Platos Reverent City The Laws And The Politics Of Authority Robert A Ballingall by Robert A. Ballingall 9783031313028, 303131302X instant download after payment.

This book offers an original interpretation of Plato’s Laws and a new account of its enduring importance. Ballingall argues that the republican regime conceived in the Laws is built on "reverence," an archaic virtue governing emotions of self-assessment—particularly awe and shame. Ballingall demonstrates how learning to feel these emotions in the right way, at the right time, and for the right things is the necessary basis for the rule of law and the practically just society conceived in the dialogue. The Laws remains surprisingly neglected in the scholarly literature, although this is changing. The cynical, transgressive populisms haunting liberal democratic societies are focusing new attention on the “characterological” basis of constitutional government and Plato’s Laws remains an indispensable resource on this question, especially when we attend to the theme of reverence at its core.