The claim that the citizen's duty is to “persuade or obey” the laws, expressed by the personified Laws of Athens in Plato's Crito, continues to receive intense scholarly attention. In this article, we provide a general review of the debates over this doctrine, and how the various positions taken may or may not fit with the rest of what we know about Socratic philosophy. We ultimately argue that the problems scholars have found in attributing the doctrine to Socrates derive from (...) an anachronistic and erroneous understanding of Socrates as a kind of libertarian. (shrink)

This essay is an analysis of the central arguments in Plato’s Crito. The dialogue shows, in a variety of ways, that the opinion of another person can have practical relevance in one’s deliberations about what to do – e.g. as an argument, as a piece of expert advice, as a threat. Especially important among these forms of practical relevance is the relevance of authoritative commands. In the dialogue, the Laws of Athens argue that Socrates must accept his sentence of death, (...) because he must regard the court’s verdict as a command from a practical authority – the city. The Laws’ arguments rely on special features of authority-reasons that many commentators have overlooked. This article explains why the Law’s arguments are unsuccessful. Finally, it is argued that Socrates’ description of ‘the many’ suggests that the city lacks the deliberative capacity necessary for possessing practical authority. (shrink)

Plato makes explicit references to Corybantic rites in six of his dialogues, spanning from the so-called early Crito to the later Laws. In all but one of these an analogy is established between aspects of the Corybantic rites and some kind of λόγος: the words of the poets in the Ion, Lysias' speech in the Phaedrus, and the arguments of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, the personified Laws and Socrates in the Euthydemus, Crito and Symposium respectively. Plato's use of Corybantic analogies is (...) thus quite extensive. Indeed, according to Ivan M. Linforth, whose 1946 article is still the most rigorous treatment of our sources on Corybantic rites in classical Athens, Plato is our ‘principal witness concerning Corybantic rites and their function’. (shrink)

Rich with historical and cultural value, these works are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

My paper has two aims. The first is to challenge the widespread assumption that the personified Laws of Athens, whom Socrates gives voice to during the second half of the _Crito express Socrates' own views. I shall argue that the principles which the Laws espouse not only differ from those which Socrates sets out in his own person within the dialogue, but are in fact in conflict with Socrates' states principles. (edited).

In comparison to the speech of the Laws, the dialectic between Crito and Socrates at the beginning of theCritohas received little attention. In this paper I argue that it contains an important philosophical message. It illustrates that the many's failure to follow Socrates' principles, like his principle of non-retaliation, is due to the intrinsic fragility of true beliefs. Though the many can understand Socrates' values and may accept his principles if he argues with them long enough, they may fail to (...) hold on to his principles when confronted with the difficulties of life. Crito's failure to deliberate Socratically at the beginning of theCritoexemplifies the many's predicament. (shrink)

The argument attributed to the Laws of Athens at Crito 50 a ff. relies on three main propositions, firstly that disobedience to law harms persons, secondly that the relationship between citizen and state is analogous to that between child and parent, and thirdly that the citizen makes a tacit compact to obey the laws. The connection between these three is not entirely clear and I shall consider how the first proposition is related to the second, and then how the second (...) is related to the third. Both these problems, which are important for the assessment of Plato's conclusions, appear in obscurities in the structure of the speech of the Laws. (shrink)

A close reading of the Crito, with a focus on irony in Socrates' speech by the Laws and on the way this allows Socrates to chart a mean course between Crito's self-destructive resistance to the rule of Athenian law and Socrates' own philosophical reservations about its ethical limitations.

This fresh outlook on Socrates' political philosophy in Plato's early dialogues argues that it is both more subtle and less authoritarian than has been supposed. Focusing on the Crito, Richard Kraut shows that Plato explains Socrates' refusal to escape from jail and his acceptance of the death penalty as arising not from a philosophy that requires blind obedience to every legal command but from a highly balanced compromise between the state and the citizen. In addition, Professor Kraut contends that our (...) contemporary notions of civil disobedience and generalization arguments are not present in this dialogue. (shrink)

So far, interpreters have not made the import of this last clause clear. F. J. Church translates the last phrase ‘they act at random’. Burnet says of Adam that he seems to have been the first to point out that the meaning cannot be ‘they act at random’. Instead, ‘the phrase expresses indifference’. Adam′s idea, which Burnet here commends, is that the many are thoughtless in their treatment of the individual; and Adam compares 48C below: the many would lightly put (...) someone to death and just as lightly bring him back to life again. The Burnet-Adam point is evidently that the many have a policy of acting indifferently, or just as it occurs to them—by contrast with the ‘at random’ in Church′s translation, which suggests that they act without policy at all. (shrink)

This paper examines Crito’s motives for wanting to help Socrates escape, and Socrates’ rhetorical strategy for handling Crito’s concerns, particularly Crito’s fear of the many. It concludes that Socrates’ admitted concern for his reputation provides the only adequate explanation for his obedience to the court, an explanation which does not rely on his explicit arguments for obligation, but which helps explain why he is concerned to come to the law’s defence. Joining others in suggesting that Socrates’ case for obligation be (...) taken as rhetoric, the examination of the text reveals that not only are Socrates’ arguments too problematic to be an adequate defence of obligation, but these same arguments point to a criticism of punitive law that makes it unlikely that Socrates is philosophically invested in the defence he offers to Crito. (shrink)

It is argued that the Crito hinges on the relation between words and deeds. Socrates sets out a standard of agreement reached through persuasive argument or words. In this case the argument is deliberative: a general shared principle (do not do wrong) is juxtaposed to a particular minor premise (this act of escape is wrong) to reach a conclusion (do not escape). Crito baulks at the perception of the minor premise. At this juncture the Laws of Athens are introduced, who (...) set out a standard of agreement established instead by deeds. Both standards apply to Socrates, constituting the drama of the dialogue. (shrink)