

By the Dog of Egypt - Plato's Engagement with Egyptian Form, and the Scholarship of Cheikh Anta Diop


[ Prof. Cheikh Anta Diop in the US ]

by Dr. Greg Moses

Let me preface my remarks today by saying that I feel privileged to share some ideas about Plato in the company of specialists who make of Greek culture their life's work. For I am not a specialist in this field. Yet Plato has kept me company for many years, and I want you to know that I have vivid recollections of a particular moment when the words of Plato, translated into English, and leaping from a page, burst into my mind with such force that I thereafter decided to make philosophy my own pursuit. So if you will excuse my many failings in the techniques of classical scholarship, I would today like to explore the question of what might be learned if we place Plato in the context of Egypt. Thus from the outset, I admit that I want to defy the tone of scholarship that is set by the title of Mary Lefkowitz's recent book, Not Out of Africa. I understand that in her more careful formulations, Lefkowitz is willing to admit of Egyptian influence upon Greek culture; nevertheless, the title of her book, and the general mood of her rhetoric, sets a tone which I find most discouraging, and I am here to seek, in the presence of specialists, an avenue toward fruitful reflection which may entertain within one universe the things we might learn if we spoke of Plato and Egypt together.

It should also be obvious from the title of this presentation that I shall be speaking under the influence of the late Senegalese philosopher Cheikh Anta Diop. In other words, I will advance three of Diop's propositions: 1) that Plato is an optimist after the fashion of the Heliopolitan theology, 2) that the heritage of Egyptian civilization deserves greater attention as a Western heritage, and 3) that there are elements in the heritage of Egyptian education which tend to suppress the advancement of science. In sum, I will argue that Plato's increasing fascination with Egyptian form invites us to follow Diop's suggestion that by acknowledging and investigating our Egyptian heritage, we shall be in a much better position to assess who we are today and where we should be heading. For instance, it is commonplace to suggest that Western heritage draws upon the model of the Greek city-state. But Diop counters this common assumption by suggesting that today's Western powers have less in common with the fragile and tumultuous city state than with the sturdy and obdurate empire that was prefigured in Egypt. I will argue in my paper today that the tendency which pulls us away from the city state toward empire is a tendency that inscribes the dialectic of Plato's political philosophy. Although Plato was well acquainted with the intrigues of the city state, he was increasingly attracted to Egyptian imperial form. This tendency has implications for a philosophy of art and liberation. When Diop calls attention to the similarities between empires that are Egyptian and American, he is interested in the obstructions that are raised against social change. (Diop frames his analysis in terms of the Marxist analysis of an Asian Mode of Production or AMP state.)

To get on with the argument, I shall survey three of Plato's dialogues: Republic, Timaeus, and Laws, in order to suggest that we find in these dialogues an increasing pre-occupation with Egypt. By undertaking this kind of investigation I want to raise questions with respect to two specific claims that have been posed by critics of the Afrocentric movement. First, I want to question Lefkowitz when she claims that it from the Greeks and from no one else that we derive our interest in history. Secondly, I want to question the way that Richard Jenkyns dismisses Egyptian influence on Plato. Says Jenkyns, "we can see for ourselves how [Platonism] evolved from Presocratic thought, the Sophistic movement and the teaching of Socrates himself; to suppose that Platonism is in some way a development of Egyptian religion and thought is simply to misunderstand what Platonism is." As a nonspecialist I would like to know why we cannot claim Egyptian heritage for our interest in history, or why we cannot view Plato in relation to the wider world in which he lived? According to my own reading of Nicolas Grimal's History of Ancient Egypt, the age of the Seven Wise Men in Greece happens to coincide with a Saitic revival in Northern Egypt that drew the Greeks into vigorous contact. Another such revival was also underway during Plato's lifetime as Northern Egyptians undertook to build a renaissance upon the models of their own ancient history. How closely these historical connections may tie the two cultures is surely a delicate question, but I find it difficult to suppose with Lefkowitz and Jenkyns that there is simply no story to tell. In the classroom, I think the most reasonable position to teach is that our cultural connections with Egyptian heritage should be further invstigated, not dismissed.

