Ancient Athenian women worked in industries ranging from woolworking and food sales to metalworking and medicine; Socrates’ mother was a midwife. The argument for the inclusion of women in the guardian class must be read in light of this historical reality, not least because it allows us retain an important manuscript reading and construe the passage as relying on an inductive generalization rather than a possibly circular argument. Ultimately, Plato fails to fully capitalize on the resources he has for a (...) more egalitarian conclusion than the one he settles on, which regards women as “lesser than” yet “similar to” men. (shrink)

Plato and Aristotle both grant and deny the status of techne to farming. How can we resolve this apparent inconsistency? The answer is by construing techne as a folk concept and farming as a marginal member of this category: farming is a techne in the sense of a specialized, rational practice, but it is a non-central case of techne because it is tied to the land and involves work outdoors.