Editing Racism (section)

====Aristotle====
[[Bernard Lewis]] has cited the [[Greek philosophy|Greek philosopher]] [[Aristotle]] who, in his discussion of slavery, stated that while Greeks are free by nature, "[[barbarian]]s" (non-Greeks) are slaves by nature, in that it is in their nature to be more willing to submit to a [[Despotism|despotic]] government.<ref name=Lewis /> Though Aristotle does not specify any particular races, he argues that people from nations outside Greece are more prone to the burden of slavery than those from [[Ancient Greece|Greece]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Bernard |last=Lewis |author-link=Bernard Lewis |title=Race and slavery in the Middle East: an historical enquiry |year=1992 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-505326-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/54 54–55] |url=https://archive.org/details/raceslaveryinmid0000lewi/page/54}}</ref> While Aristotle makes remarks about the most natural slaves being those with strong bodies and slave souls (unfit for rule, unintelligent) which would seem to imply a physical basis for discrimination, he also explicitly states that the right kind of souls and bodies do not always go together, implying that the greatest determinate for inferiority and natural slaves versus natural masters is the soul, not the body.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance_arc/las_casas/Aristotle-slavery.html |title=Aristotle on Slavery |publisher=[[Oregon State University]] |access-date=14 November 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906070456/http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance_arc/las_casas/Aristotle-slavery.html |archive-date=6 September 2013}}</ref> The modern version of racism based on the idea of [[Heredity|hereditary]] inferiority had not yet been developed, and Aristotle never explicitly stated whether he believed the supposed natural inferiority of Barbarians was caused by environment and climate (like many of his contemporaries) or by birth.<ref>{{cite book |last=Isaac |first=Benjamin H. |author-link=Benjamin Isaac |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jfylyRawl8EC&q=aristotle+racism&pg=PA175 |title=The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-691-12598-5 |page=175 |access-date=14 November 2013}}</ref>

Historian Dante A. Puzzo, in his discussion of Aristotle, racism, and the ancient world writes that:<ref>{{cite journal |title=Racism and the Western Tradition |first=Dante A. |last=Puzzo |journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]] |volume=25 |issue=4 |year=1964 |pages=579–586 |doi=10.2307/2708188 |jstor=2708188}}</ref>

<blockquote>Racism rests on two basic assumptions: that a correlation exists between physical characteristics and moral qualities; that mankind is divisible into superior and inferior stocks. Racism, thus defined, is a modern conception, for prior to the XVIth century there was virtually nothing in the life and thought of the West that can be described as racist. To prevent misunderstanding a clear distinction must be made between racism and [[ethnocentrism]]&nbsp;... The Ancient [[Hebrews]], in referring to all who were not Hebrews as [[Gentile]]s, were indulging in ethnocentrism, not in racism. ... So it was with the [[Greeks|Hellenes]] who denominated all non-Hellenes—whether the wild [[Scythians]] or the [[Egyptians]] whom they acknowledged as their mentors in the arts of [[civilization]]—Barbarians, the term denoting that which was strange or foreign.</blockquote>