This
entry discusses some of the most important issues arising in
recent scholarship and suggests avenues for future research.
1. Authenticity and Chronology
2. The Laws’ Relation to the Republic
3. The Social and Political Institutions of Magnesia
4. Preludes in the Laws
5. The Nocturnal Council and Political Participation
6. Plato's Later Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Psychology
Bibliography
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1. Authenticity and Chronology
In the more exuberantly speculative days of the 19th century, the
authenticity of the Laws was rejected by various figures: even the
great Platonist, Ast, held that “One who knows the true Plato
needs only to read a single page of the Laws in order to convince
himself that it is a fraudulent Plato that he has before him.”[1]
Such skepticism is hard to understand, especially since Aristotle
refers to the Laws as a dialogue of Plato's in numerous passages
and today no serious scholar doubts its authenticity.
On the question of chronology, two external references are helpful:
Aristotle tells us that the Laws is later than the Republic, (Pol.
2.6) and
Diogenes Laertius (3.37) reports that it was unfinished at Plato's
death (and the text of the Laws itself shows some signs of
incompleteness and lack of revision).[2]
Platonic scholars also frequently appeal to stylometry (that is,
the quantitative study of the features of Plato's prose style) to
help to date the dialogues. Although the usefulness of stylometry
is sometimes questioned, it is widely accepted and the agreement
of many such studies allows us to divide the dialogues, with some
confidence, into three groups.[3]
Group 3: Critias, Laws, Philebus, Sophist, Statesman, and Timaeus
Group 2: Parmenides, Phaedrus, Republic, and Theaetetus
Group 1: the rest
Drawing upon other evidence, it is reasonable to see the dialogues
in Group 3 as the latest. Given the length of the Laws (it is the
longest of the dialogues and is, roughly 20% longer than the
Republic), it seems likely that its composition overlapped with
the composition of at least some of the other dialogues in Group
3.
2. The Laws’ Relation to the Republic
The Laws comprises a conversation in 12 books, set on Crete, among
three interlocutors: an unnamed Athenian Visitor (Plato's
spokesman in the Laws), Megillus, a Spartan, and, Kleinias, a
Cretan. The first two books consider what the proper goal or end (telos)
of legislation is. Plato claims that even the best of extant
constitutions, such as those of Crete and Sparta, have gone wrong
on this crucial point. In all his legislation, the lawgiver must
aim at a single goal and that is virtue. In particular, the
lawgiver must aim at fostering all the virtues -- courage, justice,
moderation, and wisdom -- in the citizens as a whole (Laws
630C3-6, 705D3-706A4).[4] So if Plato is to meet his own criterion
for a good city, the rest of the Laws should show how the
constitution (politeia) of this city reliably produces citizens
who genuinely possess all the virtues.
At the end of Book 3 (Laws 702BD), Kleinias announces that the
cities of Crete have decided to found a new city, to be named
Magnesia, in a long abandoned part of Crete and they have given
the responsibility for doing so to his city, Knossos, and that
Knossos has delegated this authority to himself and nine others.
He asks the Athenian to help in the construction of the new city's
constitution and laws. In Books 4-12, the Athenian sketches, often
in considerable detail, the constitution, the political and social
institutions, and the laws of this new city, along with the
political and ethical principles that justify them.
Since both the Republic and the Laws involve the creation of a
good city, discussion of topics in political theory as well as
related ethical and psychological material, it is natural to ask
what the relation between the two dialogues is. The predominant
view, until fairly recently, holds that the Republic is Plato's
statement of what the ideally best city is; the Laws, on the other
hand, describes the city that would be best, given less optimistic
assumptions about what human nature is capable of. This position
has two variants, depending on one's view of whether Plato at the
time of the Republic thought that its political program was
compatible with human nature. If one thinks that even at the time
of the Republic, Plato thought that its ideal city placed too
great demands on its citizens to be psychologically realizable,
then one can hold that the Laws is entirely consistent with the
Republic: they could, at least as far as their philosophical
positions are concerned, have been written at the same time.[5] If,
on the other hand, one thinks that Plato held that the city of the
Republic was psychologically possible, even if difficult to
realize, it is natural to see the Laws as the outcome of a change
in Plato's views about human nature.[6] The first view faces two
challenges:
providing evidence from the Republic that Plato did not think its
ideal city was realizable, and
either explaining why the Republic does not at least gesture in
the direction of the arrangements of the Laws as the best humanly
possible option or arguing that we can find such evidence.
