David Kaufman (Transylvania University)
This talk explores the construction of race in Greco-Roman philosophy, especially in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and the Stoics. Beginning with Plato’s kallipolis, I discuss Plato’s myth of metals and its relationship to political power and domination within the city. I argue that the myth of metals is a particularly instructive example of racecraft, whereby through the use of cultural control Plato endeavors to persuade the citizens of the kallipolis that they belong to three fundamentally different "kinds" or races of people. Moreover, he uses this alleged difference of kind to ground the political hierarchy within the kallipolis, according to which the gold class has exclusive access to political rule. If the citizens are persuaded by the noble lie, then bronze and silver members of society will recognize that they are naturally unsuited for political rule, and so will ideally accept their political disenfranchisement. It is worth emphasizing that prior to their division into three races through the noble lie, there does not seem to be any preexisting group differentiation among the citizens of the kallipolis. Plato’s kallipollis thus offers a particularly clear and detailed example of the construction of race.
My discussion of Aristotle and Galen focuses, by contrast, on their use of preexisting racial stereotypes. In discussing Aristotle, I focus on the interrelationship of his ethnographic schema and theory of natural slavery. I also argue, following recent scholarship, that his account in his biological works of what we might call the chemical basis of animal character helps to provide a naturalistic basis for his radical distinction between the natural capacities of Greeks and non-Greeks (Leunissen 2012, 2017; Sassi 1988). Next, I turn to Galen’s exploration of the physiology of racial difference. Unlike Aristotle, whose ethnographic schema and related notion of natural slavery focus particularly on ethological stereotypes, Galen gives more attention, at least in his physiological works, to the chemical basis of physiognomic distinctions, such as differences in hair and skin color. Nevertheless, although Galen believes that we can learn a great deal about a person’s physiological and psychological condition from their physical features and explicitly endorses contemporary racial stereotypes, I argue that such stereotypes fit uneasily with his own worked out account of human physiology, and instead, figure more prominently in less scientific contexts within his works.
By way of conclusion, I turn briefly to Stoic cosmopolitanism and to the Stoic deconstruction of race. Stoic cosmopolitanism, I suggest, urges people to look beyond more local distinctions, such as their family ties, particular community, race, and gender, to the common rationality they share with all other humans. Moreover, I argue that the Stoics reject the view shared by Plato, Aristotle, and Galen that only a minority of people are naturally capable of achieving full virtue, maintaining instead that human adults quite generally are capable of living virtuous lives on the basis of right reason, thus undermining the view that certain groups of people should be excluded from political influence on account of their race or gender.