Laws

Plato

Long understudied, Platos Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides The Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of describing the foundation of a just city and sketches in considerable detail its constitution, laws and other social institutions. In it, Plato describes in fascinating detail a comprehensive system of legislation in a small agricultural utopia he named Magnesia. The government of Magnesia is a mixture of democratic and authoritarian principles that aim at making all of its citizens happy and virtuous. Although Platos views that citizens should act in complete obedience to the law have been read as totalitarian, The Laws nonetheless constitutes a highly impressive program for the reform of society and provides a crucial insight into the mind of one of Classical Greeces foremost thinkers.

The Republic

Plato

Plato was the first Western philosopher to apply philosophy to politics. His ideas on, for example, the nature and value of justice, and the relationship between justice and politics, have been extraordinarily influential. The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. Presented as a series of dialogue between Socrates and Platos brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon, in eleven parts Plato step by step forms his ideal state, its rulers, their education, womens position and the position of art and poetry in the new state. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by philosopher kings. And if you examine carefully, you will see the truth of many of his view points, especially those relating to imperfect societies.