Minos (dialogue)

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The beginning of Minos in the oldest surviving medieval manuscript: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale , Gr. 1807 (9th century)

The Minos ( ancient Greek Μίνως Mínōs ) is a short literary dialogue in ancient Greek that supposedly originated from Plato , but is now considered spurious in research. The unknown author lived in the 4th century BC. Chr.

A fictional conversation between the philosopher Socrates and an unnamed friend is reproduced. They discuss the question of the norm to which state legislation must be based. It turns out that neither traditional customs nor arbitrary decisions of a legislative body can offer an incontestable, absolutely correct basis. According to the findings of the two interlocutors, a wise legislator as well as an author of specialist literature must orientate himself to the objective, natural legal conditions that apply to his area of ​​responsibility. As a classic example, Socrates cites the legislation of the Cretan King Minos , which he portrays as exemplary. The dialogue is therefore named after Minos. It is an important source for the early history of the idea of natural law .

Conversation situation and dialogue design

An introductory framework is missing. The event is not told by a reporter, but begins suddenly and is consistently reproduced in direct speech. This type of representation is referred to in the specialist literature as "dramatic form". The author does not disclose when and in what environment the fictitious dialogue takes place and on what occasion it was started. The location can only be in Athens , the hometown of Socrates. A clue for the chronological classification only offers the fact that Socrates, 399 BC. He died at the age of seventy, just as his interlocutor is already at an advanced age, as can be seen from a remark at the end.

The design of the conversation follows a pattern familiar to readers of the real works of Plato from the early dialogues . As usual, the goal is the correct definition of a term, in this case the term “law” (Greek nómos ). A definition is correct if it precisely states the nature of its object and thus works out its specificity. In this way, the essence, the nature of the object of investigation is to be grasped philosophically. Socrates directs the common endeavor for knowledge and determines the course of the dialogical event. He uses questions to find out to what extent there is agreement about individual assumptions and assessments, and makes sure that there is a common basis for discussion. Proposals for definitions are checked one after the other for their suitability.

The friend hardly shows his own profile, he willingly - if sometimes only hesitantly - follows Socrates' deliberations. In the course of the investigation, agreement was reached on all of the points raised. However, it is not possible to clarify the initial question of what a law actually is, that is, how it becomes worthy of its name. It remains open what exactly the achievement of a good legislator consists of. Thus the dialogue ends in an aporia , a situation in which no solution is in sight.

content

The dialogue begins abruptly with Socrates' question what the law is "for us", that is, how to reach agreement on the correct definition of this term. When asked what kind of law he meant, Socrates replied with an explanation. He explains that he is concerned with the law as such, with "law" as a general term. The term could not include anything different. Just as gold shows no difference in itself and the question "What kind of gold?" Is therefore meaningless, the law, insofar as the concept as such is at stake, must also be something uniform.

The friend's first suggestion for a definition is that the law is applicable, i.e. that which is observed as a conventional custom or recognized as a traditional institution. On the other hand, Socrates raises the objection that speaking is to be distinguished from what is spoken, seeing from what is seen and hearing from what is heard. Just as these activities cannot be determined on the basis of their respective products, Socrates understood that the essence of legislation, the legislative activity, cannot be grasped by a mere reference to their product. Rather, it comes down to understanding the act. Just as optical and acoustic impressions are the results of perceiving something that is present, what is legally recognized must also be a kind of impression - the result of an act of perception that relates to an objective reality. What has been found to be legal is the product of grasping an objective fact that the legislature has discovered, just as a sighted person finds out something with his eyes. Understanding this process of discovery is the task of those who want to understand what legislation consists of. The friend sees that.

