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Law 1 is the last masterpiece of Plato's trilogy of Republic, Politician and Law. It can be said that it reflects Plato's reflection on his life's ideological track in his later years. Studying the law and excavating all kinds of legal thoughts contained in it is undoubtedly of great significance for understanding the basic categories and trends of ancient Greek legal philosophy and correctly evaluating Plato's position in the history of western legal philosophy.
Before evaluating the Essence of Law, it is necessary to discuss the nature of this book. It can be said that although Law is the first work named after law in the west, it is difficult for us to interpret it as a pure legal work to a great extent, mainly because in Plato's writing vision, law should be the last link in his exploration of the ideal state regime model, just like The Republic and The Politician. If we put the law in the academic context of ancient Greek political philosophy and ethics to understand many of its conclusions, the significance may be more abundant, and it seems to be in line with Plato's original intention of writing as a thinker rather than a politician. However, the detailed discussion on what justice is and legislation, trial and punishment in law is undoubtedly of profound legal significance, and may even unconsciously promote the undercurrent of ancient Greek legal philosophy in the discussion of political philosophy. As we know, there was no special branch of legal philosophy in ancient Greece (this is our current classification), so there was no conscious discussion of legal philosophy in ancient Greece. A large number of topics with law as the key word are discussed in the form of justice, such as what is law, which may be transformed into the discussion of "what is justice" in the works of ancient Greek philosophers. This is probably a basic position to understand the law, otherwise, you will feel that your reading is trapped in an extremely rich, complex and diverse space. Therefore, if we understand the isomorphic relationship among morality, politics, education, law and philosophy in ancient Greece, it will help us to evaluate the value of law and its significance in the history of ancient Greek thought in a broader perspective. The following comments are mainly based on some major expositions of the law.
The Law mainly focuses on a summer day in the middle of the 4th century BC, which was discussed by three people. A * * * is divided into twelve volumes, and the content of the dialogue is extremely extensive, involving all aspects of national life and nuanced. If we pay a little attention, we can easily find that there is a progressive relationship between the twelve volumes of the Law. According to my reading, this is a process from theory to practice, from thought to system. Very ingenious or clever, Plato's writing process just reflects his exposition of good legislation in his book, that is, every law should have a preface at the beginning, explaining the value and purpose of legislation (pages 132, 187, 28 1 etc. ), so as to convince people by reasoning and let the law voluntarily abide by it without coercion. Undoubtedly, Plato's writing order objectively contains his views on good legislation. Whether this is a coincidence or not is unknown. At the beginning of the Law, the debaters mainly focused on the legislative purpose. In the eyes of opponents, the purpose of a country's legislation is to prepare for war, the purpose of legal and political services is to win the war, and even the ranking of various virtues is based on the needs of war. To some extent, victory is justice. This idea is consistent with the actual political and military situation in Sparta. In their view, without the victory of war, there would be no property and national survival (page 3). Plato refuted this view through a wonderful judge's metaphor (page 5). He believes that a good legislator should maintain domestic peace and goodness, war is only a tool to achieve peace, and the greatest goodness is the purpose of legislators' legislation (page 6). At the same time, Plato repeatedly emphasized a distinct point in this volume and subsequent volumes, that is, when legislators legislate, foreign scholars should not consider other opinions except the guidance of the highest virtue. In the eyes of many ancient Greek philosophers, there is an obvious order division between virtues according to different standards, which is typical in Aristotle's Nicokal Ethics. This division of virtue order leads to the legislation of many city-states often leaning to a corner, emphasizing a certain virtue, which leads to the differences and opposition of legislative purposes in many countries. On this issue, Plato particularly emphasized in On Law that the virtue considered by legislators should be all, not part, of virtue. If translated into modern discourse, legislation should be related to all aspects of people's lives and the cultivation of people's comprehensive virtues. He listed in great detail all kinds of situations that a legislator should pay attention to, covering all aspects, such as legislation should consider the specific situation of people of all ages, methods of monitoring citizens' spending money and so on. (page 1 1) In Plato's view, legislation is a cause that urgently needs rationality, and the victory of a code should be the victory of rationality. (page 15) It should be pointed out that Plato inherited Socrates' view that knowledge is virtue and experts govern the country on the issue of rationality. Therefore, to some extent, rationality, divinity and virtue are dialectical unity and mutual confirmation. Plato used an example to prove that a person who knows navigation knowledge but is seasick is not suitable to be a captain, a person who has military talent but is afraid of danger is not suitable to command (2 1 page), and a person who only has professional knowledge but has no virtue and practical ability is not suitable to be a legislator. Plato's point of view is actually a potential criticism or correction of Socrates, because Socrates' life is a struggle to acquire pure knowledge, constantly arguing with others, thinking that he is here, and finally being convicted. Plato realized that it is not important to know truth and virtue itself, but to practice virtue. In the fourth volume, Plato pointed out when talking about the purpose of legislation: "We are always looking for which legislation helps virtue and which legislation does not help virtue" (page 262). "I hope that citizens are very willing to follow the guidance of virtue. Obviously this is the effect that legislators try to achieve through legislation. " (Page 120)