The second view should explain why Plato becomes more pessimistic
about human nature. The need for such an explanation is especially
pressing, since the most common attempt to do so by appealing to
Plato's experiences in Sicily is philosophically quite
unsatisfactory.[7]
In recent years, it has been argued that there are deep and
pervasive differences between the Republic and the Laws (and more
generally between the dialogues of Group 3 and those of Group 2)
on ethical and political questions.[8] The debate over these
claims is just in its initial stages and no scholarly consensus
has yet emerged. Given this state of flux, the rest of this entry
sketches a few important topics of contemporary controversy and
then points to lines of future research. To see what future
research is needed, we can begin by considering one of the most
important drawbacks of traditional interpretations. In Book 5, in
what is nowadays perhaps the most famous passage in the Laws, the
Athenian announces that they are to engage in the construction of
a “second-best” city.
Anyone who uses reason and experience will recognize that a second-best
city [deuterôs … pros to beltiston] is to be constructed … That
city and that constitution are first, and the laws are best, where
the old proverb holds as much as possible throughout the whole
city: it is said that the things of friends really are in common.
(Laws 739A3-740C3)
The traditional assumption is that Plato here endorses the city
sketched in the Republic as the best possible city, but now thinks
that the demands it places on its inhabitants are too high: the
city in the Laws is the second-best, but is the best that is
likely to be compatible with human nature. It is also sometimes
thought to follow from this that Plato still endorses the basic
elements of the Republic's political and ethical theory.
But such an interpretation misreads the passage. Even if Plato
were to endorse the political arrangements of the Republic as the
best possible ones, it would not follow that he also endorses all
the claims concerning political theory made in the Republic, much
less that he endorses all of the Republic's claims in ethics,
psychology and epistemology. The political arrangements of the
Republic are entailed by, and are consistent with, many different
sets of premises, some of which are mutually inconsistent. Nor
does the present passage endorse all of the political structures
of the Republic, rather it endorses the community of property,
women and children and the goal of making the city as unified as
possible. But what is most important is that this passage does not
in fact endorse the Republic's method for making the city one by
introducing a certain kind of community of property and families.
In the Republic, these institutions are restricted to the first
two classes, but are rejected for the third class, the producers.
The Laws passage presents as the “first-best” city, not that of
the Republic, but one in which there is, throughout the entire
city, a community of property and of women and children. So the
claim that the city sketched in the Laws is second-best does not
suggest that the Republic still represents Plato's ideal political
arrangement.[9] What the Laws represents as the ideal -- that is
to be approximated as closely as possible -- is a city in which
all citizens are subject to the same extremely high ethical
demands.
3. The Social and Political Institutions of Magnesia
This section provides a brief overview of the basic social and
political institutions of Magnesia. Magnesia will be located in a
part of Crete that has been left empty by an ancient migration and
is about ten miles from the sea. The site is basically self-sufficient
in resources without having much excess to export. Plato sees this
unsuitability for active commerce and distance from the sea as
advantages: they discourage the maritime and commercial activities
that corrupt cities by fostering a love of money-making in the
citizens and by allowing close contact with foreigners who bring
innovation and have not received the good ethical education
afforded to Magnesians.
The city will be relatively populous: its number of households is
to remain permanently at 5, 040.[10] Immigration and emigration
policies are designed to avoid population excess and deficiency.
Each household will have an allotment consisting of two plots of
land: one nearer the city's center and one nearer its borders.
