Constitutional paradigm and unborn soul in Plato’s Laws

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Published: Jun 30, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32334/oqnfp.2025n56a1025
Keywords:
soul, city, principle, virtue, self-control, legislation

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Rodolfo Rachid
Universidade Católica de Santos (UNISANTOS)

Abstract

I intend in this article to analyze the ontological and ethical statute of soul in Laws in order to demonstrate its prominence, as the locus of cardinal virtues, for the constitution of city’s legal decrees. I divide the discussion into two sections. In the first section I’ll investigate if Plato had abandoned in the Laws the tripartite theory of soul, described previously in Republic IV. My purpose is to expose the coexistence of several epistemological perspectives in the platonic corpus insofar Plato employs them to examine his specific subject in a determined dialogue. In the ensuing section I’ll attempt to examine if in the Laws Plato retakes the notion of unborn principle in the same meaning as he previously employed in the Phaedrus, with the purpose of showing thereby the similarities of platonic concepts of soul depicted in the different periods of his corpus, denying the assumption that defends a substantial alteration of his moral psychology in the final dialogues. In both sections concerning (i) the discussion about the existence or not of tripartite theory in Book I and therefore (i) the analysis of unborn soul in Book X, I’ll aim to inquiry the coexistence of different perspectives of soul in the Laws.

Article Details

Issue
Vol. 33 No. 56 (2025): Plato's Laws
Section
Articles
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Author Biography

Rodolfo Rachid, Universidade Católica de Santos (UNISANTOS)

Professor of Philosophy of Law and Ethics and Political Philosophy at the Catholic University of Santos. He holds a degree in PHILOSOPHY from the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and Human Sciences at USP (1993), a master's degree in PHILOSOPHY from the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and Human Sciences (2001), with an emphasis on pre-Socratic sources for the formulation of cosmology in Plato's Timaeus, and a PhD in CLASSICAL LITERATURE from the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and Human Sciences at USP (2008), having studied the constitution of dialectics in Plato's Dialogues. He is currently conducting postdoctoral research in the area of History of Ancient Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at USP (Capes 7), investigating the Platonic concept of intermediary in the Dialogues. He has experience in the field of Philosophy, with an emphasis on the History of Ancient Philosophy and Philosophy of Law, conducting research in the sub-areas of dialectics, rhetoric, sophistry, poetics, myth, ontology, and epistemology.

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