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If we understand that the purpose of state and law is to pursue virtue and cultivate moral citizens, then we can understand the importance of education in law. In the first few volumes of the Law, even in all chapters, the issue of education is indirectly mentioned. From these discussions on education, we can clearly see the familiar shadow of the Republic, because an ideal country, an ideal legislation and an ideal citizen are inseparable from a good education. However, in law, Plato's various arrangements for education also reflect the so-called totalitarian line deeply criticized by modern political philosophers. In Plato's view, education is a virtue education that citizens receive from childhood, which is different from other physical training and skill training, and its purpose is to cultivate citizens with perfect morality and temperament. (Page 27) Later, Aristotle put forward a special concept, that is, training virtue. According to Plato's view, the main means of education is "learning to swim in swimming". Through repeated and rigorous training, children can experience various emotions such as happiness and pain, form a so-called correct judgment, and finally reach the moral intuition of "hate what you should hate and love what you should love". (Page 38) The problems about education in the chapter of law are mainly discussed through the argumentation of literature and art education. Plato believes that in literature education, good music and good creation are needed, but good things must be judged by educators, not by the educated, nor by most listeners. There is no doubt that this is an anti-democratic thought similar to Plato's political views. As a legislator, we should clarify various correct principles through legislation, persuade the creators to create works embodying various virtues, reveal the moral value of the creative prototype, (6 1 page) "carry forward the main theme", cultivate children's correct aesthetics and values, form "melody" and "harmony", and make the whole country like a chorus. (Page 54) In short, in terms of literature and art education, Plato promoted a "political system of musical sages", advocating that people with good taste should specify good and bad artistic standards, and never agree with those artistic standards that reflect liberalism and are determined by the audience. In this regard, Plato reduced it to "evil theater government". If we combine the relevant discussions in The Republic, we can see that Plato's educational thought is ostensibly in the name of truth, but in essence it is a meticulous and pervasive discipline process. He assumes that some people are superior in knowledge and morality and have the ability to perceive absolute truth and absolute goodness, thus naturally gaining the status and power of educators, implementing compulsory education for ordinary people and unifying the country in concept and action. However, the discussion on education in the chapter of law is consistent with the argument in the Republic. The difference is that the education in the Law is mainly to highlight the purpose and purpose of legislation, that is, to achieve the purpose of education through the works of foreign scholars. The education in the Republic emphasizes that educators should carry out education by themselves, and the difference between them undoubtedly reflects the difference between the rule of law and the rule of man.
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Logically, the third and fourth volumes of law can be said to be inherited.
This paper mainly discusses the original source and form of political system. In the process of reading, I noticed that Plato's argument (page 70) has a very striking theoretical presupposition, that is, he did not discuss the origin of political system from the perspective of genetics, but assumed how political system came into being and evolved in the blank after a flood. Undoubtedly, this is a very clever analysis method, although it may be anti-historical in methodology, or at least non-historical. But objectively, it provides a solid logical starting point for Plato's argument and puts his observation in an ideal and controllable background, thus avoiding the trivial and arduous investigation of history and experience. We don't know whether this method is related to the treatment of natural state by various social contract theories in the history of western political philosophy. Objectively, Plato assumed the various states of people who survived the flood, and deduced how the political system came into being slowly and reasonably. Plato thinks? This process may not happen overnight, but gradually, after a long time. This sentence is very interesting, because it embodies a contradiction between Plato's world outlook and methodology, that is, non-historicism in methodology and historicism in world outlook. This reminds me of the debate of philosopher karl popper and others about whether Plato is a historian. In fact, if we analyze this topic from different angles, we may come to different conclusions. Of course, the problem may not be that simple. But Plato's argument is objectively based on this starting point: because the supposed primitive people are simple and kind, they mainly rely on habits and traditions to maintain order, and the need for legislation and thought has not yet appeared. (Page 75) In the subsequent development, we can see a familiar historical scene elaborated in Aristotle's Politics, that is, the hypothetical future society has experienced an organizational evolution process from family to family alliance to tribal villages (this is obviously a remarkable feature of the naturalistic worldview in ancient Greece), and its organizational form has also moved towards oligarchy, monarchy and various variants. Due to the combination of various tribes in society, various religions and laws began to be mixed, which produced the possibility of conscious legislation. On this basis, Plato put forward some suggestions to politicians as legislators, such as paying attention to taking virtue as a whole, especially remembering the first virtue of legislators: judgment and wisdom, and the spiritual power to control desire. Plato thinks that the job of first-class legislators is to have a sense of proportion, and he further puts forward a view beyond the ideal country, that is, the limitation of power should also be kept above a reasonable proportion (page 92), which makes the idea of decentralization faintly visible to some extent. Therefore, in the book Law, Plato believes that the form of political power should be a mixture of the correct elements to maintain national stability. Taking Persia and Sparta (Attica) as examples, he expounded the disadvantages of single monarchy and single democracy, thus advocating moderate dictatorship and moderate freedom, and clearly put forward the idea of establishing a mixed regime.
