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OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi CLARENDON PLATO SERIES Laws 1 and 2 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi CLARENDON PLATO SERIES Volumespublished Gorgias Terence Irwin Laws 10 Robert Mayhew Phaedo David Gallop Philebus J. C. B. Gosling Protagoras C. C. W. Taylor Theaetetus John McDowell OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi Plato Laws 1 and 2 TranslatedwithanIntroductionandCommentary by SUSAN SAUVÉ MEYER 1 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©SusanSauvéMeyer2015 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2015 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015934067 ISBN978–0–19–960408–1 Printedandboundby CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi To Hannah OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi Preface Why the present volume? Students of Plato’s Laws already have the benefit of several excellent commentaries and translations produced inthelastcentury. England’smagisterialcommentaryontheGreek text(1921)continuestobeavaluableresourcetoreadersinEnglish, as is the more limited set of notes on the text in Saunders (1972). Neither, however, offers much guidance on points of philosophical, asopposedtophilological,interpretation.Onmanyfrontsbothhave been superseded by the excellent commentary in German, with accompanying translation, recently completed by Schöpsdau (1994–2011). The latter contains considerably more historical ma- terial thanEngland, andis an indispensableresource for anyserious scholarship on the Laws today. Readers of Spanish or French have the benefit of up-to-date scholarly translations with accompanying notes by Lisi (1999) and Brisson/Pradeau (2006), respectively. While readers in English have in recent years had the benefit of a number of pioneering studies (such as Bobonich 2002) and collec- tions of essays (Lisi 2001; Scolnicov and Brisson 2003; Bobonich 2010;Horn2013;Peponi2013b;andSanday2013),theclosestwe have to a philosophical commentary on the Laws in English are the notes and long interpretive essay that accompany the translation by Pangle (1980)andthe detailedanalysis by Strauss (1975);however, the aggressively ‘Straussian’ orientation of these two works makes them less helpful to readers of other philosophical persuasions. Of course, no philosophical commentary can plausibly claim to be without theoretical presuppositions, and the orientation of the present work reflects presuppositions characteristic of scholarship on Plato by so-called ‘analytic’ philosophers in the English-speaking world over the last half-century. The translation aims to be more idiomatic than Pangle’s, and is heavily indebted to the very elegant and readable translation by Saunders (1970). The latter displays a OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi viii Preface detailedandnuancedappreciationofPlato’sGreekthatitwouldbea formidabletasktomatch,butonpointscrucialtotheinterpretation of the philosophical and psychological doctrines, it is often less precise than is optimal for the Greekless philosophical reader. It is totheneedsofsuchareaderthatthepresenttranslationisaddressed, while still striving to maintain a fluent and readable English style. Themainconcernofthecommentaryistounderstandhowthework isstructuredasacomplexpieceofargumentation,andtoappreciate the theories (legal, ethical, and psychological) expounded and criti- cized within it. For the most part, it pays attention to textual or philological issues only when these have implications for philosoph- icalissues.(Thepresentvolumewentintoproductionsimultaneously withtheappearanceof Prauscello 2014,andthus toolateto benefit fromthiswelcomeadditiontothescholarshiponBook2.) OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,5/9/2015,SPi Acknowledgements While preparing the translation and commentary I have benefited from the generosity and advice of many colleagues, friends, and correspondents:ElizabethAsmis,ChrisBobonich,CarlosCortissoz, Anna Cremaldi, Radcliffe Edmonds III, Paula Gottlieb, Margaret Graver,BradInwood,CharlesKahn,GraceLedbetter,JessicaMoss, Henry Newell, Harold Parker, Ralph Rosen, Marcel Rose, Saul Rosenthal, Krisanna Scheiter, Gregory Scott, Peter Struck, Franco Trivigno, Christian Wildberg, Joshua Wilburn, and Emily Wilson. IamgratefultothreeanonymousrefereesforOxfordUniversityPress fortheirmeticulouscomments,andwishtoexpressspecialthanksto HenryNewell,whoseuncompromisingeditorialeyeandkeenearfor languagegreatly improved the styleofthe Englishtranslation. AudiencesatCornellUniversity,TheUniversityofToronto,The UniversityofPennsylvania,TheCatholicUniversityofLouvain,anda meetingofTheAmericanPhilosophicalAssociationCentralDivision provided helpful discussion of preliminary versions of the commentary. Errors and infelicities that remain are entirely my own, and I welcomehearingfromreaderswhofindthem.IthankNoraDonovan, JesseDubois,HaroldParker,JanMaximilianRobitzsch,andVictoria Koc for research assistance, Michael Vazquez for proofreading and preparingtheindex, and forassistancewith SpanishIamgratefulto HannahMeyer.MiltonWachsbergMeyerhasbeensupportiveonall fronts, as always. Grants from the University Research Foundation andtheSchoolofArtsandScienceattheUniversityofPennsylvania supported the preparation of the manuscript, and a sabbatical leave from the university in 2011–12 gave me the intellectual leisure in whichtocompletethepenultimatedraftoftheproject. Susan Sauvé Meyer November 2014 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania