Nomos Conversing To Being

This research object of this study is Plato’s Minos or On the Law,and tries to explain the connotation of it by means of close reading and combining with other dialogues of Plato,and proves that Minos is actually a dialogue with exquisite structure and profound content.At the same time,it will try its best to explain the connotation of the three definitions of law in this paper and its relationship with Minos myth.The introduction explains the research significance and authenticity of Minos.The significance of this research is mainly to compare the four primary documents（Minos,Laws,Memorabilia,Crito）,and to find the correlation and contradiction between the texts.On the other hand,the authenticity of Minos is manly sorted out from the second-hand researches since the 19^th century,and it was found that most western scholars before the middle of the 20^th century were inclined to judge Minos as a forgery,but by the middle and late of the 20^th century,western scholars were more inclined to regard Minos as a true work.The problem of truth and falsehood can be boiled down to the problem of interpretation.The middle part is the interpretation of Minos.This paper first analyzes the overall characteristics,structure and characters of Minos,and finally adopts the structure of“3x3”to correspond to the text“Minos visits the cave of Zeus every nine years”.The content of Minos can be divided into three parts:the three definitions of law,the three arguments of Socrates and the myth of Minos.Each large part can be subdivided into three small parts.Finally,the nine parts are carefully interpreted in turns.The conclusion shows that Socrates believes that knowledge,not opinion,and god,not man,is the source of law.Law is not so much a political act,such as a citizen’s right to vote,but as the rational act of an intelligent soul or a god.At the same time,the dialogue freed the partner from his nationalist and democratic positions.