Plato's Pragmatic Project: A Reading of Plato's Laws

Description

When we think about Plato's philosophy, his Laws is usually not the first work that comes to mind. Plato's final magnum opus is a perplexing text in many ways, even apart from the fact that its very existence forces us to reflect on the question of how it relates to Plato's other major political work, Republic. The debate about Plato's Laws usually disregards its composition and the way in which the legislation takes shape in the dialogue. This book offers a fresh reading of Plato's Laws that treats its form as an integral part of its philosophy, and asks what the way in which Plato's legislative project is given shape in the text suggests about the status of that project. It argues that the legislative project is strikingly pragmatic for a work of Platonic philosophy and should therefore be understood in its own terms. Rather than laying down a definitive law code for a new colony (Magnesia) that is based on, or at least in some way presupposes, a metaphysical norm, Plato's last work creates its own moral framework, in which lawgiving provides a convenient practical test for a notion of virtue understood as social conditioning. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Laws in Dialectic 1.1 Status quaestionis and principles of charity 1.2 Is Plato’s Laws unfinished? 1.3 The structure of Laws 1.4 The diminished prominence of δικαιοσύνη in Laws 1.5 Plan of the book CHAPTER TWO Platonic Preliminaries 2.1 Part I: Τέχνη and authority 2.1.1 Structuring principles of the τέχνη analogy in Plato 2.1.2 ‘Stochastic’ τέχνη 2.2 Part II: Three texts on Platonic justice 2.2.1 Apology: Socrates unjustly accused 2.2.2 Crito: Socrates unjustly convicted 2.2.3 Republic: the just polis 2.3 Concluding remarks CHAPTER THREE Setting the Scene: ἀρετή in Laws I–II 3.1 Setting the scene I 3.1.1 The Cretan notion of virtue: ἀνδρεία 3.1.2 The weak spot of Spartan law 3.1.3 A ‘myth of virtue’: the ‘puppet’ 3.1.4 The symposion as a training in αἰδώς 3.1.5 Synopsis: what the argument of the symposion implies about ἀρετή 3.2 Setting the scene II: the four virtues and the phases of paideia 3.2.1 The earliest paideia 3.2.2 The four citizen groups 3.3 Conclusion CHAPTER FOUR Lawgiving Logôi: Formal Features of the Legislation 4.1 Legislating λόγῳ 4.1.1 A test for the opening discussion 4.1.2 The suggestion of consistency between the laws and Books I–II 4.1.3 The characteristics of legislation λόγῳ 4.2 Embedding laws in dialogue 4.2.1 Formal observations 4.2.2 The so-called ‘preambles’ (προοίμια) 4.3 Lawgivers or not? The position of the interlocutors 4.3.1 The interlocutors as lawgivers 4.3.2 Not lawgivers yet 4.4 Conclusion CHAPTER FIVE Outline and Amendment: an Inevitable Lack of Accuracy 5.1 The legislation as an outline: the painter analogy, Laws VI 5.2 Instructing the successors 5.3 Lawgiving in consultation with reality 5.3.1 The gaps in the outline 5.4 Choosing laws from other cities 5.5 Conclusion CHAPTER SIX Outside the Law Code: the Nocturnal Council and the Athenian Stranger 6.1 The identity and function of the nocturnal council 6.1.1 The σκοπός of the nocturnal council 6.1.2 The qualifications of the nocturnal council 6.2 The Athenian stranger 6.3 Conclusion CHAPTER SEVEN Conclusion: Plato’s Pragmatic Project BIBLIOGRAPHY EDITIONS, COMMENTARIES & TRANSLATIONS GENERAL GENERAL INDEX INDEX OF GREEK WORDS INDEX OF PASSAGES CITED