Lexington Books
Pages: 210
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-7936-0368-5 • Hardback • February 2020 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
978-1-7936-0370-8 • Paperback • March 2022 • $41.99 • (£35.00)
978-1-7936-0369-2 • eBook • February 2020 • $39.50 • (£30.00)
Eli Friedland is independent scholar.
Introduction
Chapter 1. Megillos
Chapter 2. The Great Man in the City: Kleinias of Knossos
Chapter 3. What is Political Philosophy?
Chapter 4. Responsibility, Indignation, and the “Instinct of the Secondary Role”
Chapter 5. Nature
Chapter 6. Law
Chapter 7. Concluding Remarks
Eli Friedland's original and thought-provoking work, "The Spartan Drama of Plato's Laws", helps express the extraordinary subtlety and cogency that run through Plato's longest dialogue.
— The Review of Politics
“The Spartan Drama of Plato’s Laws is a much needed philosophical provocation. At once dramaturgical, philological, and historical, Friedland’s careful and incisive reading of Plato’s Laws uncovers a play of characters whose participation in, and refusal of, their own philosophical self-shaping is meant to reorient politics – theirs and ours – to the ethical and psychological requirements of genuine political virtue. Illuminating, critical, and deeply engaging, The Spartan Drama is an important contribution to Plato scholarship.” — Nina Valiquette Moreau, University of Chicago
“This brilliant and ground-breaking book is the first to show why understanding the differences between the characters of Kleinias and Megillus is crucial for understanding the most important teachings of Plato’s Laws concerning wealth, war, righteous indignation, punishment, and responsibility. Bristling with insights on every page, it sets a new standard for what a dramatic reading of a Platonic dialogue can achieve. Every scholar of Plato’s Laws should have this book in their collection.”— Christina Tarnopolsky, Yale-NUS College
“With acute care, incisive originality, and must-read endnotes, Eli Friedland shines brilliant light on the complex dialogic engagement across the characters of Plato’s Laws. Bringing to appearance crucial differences between the Cretan Kleinias and the Spartan Megillos (the Laws' unsung hero, Friedland argues) on war, wealth, law, and, especially, erotic desire, The Spartan Drama of Plato’s Laws elaborates the profound ethical, political, and philosophical stakes of these differences for living a responsible, which is to say, a human life.”— Jill Frank, Cornell University
“We are always in need of reminders about what is at stake in reading Plato’s dialogues. By means of a fresh and bracing interpretation of the Laws, Friedland calls us to account as readers, as friends to others and ourselves, and for the twinned responsibilities of citizenship and philosophy. The Spartan Drama of Plato’s Laws is a truly philosophical engagement with this indispensable text.”— Matthew Linck, St. John’s College, Annapolis