| In this thesis I argue that Plato's approach in the Laws can best be understood as one of legislative demiurgy. That is, the nomothetes (the one who sets down the laws) of the Laws is like the demiurge of the Timaeus in that the nomothetes brings order to the disordered chora (space or countryside) through the application of Reason (nous). While my comparison of the demiurge and the lawgiver points to certain similarities, I also argue that the lawgiver is constrained by the chora, time, and the paradigms available to him in ways that the cosmic demiurge is not. I argue that these constraints on legislation account for what is distinctive about the philosophy of the Laws: the mixture of intervention and concession that characterizes the institutions that it puts forward. |
