Abstract
It has been argued so far that the female in Plato’s thought is innately and essentially inferior to the male, that the female is possessed of an inferior soul and is less capable of rational thought. Women, in Plato’s view, are typically concerned with the immediacy of earthly life and with the pleasures and pains of the body rather than the perfection of the mind. In addition, they are not only inferior but threatening, representing as they do the physical, the temptations of the flesh. They are capable of luring men away from the path to wisdom and virtue, and flesh represents all that must be overcome in the pursuit of knowledge.
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References
In speakin? of ‘Athenian wives’ I am aware that I am restricting the discussion to certain women of a particular social standing. Not all women in classical Athens were respectable matrons? There were also
slaves, flute girls, prostitutes and hetairai. Sarah Pomeroy’s history of women in antiquity, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves, covers all categories and indicates how wide-ranging an inquiry into the lives of women in general requires to be. The purpose here, however, is to investigate the role of women in Plato’s political thought and consequently I have concentrated on the category of women from which Plato’s exceptional women would most likely be drawn. In terms of education and opportunity women of Guardian potential would most of ten be found among the wives and mothers or potential wives and mothers of Plato’s own class.
Hans Licht, Sexual Life in Ancient Greec? (George Routledge & Sons, London, 1935), p. 28.
T.B.L. Webster, Life in Classical Athen? (B.T. Batsford, London, 1969), p. 34.
H.D.F. Kitto, The Greek? (Pelican Books, Middlesex, 1951), p. 223.
Ibid., pp. 223–6.
Licht (1935), p. 28.
Kitto (1951), p. 230.
Ibid., p. 226.
Ibid., p. 233.
A.W. Gomme, Essays in Greek History and Literatur? (Basil Blackwell, London, 1937), p. 101.
Aristophanes, Lysistrata, Acharnians, Cloud? (Penguin Classics, Middlesex, 1979); Lysistrata, 1141.
Ibid., 528.
Dover (1978), p. 11.
Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 489.
Xenophon, Oeconomicu? (Loeb Classical Library edition, trans. E.C. Marchant and O.J. Todd, 1923), p. 135.
Ibid., pp. 425–9.
Ibid., 429.
Kitto (1951), p. 221.
Ibid., p. 221.
A.E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Wor? (Methuen, London, 1978), p. 2.
David Schaps, Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greec? (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1979), pp. 4–7.
Ibid., pp. 4–7.
Ibid., p. 14.
Ibid., p. 57.
Philip Slater, The Glory of Her? (Beacon Press, Boston, 1971), p. 8. 26. Ibid., p. 8.
Ibid., pp. 28–9.
Webster (1969), pp. 46–7.
Grube (1980), pp. 87–8.
Pomeroy (1975), p. 93.
Ibid., p. 93.
Ibid., p. 93.
Ibid., p. 94.
Ibid., p. 97.
Homer, The Odysse? (trans. Walter Shewring, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980), p. 137.
Saxonhouse (1985), p. 28.
Euripides, Medea and Other Play? (Penguin Classics, Middlesex, 1963); Electra, 1009–42.
Saxonhouse (1985), p. 29.
Lefkowitch, in Images of Women in Antiquit? (Cameron and Kuhrt, eds, 1984), p. 50.
Ibid., pp. 50–1.
Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 95.
Ibid., 209.
Ibid., 1–45.
Ibid., 528.
Aristophanes, The Assemblywome? (Penguin Classics, 1978), 968–1117.
Saxonhouse (1985), p. 36.
Jean Bethke Elstain, Public Man, Private Woma? (Martin Robertson & Co, Oxford, 1981), p. 11.
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid., p. 16.
Ibid., p. 16.
Grimshaw (1986), pp. 17–18.
Plato, Republic, 401c/d.
Ibid., 465d/e.
Lefkowitch and Fant (1982), pp. 82–4.
Plato, Timaeus, 91; Republic, 414b-15c.
Plato, Republic, 415c.
Ibid., 459e.
Ibid., 460d.
Homer, Odysse? (trans. Shewring, 1980), 197–278.
Mary O’Brien, The Politics of Reproductio? (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1981), p. 37.
Ibid., 123.
Plato, Republic, 462c.
Ibid., 464a.
Ibid., 464a.
Ibid., 461b.
Ibid., 461.
O’Brien (1981), p. 124.
Plato, Symposium, 202a. Socrates tells us here that what he says of love was taught to him by Diotima, a woman of Mantinea.
Eva Canterella, Pandora’s Daughter? (John Hopkins University Press, London, 1981, English trans. 1987), p. 55.
Plato, Symposium, 202a.
Dover (1968), p. 161.
Ibid., p. 161.
Halperin (1990), pp. 129–130.
Ibid., p. 130.
Dover (1978), p. 67.
Winkler (1990), pp. 48–50.
Plato, Symposium, 217b.
Ibid., 218d.
Ibid., 218d.
Ibid., 218d.
Plato, Phaedrus, 255.
Plato, Menexenus, 236c.
Plato, Symposium, 205e.
H.D. Rankin, Plato and the Individua? (Methuen, London, 1964), p. 96.
Plato, Symposium, 208c.
Plato, Menexenus, 237c.
Ibid., 237c.
Plato, Republic, 414e.
Plato, Menexenus, 237d/e.
Ibid., 237d/e.
Ibid., 237d/e.
Saxonhouse (1985), p. 56.
Ibid., p. 56.
Ibid., p. 55.
Plato, Symposium, 203b.
Plato, Symposium, 208c.
Ibid., 209e.
Ibid., 209e.
Ibid., 211a.
Plato, Phaedrus, 249.
Plato, Symposium, 211a-12c.
Ibid., 212c.
Ibid., 191c.
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© 1999 Morag Buchan
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Buchan, M. (1999). The Nature of Women and the World of Politics. In: Women in Plato’s Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230389267_6
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