Abstract

In the first part of this paper, it is argued that Popper’s understanding of Plato’s notion of freedom is fundamentally flawed because he begins with the unexamined assumptions of modern liberalism. Subsequently, in the second section, it is shown through philological analysis that the ancient notion of freedom must be understood primarily in terms of a social and political condition that is the opposite of slavery or of living under a tyranny. Finally, the third section of the paper considers Plato’s criticism of the demotic notion of freedom, as well as the dialectical strategy through which he subsumes it under his aristocratic ideal of freedom as rational self-control.