André Laks Summer school Plato’s Laws, June 3.

2023
Handout

Only the philosophers voluntarily (hekontes) do what the rest of humankind does
against their will, because of law.
Xenocrates, frag. 3 Heinze, quoted by Plutarch, On moral virtue, 7.446d

[. . .] I would not say, cleverest Pindar, that the ruling of the law over those who are
voluntarily ruled (tên tou nomou hekontôn arkhên) and not by con- straint is against nature,
but in agreement with nature. (3.690c1–3)

Gorgias, 484b1–c3: Callicles: “I think Pindar, too, refers to what I’m saying in that song in
which he says that nomos, the king of all, / Of mortals and the immortal gods—this, he says,
Brings on and renders just what is most violent / With towering hand. / I take as proof of
this / The deeds of Heracles. For he . . . unbought. . . . His words are something like that—I
don’t know the song well—he says that Heracles drove of Geryon’s cattle, even though he
hadn’t paid for them and Geryon hadn’t given them to him, on the grounds that this is what’s
just by nature, and that cattle and all the other possessions of those who are worse and
inferior belong to the one who’s better and superior.” (trans. Zeyl, slightly modified).

It seems that none of the lawgivers has ever reflected on the fact that whereas it is
possible to use two means in order to legislate, persuasion and violence, to the extent that this
is possible with an uneducated crowd, they use only the latter; for they legislate without
mixing fight with persuasion but use only unmixed violence. (4.722b4–c1)

Gorgias, 464b2–465e2
1. Expertise concerning the soul = politics, subdivided into legislation/ nomothetikê
(preventive) and judicial practice/dikastikê (curative).
2. 2. Expertise concerning the body (unnamed), subdivided into
gymnastics/gumnastikê (preventive measures) and medicine/iatrikê (curative
measures).
3. Counterfeit of the expertise concerning the soul (unnamed), subdivided into
sophistics/sophistikê and rhetoric/rhetorikê.
4. Counterfeit of the expertise concerning the body (unnamed), subdivided into
cosmetics/kommôtikê and the art of cooking/opsopoiêtikê.

Gorgias 504d-e [Laks p. 116 : not 506!]

SOCRATES: And the name for the states of organization and order of the d soul is
“lawful” and “law,” which lead people to become law-abiding and orderly, and these are
justice and self-control. Do you assent to this or not?
CALLICLES: Let it be so.
Socrates: So this is what that skilled and good orator will look to when
he applies to people’s souls whatever speeches he makes as well as all of
his actions, and any gift he makes or any confiscation he carries out. He
 will always give his attention to how justice may come to exist in the souls
of his fellow citizens and injustice be gotten rid of, how self-control may come
to exist there and lack of discipline be gotten rid of, and how the
rest of excellence may come into being there and badness may depart. Do
you agree or not?

Laws 4.
Is the one who is in charge of the laws [. . .] just going to state straightaway what must
and must not be done, add the threat of a penalty, and turn to another law [720a], without
adding any single piece of exhortation or per- suasion to the laws he has formulated? The
same happens when one doctor is accustomed to cure us in one way, another one in another
way—but let’s recall what each of the two modes is, in order that we beg the lawgiver, in the
same way as children would beg the doctor to cure them as gently as possible. But what am I
exactly saying? I am saying that there are, aren’t there, certain doctors and certain assistants,
whom we also call doctors [. . .] [720b8]. Are you also aware that, given that among the sick
people in the cities there are both slaves and free persons [720c], it is for the most part slave
doctors who, whether running through the city or working out of a surgery, treat the slaves,
and that none of these doctors gives or receives any account (logon didôsi kai apodekhetai) of
the illnesses afflicting the servants? Instead, as if he had an exact knowledge, he gives his
orders on the basis of beliefs that come from experience (ex empeirias), with arrogance, like a
tyrant, before hurrying of to another sick servant, thus providing relief to his master by caring
for their patients. [720d]. The free doctor, on the other hand, most often cures and looks after
the diseases of free persons. He investigates the onset of the sickness from the beginning
(exetazôn ex arkhês) and takes note of its nature. Sharing what he notices with the patient
himself and his friends, he both learns something himself from the affected relatives and, as
much as he is able (kath’hoson hoios te estin), teaches (didaskei) the sick person, puts of
giving orders until he has in some way persuaded her; at this point, still using persuasion
(meta peithous) in order to secure the docility of the sick person, he attempts to bring her to
full health (4.719e7–720a6 and 720b8–e2).

[The Eleatic Stranger] Yes, but these people [sc. the few existing experts in politics],
whether they rule over willing or unwilling subjects, whether ac- cording to written laws or
without them, and whether they rule as rich men or poor, we must suppose—as is now our
view—to be carrying out what- ever sort of rule they do on the basis of expertise. Doctors
provide the clearest parallel. We believe in them whether they cure us with our consent or
without it, by cutting or burning or applying some other painful treat- ment, and whether they
do so according to written rules or apart from written rules, and whether as poor men or rich.
In all these circumstances we do not at all scruple to say they are doctors, so long as they
exercise expertise in caring for us, by purging or otherwise reducing us, or else building us up
—it is no matter, if only each and every one of those who care for our bodies acts for our
bodies’ good, making them better than they were, and so preserves what is in their care. It’s
in this way, as I think, and in no other that we’ll lay down the criterion of medicine and of
any other sort of rule whatsoever; it is the only correct criterion. (Statesman, 293a6–c3, trans.
Rowe)

We did not make a bad comparison, when we represented all those who are now living
under laws as slaves being cured by slaves. There is no doubt that if one of those doctors who
practices medicine on the basis of experiences (emperiai) that lack justification (aneu logou)
should ever come across a free doctor [857d] carrying on a dialogue (dialegomenos) with a
free person who is sick and using arguments that come close to philosophizing (tou philoso-
phein eggus), grasping the disease from its origin (ex arkhês) and going back up to the nature
of bodies as a whole, he would quickly burst out laughing and say nothing other than the
words that most of the so-called doctors always have ready at hand about these matters. For
he would declare: ‘You stupid fellow! You are not curing the sick patient, instead you are
almost educating him, as if what he needed were to become a doctor, rather than healthy.’
(9.857c4–e1)