Laks 2000 gives an excellent and relatively brief general overview of the philosophical issues in the Laws, and C. Rowe 2000a does likewise for the Statesman in the same volume. For more in-depth general reading on the Laws, Morrow 1960 gives the seminal account of the Magnesian regime’s constitutional and legal structures and their historical parallels, while Bobonich 2002 provides an invaluable survey of the major philosophical issues, along with many provocative arguments. For a valuable recent discussion of the role of knowledge in Plato’s political philosophy, see Schofield 2006: ch. 4. There is strong historical evidence that the Laws was unfinished at Plato’s death, and so was written last, and strong linguistic and stylistic reasons to think that the Statesman (along with the Sophist, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias) was written at around the same time. For a judicious and sensible discussion of the chronology of the dialogues, see Cooper 1997a. For developmental accounts of Plato’s political thought, see Bobonich 2002 and Klosko 1986; for an alternative, see Kahn 1995. On the rule oflawand its many contemporary interpretations, see Shklar 1987 and Raz 1977. For a very interesting account of the relation between the rule of law for the Athenians on the one hand and for Plato and Aristotle on the other, see Cohen 1995. On the rule of law in ancient Athens, see Ober 1989: 299-304 and D. Allen 2000: ch. 8 for arguments that the Athenians did not distinguish between the sovereignty of the democratic Assembly and the sovereignty of law; for counterarguments, see Ostwald 1986:497-524 and M. Hansen 1987. For discussion of the Athenian movement to codify and clarify the laws in the late fifth and early fourth century, see M. Hansen 1999:162-79 and Ostwald 1986: 405-11,414-20, and 511-23. On the importance of stasis or civic conflict to Greek political thought, especially Plato, see Balot 2001a. For an extensive and powerful argument that the preludes seek rational persuasion and that the citizens of Magnesia are capable of rationally grasping the laws, see Bobonich 2002, esp. 93-119. For an argument that the preludes in fact chiefly involve nonrational forms of persuasion, see Stalley 1994. For the view that they seek rational persuasion as a utopian ideal, but end up seeking nonrational persuasion as a concession to real conditions, see Laks 2000, 1991. Plato’s account of the function of punishment is surveyed in Mackenzie 1981 and an account of the view in the Laws in particular is found in Stalley 1995a and Saunders 1991. I believe that the goal of the lawful regimes of the Statesman like that of the Laws is virtue, but this point is disputed by Christopher Rowe, who argues that these regimes aim only at minimal stability and order (C. Rowe 1995:14-18; 2000a: 244 -51). For strong disagreement with the point of view of the essay’s conclusion, see Bobonich 2002 and D. Cohen 1993, both of whom argue that the political philosophy of the Laws is broadly compatible with contemporary liberalism.
World History
