Introduction

This chapter discusses existing interpretations of the treatment of foreigners in Plato’s dialogues. The view that Platonic political thought is xenophobic remains prominent in both popular accounts and the scholarly literature, but there is reason to question the traditional narrative. First, recent historical work shows that Athenian attitudes toward foreigners were more mixed than was previously believed. Plato, then, may well have held a positive conception of foreigners. Second, the analysis shows why quoting lines out of the dramatic contexts of the dialogues is problematic. If one of Plato’s characters speaks disparagingly of foreigners, that does not make Plato xenophobic. The chapter proposes instead a close reading of Plato’s dialogues using the techniques of literary analysis. It presents original data on the use of terminology related to foreigners throughout the Platonic corpus, and explains the process of selecting which dialogues to analyze.

Conclusion

This chapter addresses how Plato’s portrayal of foreigners as gadflies can contribute to contemporary debates on cultural diversity. It begins by laying out four major reasons for supporting cultural diversity within the scholarship. While each of these reasons tells part of the story of why cultural diversity is valuable, the image of “Plato’s caves” helps to tell the part that is often overlooked. Simply put, Plato shows how cross-cultural engagement can help one cultivate Socratic wisdom, or awareness of one’s ignorance. This means that cross-cultural engagement is vital for democratic citizens, as democracy’s downfall into tyranny takes place when citizens develop intellectual hubris. Ultimately, Plato’s likening of cross-cultural engagement to the liberating sting of the Socratic “gadfly” reveals that the proper object of our aversion is not diversity but, rather, the fear of education that prevents us from appreciating the epistemological value of exposure to cultural diversity.

An Athenian in Crete

This chapter examines Plato’s depiction in the Laws of an Athenian abroad, specifically in the land of Crete, roughly during the time leading up to the Peloponnesian War. Challenging traditional readings of the Laws as offering a blueprint for Plato’s second-best or more practical political regime, it argues that the dialogue depicts an Athenian Stranger’s attempt to help two old men from the “armed camps” of Crete and Sparta recognize the contradiction in their laws’ singular focus on war against foreigners yet neglect of the conflict within the souls of their own citizens. It takes a foreigner to expose this internal contradiction because Cretans and Spartans value tradition so deeply that they encourage their citizens to sing in unison, rather than cultivate the harmony that derives from the informed acceptance of a belief. Ultimately, the city in speech of Magnesia represents a compromise between Athenian and Spartan and Cretan culture.

Civic Myths through Immigrant Voices

This chapter examines the treatment of foreigners in Plato’s Menexenus. The Menexenus appears to offer some of the most striking evidence of Platonic xenophobia, as it features Socrates delivering a mock funeral oration that glorifies Athens’s exclusion of foreigners. When readers play along, however, with Socrates’ exhortation to imagine the oration through the voice of its alleged author, Aspasia, Pericles’ foreign mistress, the oration becomes ironic or dissonant. This dissonance arises in part because Aspasia, a foreigner, speaks disparagingly of foreigners. Yet it also arises because Aspasia is the metic mother of an Athenian citizen, even though her speech praises the pure-blooded, autochthonous nature of Athenians. This chapter thus expands on the central argument that cross-cultural engagement exposes contradictions in the civic beliefs of Athenians by showing how the intersection of national origin and gender can magnify this effect.

The Panharmonic Music of the Piraeus

This chapter examines the treatment of foreigners in Plato’s Republic. It argues that by giving the dialogue a diverse setting and cast of characters, Plato indicates the importance of cross-cultural engagement in provoking examinations of justice. As the drama unfolds, Plato demonstrates this by depicting foreigners and metics helping the dialogue’s Athenian characters recognize the discordance within the Athenian belief that one should seem just, but be unjust. Although this philosophy was initially the backbone of Athenian imperialism, eventually citizens came to use it on each other, with the help of the sophists’ teachings. As the dialogue proceeds, the incongruity between Socrates’ deeds (visiting a diverse place, worshipping a non-Greek goddess, applauding a non-Greek procession, and engaging in an all-night discussion with foreigners) and the city he and his interlocutors develop in speech (which excludes the foreign and treats non-Greeks as enemies) serves to prompt reflection on the tension found in Greek attitudes toward barbarians.

Socrates the Foreigner?

This chapter investigates why Socrates, an Athenian, presents himself as a foreigner in the Phaedrus. It argues that Socrates’ puzzling presentation of himself as a foreigner helps his interlocutor Phaedrus become more aware of how engagement with foreigners can help us see ourselves in a different light, making the familiar seem strange. By then mirroring Phaedrus’ reaction to the speech of the foreigner Lysias, Socrates helps Phaedrus see the tension implanted in him through his Athenian upbringing to, on the one hand, admire and learn from foreigners and, on the other, to dominate and steal from them. The dialogue’s critique of Athenian imperialism helps to explain why the dialogue ends with an Egyptian myth that critiques the art of writing. Plato’s engagement with this foreign discourse reveals that, like his teacher Socrates as portrayed in the dialogues, he takes seriously the provocation to self-examination that can arise from cross-cultural engagement.

Setting the Stage

Most readers of Plato are familiar with the cave allegory, which compares human beings to prisoners in a cave whose only notion of reality consists of shadows they see projected on the wall. Building on arguments that the cave represents the polis, or political community, this chapter brings to light various indications in Plato’s Republic that each polis creates its own unique version of the cave. Hence, there is not merely one cave, but rather an entire world of cave-like polities. Three major implications emerge from recognizing Plato’s vision of the world as a world of caves: (a) Plato’s view of the world is much more egalitarian than traditionally believed; (b) Plato recognizes that no culture is homogenous; and (c) Plato sees the potential in cross-cultural interaction for intellectual liberation.