Each household's allotment is intended to be equally productive (Laws
737CE, 745CD) and to support a comfortable, although not luxurious
life for the household's members. The households and land are not
owned or farmed in common, but each shareholder must consider his
share to be at the same time the common property of the whole city
(Laws 740A3-6). Part of the sense in which the lot is in common is
that it is inalienable and cannot be divided or aggregated: the
assignment of the lot to a household is intended to support the
household throughout the generations. (There are also restrictions
on the use of the land.[11] ) Further, each household will help,
out of its own resources, to fund Magnesia's system of common
meals.[12] Plato establishes four property classes: the members of
the top or first class have assets worth between three and four
times the value of the lot (and the tools and animals needed to
farm it), the second class between two and three times this value
and so on.[13] Anything accumulated over the highest amount will
be confiscated by the city (Laws 744D-745A). Such assets do not
include gold and silver, since these may be possessed only by the
city; there will be only a token currency (Laws 742AB).
Many of Magnesia's inhabitants are not citizens. There is a
considerable slave population (including both public and private
slaves) and they, of course, are not citizens. Also found within
the city are transient foreigners and resident foreigners (metics)
who may stay for twenty years. Slaves and foreigners are an
economic necessity for the city for they will carry on the trading,
manufacturing and menial occupations that are barred to citizens.
The lot holders or heads of households are citizens, but
citizenship is not restricted to them and owning land is not a
necessary condition of citizenship. The sons and heirs of lot
holders are called “citizens” and are liable to military service
at age 20, can participate in elections at that age and can serve
in office at 30.[14] They will not inherit the household lot,
however, until their father dies. What of women? In Magnesia, the
private family is not abolished. Although women lack an
independent right to own property, they are liable to military
training and service and attend their own common meals (Laws
780D). The Athenian holds that they can attain the four cardinal
virtues and for this reason requires that they be educated (Laws
804D-805A). For Aristotle, women are not citizens of the ideal
city, since they are excluded from political office. But in
Magnesia, women can participate in elections and hold political
office and the Athenian explicitly counts them as citizens (Laws
814C2-4).[15]
Let us turn to the political system or constitution (politeia) of
Magnesia. Magnesia has a rich variety of offices, but the main
ones are: the Assembly (koinos sullogos, ekklêsia), the Council (boulê),
the magistrates, especially the guardians of the laws (nomophulakes),
the courts and the Nocturnal Council (nukterinos sullogos). The
Nocturnal Council is discussed in more detail below in section 4.
The Assembly is the main electoral authority in the city; it is
composed of all citizens, or more precisely, all those who have
served or are serving in the military. The Assembly is responsible
for the election of most of the city's officers and magistrates.
The other functions explicitly given to it are
a role in judging offenses against the public,
making awards of merit,
extending the term of residence for metics, and
passing on proposed changes in the laws, at least those regarding
dances and sacrifices.
It may also have other responsibilities in connection with foreign
affairs.[16]
The Council is composed of 90 members chosen by election from each
property class for a total of 360 members. Men are eligible for
office at age 30, women at age 40. Members serve one-year terms.
The Council exercises ordinary administrative powers, such as
calling and dissolving the Assembly, receiving foreign ambassadors,
supervising elections and so on.
The guardians of the laws (nomophulakes) are composed of 37
citizens, at least fifty years of age who serve from the time of
their election until age 70 (Laws 755A). There are four ways in
which the nomophulakes guard the laws:[17]
Although they do not seem to have the authority to discipline
other magistrates, they are assigned the general task of
supervising them and are expected to bring appropriate cases to
the attention of the proper officials.
They exercise wide supervisory powers over citizens in general and,
for example, are charged with fining those who spend excessively,
granting permission to travel abroad and overseeing the care of
orphans.
They possess various judicial functions and are in charge of
especially important or difficult cases involving the family,
property and the abuse of laws.
Perhaps their most important task is the revision and
supplementation of the existing laws, although the extent of
revision possible is controversial.[18]
Finally, there is an extensive system of courts in Magnesia, both
public and private. One of Plato's major innovations, compared
with Athenian law, is the elaborate structure of appeals in
judicial cases. It is worth noting that Plato holds that citizens,
in virtue of their standing in the political community, may
legitimately expect to have a share in the administration of
justice (Laws 767E9-768B3).
