The idea of nomos

At the opening of (Ps.) Plato's Minos at 313a, in his dialogue with an unnamed Athenian companion-student (hetairos), Socrates asks: ὁ νόμος ἡμῖν τί ἐστιν; (‘What, for us, is nómos?’). The companion responds by asking in turn: τί οὖν ἄλλο νόμος ϵἴη ἄν, ὦ Σώκρατϵς, ἀλλ᾽ ἢ τὰ νομιζόμϵνα; (‘What else is nómos, Socrates, but the nomizomena [νομιζόμϵνα])?’ The nomizomena, at this point, may imply whatever is ‘recognised’ as such, ‘believed to be’, ‘habitually’ used, or ‘accepted’ as nómos (and, possibly, what is ‘prescribed by nómos’; 313b), hence, arguably, indicating a multiplicity of nómoi (plural of nómos). An issue, at first sight, with the companion's preliminary answer in the form of a question is its self-referential character. Socrates responds by telling him that, if that is the case, then (for the companion) ‘logos’ must analogically be ‘what is said’, ‘sight’ must be ‘what is seen’ and ‘hearing’ ‘what is heard’; and then he asks: ‘or is it that logos is distinct from what is said, sight from what is seen and hearing from what is heard?’ (313b–c). A related issue that is implied in the dialogue is the uncertain sense of the nomizomena and, by extension, of nómos itself, given that nómos can range widely from, for instance, a sense of habit, use and opinion through to custom, norm or ‘law’, among more besides – as will be seen later. What may appear as an early (too early) self-referential juridical inquiry and, for the companion, with particular emphasis on a nómos that is ‘posited’, is, instead, for Socrates, at least in part, a focusing of attention on the multiplicity that characterises the uses of the word nómos and its family of words (i.e. the nomizomena). Indeed, it is this multiplicity of uses that Socrates appears to presume in order to evoke his eventual definition of nómos.

In this study, I examine in some detail the uses of the term nómos, as well as those of the nomizomena (from the verb νομίζω, nomizō), but it is worth noting provisionally that the nomizomena can refer to a ‘traditional or accepted way or view’ (of living or doing something), in which sense there is some proximity to – though non-identification with – ēthos (‘habit or custom’).