Plato on ideal society
Plato’s views were based on the human race as well as the classification of human beings regarding the physical and psychological characteristics. He had grouped people race into classes that were like racial classifications in respect to their affiliation to either Greeks or barbarians. Plato also elaborated the role race played in the justification of racist organizations including slavery, segregation as well as colonialism Some groups such as the Thracians, Phoenicians and the Egyptians were ethically stereotyped; however he considered that the most significant approach of grouping people was based on their capacity for virtual.
This is meant to explain that the capacity for people at some degree has some correlation with the people’s particular ethnicities. Plato on his philosophies further asserts that the distribution of wealth in a social group as well as the responsibilities indicates some natural unfairness in virtue (Hamilton, Cairns, 1961, 24). He also indicates that this natural unfairness should be examined from a direct manner but not through physical characteristics correlation.
Plato’s classification of people according to their achievement instead of capacity showed that there was no way capacity could be realized and that this classification could not be linked with racial classifications. Plato had given a notion that distinctions in people regarding virtue was experienced through out the ethnic distinctions creating morality in the ethnic groups and some political irrelevance. Virtue is also believed to be possessed by certain ethnic groups, but different ethnicities and races are believed to possess a quite different psychological capability which is compatible with racialism
Another objection of the pilato’s believes is based on the argument that race is a contemporary issue but not an ancient issue. It therefore emerges that searching for the believes on race and its counterpart from an ancients philosophers point of view seems clueless and baseless (Gill, McCabe, 1996, . 17). In objection to Plato’s ideas on race there is consideration of cross- cultural comparisons which are not made impossible by relying on the meaning. The practice of translating between cultures as well as tracing the social forms in those cultures depends on the people’s approaches to making judgments as well as their social forms.
A certain concept can not be translated by another ancient concept, rather by the society’s judgment concerning the analytical and historical context that creates some meaning to that concept. There seems to emerge a question of whether the concept of race is dependant on the modern context with some scientific character such as transfer-RNA as well as the neutrino being contrasted with this folk trait of the race as it is believed that some folk characters have been modified trials by scientists in subscribing analytical meaning to it.
Since the sixteenth century, race has been thought to be a lineage or stock which shows that it is referred to as a humans group that has the same ancestral originality but different dispersion from other people and different adaptation to distinctive environmental settings as well as reproductive isolation. It was believed that race had different varieties with each having its originality from an ancestor. Later on the Darwinian Theory give further clarification on the idea of lineage and type concerning the notion of the sub species that were evolving (Barker, 1959, 46).
He emphasized that typical characteristics are not found in each member of the group but are spread across the group due to random mutation, genetic variability and natural selection experienced as the group members compete. This idea of Darwinian theory of a population created the thinking of respectability of race by giving a hereditary way as well as taking account of nonexistence of generalizations law regarding racial traits.
Although the word “race” comes up in early modern era in England it is believed that it was not the same as the race concept occurrence some concepts such as transfer-RNA and the neutrino are said to have occurred first in time when people never thought of race. Making sense and using the concept of race condition comes from the idea that related people by birth resemble one another and is not a scientific context or investigation an idea that Plato and other ancient philosophers had this in mind (Michelini, 2003, 51).
Plato in his way of classifying people was regarding the term “genos” as to mean “race” although maintained the sensitivity of the differences between the two concepts. Further Plato treated the Greeks and the barbarian to mean every body in the human race. It is believed that some writings by Pilato led to the creation of the barbarian called the menexenus, which was the mock funeral made by one Aspasia, who elaborated the war by the Athens against the amazons as a part of the Greek self defense history against barbarian hubris.
The Athenians are explained to possess pure Greek blood while the other Greeks areseen to have mixed blood and became descendants of Pelops Aegyptus, Cadmus, as well as Danaus (Gill, McCabe, 1996, 29). The aim of Plato in the menexenus could be said to criticize the funeral oration as well as the sentiments that it referred to. On the other hand the Athenians who were in the law gave support to the sentiments regarding parity as well as giving praise to the Athenians and Spartans who were in the Greeks because they felt that they had saved their race from mixing with the Persians and other Greeks.
The Greeks and Barbarians were described as being natural enemies while the other group of Greeks was seen as natural friends. The Greeks, while engaging in war with each other had decided not to either; strip corpses, enslave war captives or burn houses because they saw this as a way to prolong the war between themselves and that they would have reconciliation one time.
The Greeks would also ally other rival Greek groups against Persians taking into consideration the relationship between the Greek groups and the Persians in regard to each others interests, likeness as well as differences (Michelini, 2003, 73). Plato recognized an actuality in a political view but not putting into consideration the scientific necessity. Thus Plato’s attitude regarding the distinction of Greek-barbarian differs with rhetorical context. Plato, in his philosophies discarded the differences found in the Greek and barbarian.
By doing this, Plato tried to divide the human race into two groups, the Greek being regarded as one which was separate from the others and on the side all the others who had unlimited numbers and did not mix with the other or share same language were regarded as barbarians. The division of the Greek-barbarian which meant that barbarians which had one name were a single genos but they were heterogenos. Plato’s classification of human beings therefore failed because he used Genos to challenge commonsense classification using philosophical and scientific classification.
Work Cited Barker E. The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle. New York: Dover, 1959; pp. 46 Gill Christopher & McCabe Margaret. Form and Argument in Late Plato. New York: Clarendon Press, 1996; pp. 17, 29 Hamilton Edith & Cairns Huntington, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters. London: Patheon Books; 1961, pp. 24 Michelini Ann. Plato as Author: The Rhetoric of Philosophy. New York: Brill, 2003; pp. 51, 73
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