4. Preludes in the Laws
A significant part of the impetus for interpretations that see
considerable differences between the Republic and the Laws comes
from the presence in the latter of “preludes” to individual laws
and to the lawcode as a whole that are available to all the
citizens. In Plato's own view, one of the most important
innovations in the political theory of the Laws is the requirement
that good lawgivers try to persuade the citizens and not simply
issue commands to them by means of laws (Laws 722B5-C2). Plato
compares the lawgiver in Magnesia to a free doctor treating free
people. Slave doctors who treat other slaves merely give them
orders and then rush off to other patients. Free doctors treating
free people must explain to their patients the condition they have
and the rationale for treatment before prescribing (Laws
722B-723B). In doing so, they will “educate” the patients and use
“arguments that come close to philosophizing” (Laws 857C2-E5).
Similarly, Plato thinks that the lawgiver in Magnesia should not
merely issue legal commands: law without persuasion is condemned
as mere force (722B). Drawing on Plato's programmatic remarks in
Books 4, 9, and 10 the preludes should have the following features.
What the person who is to be persuaded is asking for is to be
“educated” or “taught,” that is, to be given good epistemic
reasons for thinking that the principles lying behind the
legislation are true (Laws 885DE).
What the lawgiver and the preludes actually do is characterized as
“teaching,” that is, giving reasons to the citizens and bringing
it about that they “learn” (Laws 718CD, 720D, 723A, 857DE and
888A).
The preludes are thus designed to be instances of rational
persuasion, that is, attempts to influence the citizens' beliefs
by appealing to rational considerations. They are not intended to
inculcate false, but useful beliefs, or to effect persuasion
through non-rational means.
The preludes are meant to provide quite general ethical
instruction. The lawgiver is to be a primary source of instruction
about what is fine, just and good. Thus the citizens will learn
why the laws are fine and just and should also learn why following
the laws and, more generally, acting virtuously is good for them.
They are to receive a true and reasoned account of what is good
for human beings.
The view that this use of preludes marks a significant difference
from the Republic depends on two claims.
The Laws advocates the use of preludes, along with other methods,
to educate the citizens and give them some rational understanding
of the laws and, more generally, an understanding of ethical
truths.
The Republic does not intend to provide, except to its highest
class, the philosopher-rulers, an education that can result in
such a rational appreciation of basic ethical truths.
With respect to (II), advocates of the change interpretation point
to passages from the Republic such as the following.
Therefore, to insure that someone like that [one whose reason is
not strong enough to rule himself] is ruled by something similar
to what rules the best person, we say that he ought to be the
slave [doulon] of that best person who has a divine ruler within
himself. (Rep. 590C8-D1)
The education provided to the two lower classes, it is argued,
thus does not succeed in enabling them to be ruled by their own
reason and leaves them in the state of slaves. In Republic Book 7,
Plato considers whether the musical education the auxiliaries
receive (which is the most advanced education that they get) tends
to the good of leading the soul out of the Cave and toward the
“intelligible” or “knowable region.” The answer is that it does
not, since musical education
educated the guardians through habits. Its harmonies gave them a
certain harmoniousness, not knowledge; its rhythms gave them a
certain rhythmical quality; and its stories whether fictional or
nearer the truth, cultivated other habits akin to these. But there
was nothing in it that aimed at any such subject as you are now
seeking. (Rep. 522A4-B1, cf. 484C3-D10 and 516E8-517E2)
Thus all citizens, other than the philosopher-rulers, remain
within the Cave.
Both (I) and (II) are, however, quite controversial. With respect
to (I), some have argued that despite the fact that Plato's
programmatic remarks about the preludes suggest that they are
designed to further a rational appreciation of ethical truths,
what is actually provided for the vast majority of the citizens
is, primarily, rhetorical persuasion appealing to their sense of
honor and shame. This gap is then explained either by the
hypothesis (i) that Plato is being deceptive, or his mental
capacities declined in old age; or (ii) that the programmatic
remarks represent an ideal that Plato makes it clear cannot be
realized in actual practice.[19] Evaluating the acceptability of (II)
will require careful examination of the education provided to the
Republic's auxiliary and money-making classes and, in particular,
consideration of what the auxiliaries' “musical education”
provides them with.[20]
Further progress in resolving these disputes might be made by
continued research on three topics. First, we must consider the
preludes in light of the broader context of the citizens'
education in the Laws. What sort of education is provided for them
and what cognitive and ethical abilities will such education
foster? Second, we need to examine Plato's views about education
in the other late dialogues, especially the Statesman.[21] Finally,
the issues concerning citizens' education are intimately linked to
deep questions in Plato's psychology and epistemology. In order to
understand what kind of education is required in order to have a
rational grasp of ethical principles we must consider the nature
of ethical learning, given Plato's epistemology and psychology, in
both the middle and late periods. This issue is discussed a bit
further in section 6.
