Luke Eddershaw lbe20@cam.ac.uk
United Kingdom
Classics, Pembroke College
PhD thesis: Plato and the Rule of Law (TBC)
Research interests:
- Ancient Philosophy
- Greek Textual Criticism
- Political Philosophy
Despite his reputation as the fountainhead of Western philosophy, Plato rarely features in the histories of jurisprudence. This is a shame. His works contain some of the earliest systematic reflections on the origin, scope, and authority of law in the Classical tradition. Over the course of my research I hope to recover the fractured legal arguments and concepts that span across the dialogues (especially the comparatively neglected Statesman and Laws) and, where possible, repristinate them so that they might fruitfully be read against contemporary debates in the philosophy of law.
Who or what inspired you to pursue your research interests?
The Platonic Corpus, as one might imagine, has been well-thumbed for over two millennia, and yet, despite myriad pages of commentary, it has not yet been exhausted of its insights. Since I first read the Euthyphro, the infinite depths of Plato’s wisdom have never failed to astound me, nor have I tired of the most sublimely beautiful of the Greek prose authors.