Now the friend suggests defining the law as that which a state has put into effect, as is done in the Attic democracy through referendums. Accordingly, the law is the expression of the political opinion that has prevailed in each case. However, this is a purely formal, value-free definition that says nothing about the justice and suitability of legislation. Socrates and his friend find this unsatisfactory, because they are both convinced that the law must represent a value, something beautiful and good. If the law is a good, then righteousness is necessarily one of its properties. However, this does not apply to all decisions made by legislative bodies. Thus, a bad decision, an unjust rule, cannot be called a “law”. Law in the real sense is only that which is based on a “good” opinion corresponding to the truth. A true opinion is, as Socrates states , a discovery ( exheúresis "finding") of the unchangeable "being", an objective, timeless reality. This reality must be the norm of legislation. The law "wants", as Socrates puts it, "to be a finding of beings". On the other hand, the friend's objection is directed that the concrete existing laws are changeable and different in different states, which would not be the case if they were based on the discovery of a natural state of affairs. The friend ignores the fact that Socrates only spoke of the will and not of its concrete realization in individual cases.

According to the reflection that Socrates now raises, what is just must always and everywhere be just, and what is beautiful must be beautiful, just as what is heavy is always heavy and light is light. So even the legal cannot be changeable or location-dependent. Whoever misses being - the natural norm - deviates from the objectively legal. In medicine, agriculture, gardening and the art of cooking there are natural laws, the knowledge of which is always and everywhere conveyed in the same way by the respective specialist literature. Likewise, in the art of the administration of a state there is absolutely the right thing to do, which is the task of the competent experts, the legislature, to recognize and to realize. If this task is performed correctly, the written fixation of what has been recognized as correct deserves the designation “law”. But what has been wrongly established as a regulation without knowledge of the natural norm is in reality illegal, although ignorant people consider it a valid law. Since the norm of the objectively legal is unchangeable as a natural given, the laws of the state following it must not be subject to any change. Anyone who changes something in such laws shows their incompetence. Legislation must be reserved for a specialist who knows the natural facts relevant to his area of ​​responsibility, just as a farmer, a sports teacher or a shepherd has the specialist knowledge essential for his profession. Such an expert is a king for Socrates; He does not think of current rulers, but of wise kings of ancient times, whom he considers to be the ideal legislators.

With this the conversation turns to a distant past reported by Homer and Hesiod . Socrates considers the information given by these poets to be trustworthy. According to him, the oldest and best laws of the Greeks are those of the Cretans . Their authors are the kings Minos and Rhadamanthys . Minos has an unjustified bad reputation among the Athenians, since the tragedy poets portrayed him as a villain in order to take revenge on him because of an old conflict. In reality, Minos was a good ruler. As the son of the god Zeus, he received instruction from his divine father and therefore left his fellow citizens with optimal legislation. The Spartan legislature Lycurgus drew from this wealth of wisdom .

But Socrates is not satisfied with knowing which laws are the best. From his point of view, it is more important to find out how good legislation ennobles the souls of citizens. Both interlocutors have to admit that they do not know that. Socrates concludes that such ignorance is a disgrace to mature men like her.

Author, date of origin and classification of the history of ideas

In modern research, the view has prevailed that the author of Minos is not Plato, but an unknown writer who imitated the style of Plato's dialogues. The inauthenticity is derived from features of form and content. It is alleged that the author took over scenic and technical argumentation elements from Plato, but used them differently or in a shortened form, often without a functional connection. In addition, the Minos also contains unplatonic ideas.

The opposite position has relatively few supporters. A well-known proponent of authenticity was the philosopher Leo Strauss (1899–1973). Glenn R. Morrow suspects a draft by Plato that remained unfinished. He thinks it is a late work by the philosopher that was written around the same time as the Dialogue Nomoi (Laws) ; perhaps it was originally intended as an introduction to this work.

