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Plato's "Laws"

The Discovery of Being
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Brief Description
An insightful commentary on Plato’s Laws, his complex final work. The Laws was Plato’s last work, his longest, and one of his most difficult. In contrast to the Republic, which presents an abstract ideal, the Laws appears to provide practical guidelines for the establishment and maintenance... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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An insightful commentary on Plato’s Laws, his complex final work.

The Laws was Plato’s last work, his longest, and one of his most difficult. In contrast to the Republic, which presents an abstract ideal, the Laws appears to provide practical guidelines for the establishment and maintenance of political order in the real world. Classicist Seth Benardete offers a rich analysis of each of the twelve books of the Laws, which illuminates Plato’s major themes and arguments concerning theology, the soul, justice, and education.

Most importantly, Benardete shows how music in a broad sense, including drama, epic poetry, and even puppetry, mediates between reason and the city in Plato’s philosophy of law. Benardete also uncovers the work’s concealed ontological dimension, explaining why it is hidden and how it can be brought to light. In establishing the coherence and underlying organization of Plato’s last dialogue, Benardete makes a significant contribution to Platonic studies.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780226826424

Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 28 February 2024

Country: United States

Imprint: University of Chicago Press

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 28.0mm

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 229.0mm

Weight: 567g

Pages: 432

About the Author

Seth Benardete (1930–2001) was professor of classics at New York University and the author of many books, including The Argument of the Action and The Rhetoric and Morality of Philosophy, as well as the translator of Plato’s Symposium and other works, all published by the University of Chicago Press.

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  • The Argument of the Action
    This volume brings together Seth Benardete’s studies of Hesiod, Homer, and Greek tragedy, eleven Platonic dialogues, and Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The Argument of the Action spans four decades of Seth Benardete’s work, documenting its impressive range. Benardete’s philosophic reading of the poets and his poetic reading of the philosophers share a common ground, guided by the key he found in the...
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  • Plato`s Symposium – A Translation by Seth Benardete with Commentaries by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete
    Plato, Allan Bloom wrote, is "the most erotic of philosophers," and his Symposium is one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. This new edition brings together the English translation of the renowned Plato scholar and translator, Seth Benardete, with two illuminating commentaries on it: Benardete's "On Plato's Symposium" and Allan Bloom's provocative essay, "The Ladder...
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  • Aristotle On Poetics
    Aristotle's On Poetics is the earliest and arguably the best treatment that we possess of tragedy as a literary form. Seth Benardete and Michael Davis have translated it anew with a view to rendering Aristotle's text into English as precisely as possible. A literal translation has long been needed, for in order to excavate the argument of On Poetics, one...
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