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In Plato's longest and last dialogue, an unnamed Athenian stranger walks with an old Cretan and a Spartan to the cave of Zeus on Crete and, on the way…
In Plato's longest and last dialogue, an unnamed Athenian stranger walks with an old Cretan and a Spartan to the cave of Zeus on Crete and, on the way, discusses how to frame the laws of a new city they imagine founding. They consider education, music and drinking parties, marriage, property, crime and punishment, the duties of officials and a council to watch over the laws, and the Athenian's arguments that the gods exist and care for human beings.
Context and significance
Plato was still working on the Laws when he died in 347 BC, and it is far more practical than his idealistic Republic. Benjamin Jowett's translation makes this long, practical work easy to follow. Read Aristotle's Politics.
About the author
Plato (c. 428–348 BC) was born into an aristocratic family in Athens and became the devoted student of Socrates. After his teacher's trial and execution in 399 BC, he travelled, returned to Athens and founded the Academy, a school that lasted for centuries and counted Aristotle among its students.
Almost all his writings are dialogues in which Socrates questions his fellow citizens about justice, love, knowledge and the soul, from the Apology to the Symposium and the Republic. Known to Arab philosophers as Aflatun, he was read closely by al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd, and Western philosophy has been called a series of footnotes to him.