The time of origin is usually the second half of the 4th century BC. Assumed BC, but a draft or an original version may have been made in the first half. Apparently the author belonged to the Platonic Academy . Joachim Dalfen has pleaded for an early dating and has given detailed reasons for this. He believes that Minos and other spurious dialogues are works that Plato commissioned his first students to create in the 380s. With this hypothesis, Dalfen explains the proximity of these works to Plato's early writings and the lack of elements that are typical of the later real dialogues. In doing so, he contradicts the very widespread late dating, which is based on presumed points of contact with Plato's late writings. Dalfen's early dating assumes that there is no connection with the late work Nomoi . In research it has been pointed out on several occasions that despite a broad thematic overlap, no influence of the nomoi on the Minos can be identified. In addition to Dalfen, Carl Werner Müller shares this view , who states that the two dialogues have nothing to do with each other apart from the subject matter. Müller thinks that the allusion to the advanced age of the interlocutor in the final part of the Minos is modeled on an indication in the Nomoi , but he explains this with the hypothesis that the final part (321c4 – d10) does not belong to the original text, but is added later been. However, Dalfen did not agree with this hypothesis. Dalfen believes that the conclusion is not artificially imposed, but compositionally linked to the preceding one and has an essential function: it anticipates Plato's dialogue with Gorgias , in which the answer to the question that remained open in Minos is given.

The author of Minos was apparently influenced by the teaching of the philosopher Antisthenes , an older contemporary of Plato. Especially the idea of ​​a law that actually exists in a state, which corresponds to an absolute, timeless norm and is therefore absolutely correct, points to Antisthenes, because Plato was of a different opinion in this regard. Plato saw in every legislation an attempt, imperfect in principle, to regulate the particular in general; no legal text can anticipate every decision to be made depending on the situation. The demand for strict agreement between linguistic designation, concept and being can be traced back to the logic , epistemology and philosophy of language of Antisthenes.

Goal setting and interpretation

The author of Minos turns radically against the relativistic understanding of law and justice that was widespread in sophistic circles and opposed by Socrates, Plato and the Platonists . He refuses to view legislation as a mere convention, codification of local customs and the result of arbitrary political decisions in individual states. Although he does not use the term "nature" in this context, he thinks strictly in terms of natural law , in that he assumes an "over-positive" law that takes precedence over the " positive law " set by man . Accordingly, his Socrates demands a terminology that is consistently based on the conception of natural law: he only approves the designation “law” to those state provisions which reflect the objective natural law reality assumed by him. Such provisions are based on the "discovery" of a natural law, timeless reality "law", of whose existence the author is convinced. In his fight against the sophistic understanding of law, however, he makes use of sophistic expressions himself. His general disapproval of legislative changes is aimed at the democratic customs of the Athenians, which lead to legislative innovations. He contrasts this changeable legislation with the stability in the non-democratic states of Crete and Sparta as a model. He expresses an attitude widespread in conservative circles in Athens: high esteem for the traditional, the “paternal” or “inherited from the fathers”, especially for the “paternal constitution”, and general distrust of political changes. From this perspective, the mere fact that something is old appears to be evidence of good quality. Behind this is a culture-pessimistic view of history; historical development is viewed as the process of decay of civilization. The author of Minos has his Socrates claim that the laws introduced by King Minos still exist unchanged in Crete at the present time, and that this is the best sign that the Cretan legislature has well found out the truth about beings with regard to state control.

The beginning of Minos in the first edition, Venice 1513

reception

Ancient and Middle Ages

In antiquity there was no doubt about the authenticity of Minos . Several authors - Strabo , Plutarch , Clemens of Alexandria and the late antique Neo-Platonist Proklos - referred to individual passages and explicitly named Plato as the author. In the tetralogical order of the works of Plato, which apparently in the 1st century BC Was introduced, the Minos was included in the ninth tetralogy. The history writer of philosophy, Diogenes Laertios , counted it among the “political” dialogues and gave it as an alternative title about the law . In doing so, he referred to a now-lost script by the Middle Platonist Thrasyllos .

The ancient text transmission of Minos is limited to a few fragments of a papyrus manuscript from the early 3rd century.