[ Prof. Obenga, Diop and Leclant ]


In the three dialogues under investigation, Plato seems to operate from a worldview pervaded by the presence of Egypt. In the Republic, Plato's references to Egypt are sparse and offhanded. But in the Timaeus and Laws, we find Plato increasingly preoccupied with the relationship between Greece and Egypt and we find Egyptian forms taken more and more seriously. After brief exploration of these passages, I would like to revive the suggestion made by James McEvoy that the Platonic worldview may have been modeled after the Pharonic (McEvoy 1984). Then I will turn to the larger framework offered by Diop, who finds in Greek culture two interesting features relevant to today's discussion. First, that the Greeks are representatives of "Northern Cradle" culture. Second, that the Greek city-state, when compared to the Pharonic empire, is a peculiarly unstable form of government. While Diop argues that Greek life is significantly influenced by Egyptian examples, it is clear that Diop also postulates differences which make these influences interesting and complex--certainly not the kind of "dependency" thesis that Lefkowitz alleges in her attacks upon afrocentric scholarship.

By continuing to discuss Greece in relation to Egypt, we open more interesting avenues of debate than if we cut the connections outright, as suggested by Lefkowitz, who says flatly, "virtually all claims made by Afrocentrists can be shown to be without substance" (Lefkowitz 1996, 8). If, as Lefkowitz admits, afrocentric scholarship is something that she has only recently encountered, then I find incredible her declaration, not only that she knows all the claims made by Afrocentrists, but that she is also in a position to refute nearly every one! In fact, I think Lefkowitz has only begun to read Diop and has yet to demonstrate serious engagement with the most salient features of the late scholar's work. I will pursue afrocentric investigations, because I think they have something important to teach. Comparing Greece to Egypt opens up important questions about the relationship between state, education, and art in ancient times as well as modern. And it seems to me important to insist that American students have more to learn about themselves if they take their Egyptian heritage more seriously. Celebrations of the Greek city state, its individualism, and its humanism, are important. But we can also learn a great deal if we also recognize in our present civilization the lasting impressions that are also made by Egyptian forms of state, education, and art. We turn now to the Republic.


As far as I can tell, there are only three uses of the word Egypt or Egyptian in the Republic. Twice Socrates swears, "by the dog of Egypt." Between these passages, Socrates refers to the Egyptians and Phoenicians as lovers of money. There is not much to say about these brief uses, except that they suggest a few layers of irony. By "the dog of Egypt," Socrates is presumably referring to Anubis, the jackal-like god of judgment and discernment who makes the finest distinctions among things in the world--and who is a prominent figure in the Book of the Dead. To swear by the dog of Egypt is a dramatic way of affirming the truth of a proposition. Already we see how Plato's view of Egypt assumes something about the Egyptian legacy of thought. The dog of Egypt is a symbol of precise, reasoned judgment.

In the first usage, the image of Anubis affirms the discernment with which Socrates has just purged his ideal republic of corrupting influences. "And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the State, which not long ago we termed luxurious," says Socrates. "And we have done wisely," replies Glaucon. Although this usage seems to arise in an offhanded manner, I will want to return to the pattern of the purge in question; because, the more we linger with Plato's construction of utopia, the more we shall want to affirm that the kind of purge undertaken by Socrates is increasingly identified with an Egyptian form of state.

The second reference to Egypt characterizes the Egyptians as lovers of money. This trait marks the Egyptians as individuals and as a group: Must we not acknowledge, I said, that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual they pass into the State?--how else can they come there? Take the quality of passion or spirit;--it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality, when found in States, is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it, e.g. the Thracians, Scythians, and in general the northern nations; and the same may be said of the love of knowledge, which is the special characteristic of our part of the world, or of the love of money, which may, with equal truth, be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians.

This reference disparages the Egyptian character and elevates the Greek, but beware the ironies. We may recall that the Republic begins in conversation with a wealthy Greek who is addressed as a lover of money. And we have seen how the dog of Egypt represents the highest standard of discernment and reason. The general principle in this passage serves to warn that the attitudes of a nation proceed from the attitudes of its citizens. And we may want to ask--especially those of us who work in classrooms--to which heritage do Americans pay homage? To the love of truth, or to the love of money?

