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... is no distinction between strangers and citizens (563 a) - calling into question the very structure of a polis that cannot identify its own citizens. Everything (one) blends into the other. We can no more tell moderation from cowardice than we can tell a father from a son, a teacher from a student, or a citizen from a noncitizen. In contemporary understandings, the absence of hierarchy translates into equality, but that is too simple a translation for what occurs in the Republic; equality entails the identification of those who are equal, an apprehension of the forms that unite and separate. The democracy of Book 8 gives us such a radical view of gender equality that there is no foundation for recognizing those who are equal or unequal, which in turn would lead to a hierarchy - whether of male over female, humans over animals, or Greeks over barbarians.
Likewise, an Aristotelian theory of distributive justice, of equals to equals and unequal's to unequal's, cannot survive Book 8 s radical equality or the formlessness of a democratic regime that, according to its principles of freedom, refuses to impose forms. In the beginning of Book 8 Plato forgets the effacement of the differences between the male and female that initiated the radical proposals of Book 5. As Plato addresses the difficulty of deriving the correct nuptial number, he ignores this earlier effacement and worries instead about reproduction and the mingling of the two distinct sexes. Therewith, a latent misogyny surfaces. In Book 5, Plato dismissed any natural inferiority of female to male; in Book 8, imposing eide on male and female establishes classes and hierarchies that appear prominently when Socrates describes the rise of a timocracy. Miscalculation of the proper nuptial number results in the lawless mixing of iron, silver, and gold (547 a), but the emergence of the timocratic man is more dramatic than this obscure lawless mixing suggests.
A nagging wife and mother, the eidos of the female such as would appear in an Aristophanic comedy, gives rise to the theocrat. He hears his mother express anger that her husband (ho and) is not a ruler, does not seek wealth or engage in civil suits. He is not ambitious, she complains; he is unmanly (an andros) (549 c-e). Adeimantus, never one to speak positively about women, wholeheartedly agrees: Many such things belong to women. With the re introduction of the eide of male and female, with the re enforcement of the differences between them, there is the identification of particular qualities associated with each, and the term unmanly becomes a derogatory epithet. In Callipolis, the conflation of male and female precluded such language.
Plato, speaking though Socrates, makes the analogy that if a man with as a full head of hair is known to be a good cobbler, it does not necessarily follow that a bald man is not suited to the same profession, (Bar On, p. 5). He is again making the distinction between mind, or soul, and body. His claim is that the body is irrelevant to the nature of a person to be proficient in a profession, and thus concludes that a woman could be a philosopher as well as a man. Plato does not preach equality, but the potential for equality. He does not claim that all woman can and should practice philosophy, merely that the possibility exists for a female with a philosophical nature, (Bar On, p. 5).
Plato asks for the meaning of virtue. The response he receives is that virtue for men consist in managing affairs of the city, and a virtuous woman is obedient to he husband. Plato argues that virtue cannot change because of who carries it, (Bar On. p. 6). A quote attributed to Plato by Xenophon, wherein Plato comments on a female juggler entertaining at a party suggests a slightly different view of women. In the performance of this girl, as on many other occasions, it is evident that female nature is not in the least inferior to that of the male.
It only lacks intellectual and physical strength. (Dahl, p. 4) Although many a feminist eyebrow will be raised at the final sentence, the statement was probably a bold one for the day. For all of the leaps Plato seems to have made in the direction of feminism, many of his writings suggest otherwise. A big part of Plato's works is the distinction between soul and body, the body being seen as inferior and as a hinderance to the ambitions of the soul. In the Apology he urges philosophers to abandon the needs of the body as much as possible to allow for growth of the soul and a promising afterlife, (Bar On p. 8). In the realm of Pythagoras ideas men are seen as the opposite of women, the men being of a spiritual nature and the women of a material nature.
Indeed women are seen, especially in the areas of reproduction and child rearing, as having more of a connection and dependence of a bodily nature. Men, in this method of thought would be seen as being more connected to the soul and things of a spiritual nature. Plato embraced this idea, as did many of his contemporaries. Plato went so far as to say that men and women have different types of souls and a female body may not necessarily contain a female soul. He went on to explain that a soldier who is more concerned with protecting his body than fighting has a more body-centered soul and will return to life as a woman. Conversely, a woman who displays skills of a philosophical nature and does not care for things of the body will re-enter life as a man, (Bar On, p. 17).
The notion that life in a female body is punishment for cowardice is a hard one to swallow and begins to break down Plato's heroism as a pioneer for feminists. It begins to seem as though Plato is saying that the ultimate goal for any person is manliness, but it is possible for a soul in a female body to achieve it. He also says that the soul being in a male body does not automatically infer the desired quality of soul. It appears that Plato is using the terms man and woman in such a manner that no longer concerns the gender of the body. He suggests that female refers to someone who is connected to the world on a bodily level, and male is someone who has risen above to a higher philosophical level, (Bar On, p. 17). In essence, anyone can be either female or male, depending on his or her nature.
It is a shame for students of Plato that he used these terms in a way that could be so misinterpreted. Plato's pupil Aristotle was far less sympathetic to women. He described women has having lack of reason to determine the Good and therefore obligated to be obedient to achieve virtue, (Bar On, p. 145). He described women as being the physical opposite to the spiritual male. He claimed that women were merely passive receptacles who bore and nurtured the life created by the semen supplied by the spiritual male, (Gould, p. 125). He shared Plato's notion that women are the opposite of men and connected to the body, but not his belief that there was potential for growth beyond that state.
He described women as children who never grew up. (Roberts, p. 151). Plato's greatest expression of his attitudes towards women is evidently in his Republic. Like many of his works, it is a dramatic account of a meeting of philosophers, in which women are excluded for the express purpose of keeping the subject matter at a serious level, (Bar On, p. 83). Although Diotima is not present, her thoughts are spoken by Socrates. In what is essentially her speech, she explains the nature of love, beauty and immortality through metaphors of the female body. She explained that immortality was gained through creation and conceiving of beauty.
Women, she explains, can create through the body by conceiving and nurturing children, whereas men must make creations of the mind through art and poetry. Although it has been argued that women are therefore excluded from creations of the mind, there is nothing in Diotima's argument that one form of creativity excludes another, (Bar On, p. 85). Her speech centers around change and cycles. She refers to life and death not as a beginning or end, but as part of an eternal whole.
Her speech seems to take on almost an Eastern sense in that there is no Bad or Good, only opposites that pull at each other to create harmony. Plato's obvious admiration of Diotima as a philosopher is a credit to his title of the first feminist philosopher, (Bar On, p. 3). While his views and expressions may be less than todays feminist standards, he must be acknowledged as an advocate for women in a time when this was not a popular subject. Perhaps his speaking through Socrates is a testament to just how controversial the subject was at the time.
Although at first glance, Plato's work seems to suggest the same sexist notions that plague the 20 th century, a second look suggests that he was far more sensitive to the matter than many philosophers of his day and long since. He may not have presented the material in a way to satisfy 20 th century feminist philosophers, but were it not for him, who knows when or if the recognition of feminist philosophy held so dear today would have found a voice. Torn by tradition that told him women were not people by the same standards as men, and logic and reason that told him otherwise, Plato spoke for those who, at the time, had a very quiet voice. In the sense of modern-day feminism, Plato would not hail high on any list.
But he did make a major stride in pursuing equality for the female gender, one that set the pace for the movement, which has quite possibly not even culminated. Plato's belief that the just man has a predetermined destiny to achieve was the primary basis in which he decided to include women. Women also had destinies, Plato argued, and if their destiny was to rule, then so be it. Conversely, it can be said that Plato and Socrates did not recognize the importance of their reasoning. Plato did not use terms such as equality, fairness, equality of opportunity, and of course, feminism. (Annas, p. 39) Although they did not use these terms, and despite not fully recognizing females as equal as to males, there is no denying the role these two ancient Greek philosophers played in the rights of women. As unrecognizable as this fact may be, due to its hiding in the shadow of the other philosophy these two introduced, it is a great accomplishment in itself.
Words: 3750 Bibliography: Bar On, Bat-Ami. Engendering Origins: Critical Feminist Readings in Plato and Aristotle. State University of New York Press, New York, 1994. Gould, Carol C. Beyond Domination: New Perspectives on Women and Philosophy.
Rowman & Allan held, New Jersey, 1983. Adam, James. The Republic of Plato: Edited with Critical Notes, Commentary, and Appendices. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963 Annas, Julia. An Introduction to Plato's Republic. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981.
Dahl, Robert. Democracy, Liberty, and Equality. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1986. Saxonhouse, Arlene W.
The Philosopher and the Female in the Political Thought of Plato. Political Theory 4 (February), 1976. Roberts, Jennifer Tolbert. Myths of Democracy and Gender in Plato's Republic.
A Reply to Arlene Saxonhouse, Thamyris 2 (Autumn), 1995.
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