Philosophy

History of Ancient Philosophy

Lecture Notes
• Thales
• Anaximander
• Anaximenes
• Heraclitus
• The Ship of Theseus
• Parmenides, Stage 1
• Parmenides, Stage 2
• Zeno’s race course, part 1
• Zeno against plurality
• Zeno’s race course, part 2
• Zeno’s Paradox of the Arrow
• Empedocles
• Anaxagoras
• Atomism
• Socratic Definitions
• Meno’s Paradox
• Plato’s Theory of Forms
• Plato’s Phaedo
• Forms as objects of knowledge
• The “One Over Many” Argument
• Allegory of the Cave
• Criticism of Forms
• Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus
• Aristotle’s Categories: Predication and Ontology
• Aristotle on Change
• The Four Causes
• Aristotle on Substance, Matter, and Form
• Aristotle on the Soul
 Thales
Thales was a native of Miletus, in Asia Minor. He flourished in 585 BCE (the date of an eclipse
he is reputed to have predicted). No fragments of his work have survived, only testimony. Aristotle
attributes the following four views to Thales:

1. The earth rests on water. (De Caelo 294a28)

2. Water is the archê of all things. (Metaph. 983b18)
3. The magnet has a soul. (De Anima 405a19)
4. All things are full of gods. (De Anima 411a7)

This seems like a very bizarre collection of very strange views. What makes these views
philosophically or scientifically interesting? We will begin with (1). It seems very likely that
Thales was offering a hypothesis to explain a puzzling phenomenon: why are there earthquakes?
If the earth floats on water, then we can understand what happens: the earth is rocked by the wave
action of the water on which it floats like a boat or a log. (At this point we are more interested in
seeing that this is an attempt at explanation than in evaluating it.)

To understand (2) we need to examine its source. Archê is Aristotle’s word: it

means beginning or source or principle (cf. “archaic,” “archaeology,” “architect”). Aristotle is
here talking about what he called the material archê, which can be either the stuff from which
something originated or the stuff of which it is composed. Thus, Thales thought (Aristotle tells us)
that everything either originated in water (cosmogony) or is actually (now!) made of water
(constituent analysis).

So, what is the scientific or philosophical interest of Thales’ ruminations about water? He is
attempting to provide a theory which is:

1. General (it covers a whole range of similar cases, not just a single one).
2. Based on observation (although it transcends all observations).
3. Makes no appeal to supernatural causes.

This last point is worth dwelling on. Many people before Thales had offered explanations of
natural phenomena. These traditional (Homeric) religious accounts also went beyond the
observable. For example, thunder was attributed to Zeus’ throwing lightning bolts; storms at sea
were thought to be due to the wrath of Poseidon.

The difference is that Thales’ explanations are natural. not supernatural. He does not appeal
to anthropomorphic beings in attempting to explain natural phenomena.

Guthrie (vol. I, pp. 44-5) puts it succinctly:

The questions which excited [the Milesians] were of this kind: Can this apparently
confused and disordered world be reduced to simpler principles so that our reason
can grasp what it is and how it works? What is it made of? How does change take
 place? . . . They abandoned mythological and substituted intellectual solutions. . . .
[It] was no longer satisfying to say that storms were roused by the wrath of
Poseidon, or death caused by the arrows of Apollo or Artemis. A world ruled by
anthropomorphic gods of the kind in which their contemporaries believed — gods
human in their passions as well as in their outward form — was a world ruled by
caprice. Philosophy and science start with the bold confession of faith that not
caprice but an inherent orderliness underlies the phenomena, and the explanation
of nature is to be sought within nature itself. . . .

Thus, Thales had the brilliant insight that one could understand natural phenomena-and
nature itself-without looking beyond the natural realm to provide the basis for one’s understanding.

So far we have interpreted Thales as a naturalist, as a proto-scientist who is offering an

alternative kind of thinking to the prevailing religious orthodoxy.

But is this correct? What about the other views Aristotle ascribes to Thales? (So far we
have only looked at two of the four.) What about the magnet being alive, and the world being full
of gods? Is Thales inconsistent? Or is he, perhaps, hedging his bets. (“Earthquakes occur because
the earth rocks on water-and, besides, there are gods in the water making waves.”)

I think it is still possible to see these four statements forming a coherent world view.