The last reference to Egypt in the Republic is a reprise of the first, as Socrates swears once again by the dog of Egypt. This time, Socrates exclaims that a perfect soul would make an excellent statesman in a perfect state--a proposition sadly contrary to the experience of actual states, where perfect souls arrive like unwanted guests. Here Socrates develops the general thesis that collective characteristics of a state arise out of the individual characteristics of its citizens. All that is needed for a perfect state, then, is a collection of perfect souls. In such a utopia, where the microcosm of individual perfection becomes a macrocosm of the perfect state, the perfect statesman learns first to govern from within:


Very true.



By the dog of Egypt, he will! in the city which is his own he certainly will, though in the land of his birth perhaps not, unless he have a divine call.



I think so, he said.

This passage is a vintage example of what we might call Platonic idealism, and it contains characteristics of thought which become interesting from the point of view of Diop's scholarship. Notice for instance how the good soul becomes the perfect model for the perfect world. This is what Diop calls optimism, and he wants to claim that such optimism also regulates The Book of the Dead. As we may anticipate, these themes receive their classic elaboration in the Timaeus, to which we now turn.


The Timaeus contains five passages with explicit reference to Egypt, although, as is well known to any reader, the entire dialogue is inscribed within the rich and problemmatic relationship that exists between Egypt and Greece. Here, for instance we find the famous quip, attributed to an Egyptian priest, that the Greeks are all children before ancient gaze of Egypt, implying that Egypt is a kind of parent figure to her northern neighbors.

The first mention of Egypt recalls the story of Solon's fabled visit there. Critias regrets that Solon was not more diligent in preserving a story told by Egyptians about Greek deeds of the distant past:


And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.


Before the twice-lost story is retold; however, the reader is first introduced to the ancient connections which bind the people of Greece and Lower Egypt.

It is perhaps helpful to remember that this this dialogue takes place during the first Greek festival dedicated to Athena. The novelty of the Greek ritual is thus presented upon a background of ancient Egyptian origins. It is Plato, that most unlikely afrocentric scholar, who suggests that the momentous advent of Greek ritual has roots which grow out of Africa:


Cheikh Anta Diop[ Prof. Diop by work in Dakar/Senegal ]

We may recall that King Amasis is known for the interest he took in Greek friends and Greek commerce. Plato carefully reports that among the people of Lower Egypt, there is a great love for the Greeks and a feeling of kinship. Furthermore, according to Budge, "Net, or Neith, was one of the oldest of all the Egyptian goddesses, and it is tolerably certain that her worship was widespread even in predynastic times" (Budge 1904, Vol. 1: 450).

According to Plato's dialogue, the common bond between Egypt and Greece is said to have ancient roots which take us back to the time of Atlantis. As soon as the Egyptian priests open the topic, Solon is eager to hear more:


This lengthy passage takes us through Egypt in order to establish a common heritage, but Plato's version ("an excuse to teach myth as history"?) claims that human history actually begins with the Greeks. As a result, the Greek student, Solon, is encouraged to see how his own heritage was the original model for the Egyptian state, and thus how the Egyptian state is a kind of living reminder of what the Greeks first established. The force of this passage leaves the reader with a clear impression that Greek and Egyptian people have a shared heritage that is intertwined in complex ways.

Perhaps there is nothing so binding as a common enemy, and when the threat came from Atlantis, it was said that the Greeks were the ones who saved the Mediterranean world from conquest:


With this passage, the mystery of Atlantis emerges into history, and the most ancient Greeks are heralded as saviors of the Mediterranean world. But a great disaster has erased Atlantis and the Greek liberators. The only evidence left is the Greek memory of lessons taught by Egyptian priests.

Our final passage records the promise of Critias that Socrates shall be entertained by a complete narration, beginning with the creation of the universe and ending with the formation of a perfect society like the one recorded by "the sacred Egyptian record":


[ African Women: Queen Ahmes Nefertari, the Wife of Ramesu II ]

What Critias means by "astronomy" becomes clear in the monologue of Timaeus as the universe is spun from the inner soul of an original, perfect, and good model--what we today call the Platonic doctrine of forms. And here is where Diop draws connections between Greek philosophy and Egyptian cosmogony.

