<DIV>Rught, I agree with Shane here totally, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise.Plato certainly did not think that the Athens of hsi day was the sort of society that acheived the ideal of justice in his Republic. I am glad that Shane, who knows more about this than I do, agrees that Plato believed that there are no natural hierarchies except those that fall out accidentally. (Everyone knows that some people are better at some things than others.) jks Shane Mage <shmage@pipeline.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Justin writes: "...Plato makes the point that the actual social hierachy is arbitrary, and this point has to be covered up by a "noble lie"` (Republic 414c ff)... Plato is quite clear that no one is _really_ a natural slave, it's just that hierarchy is necessary for social stability, so you need a story to justify it..." This is, alas, an all-too-typical misreading of Sokrates's *gennaios pseudos* story. Sokrates is giving Adeimantos and Glaukon an allegory to explain why the ruling class (standing for our higher emotional and intellectual faculties) in their imaginary *polis* (standing for the human *psyche* as a whole) should accept what to ordinary young Greeks like his interlocutors seemed a worse-than-slave-like existence: denied the rights to private property and family life, they are compelled to toil continually for the benefit of everyone else. The point of the story is that the rulers would accept a life of poverty and exploitation because they have found true wealth within their souls. It is not meant as a commentary on, much less a justification of, any set of existing social relationships. (Justin is quite right, of course, that Plato regarded those relationships as arbitrary). Shane Mage "When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even downright silly. When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true." (N. Weiner) ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/new/*http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail">Check it out!</a>