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.

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This paper argues that the relative stability of ancient Egyptian society during the Middle Kingdom (c.2055-1650 BC) can in part be explained by referring to the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice, i.e., the manner in which imbalances in socioeconomic power are causally correlated with imbalances in the conceptual scheme through which people attempt to interpret their social reality and assert their interests in light of their interpretations. The court literature of the Middle Kingdom is analyzed using the concepts of hermeneutical injustice and ideology. It is argued that while it is true that there was room for maneuver and for internal critique, the efficacy of internal critique was hindered by the structure of the intellectual discourse of Middle Kingdom Egypt. This intellectual discourse was suitable for the interpretation of social reality in a way that allowed the elites to assert their interests, but it was not suitable for the interpretation of social reality in a way that accorded with the interests of the exploited peasantry. 1 | INTRODUCTION One of the factors that can contribute to explaining the relative stability of ancient Egyptian society during the Middle Kingdom is the manner in which the conceptual tools that were available for the interpretation of social reality in ancient Egyptian society during the Middle Kingdom were structurally biased in a way that accorded with the interests of the ruling elite. While the focus of this paper is on the ideational factors which can contribute to explaining the relative stability of ancient Egyptian society during the Middle Kingdom, one should not deny that there are other factors that can be invoked to explain this relative stability. Geographical factors such as the "caging effect" that the Nile basin had on the population (Manning, 2013), and the relative security afforded by the deserts in the east and the west of the Nile basin (Hill, Jones, & Morales, 2013, p. 16

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