Description

Why does Plato's last dialogue, the Laws, exist?1 Or worse yet, does it exist? The underlying subject of the dialogue - describing at length an ideal society - is certainly a subject worthy of human intellectual interest. Indeed, Plato's more famous dialogue, the Republic, shares this topic. Yet at the same time, the existence of this dialogue - triumphant, complete in itself, and philosophically attractive - hardly calls for justification. It is, in a word, καλή. But if the Republic is perfect, complete, and "classic" in every way, then its self-assured triumph is so much the worse for the Laws. If the Republic already exists, why, then, does the Laws exist? And if the Republic exists, does the Laws even really exist?