Platonic legislations : an essay on legal critique in ancient Greece
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Platonic legislations : an essay on legal critique in ancient Greece
(Springer briefs in philosophy)
Springer, c2017
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book discusses how Plato, one the fiercest legal critics in ancient Greece, became - in the longue duree - its most influential legislator. Making use of a vast scholarly literature, and offering original readings of a number of dialogues, it argues that the need for legal critique and the desire for legal permanence set the long arc of Plato's corpus-from the Apology to the Laws.
Modern philosophers and legal historians have tended to overlook the fact that Plato was the most prolific legislator in ancient Greece. In the pages of his Republic and Laws, he drafted more than 700 statutes. This is more legal material than can be credited to the archetypal Greek legislators-Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon.
The status of Plato's laws is unique, since he composed them for purely hypothetical cities. And remarkably, he introduced this new genre by writing hard-hitting critiques of the Greek ideal of the sovereignty of law.
Writing in the milieu in which immutable divine law vied for the first time with volatile democratic law, Plato rejected both sources of law, and sought to derive his laws from what he called 'political technique' (politike techne). At the core of this technique is the question of how the idea of justice relates to legal and institutional change.
Filled with sharp observations and bold claims, Platonic Legislations shows that it is possible to see Plato-and our own legal culture-in a new light
"In this provocative, intelligent, and elegant work D. L. Dusenbury has posed crucial questions not only as regards Plato's thought in the making, but also as regards our contemporaneity."-Giorgio Camassa, University of Udine
"There is a tension in Greek law, and in Greek legal thinking, between an understanding of law as unchangeable and authoritative, and a recognition that formal rules are often insufficient for the interpretation of reality, and need to be constantly revised to match it. Dusenbury's book illuminates the sophistication of Plato's legal thought in its engagement with this tension, and explores the potential of Plato's reflection for modern legal theory."-Mirko Canevaro, The University of Edinburgh
Table of Contents
List of Abbreviations. - Prologue.- 1. Argument.- 2. The Platonic Dialogues and Legal Critique.- 3. Socrates' Execution and Platonic Legislation.- 4. A Critique of Law and the First Platonic Law-Code.- 5. The Flux of Law and the Second Platonic Law-Code.- 6. Epilogue.- 7. Supplements.- 8. Select Bibliography.
by "Nielsen BookData"