5. The Nocturnal Council and Political Participation
A second, more longstanding, controversy about the Laws concerns
the role of the body known as the “Nocturnal Council” which is so-called
because it meets daily from dawn until sunrise when everyone has
the most leisure from public and private activities (Laws
961B6-8).[22] The Nocturnal Council is first explicitly mentioned
in Book 10 (but is alluded to earlier at Laws 632C4-6 and 818A1-3)
where it is assigned an educational function. Those who have
violated Magnesia's impiety laws due to ignorance, rather than bad
character, are to be imprisoned for five years. During their
imprisonment, the members of the Nocturnal Council meet with them
in order to reform their beliefs by teaching (Laws 909A). The
Nocturnal Council's membership seems to include:
the 10 oldest guardians of the laws,
the current supervisor of education and his predecessors,
examiners (officials who check the qualifications of those
entering office and audit them when they leave office) and other
citizens who have won awards of honor,
certain citizens who have traveled abroad under official auspices
to gather knowledge and have been invited to participate by the
Nocturnal Council itself, and
each of the above members is to nominate for membership (whose
acceptance is subject to the approval of the other members) a
younger associate between the ages of 30 and 40 (Laws 951D4-E5 and
961A1-B6).
In Book 12, the Athenian returns to the Nocturnal Council and
emphasizes its great importance for the city. The following
passage from Book 12 has encouraged some to think that Plato here
grants the Nocturnal Council very great, or even unlimited,
political power.
If this divine council should come into being for us, dear friends,
the city ought to be handed over to it [paradoteon toutôi tên
polin] (Laws 969B2-3, cf. 960B5-E11 and 961C3-6)
Some scholars have held, on the basis of these passages, that
Plato intends the Nocturnal Council to be the main political
authority in Magnesia. On this view, either it will have the same
powers as did the philosopher kings in the Republic to change laws
and institutions as it sees fit or the extent of its powers will
simply be left to the Nocturnal Council itself to determine.[23]
Such an interpretation has, however, quite high costs. As its main
contemporary proponent concedes, it requires us to see the Laws as
inconsistent: the earlier provisions of political authority to
various offices are incompatible with assigning such unlimited
powers to the Nocturnal Council.[24] Further, such a grant of
power is at least in serious tension with one of the Laws’ basic
political principles. Repeatedly in the Laws, Plato emphasizes
that allowing any magistrate or political body unchecked authority
runs too great a risk of the abuse of power. Such a risk is still
too great even if the possessors of power have genuine knowledge:
even those with full knowledge are subject to corruption in such
circumstances.[25]
Other interpreters, such as Glenn Morrow, have suggested that the
Nocturnal Council's role is primarily informal.[26] This Council
is to possess various sorts of knowledge and it must also educate
its own members. Even without possessing powers beyond those
explicitly assigned to it, the Nocturnal Council should exercise a
considerable influence on Magnesia's governance. Its members
include some of the city's most important officials. Plato would
certainly expect that these officials' administration of the laws
and revision of them -- if this is permitted -- will be informed
by their studies. Perhaps even more important, the younger
associate members of the Nocturnal Council will come to fill many
offices of the state and will exercise an informal, but still
significant, influence on other citizens in the deliberations that
play such an important role in Magnesia's system of government, as
well as in their other contacts with their fellows.
There is, however, a third option. Morrow adopts his “informal”
interpretation in part because Plato does not explicitly assign to
the Nocturnal Council any powers beyond those we have noted. But
one could hold that the Laws is not intended to provide a fully
determinate blueprint of the just city.[27] On this interpretation,
there is an open texture to the political and social institutions
that Plato sketches and we should allow for a range of ways of
implementing the basic structure. For example, Plato appears to
assign to the “guardians of the laws” (the nomophulakes) some
important role in revising Magnesia's laws. In his Book 12
discussion, Plato describes the members of the Nocturnal Council
as “those who will really be guardians of the laws” (Laws 966B5).