The oldest surviving medieval Minos manuscript was made around the middle of the 9th century in the Byzantine Empire . Presumably it was intended for the library of the imperial palace. In the Middle Ages, Minos was unknown to Latin- speaking scholars in the West . The dialogue was translated into Armenian by the 11th century at the latest .

Modern times

In the west, the Minos was rediscovered in the age of Renaissance humanism . The humanist Marsilio Ficino did not doubt its authenticity; he translated the work into Latin. Ficino shared the conviction expressed in the dialogue that bad facilities cannot be described as laws. He published the translation in Florence in 1484 in the complete edition of his Latin translations of Plato. This made the dialogue accessible to a broader, educated reading public. The first edition of the Greek text appeared in Venice in September 1513 by Aldo Manuzio as part of the first complete edition of Plato's works. The editor was Markos Musuros . The Spanish theologian and philosopher Francisco Suárez († 1617), a staunch defender of the idea of ​​natural law, used the Minos in Ficino's translation.

The first researchers who found the dialogue to be spurious were August Boeckh and Friedrich Schleiermacher . Boeckh expressed himself in a study published in 1806, Schleiermacher commented on the question of authenticity in the introduction to his German translation of Minos in 1805 . His judgment on the literary quality was devastating. The end of the work is "bland and inappropriate". The presumption of incompleteness does not change that, because it is definitely a “bad job” and it is impossible that “such a system could ever have turned into something good”. "Intention and course" of the conversation are unplatonic, it is proceeded with "completely unsocratic recklessness". Then there is the awkwardness of the language. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff described the Minos in 1919 as the product of a “completely unphilosophical and unplatonic author”.

Since the middle of the 20th century, the Dialogue has often been recognized as one of the first legal philosophical writings in Western intellectual history and as an important source for the early history of the concept of natural law. In recent research, positive assessments are increasing. Andre Archie and Joachim Dalfen see a profound and complex dialogue in Minos ; Christopher Rowe considers it to be an attractive and perfect work in many ways. David Mulroy describes it as a work of the highest quality, although its merits are not obvious. He is remarkably artistic and stimulating. Claire McCusker defends the Minos in detail against the accusation of incoherence and finds considerations in the dialogue that are also relevant to the current natural law debate.

Editions and translations

  • Gunther Eigler (Ed.): Platon: Works in eight volumes , Volume 8/2, 4th edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-19095-5 , pp. 517-553 (reprint of the critical edition by Joseph Souilhé, Paris 1930, with a version of the German translation by Hieronymus Müller , Leipzig 1866 revised by Klaus Schöpsdau )
  • Joachim Dalfen (translator): Plato: Minos. Translation and commentary (= Ernst Heitsch , Carl Werner Müller (Hrsg.): Platon: Werke. Translation and commentary , Volume IX 1). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-30432-7 , pp. 11-24
  • Franz Susemihl (translator): Minos . In: Erich Loewenthal (Ed.): Platon: All works in three volumes , Vol. 1, unchanged reprint of the 8th, revised edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-17918-8 , pp. 891–905

literature

Overview display

comment

  • Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos. Translation and commentary (= Ernst Heitsch, Carl Werner Müller (Hrsg.): Platon: Werke. Translation and commentary , Volume IX 1). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-30432-7 , pp. 25-172

Investigations

  • David Janssens: Law's Wish: the Minos on the Origin and the Unity of the Legal Order . In: Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 32, 2003, pp. 26–40
  • Victor Bradley Lewis: Plato's Minos: The Political and Philosophical Context of the Problem of Natural Right . In: The Review of Metaphysics 60, 2006, pp. 17-53
  • Mark J. Lutz: Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato's Laws . Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb 2012, ISBN 978-0-87580-445-3 , pp. 12-32
  • Bernd Manuwald : On the pseudo-Platonic character of Minos. Observations on the structure of dialogue and argumentation . In: Klaus Döring et al. (Ed.): Pseudoplatonica . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-515-08643-9 , pp. 135-153
  • Claire McCusker: Between Natural Law and Legal Positivism: Plato's Minos and the Nature of Law . In: Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 22, 2010, pp. 83-104
  • Carl Werner Müller : Cicero, Antisthenes and the pseudoplatonic Minos on the law . In: Carl Werner Müller: Small writings on ancient literature and intellectual history . Teubner, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-519-07681-0 , pp. 558-577

