The Socratic Dialogues: Late Period, Volume 2

The Laws

By: Plato

Narrated by: Laurence Kennedy, Hayward B. Morse, Sam Dale

The Laws is the longest of Plato’s Dialogues and actually doesn’t feature Socrates at all - the principal figure taking the lead is the ‘Athenian Stranger’ who engages two older men in the discussion, Cleinias (from Crete) and Megillus (from Sparta).

The Dialogue is set in Crete, and the three men embark on a pilgrimage from Knossus to the cave of Dicte, where, legend reports, Zeus was born. The topic under examination is the making of laws appropriate for a well-ordered city: having considered this in The Republic many years earlier, Plato is now taking a less idealistic view and presenting more practical and earthbound proposals, based on law rather than the philosopher-king. It is significant that each of the participants comes from a city with a different system of government: a democracy (Athenian Stranger), a monarchy (Crete) and an oligarchy (Sparta).

The Laws is divided into 12 books. Though Socrates is not involved, it can be counted a Socratic Dialogue in terms of form and structure. The Athenian Stranger is played by Laurence Kennedy, with Hayward Morse as Cleinias and Sam Dale as Megillus. The translation is by Benjamin Jowett.

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Nice companion to the Jowett text

The Laws is a long sustained argument that can hardly be taken in one sitting. I appreciate that this reading and interpretation shows a good amount of thoughtfulness.

Water taste textbook of very old genius

In Plato's text, there's one distinguished trait of artistic genius. I may say he's a geek. Specially when he say common wife rule in the Republic. But this text is written in his oldest age. The law is just mixture of ordinary common sense. That I say water taste. He's not a geek at all even in modern sense. That's real somewhat wonder. And that means the more you repeat listning this audiobook the less you tied in wired orthodox. Read this! Please say yes! We have to make less evil, less wired, less mad society by falling in this.

Chapters

The audio sections do not match the Books in the Dialogue. Otherwise it’s all fine and dandy.