In defending philosophy's right to speculate about its African origins, Diop begins with evidence provided by Plato himself in the Timaeus. In this dialogue, famous for its presentation of the Platonic doctrine of forms, Plato gives ample reason to take seriously the sophistication of the Egyptian civilization and its influence upon Greek culture. We are told that Athena has an Egyptian double, that Egyptian priests taught the Greeks their own history, and that the very form of Timaeus's narrative is modeled after the fashion of Egyptian education. Given these connections, why may we not speculate that the doctrine of forms itself is an Egyptian loaner, kept alive by Alexandrian scholars for centuries before and after Plato?

If indeed we may speculate along these lines--looking for vibrant connections between Egypt and Greece, rather than denying any such thing--then it seems that a refreshing conversation may take place about the heritage of philosophy and what she promises to offer in dialogue between aspiring scholars as they grapple with global questions of heritage and cultural identity. In short, philosophy would be well served.

In order to leave ample time for discussion, let me quickly share with you the five points that we have on authority of Plato's Timaeus:

1. 1. That Athena is the Greek name for a goddess who is also worshipped in Egypt under another name (21, p. 34).

2. 2. That the Egyptians were friendly with the Greeks (21, p. 34).

3. 3. That the Egyptian priests knew the meaning behind Greek myth better than the Greeks knew it (22, p. 35).

4. 4. That Egyptian traditions are the oldest preserved (23, p. 35) and that therefore Egypt was the source of historical knowledge for Greece (23, p. 36).

5. 5. That the very form of the narrative delivered by Timaeus is modeled after the traditional Egyptian education, deriving from cosmology the other sciences and principles of health, etc. (24, p. 37).

The cumulative effect of these observations leads me to the general conclusion that Egypt nourished Greek culture for centuries before Plato was born and that Egyptian education provided the model for Timaeus's lengthy explication of the cosmological order.

I do not want to suggest that Plato's claims are without irony. For instance, I read the speech of Timaeus as a filibuster against the time when his contemporaries will have to deal with pressing issues of social justice. We recall that the dialogue is taking place because Socrates wants to see the ideal principles of society put into fleshy motion, and this is what Timaeus's doctrine of forms refuses to do. Thus, we may find in Plato a criticism of what metaphysical preoccupations come to. We may even speculate that Plato illustrates the decadence of Egyptian-style education--a criticism echoed by Diop today. What use are Timaeus's elite skills at metaphysics when challenged by Socrates to imagine a great society? With Socrates, we can perhaps share an attitude of utter bemusement as we lean back for a day of idle diversion that we know will not get to the point. The philosophy of Timaeus may be irretrievably wedded to the Egyptian form of empire, yesterday and today.

Critical scholars of Egypt such as Diop may affirm the heritage of ancient Africa as they question the contradictory value of that legacy. I just want to know what prevents philosophy teachers from doing the same?

We who teach philosophy do the best we can to illustrate the history of philosophy on a global mural which animates the human love of wisdom through time and space. But time and space did not begin in Europe, nor did the human quest for wisdom. It takes some work to reconstruct the Egyptian academy from available evidence, but one cannot deny that a great academy there was. Rather than evade a dialogue which might enliven our sense of classical culture and indicate springs of black heritage, I would encourage a more embracing attitude. It would be a service to the life of philosophy in more ways than one.


With the use of five passages in the Laws, Plato develops his engagement with Egyptian form as a model of excellence in matters of music, education, art, and arithmetic; although, one of the passages does reinforce a kind of stereotype, first mentioned in the Republic, that Egyptians are "mean" or "practitioners of mere craft." While our standard impressions of Egypt affirm the "meanness" and "craft" of Egyptian art, especially in comparison with the Greeks, we do not often enough dwell on the excellencies of Egypt, especially in the arena of math.


Cle. That is surely quite unreasonable, and is not to be thought of.

Ath. And yet he may do this in almost any state with the exception of Egypt.

Cle. And what are the laws about music and dancing in Egypt?