Plato embodied his rich imagination in the Republic and in the assumptions about various conditions of the Republic in the law. Whether these designs have realistic models is worth our further reference. For example, an ideal country should be 80 stan away from the sea, and the grain output should not be too large. However, in such a country, the important question is who is the most suitable to manage it? Plato gave us a very clear answer in the Law, that is, this country should be under the absolute control of a dictator, who should be young, have a strong memory, learn quickly, be brave, have a natural noble character and have strong self-control. (page 1 16) it is important to have luck, that is, he must be a contemporary of an excellent legislator and have the honor to have contact with this legislator. This latter condition makes us breathe a sigh of relief, because after all, Plato has considered how to find the "king of philosophy" that he is often questioned in The Republic. This problem is solved by a feasible condition in legal texts, namely luck, so as to realize the realistic combination of power and knowledge. Objectively speaking, Plato's further perfection of hypothesis seems to make his "king of philosophy" feasible in practice, but we think this feasibility is still only theoretical and very reluctant. However, along this line of thought, Plato continued to imagine his own ideas about the excellent level of government. (page 1 16) He believes that the ideal regime is dictatorship, the second best regime is constitutional monarchy, the third best regime is some kind of democracy, and the fourth best regime is oligarchy. Plato emphasized: No matter what the form of government is, the truth is the same: in a place where people who hold the highest power combine wise judgment with self-control, you can see the works of foreign scholars and have the best political system in line with the law. (page 1 17) This topic has special significance, because from this topic, we can easily find that Plato particularly emphasized the cooperation between rulers and law, highlighting the concept of rule of law in political rule. This idea was also reflected in the subsequent discussion. For example, Plato thought that "the highest position of serving the gods must be awarded to the person who is the best at observing the established laws and making such achievements in the polis". (page 122) However, at the same time, we should also clearly see that whether in the Republic or the Law, Plato's thought shows a deep-rooted hierarchical consciousness, consciously or unconsciously dividing people into different grades (gold, silver, copper, iron), and there are differences in knowledge and virtue between different grades, politically. (page 122) This hierarchical relationship should be pre-existing and fatalistic in Plato's mind. The so-called justice means that all levels "perform their duties and keep their posts", and the apex of this ruling order is the "philosophy king" who pays equal attention to knowledge and virtue. Plato's view of justice is closely linked with his view of equality. As he once mentioned in Goyle Ghiglia, "Justice is equality", but we should pay attention to Plato's careful division of equality in law, distinguishing digital equality from natural equality. The so-called numerical equality, according to Plato, is simply the equality of lottery distribution, and it is the equality of luck or absolute equality. Plato disapproved of equality of numbers, and thought that "equality of all people equals inequality". (page 168) and natural equality is Plato's so-called political justice, similar to Aristotle's distributive justice. The equality of nature advocates treating different people differently. The standard it considers is the level of "everyone's true quality" and the amount of education. If we combine Plato's classification of people, then natural equality means "give more to big people and less to small people." (page 169) and this is "the truest equality, the best equality". From this, we can easily see that in Plato's hierarchical utopia, justice is a kind of justice that maintains the hierarchical system. Behind his contempt for equality of numbers, an anti-democratic sentiment surged, and his elite consciousness came to the fore.
