Alex Long comments on Platonic Legislations (2017)

In the new issue of Phronesis, Alex Long takes note of Platonic Legislations (2017) — a book that moves, Long says, “at breakneck speed”. Copied below:

“In Platonic Legislations: An Essay on Legal Critique in Ancient Greece, Dusenbury considers the relationship between law and flux: as legislation is undertaken in a world of constant change, a lawgiver’s work is never done, and yet it does not for that reason lose its value. Dusenbury suggests a parallel in this respect between legislation and the unending task of philosophy. Dusenbury puts strong emphasis, with a useful outline of the evidence, on the importance of law to Plato’s political project in the Republic and treats the dialogue as a kind of law-code — so I recommend it particularly to anyone who still thinks that laws play no part in the construction of Callipolis. As well as the Laws, his short book moves at breakneck speed through the Apology, Crito, Gorgias and Statesman; the discussion of the Crito is particularly brief, perhaps because that dialogue has less to say about revising and updating laws.”