© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/18725473-12341415 The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 12 (2018) 179-195 brill.com/jpt The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition Book Reviews ∵ David Lloyd Dusenbury, Platonic Legislations: An Essay on Legal Critique in Ancient Greece. Cham, Switzerland: Springer (Springer Briefs in Philosophy), 2017. Pp xxiii + 116. ISBN 978-3-319-59843-7. This very short book is published in a series which aims to provide ‘concise summaries of cutting-edge research’. Its main thesis is that, in a number of dialogues from the Apology to the Laws, Plato engages in a ‘critique of law’. The point here is not simply that Plato is critical of existing systems of law but, rather, that he points to weaknesses which are implicit in the very nature of law itself. These imply that all codes of law must be more or less defective. On Dusenbury’s reading Plato deals with this point in the Laws by arguing that if any state governed by law is to survive it must allow for the ‘supplementation, emendation and abrogation of its laws’ (p. 1). So the ‘hypothetical law-states’ he describes in the Republic and the Laws provide for a ‘non-democratic “flux” of law’. In arguing these points Dusenbury discusses three groups of dialogues. The first comprises the trial dialogues, particularly the Apology and Crito. Dusenbury interprets these as pointing to an inevitable ‘divergence’ of law and justice. On his reading Socrates’ behaviour at the time of the trial of the generals after Arginusae and in the affair of Leon of Salamis shows that his commitment to justice has obliged him to act illegally (i.e. in contravention of Athenian law) in the past. His assertion, in the Apology, that he could not obey an instruction to desist from philosophising shows that he is willing to break the law in future. Thus Platonic reflection on law takes its departure from the ‘melancholy axiom’ that under any regime a resolute insistence on justice is ‘suicidal’ (p. 48). The second group of dialogues comprises the Gorgias and Republic. Dusenbury’s treatment of the former is particularly interesting. He sees it as embodying two quite distinct critiques of law. The first is that of Callicles, who believes that it is natural for the strongest to rule, and advocates what