The Model City of Plato’s Laws1

Bibliographic Data

ID23213622
AuthorsP A Brunt, Peter Brunt (0000-0002-8468-3587, corresponding author)
Year1992
Pages245-281
Publication date1992-12-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueStudies in Greek history and thought (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780198147831.003.0009
OpenAlexW4388390656
ISBN9780198147831
LanguageEN
Citations received6

In the Laws Plato has constructed a political and social framework for what he himself calls ‘the second best city’, in comparison with the ideal state of the Republic; he makes reluctant concessions to prejudices which he has evidently come to regard as ineradicable. The framework is professedly devised for a colony in Crete to be named Magnesia, which is to be organized by Cnossus with settlers from Crete and the Peloponnese. The site is to be ten miles from the sea but with access to good harbours; however, the territory, though only moderately fertile, will yield enough to make it almost self-sufficient. As Morrow says, the city has ‘a definite location in Greek space and time’, and some at least of the laws that Plato proposes take account of its special situation. Still, Plato’s aim is to devise a model that can be adapted as expediency may require to other conditions, though he makes a half-promise to sketch a third best city, which he never does. All this, together with the minute detail of many of the regulations proposed, has served to create the impression on some minds that he is not creating a Utopia.

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics) · Political science · Politics · Reflexive pronoun · Sketch · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · State (computer science) · Utopia · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Computer Science · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Law · Philosophy

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