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

Commentary

• 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

• 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