Why Does Plato's Laws Exist?
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Why Does Plato's Laws Exist? Harold Parker University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Parker, Harold, "Why Does Plato's Laws Exist?" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2515. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2515 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2515 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Why Does Plato's Laws Exist? Abstract If the ideal city described at length in Plato’s Republic is a perfect and philosophically attractive encapsulation of Plato’s political philosophy, why does Plato go on to write the Laws – which also describes an ideal city, albeit one very different from the Republic? The fundamental challenge of scholarship concerning the Laws is to supply a comprehensive account of the dialogue that explains all aspects of it while also distinguishing the Laws from the Republic in a way that does not devalue the Laws as a mere afterthought to the Republic. Past attempts at meeting this challenge, I argue, can be classified under the headings of the democratic, legal, and demiurgic approaches. Although each is prima facie plausible, each also faces its own set of problems. Furthermore, none are truly capable of explaining the Laws in its full specificity; the intricate array of customs, regulations, and practices making up the life of the city described form a complex totality not reducible to the concept of democracy, the rule of law, or demiurgy. Instead, I propose a fundamentally new approach to interpreting the Laws, the systematic approach, which I claim is responsive to the deepest and most innovative tendencies within the dialogue. Specifically, the proper way of conceiving the shift from the Republic to the Laws, I argue, lies in Plato replacing the concept of “cadre” in the former with the concept of a self-governing “system” in the latter. As I deploy these notions, a cadre is a small group of specially qualified individuals, while a system is a large population whose members or constituents affect, and interact with, one another in orderly ways. Each of these concepts gives rise to a corresponding model of government. Under the cadre model, all power is assigned to a small minority of specially qualified individuals, and under the system model, power is periodically rotated between members of a group in accordance with both laws and the extra- legal patterns of social and cultural norms. I use this framework to mount a series of linked investigations into various aspects of the society described in the Laws. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Philosophy First Advisor Susan Meyer Keywords Laws, Plato Subject Categories Philosophy This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2515 WHY DOES PLATO’S LAWS EXIST? Harold Graham Parker, III A DISSERTATION in Philosophy Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Supervisor of Dissertation ______ __________ Susan Sauvé Meyer Professor of Philosophy Graduate Group Chairperson Samuel Freeman, Avalon Professor of the Humanities Dissertation Committee Charles Kahn, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Alexander Guerrero, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University Samuel Freeman, Avalon Professor of the Humanities WHY DOES PLATO’S LAWS EXIST? COPYRIGHT 2017 Harold Graham Parker, III ACKNOWLEDGMENT The rhythm of my life is punctuated by the unceasing series of claims I have made on the physical, emotional, and cognitive labor of other people. Since most of these claims will go uncompensated, it is only fitting I use this brief space to state a few acknowledgements. First of all, I would like to thank my adviser, Susan Sauvé Meyer, for her sustained and valuable input and guidance. She has read countless drafts, made countless suggestions, and taken countless meetings with me, and my dissertation – as well as my own formation as a scholar and philosopher – has benefitted tremendously from her sterling example of professionalism and intellectualism. The other members of my committee, Charles Kahn and Alexander Guerrero, are also not without a richly-deserved place in the firmament of my regard: they have contributed mightily and generously in the form of their time and intellectual judgment, and I am deeply grateful to them. The classical-philosophical community of graduate students at Penn merits my thanks as well. My experience at Penn would simply be unimaginable without the almost constant companionship of colleagues like Max Robitzsch, Aditi Chaturvedi, Brian Reese, and Michael Vasquez. Likewise, my