Add new comment

In reply to by Dan

Peter Adamson on 10 March 2019

Plato's Laws

Actually you could argue that was a gap in my coverage of Plato here on the podcast, as I didn't say much if anything about it. It's Plato's final work and very long - often also judged to be quite boring since it is, as the label says, a dialogue in which laws are proposed for a city. You're right that the Republic is an obvious contrast and already in antiquity interpreters puzzled about how to explain the different sets of recommendations. (One idea was that the Laws consists of prescriptions for a realistic place whereas the Republic is an effectively unattainable idea - e.g., according to Proclus, women being treated as equal to men is clearly never going to happen in real life!) The most important book on the Laws is Bobonich's Plato's Utopia so you could read that along with the dialogue. Good luck!

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.