how 2-8-2012
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Race, people are similar and how they are different
Ancient Greek thought was interested in the WHAT am I?
o More difficult question to access
o Have to think about individual AND type
o Anthropos = man
o Distinguishing anthropos from the divine and the animal
This is the difficulty
o Prometheus in Mecone
Tried to deceive Zeus by divvying up the proportions, gives the worst part
of the animal to the gods and the best for the men
Zeus let it happen because he was anyway planning a Kakon (bad thing)
for men
Zeus decrees that men no longer can have fire
Prometheus steals the fire and gives it to man
Pandora is created, she becomes the first mother
From this moment, men are mortal
The creation of the human race, as we know it
Prior to Pandora, men were immortal
Basically Zeus creates mortality
This is how we became different from animals and the gods
Because man possesses reason, we know that we are mortal
o Animals do not, therefore they are different
Oppositional mode of defining identity
What are the things that make us different
Aggregative mode of defining identity
What are the things we share?
What are the things that make us who we are?
o How do we go about identifying the different types
How do we identify the boundaries between each type
A lot are due to nature
Male v. Female
Child v. Adult
Living v. Dead
Slave v. Free
o Is human every soul the same?
Position of Achilles in Book 9 of the Iliad
Why are the Greeks fighting the Barbarians when they are doing
the same things: stealing women
There are different types
Not constructed because of culture but because of nature
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o Cultural difference maps onto ethnic difference, in modern world nationalism
Ethnicity as a word entered the lexicon in the 1950s
o Doesnt go back to the toxic word of race
o Ethnicity is the functional equivalent of race
Craniometry
o S. George Morton (skulls)
o Louis Agassiz
o Based upon two fallacies
The idea that you can reify intelligence
You can relate it to something physical, then you can measure it,
then you can rank it
Ionian Enlightenment
Climatic Determinism
o When two types of people live in the same climate, there is another reason as to
why they are different (government)
Scala naturae
o Logos determines where you fall on that scale
o Greek women dont develop to the level of men
3 Parts to the Soul:
o Logos (as authority over the other two)
o Appetitive (appetite)
o Emotional (passions)
Souls of the free greek males should be able to vote
Slave
o By nature, it is beneficial for them to be slaves, they should apprehend the logos
of others
Then is only able to participate in logos
o Because the slave doesnt possess this reason, theres no need to differentiate
between male and female
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