The members of the Nocturnal Council will, if properly educated,
be “made into guardians whose like, with respect to the virtue of
safekeeping, we have not seen come into being in our lives
previously” (Laws 969C2-3). We need not see these claims as a
volte-face on Plato's part, if we allow for a range of ways in
which the outline of Magnesia sketched can be realized that fall
between excluding the Nocturnal Council from any political role at
all and seeing them as philosopher kings in disguise. We can thus
allow that the Nocturnal Council is intended to have genuine
political authority going beyond its explicitly stated
responsibilities that still falls well short of autocratic power,
without expecting the Laws’ text to make this authority fully
determinate.
But in addition to the specific issue of the extent of the
Nocturnal Council's powers, there is a deeper question. The more
political authority that is assigned to the Nocturnal Council, the
more politically passive most citizens of Magnesia will be. Thus
the question about the power of the Nocturnal Council has
significant implications for our evaluation of the ethical
capacities of non-philosophical citizens. If their education
really does give them some rational appreciation of the principles
underlying the laws of Magnesia, we should expect that they can,
to a significant degree, be free from detailed regulation and
supervision by others. Further, not only is it the case that they
will be capable of being free from such regulation, but we should
expect that deliberating and acting upon their grasp of ethical
principles forms an important part of their own good.[28] If,
however, their political activity is reduced to the level of the
two lower classes in the Republic, who have little or no part in
political deliberation or judicial administration, we might think
that Plato has the same fairly low estimate of the ethical
capacities of ordinary citizens in both works. Resolving the issue
of the Nocturnal Council's powers thus has broad implications for
our understanding of Plato's later ethics.
6. Plato's Later Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Psychology
With respect to the specific controversies we have examined, that
over the role of the preludes and that concerning the powers of
the Nocturnal Council, we have found that the issues under dispute
have important connections to Plato's epistemology and psychology.
This should not, however, be surprising. To understand the nature
of ethical learning and what ethical cognitive states can be
produced by different kinds of education, we must ultimately turn
to Plato's epistemology, metaphysics, and psychology. Further,
since the appropriate political role for citizens depends in large
part on the kinds of ethical character and knowledge (or true
belief) they can acquire, we can only understand Plato's later
political philosophy by understanding its connections with his
later epistemology, metaphysics, and psychology.
The idea that Plato's ethics and politics rest, at least in large
part, on his views in these other areas of philosophy is not novel.
Much of the best work on the ethical and political theory of the
Republic tries to draw such connections.[29] But this has not yet
happened to anything approaching the same degree with respect to
his later ethics and politics.[30] This is due perhaps primarily
to the fact that while the Republic provides within itself an
account articulated in some detail not only of Plato's ethics and
politics, but also of the psychology, epistemology and metaphysics
on which they rest, the Laws is comparatively lacking in extended
argumentation on these basic philosophical issues. But Plato is
not trying in the Laws to provide a comprehensive philosophical
statement of the sort found in the Republic. Questions of
psychology, epistemology, ethics and metaphysics (including the
metaphysics of value) are explored in great detail and with
extraordinary sophistication in the other later dialogues. Indeed,
they are treated in much more detail and with greater
philosophical power than in the middle period. And it is these
later dialogues that provide the indispensable background for
understanding the Laws. Thus we should read it together with, for
example, the Philebus’ metaphysics of value and account of
pleasure and with the epistemology and psychology of the Timaeus.
More cautiously, we should look for connections with the
epistemology, metaphysics and psychology of other dialogues which
are plausibly thought to be post-Republic, but do not fall into
the final group of six, such as the Phaedrus and the Theaetetus.[31]
By examining Plato's philosophical positions in these later
dialogues, we can work out the deeper justification for Plato's
vision of political and ethical community in the Laws. And by
articulating this vision, we gain greater understanding of the
other later dialogues on which it rests. |