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3 ἀ e Long and Winding Road: Impediments to Inquiry in Book 1 of the Laws Eric Salem It is dawn or perhaps just before dawn—a good time, we later learn, for discussing regime change, nation building, and legal reform (722c; 951d; 961b). ἀ e day promises to be hot and sunny, and since it is, as we also later learn, just around the summer solstice, the day will certainly be very long—long enough, say, for a very long conversation (625b; 683b). ἀ ree old men, a Cretan, a Spartan and an Athenian, stand outside the walls of Knossos and ponder the day ahead of them. ἀ ey will hike together to the cave of Zeus—the well-spring of Cretan laws—and as they hike (and rest, as needed) they will pass the time talking and listening to talk about “regime and laws” (625a–b). ἀ ree grand old men, representatives of three great Greek powers, have already taken their stand together outside the walls of the city. And they will now make their way, in speech as well as deed, into the dawning light. ἀ ey will ascend together from Knossos to the source of Knossos, from effect to cause, from convention to nature. Or that, at least, is what we might expect them to do. ἀ is long hot summer day turns out differently than the day just sketched out. ἀ ere is no indication that the trio of elders ever makes it to the cave of Zeus. In fact there is no indication that they ever make it past the first rest stop: there is more talk at the beginning of the dialogue about resting than staying in motion, about taking it easy (µετὰ ῥᾳστώνης) than toughing it out, about staying out of the summer’s heat than moving forward into its light (625b–c; 722c).1 And what holds true of the action, the ergon, of the Laws holds true of its argument, its logos, as well. ἀ ere is something shady, something murky, something irresolute and disorienting about the whole enterprise. Put in another way: it becomes clear over the course of Book 1 that the Athenian Stranger is full of interesting questions about “regime and laws.” But it is also true that those questions emerge only in The Long and Winding Road: Impediments to Inquiry 49 fits and starts and it is not clear what purchase they will have within the ensuing conversation: Are those questions going to anchor and direct the conversation or just bubble to the surface now and then? “Where are we and how did we get here?” “What exactly is the question on the table?” “Was that an argument for something?” ἀ ese are questions that every reader of other Platonic dialogues must ask now and then. ἀ ey are one’s constant companions when reading the Laws.2 Why is that? What accounts for the murkiness of the conversation in the Laws? What stands in the way of an intense focused inquiry into the root sources of “regime and laws”? ἀ ree possibilities come to mind. (1) ἀ e setting of the Laws may have something to do with its peculiar character ; this is the only Platonic dialogue to take place in a foreign land; it may be one thing to have a conversation outside the walls of Athens, another altogether to talk outside the walls of Knossos.3 Perhaps, to borrow Cleinias’s phrase, “the nature of the χώρα, the landscape” has some effect on the nature of the conversations possible within that landscape (625c). (2) ἀ e subject matter of the dialogue may also shape it in fundamental ways. Some things are harder to talk about than others; mud, hair, and dirt may be harder to talk about than virtue.4 Now, regime seems to be something one can talk about in a relatively straightforward way; consider the Republic. But the subject matter of the conversation in the Laws is not regime but regime and laws. Perhaps νόµοι are the sticking point here—perhaps laws or the pair “regime and laws” are in themselves more difficult to get hold of and to discuss than regime by itself. (3) Of course the conversation in the Republic can only take off once Cephalus is out of the way: imagine having a ten-hour conversation with Cephalus about regime or laws or anything at all. Interlocutors matter, and that brings us to a third possibility and the one that will be the focus in what follows. ἀ e Laws is not a monologue or near-monologue...

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