experience in the world in general would be simply unimaginable without my wonderful partner, Alisa Gross. Lastly, I would like to thank the members of my family (including Wuvvy), especially my mother. In fact, in addition to every other debt I owe her, it is quite possible that my mother’s somewhat impatient literary-critical refrain, “what’s the moral of the story?” inspired the question this dissertation seeks to answer. iii ABSTRACT WHY DOES PLATO’S LAWS EXIST? Harold Graham Parker, III Susan Sauvé Meyer If the ideal city described at length in Plato’s Republic is a perfect and philosophically attractive encapsulation of Plato’s political philosophy, why does Plato go on to write the Laws – which also describes an ideal city, albeit one very different from the Republic ? The fundamental challenge of scholarship concerning the Laws is to supply a comprehensive account of the dialogue that explains all aspects of it while also distinguishing the Laws from the Republic in a way that does not devalue the Laws as a mere afterthought to the Republic . Past attempts at meeting this challenge, I argue, can be classified under the headings of the democratic, legal, and demiurgic approaches. Although each is prima facie plausible, each also faces its own set of problems. Furthermore, none are truly capable of explaining the Laws in its full specificity; the intricate array of customs, regulations, and practices making up the life of the city described form a complex totality not reducible to the concept of democracy, the rule of law, or demiurgy. Instead, I propose a fundamentally new approach to interpreting the Laws, the systematic approach, which I claim is responsive to the deepest and most innovative tendencies within the dialogue. Specifically, the proper way of conceiving the shift from the Republic to the Laws , I argue, lies in Plato replacing the concept of “cadre” in the former with the concept of a self-governing “system” in the latter. As I deploy these iv notions, a cadre is a small group of specially qualified individuals, while a system is a large population whose members or constituents affect, and interact with, one another in orderly ways. Each of these concepts gives rise to a corresponding model of government. Under the cadre model, all power is assigned to a small minority of specially qualified individuals, and under the system model, power is periodically rotated between members of a group in accordance with both laws and the extra-legal patterns of social and cultural norms. I use this framework to mount a series of linked investigations into various aspects of the society described in the Laws . v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. The problem under consideration 1 1.2. A survey of the secondary literature 5 1.2.1. The democratic approach 5 1.2.2. The legal approach 7 1.2.3. The demiurgic approach 10 1.2.4. Individual authors in the secondary literature 12 1.3. The systematic approach 16 1.3.1. Elucidatory examples of the systematic approach 18 1.3.2. The systematic approach vs. the democratic approach 28 1.3.3. The systematic approach vs. the legal approach 31 1.3.4. The systematic approach vs. the demiurgic approach 33 1.4. The systematic approach in the secondary literature 38 1.5. The plan of the subsequent work 41 Electoral Policy in the Laws 2. ELECTING THE NOMOPHYLAKES 46 2.1. Introduction 46 2.2. The analytic of government 55 2.3. Election of the nomophylakes 64 2.3.1. Military membership for electors 67 2.3.2. The function of religiosity 74 2.3.3. The expanded ballot 79 2.3.4. Intelligent process 86 2.3.5. Scene of instruction 94 2.3.6. The use of age restrictions 100 3. ELECTING THE COUNCIL 106 3.1. Schedule of incentives 107 3.2. The function of the lot 116 vi Cultural Policy in the Laws 4. CULTURE AS PROBLEM 128 4.1. Introduction 128 4.1.1. Culture in the broad sense 129 4.1.2. Relevance to the systematic approach 130 4.1.3. Selected aspects of relevance to the secondary literature 132 4.2. Culture as a problem in the Laws 135 4.2.1. The equivalence of culture in the narrow and broad sense 135 4.2.2. The cultural logic of habituation 137 4.2.3. The significance of susceptibility 138 4.2.4. The intrinsic danger of the social field 140 4.2.5. The relevance of the concept of positive feedback 141 4.2.6. Egyptian aesthetics 142 4.2.7. Case study (I): 658e-659c 143 4.2.7.1. Ideal theatrical culture (I): 658e-659b 144 4.2.7.2 . Pathological theatrical culture (I): 700a-701c 147 4.2.8. Case study (II): 700a-701c 149 4.2.8.1. Ideal theatrical culture (II): 700a-700d 150 4.2.8.2 . Pathological theatrical culture (II): 700d-701c 152 5. CULTURE AS SOLUTION 158 5.1.