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As far as the themes of the National Law and the Republic are concerned, the most striking thing is that in the National Law, Plato made some major revisions and improvements to his ideal country in his later years, and introduced the rule of law into the rules, thus transforming the ideal country into a country ruled by law at least on the surface of the rules. In the process of arguing with his opponent, Plato explicitly called the ruler "the servant of the law" and thought that the law should be supreme, and pointed out that "where the law belongs to some other authority and he has nothing, I don't think the collapse of this country is far away, but if the law is the master of the government and the government is its slave, then the situation is full of hope." (page 123) There is no doubt that the basic title of the Law is intended to be clear at a glance. However, it is worth pointing out that Plato's view of law is full of theological color in many nuances of law. As mentioned above, in Plato's vision, even in the vision of many philosophers at that time, reason, virtue and divinity are isomorphic and mutually confirmed. Therefore, as a law that promotes the virtues of the country and the people, it is bound to reflect this isomorphic relationship. Moreover, this theological view of law should also belong to the category of ancient Greek natural law thought. Before Aristotle's empirical philosophy of law came into being, in the eyes of the ancient Greeks, "God controls human affairs in an all-round way" (page 1 14), law is the embodiment of God's will, and it should be sacred, universal and unchangeable. This led to the fact that in ancient Greece, conscious legislation and revision of laws were rare or only later. It is said that the Lokris people in the Italian peninsula have such a custom. Anyone who proposes to amend the law must put a rope around his neck when proposing it. Once the proposal is rejected, the rope will be tightened. This reflects the attitude of the ancient Greeks towards amending the law. However, with the changes of various conditions, in Plato's ideal country, laws can be amended gradually, but the conditions and procedures for amendment are extremely strict. Plato pointed out that if the environmental pressure has become irresistible, legal defenders should consult with all officials, citizens of the city and all gods. If the conclusions are consistent, the law will be amended, but not in other cases. (page 186) but even this difficult revision, its legal basis is still theological. Plato bluntly said: "Since people's general social concept of God has changed, the law has to be changed accordingly." (page 399) Since Plato emphasized the harmonious isomorphic relationship among law, virtue and divinity in Law. Then, it is particularly important to realize these sacred purposes in the form of law and enhance people's well-being. Plato expounded this and thought that "the whole significance of our legislation is to let citizens live the happiest life in the friendliest environment possible". (page 154) Therefore, national legislation should make detailed institutional arrangements for all aspects of people's lives in order to achieve these goals. Naturally, in the process of reading the Law by foreign scholars, we almost have to face all kinds of trivial and nuanced institutional arrangements, which are as trivial as the Republic. These institutional arrangements are almost as suffocating as concentration camps today. In many ways, Plato's rulers, like shepherds and gardeners, undertake the task of comprehensively educating and disciplining the people. This knowledge/power in Foucault's sense permeates all parts of society and body through various institutional arrangements, and disciplines people in a microscopic form. Different from the Republic, the significance of law lies in the realization of discipline and education through law and the rule of law. However, from this highly diffused, infiltrated and meticulous state governance, it is not difficult for us to have some associations about fascist laws. The possible difference between the two is that Plato's law embodies and obeys divinity, but Plato thinks that only experts are qualified to judge what laws embody divinity, where experts come from and how they come from, which cancels the defense line about legal character to some extent. This shows the roughness and inherent contradiction of Plato's thought of rule of law in law. In short, in order to "live a benign life", Plato conceived many institutional arrangements, which were very detailed and interesting. For example, in his marriage relationship, the law stipulates that men must get married between the ages of 30 and 35 (women from 16 to 20), otherwise they will be fined and dishonored, and the fines will be different according to different grades; (page 188) The purpose of marriage should be to benefit the country, not to find someone who thinks it is the most attractive; The effective engagement right belongs to the bride's father first, then her grandfather, and then her brother. At the wedding banquet, both men and women should not invite more than five male and female friends. In addition, from the perspective of eugenics, the law prohibits drunkenness at wedding banquets. The purpose of marriage is to give the best children to the country. If a husband and wife have no children within ten years, they must divorce. (page 20 1) in addition, the state has also stipulated a strict property declaration system. Everyone must declare all his property. If someone's property exceeds the registered amount, the excess will be confiscated by the state. (166 page) In order to ensure the implementation of the law, the state has also produced a legal defense team composed of 37 people through some form of democratic election, and their ages must be between 50 and 70. What impressed me particularly was that Plato also made a very detailed discussion on the issue of going abroad (page 402). For example, people under 40 are not allowed to go abroad on any occasion; If you need to study abroad, you must be over 50 years old and return to China within 20 years. After returning home, they must report their experiences to the Joint Committee. If you enter the country from a foreign country, you must be over 50 years old. The purpose is to appreciate the excellent aspects of your country compared with other countries or introduce your excellent aspects to other countries, and so on. There are many similar trivial rules, which show Plato's rich imagination and have a certain sociological color, and belong to a systematic social project. But in the eyes of modern people, this utopian design is undoubtedly ridiculous. According to Hayek, this is a kind of "fatal conceit". In addition, it is important that we can find that Plato's position on the purpose of law and how to implement it inherits the ideas and methods of the Republic, although the ruling strategy has changed from simple rule of man to rule of law.
Generally speaking, Plato's law is obscure and boring in expression and writing compared with the Republic. However, due to the translator's efforts, we can still read the wonderful exposition of law and clearly grasp the ideological context. Reading is interpretation, and legal chapters cover a wide range of topics and contain rich interpretation space. To some extent, we can consider the Law as a literary work, and we may find many more profound ideological resources from it, which will undoubtedly help us to understand Plato's contribution more comprehensively and accurately.