Socrates Tell me, what is law? Companion To what kind of law does your question refer? Socrates What! Is there any difference between law and law, in this particular point of being law? For just consider what is the actual question I am putting to… More

  • Epinomis

    - Recommended translation: "Epinomis," trans. W. R. M. Lamb in Plato in Twelve Volumes, vol. 9, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925. 
    Excerpt: Cleinias: True to our agreement, good sir, we have come all three—you and I and Megillus here—to consider in what terms we ought to describe that part of understanding which we say produces, when it so intends, the most excellent disposition of… More

Commentary

  • Plato’s Cretan City: A Historical Interpretation of the Laws

    - Morrow, Glenn R., Plato's Cretan City: A Historical Interpretation of the Laws, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960.
    About the Book: Plato’s Cretan City is a thorough investigation into the roots of Plato’s Laws and a compelling explication of his ideas on legislation and social institutions. A dialogue among three travelers, the Laws proposes a detailed… More

  • On Plato’s Republic

    - Strauss, Leo, "On Plato's Republic," The City and Man, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, 50-138.
    Excerpt: Generally speaking, we can know the thought of a man only through his speeches oral or written. We can know Aristotle’s political philosophy through his Politics. Plato’s Republic on the other hand, in contradistinction to… More

  • The Republic of Plato

    - Bloom, Allan, The Republic of Plato, New York: Basic Books, 1968, 1991.
    Excerpt: The Republic is the true Apology of Socrates, for only in the Republic does he give an adequate treatment of the theme which was forced on him by Athens’ accusation against him. That theme is the relationship of the philosopher to the… More

  • The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws

    - Strauss, Leo, The Argument and the Action of Plato's Laws, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
    Excerpt: In the traditional order of the Platonic dialogues the Laws is preceded by the Minos, the only Platonic dialogue in which Socrates raises the question What is law? It appears that not all laws are good or, at any rate equally good. The Cretan laws… More

  • The Political Psychology of Religion in Plato’s Laws

    - Pangle, Thomas L., "The Political Psychology of Religion in Plato’s Laws," The American Political Science Review 70, no. 4 (December 1976), 1059-77.
    Excerpt: Why is it important that we turn our serious attention to Plato’s Laws? How will the study of this antique work help us to come to grips with the dilemma of modern democracy? We find ourselves citizens of rich and powerful regimes which… More

  • An Introduction to Plato’s Republic

    - Annas, Julia, An Introduction to Plato's Republic, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
    Excerpt: The Republic is Plato’s best-known work, and there are ways in which it is too famous for its own good. It gives us systematic answers to a whole range of questions about morality, politics, knowledge, and metaphysics, and the book is written… More

  • On the Minos

    - Strauss, Leo, "On the Minos," The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, 67-79.
    Excerpt: The Minos has come down to us as a Platonic work immediately preceding the Laws. The Laws begins where the Minos ends: the Minos ends with a praise of the laws of the Cretan king Minos, the son and pupil of Zeus, and the Laws begins with an… More

  • Plato

    - Strauss, Leo, "Plato," History of Political Philosophy, 3rd edition, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
    Excerpt: Thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters have come down to us as Platonic writings, not all of which are now regarded as genuine. Some scholars go so far as to doubt that any of the letters is genuine. In order not to encumber our presentation with… More

  • Legislation and Demiurgy: On the Relationship Between Plato’s Republic and Laws

    - Laks, Andre, "Legislation and Demiurgy: On the Relationship Between Plato’s Republic and Laws," Classical Antiquity 9, no. 2 (Oct. 1990), 209-29.
    Excerpt: Glenn Morrow, who did so much to illuminate the historical background of the Laws in his book Plato’s Cretan City, also had a sense, one quite unusual among commentators, of how the Laws really belonged to Plato’s philosophy and was… More

  • Plato’s Penal Code: Tradition, Controversy, and Reform in Greek Penology

    - Saunders, Trevor J., Plato's Penal Code: Tradition, Controversy, and Reform in Greek Penology, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
    About the Book: This book assesses Plato’s penal code within the tradition of Greek penology. Saunders provides a detailed exposition of the emergence of the concept of publicly controlled, rationally calculated, and socially directed punishment in the… More

  • On Plato’s Political Philosophy

    - Bruell, Christopher, "On Plato's Political Philosophy," The Review of Politics 56, no. 2 (Spring 1994), 261-82.
    Abstract: This article consists chiefly in an examination of the Republic, but that examination attempts to determine the place of the Republic in relation to Plato’s other works (especially the Laws and the Statesman) as well as their place in… More

  • Plato’s Republic: Critical Essays

    - Kraut, Richard, ed., Plato's Republic: Critical Essays, New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
    Excerpt: Plato (427-347 B.C.) is the first Western philosopher who wrote systematically about the wide range of questions that make up the subject of philosophy, and it is in the Republic that he most fully expresses his conception of what philosophy is and… More

  • Inside and Outside the Republic

    - Lear, Jonathan, "Inside and Outside the Republic," Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, 219-46.
    Excerpt: An engaged reader of the Republic must at some point wonder how—or if—it all fits together. There seems to be jumbled within that text a challenge to conventional justice, a political theory, a psychology, a metaphysics, a theory of education,… More

  • Plato’s Doctrine of Truth

    - Heidegger, Martin, "Plato's Doctrine of Truth," trans. Thomas Sheehan, Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 155-82.
    Whatever one makes of Heidegger’s own views, or his criticism of Plato and what he calls the Platonic tradition, this essay offers a profound meditation on Plato’s Cave and Plato’s “doctrine” of truth. Excerpt: The knowledge that… More

