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Is Plato's a Caste State, Based on Racial Differences?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
This is partly a verbal question, depending on the meaning of the word ‘caste’. I propose to assume that if we say that a State is a caste State we imply at least two things:
(1) that its members are divided into mutually exclusive endogamous classes, and (2) that no one may be transferred from one class to another—unless possibly to a lower class. The State which Plato describes in the Republic satisfies the first of these conditions. Dr. Popper, who believes that it is a caste State, maintains that it also satisfies the second. In addition he contends that the original basis of the class division is racial. My object in the notes which follow is to argue that both these contentions are false.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1950
References
page 38 note 1 ‘The Open Society and its Enemies’, vol. i (subsequently referred to as O.S.), p. 39.
page 38 note 2 O.S., pp. 123–4. The translation in this paragraph is of Rep. 415 c.
page 38 note 3 O.S., pp. 195–7.
page 38 note 4 O.S., p. 41.
page 38 note 5 The relevant parts of this sentence are cited by Popper in another connexion, cf. ibid. p. 78.
page 38 note 6 The translations are A. D. Lindsay's unless otherwise stated.
page 39 note 1 γένηNo argument could be based on the connotawords which Plato uses for the classes of the state. Examples of all of them are to be found (in Plato) in contexts in which no racial connotation could reasonably be suspected.
page 40 note 1 Rep. 546 d–547 a.
page 40 note 2 O.S., p. 197.
page 40 note 3 Rep. 415 a–c.
page 41 note 1 Rep. 415 b.
page 41 note 2 Tim. 19.
page 41 note 3 3 O.S., pp. 41–3.
page 41 note 4 Ibid., pp. 42–3.
page 42 note 1 O.S., p. 197.
page 42 note 2 The italics are Dr. Popper's.
page 42 note 3 Rep. 415 d–e.
page 43 note 1 Rep. 376 c 7–8.