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 307.
  2. ↑ For the range of meanings of the term nomos , which in addition to state laws also denotes other norms of action (customs, custom, conventions, rules), see Joachim Dalfen: Platon: Minos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2009, pp. 68–78.
  3. ↑ Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2009, pp. 36–42.
  4. ↑ Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2009, pp. 41 f., 63.
  5. ↑ Minos 313a-b.
  6. ↑ Minos 313b-314b.
  7. ↑ Minos 314b-315d. See David Janssens: Law's Wish: the Minos on the Origin and the Unity of the Legal Order . In: Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 32, 2003, pp. 26–40, here: 30.
  8. ↑ Minos 315e-318d.
  9. ↑ Minos 318c-321c.
  10. ↑ Minos 321c – d.
  11. ↑ See the brief research overview by Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 307 and the detailed argumentation by Bernd Manuwald: On the pseudo-Platonic character of Minos . In: Klaus Döring et al. (Ed.): Pseudoplatonica , Stuttgart 2005, pp. 135–153.
  12. ↑ Among them are Victor Bradley Lewis: Plato's Minos: The Political and Philosophical Context of the Problem of Natural Right . In: The Review of Metaphysics 60, 2006, pp. 17–53, here: p. 18 note 3, William S. Cobb: Plato's Minos . In: Ancient Philosophy 8, 1988, pp. 187-207 and David Mulroy: The Subtle Artistry of the Minos and the Hipparchus . In: Transactions of the American Philological Association 137, 2007, pp. 115-131, here: p. 115 Note 1, pp. 130 f.
  13. ^ Leo Strauss: On the Minos . In: Thomas L. Pangle (Ed.): The Roots of Political Philosophy , Ithaca / London 1987 (first published in 1968), pp. 67–79, here: 67.
  14. ^ Glenn R. Morrow: Plato's Cretan City , Princeton 1960, pp. 35-39.
  15. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 307; Margherita Isnardi : Una nota al 'Minosse' pseudoplatonico . In: La Parola del Passato 9, 1954, pp. 45–53, here: 51 f .; Eugen Dönt : The position of the excursions in the pseudo-Platonic dialogues . In: Wiener Studien 76, 1963, pp. 27–51, here: 44–46; Carl Werner Müller: Cicero, Antisthenes and the pseudoplatonic Minos on the law . In: Carl Werner Müller: Small writings on ancient literature and intellectual history , Stuttgart 1999, pp. 558–577, here: 563 f.
  16. ↑ Joachim Dalfen: Observations and thoughts on the (pseudo) Platonic Minos and other spuria . In: Klaus Döring et al. (Ed.): Pseudoplatonica , Stuttgart 2005, pp. 51–67; Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2009, pp. 29–67.
  17. ↑ Plato, Laws 625b.
  18. ^ Carl Werner Müller: Cicero, Antisthenes and the pseudoplatonic Minos on the law . In: Carl Werner Müller: Small writings on ancient literature and intellectual history , Stuttgart 1999, pp. 558–577, here: pp. 563–565 and note 25, 26.
  19. ↑ Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2009, p. 168. Cf. Bernd Manuwald: On the pseudoplatonic character of Minos . In: Klaus Döring et al. (Ed.): Pseudoplatonica , Stuttgart 2005, pp. 135–153, here: 141 f.
  20. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 307 f .; Christopher Rowe: Cleitophon and Minos . In: Christopher Rowe, Malcolm Schofield (ed.): The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought , Cambridge 2000, pp. 303–309, here: 308; in detail on the influence of the philosophy of Antisthenes Carl Werner Müller: Cicero, Antisthenes and the pseudoplatonic Minos on the law . In: Carl Werner Müller: Small writings on ancient literature and intellectual history , Stuttgart 1999, pp. 558–577, here: 566–573. See also Carl Werner Müller: Die Kurzdialoge der Appendix Platonica , Munich 1975, pp. 182 f., 185 f. and Joseph Souilhé (ed.): Plato: Œuvres complètes , vol. 13, part 2: Dialogues suspects , 2nd edition, Paris 1962, p. 81 f.