Ath. You will wonder when I tell you: Long ago they appear to have recognized the very principle of which we are now speaking-that their young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of virtue. These they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples; and no painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to leave the traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day, no alteration is allowed either in these arts, or in music at all. And you will find that their works of art are painted or moulded in the same forms which they had ten thousand years ago;-this is literally true and no exaggeration-their ancient paintings and sculptures are not a whit better or worse than the work of to-day, but are made with just the same skill.

Cle. How extraordinary!


Cle. Your arguments seem to prove your point.




Cle. Certainly they are.




4) Cle. That is the only doctrine which we can admit.



Cle. What is their method?


Cle. Very good.


Cle. What kind of ignorance do you mean?

[ King Tut-Ankh-Amon ]


In Windelband's History of Ancient Philosophy ( 1893; trans. H. E. Cushman, 1899; Dover, 1956) we find that judgment: "Measured by its first motive, Plato's theory of Ideas is an outspoken ethical metaphysic"(204). A negative ethic which "pictures the whole life of the philosopher as already dying, a purification of the soul from the dross of sense experience. The soul in the body is, as it were, in prison, and it can free itself only by knowledge and virtue"(204). "This view, which is particularly like that of the Pythagoreans among the ancient moral theories, took in the metaphysical theory of Ideas a special form, by virtue of which the psychological basis was created also for the positive ethics of Plato. In the theory of the two worlds the soul must take an intermediary position,--a theory that could be developed not without difficulties and contradictions"(205).

We are also told that Plato's intellectual development seems to bend toward Pythagorean influence, esp. in the importance of math for true knowledge. It is the "Italian" Timaeus who spins the world from a demiurge.

And yet in Plato's political writings, the notion of Egypt grows into importance as Plato formalizes his state. On the one hand we have a move toward Pythagorean and Egyptian, but Pythagorean is historically most connected with Egyptian. Can't we have a general thesis that Plato's thought inclined toward Egypt?

Three parts of the soul in Plato also become more technically distinguished in the Timaeus, with two parts mortal, one part immortal. But the dialogue is set.

Why can't we see continuity between Egypt, Pythagoras, and Plato?


* Diop, Cheikh Anta. Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology. Ed. Harold J. Salemson and Marjolijn de Jager. Trans. Yaa-Lengi Meema Ngemi. Brooklyn: Lawrence Hill, 1991.
* Plato. Timaeus and Critias. Trans. Desmond Lee. New York: Penguin, 1971. Appendix on Diop

For those not familiar with the larger canvas that is painted by Diop's theory of African origins, let me briefly outline the main points:

1. 1. That black Africans were the first humans 120,000 years ago (p. 11).

2. 2. That all other races evolved from black Africans as a result of migration and changing environmental conditions (p. 11), whites emerging about 30,000 years ago in the Basque region of Europe (p. 13), and the Asian type resulting from further migration and interbreeding about 6,000 years ago (p. 53).

3. 3. That black Africa developed a "Southern Cradle" culture typified in the Nile valley by Goddess worship, matrilineal filiations, agriculture, and generally peaceful relations (p. 19).

4. 4. That white Kurgans developed a distinctly different "Northern Cradle" culture in the vicinity of the Russian steppes, with male, warlike gods, patrilineal filiations, nomadic hunting, and a taste for conquest that eventually imposed its domination on Europe during three invasions from 3400 B.C. - 2900 B.C. (pp. 19-20).

As for Diop's general claims with respect to the Nile valley culture, here they are:

1. 1. That black Africans were the elite rulers of the Nile valley civilizations (p. 17), but suffered progressive loss of national sovereignty after conquests by Persians, Greeks, and Romans, beginning in the 6th Century B.C. (p. 213).

2. 2. That Black Africa was the inventor of writing, math, science, geometry, astronomy, and other prized achievements of classical antiquity (p. 231 ff.).

3. 3. But furthermore--and here we come to the point--that Platonic cosmology (or cosmogony) exemplified in The Timaeus has its roots in the pyramid texts of 2600 B.C. (pp. 310, 337 ff.).

To the nonspecialist, as I say, Diop's larger canvas looks compelling, and I think philosophy should stop evading the vast speculative field that is opened up by Afrocentric scholarship.

Copyright 1996
Dr. Greg Moses