Abstract
Aristotle’s account of natural slavery as presented in
his Politics is often treated by historians of philosophy as an account
that can be analyzed purely internally in terms of its argumentative
structure without referring to social factors. Against this view, Aristotle’s
account of natural slavery is seen to be ideological according to
at least one variant of the Marxist concept of ideology, and cannot
be understood without reference to Aristotle’s socioeconomic context.
The ideological nature of Aristotle’s account of natural slavery
is especially evident in his “proto-racialization” of the category of
the “natural slave.” The Marxist concept of ideology is demonstrably
useful in the historical study of philosophy, as compared with
internalist historians of philosophy who claim that referring to nonphilosophical
factors such as class interests inevitably obscures the
philosophical content of the texts that are the objects of analysis.