  • Plato’s “Laws” by Seth Benardete

    - Benardete, Seth, Plato's "Laws": The Discovery of Being, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
    From the publisher: “The Laws was Plato’s last work, his longest, and one of his most difficult. In contrast to the Republic, which presents an abstract ideal, the Laws appears to provide practical guidelines for the establishment and maintenance… More

  • Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics

    - Bobonich, Christopher, Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
    About the Book: Plato’s Utopia Recast is an illuminating reappraisal of Plato’s later works, which reveals radical changes in his ethical and political theory. Christopher Bobonich examines later dialogues, with a special emphasis upon the Laws,… More

  • Of Myth, Life, and War in Plato’s Republic

    - Baracchi, Claudia, Of Myth, Life, and War in Plato's Republic, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
    Excerpt: Yet another work on Plato, on that most universally recognized among the Platonic dialogues—the Republic. The Republic of Plato (so we call it, today, in this part of the world): a seminal text, inaugurating an epoch of which we are still… More

  • Introduction to Reading the Republic

    - Brann, Eva, "Introduction to Reading the Republic," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004, 88-107.
    Excerpt: The Republic is a dialogue, that is to say, a conversation. Since it is a conversation recorded between the covers of a book we cannot help but begin by reading it, but I think the author wants us as soon as possible to join it, to be converted… More

  • City and Soul in Plato’s Republic

    - Ferrari, G. R. F., City and Soul in Plato's Republic, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
    Excerpt: In this short book I attempt to say what Plato is getting at in the Republic. That is a grand ambition for a slim volume. My strategy has been to trace one bright thread, the comparison between the structure of a society and that of the individual… More

  • Plato’s Republic: A Study

    - Rosen, Stanley, Plato's Republic: A Study, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
    Excerpt: Plato’s Republic is one of those works in the history of philosophy that is both excessively familiar and inexhaustibly mysterious. It has been studied endlessly by a wide range of readers, specialists and amateurs alike, and has become a… More

  • Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s Republic

    - Reeve, C. D. C., Philosopher Kings: The Argument of Plato's Republic, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006.
    Excerpt: Book I of the Republic differs markedly in philosophical style from its fellows. In it we find Socrates questioning all and sundry about what justice is, using the elenchus to refute them, and refusing to provide any positive answers of his own.… More

  • Plato: Political Philosophy

    - Malcolm Schofield, Plato: Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2006.
    From the publisher: Plato is the best known and most widely studied of all the ancient Greek philosophers. Malcolm Schofield, a leading scholar of ancient philosophy, offers a lucid and accessible guide to Plato’s political thought, enormously… More

  • The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic

    - Ferrari, G. R. F., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
    Excerpt: When is it that we choose to journey with companions? Most often, I suppose, when we want to make the journey fuller, more pleasant, more vivid. But we may also want a fellow traveler to point out landmarks we might be missing or perhaps to assure us… More

  • Using Pre-Socratic Philosophy to Support Political Reform: The Athenian Stranger

    - Zucker, Catherine H., "Using Pre-Socratic Philosophy to Support Political Reform: The Athenian Stranger," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 51-146.
    Excerpt: The Laws and the Epinomis are the only Platonic dialogues in which Socrates does not appear. They are usually thought to be the last dialogues Plato wrote. All three of the interlocutors are elderly, and there is an ancient report that Laws was… More

  • Moral and Criminal Responsibility in Plato’s Laws

    - Pangle, Lorraine Smith, "Moral and Criminal Responsibility in Plato's Laws," American Political Science Review 103, no. 3 (August 2009), 456-73.
    Abstract: In his most practical work, the “Laws”, Plato combines a frank statement of the radical Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge and vice involuntary with a prudential acceptance of the political community’s need for retributive… More

  • Plato’s “Laws”: A Critical Guide

    - Bobonich, Christopher, ed., Plato's Laws: A Critical Guide, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
    About the Book: Long understudied, Plato’s Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade, and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of… More

  • Virtue and Politics: The Laws

    - Blitz, Mark, "Virtue and Politics: The Laws," Plato's Political Philosophy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, 82-114.
    Excerpt: We pursue our study of virtue by considering more fully Plato’s understanding of its place in politics. His thematic discussion of politics occurs in three dialogues, the Laws, the Republic, and the Statesman. As we have seen, moreover,… More

  • Philosophy and Politics: The Republic

    - Blitz, Mark, "Philosophy and Politics: The Republic," Plato's Political Philosophy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, 166-90.
    Excerpt: We have now discussed several experiences that are at the root of philosophy, and a phenomenon, beauty, that helps to define both ethical and intellectual virtue. It is therefore reasonable to turn next to Plato’s Republic. For, beyond any… More

  • Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato’s Laws

    - Lutz, Mark J., Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato’s Laws, DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012.
    About the Book: All over the world secular rationalist governments and judicial authorities have been challenged by increasingly forceful claims made on behalf of divine law. For those who believe that reason—not faith—should be the basis of politics and… More

Multimedia

  • Leo Strauss Courses on Plato

    - Audio of courses taught by Leo Strauss, 1958 - 1973, provided by the Leo Strauss Center at the University of Chicago.
    Courses include: Plato’s Laws, Symposium, Gorgias, Meno, Apology/Crito, Protagoras, Euthydemus and Republic.

  • Steven B. Smith: Introduction to Political Philosophy

    - Smith, Steven B., "Introduction to Political Philosophy," Open Yale Courses, 24 lectures, Fall 2006.
    About the course: This course is intended as an introduction to political philosophy as seen through an examination of some of the major texts and thinkers of the Western political tradition. Three broad themes that are central to understanding political life… More

  • Liberal Education and Plato’s Laws

    - Robert Goldberg, "Liberal Education and Plato's Laws," PCG at Harvard University, April 2, 2015.
    Robert Goldberg, a tutor at St. John’s College, presents on “liberal education and Plato’s Laws” at the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard.