Platons Nomoi

Plato’s last and longest dialogue entitled “Laws” wrongly stood in the shadow of another of his dialogues “Republic” for a long time. Nevertheless, “Laws”, a comprehensive dialogue which is difficult to interpret, presents his extremely insightful, innovative and mature musings on the state. In this book, international experts on Plato explore these ideas, two of which are the belief that abuse of power can be prevented by political institutions and that forewords or preambles should be prepended to laws in order to convince the general public to comply with them.

The original works contained in this volume examine the dialogue’s central themes, such as the new idea of a mixed constitution, political theory, the concept of law, the relationship between the doctrines of virtue and the law, and both education and upbringing as well as the dialogue’s influence in ancient and modern times, and in the present. A detailed foreword introduces the reader to “Laws” and its historical impact and informs them about the themes and theses the book’s contributions address and advance.