  21. ^ Margherita Isnardi: Una nota al 'Minosse' pseudoplatonico . In: La Parola del Passato 9, 1954, pp. 45–53, here: 46–48.
  22. ^ Carl Werner Müller: Cicero, Antisthenes and the pseudoplatonic Minos on the law . In: Carl Werner Müller: Small writings on ancient literature and intellectual history , Stuttgart 1999, pp. 558–577, here: 571 f.
  23. ↑ See on this way of thinking Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2009, pp. 134–136.
  24. ↑ Minos 321b.
  25. ↑ Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2009, pp. 29, 139 f.
  26. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3: 56–60.
  27. ↑ Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici Greci e Latini (CPF) , Part 1, Vol. 1 ***, Firenze 1999, pp. 142-146.
  28. ↑ Parisinus Graecus 1807; see on this manuscript and its date Henri Dominique Saffrey: Retour sur le Parisinus graecus 1807, le manuscrit A de Platon . In: Cristina D'Ancona (Ed.): The Libraries of the Neoplatonists , Leiden 2007, pp. 3–28.
  29. ↑ For the Armenian translation, see Frederick C. Conybeare: On the Ancient Armenian Version of Plato . In: American Journal of Philology 12, 1891, pp. 193-210, here: 193, 209 f.
  30. ↑ Ada Neschke-Hentschke : Platonisme politique et théorie du droit naturel , Vol. 2, Leuven 2003, pp. 223 f., 665 f.
  31. ↑ Ada Neschke-Hentschke: Platonisme politique et théorie du droit naturel , Vol. 2, Leuven 2003, pp. 336, 347, 352 f .; Compilation of passages p. 692–695.
  32. ↑ August Boeckh: In Platonis qui vulgo fertur Minoem eiusdemque libros priores de legibus , Hall 1806.
  33. ^ Friedrich Schleiermacher: Minos. Introduction . In: Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher: About the philosophy of Plato , ed. by Peter M. Steiner, Hamburg 1996, pp. 171-173.
  34. ^ Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Platon. Supplements and text criticism , 4th edition, Dublin / Zurich 1969 (1st edition Berlin 1919), p. 325.
  35. ^ Victor Bradley Lewis: Plato's Minos: The Political and Philosophical Context of the Problem of Natural Right . In: The Review of Metaphysics 60, 2006, pp. 17–53, here: pp. 17–19 and note 1.
  36. ^ Andre Archie: The Unity of Plato's Minos . In: Philotheos 7, 2007, pp. 160–171, here: 160; Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2009, p. 32 Note 7; Christopher Rowe: Cleitophon and Minos . In: Christopher Rowe, Malcolm Schofield (eds.): The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought , Cambridge 2000, pp. 303-309, here: 307.
  37. ^ David Mulroy: The Subtle Artistry of the Minos and the Hipparchus . In: Transactions of the American Philological Association 137, 2007, pp. 115-131, here: 115, 130 f.
  38. ^ Claire McCusker: Between Natural Law and Legal Positivism: Plato's Minos and the Nature of Law . In: Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 22, 2010, pp. 83-104. On the coherence of the dialogue, see Judith Best: What Is Law? The Minos Reconsidered . In: Interpretation 8 / 2,3, 1980, pp. 102-113 and Victor Bradley Lewis: Plato's Minos: The Political and Philosophical Context of the Problem of Natural Right . In: The Review of Metaphysics 60, 2006, pp. 17–53, here: 19.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on May 7, 2015 .