Opening Minos — Plato in Plato Scroll…
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Plato · David Horan
What, for us, is law? What kind of laws are you asking about? What’s this? Does law differ from law on the particular basis of being law? Consider what I’m actually asking you. It’s as if I had asked you what gold is, and you, as you have just done, were to ask me what kind of gold I meant. I believe you would not be questioning me in the correct manner. For gold, presumably, does not differ at all from gold, nor does stone from stone, on the basis of stone being stone or on the basis of gold being gold. And so, neither does law, I presume, differ at all from law. They are, rather, all the same thing, for each of them is a law, none is more so and none is less so. So this is my specific question: what, in general, is law? If you have a ready answer, let’s hear it. What else could law be, Socrates, except whatever is conventional? And do you think that speech is whatever is spoken, or …
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