1. Thales’ claim that “The world is full of gods” need not be a retreat to traditional religion.
For Thales does not have a separate realm of gods. He brings them down to earth. I read
this statement as saying: “Don’t look outside the natural world for ‘gods’ to explain natural
phenomena. Your ‘gods’ — the explanations of natural phenomena — lie closer to hand.”
2. Similarly Thales’ idea that “The magnet is alive” need not be an attempt to find something
spooky in what seems like inanimate nature. There is no compelling reason to believe that
he was a panpsychist — someone who thinks that everything is alive. Rather, he was
proposing the theory that what makes something alive is its ability to initiate motion in
something else. After all, Thales did not say that rocks in general are alive; magnets are
special in that they can cause other things to move, which is just what things that we know
to be alive (namely, ourselves) are capable of doing.

As for the details of Thales’ thought, it’s easy to pick holes in them. For example,
Aristotle had the following to say about Thales’ idea that the earth floats on water:

as though the same argument did not apply to the water supporting the earth as to the earth itself.
(De Caelo 294a30)

KRS offer the following curious (but unconvincing) reply to Aristotle (p. 90):

His final objection, that Thales has solved nothing because he would still have to
find something to support the water that supports the earth, shows how little
Aristotle understood the probable nature of Thales’ way of thinking: Thales would
almost certainly still accept the popular conception of the earth (or, in this case, its
 immediate support) stretching down so far that the problem almost disappeared . .
..

Final comments:

• Thales is often credited with trying to explain everything in terms of water. (Either
everything is made of water, or everything came from water.)
• This is a kind of monism: the reduction of a host of complex phenomena to a single, simple
basis. This is a prevailing philosophical theme.
 Anaximander
Like Thales, Anaximander was a monist. But he rejected Thales’ supposition that water is
the material archê. Instead, he proposed the apeiron (the indefinite, or the infinite). Why did he do
this?

There is only one extant fragment (6 = B1). It was recorded by the commentator Simplicius
(6th C.), who was preserving an account of Anaximander given by Aristotle’s student
Theophrastus; it’s possible that Simplicius may have gotten the quote from yet another
commentator, Alexander, in his now lost commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Here is the fragment:

They pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance
with the ordering of time.

Before trying to figure out what this means, let’s look at the context in Simplicius:

Anaximander ... said that the indefinite was the first principle and element of things
that are, and he was the first to introduce this name for the first principle [i.e., he
was the first to call the first principle indefinite]. He says that the first principle is
neither water nor any other of the things called elements, but some other nature
which is indefinite ....

Here’s a quite different translation (Barnes, EGP 74-75):

Anaximander ... said that the infinite is principle and element of the things that
exist. He was the first to introduce this word “principle”. He says that it is neither
water nor any other of the so-called elements but some different infinite nature ....

There are two significant differences between these translations:

1. The text (which reads, literally: he was the first to use this name of [the] principle) is
ambiguous as to which word (archê, ‘principle’ or apeiron, ‘infinite’, ‘indefinite’)
Anaximander introduced. This is not so important.
2. Should we translate apeiron as “infinite” or “indefinite”? This is important, and we will
have to make a decision about it.

Continuing from Simplicius:

... out of which come to be all the heavens and the worlds in them. The things that
are perish into the things out of which they come to be, according to necessity,
for they pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance
with the ordering of time, as he says in rather poetical language.

What does the fragment mean?

 ... they pay penalty • What are they?
and retribution ... • The opposites. Cf. KRS pp. 119-120.

... for their injustice ... • What’s that?

• Destruction, annihilation

... in accordance with • What’s that?

the ordering of time. • Regularity, predictability

Simplicius’s words (just before he begins quoting Anaximander) add something important
which seems to capture Anaximander’s idea:

... according to • What does that mean?

necessity... • The process does not just happen,
but must be that way.

Aristotle (Phys. 204b22) helps out here:

... for the elements are opposed to each other (for example, air is cold, water moist,
and fire hot), and if one of these were infinite the rest would already have been
destroyed. But, as it is, they say that the infinite is different from these, and that
they come into being from it.

There are two possible lines of thought here (3a vs. 3b):

1. The conflict of opposites: the opposites are at war with one another.

2. Hot, cold, etc. are thought of as things, not qualities.

3a. No one of the opposites could have been infinite, or there would be nothing else.

3b. No one of the opposites could have been the archê, or its opposite would never have
come to be.

4. But all the “elements” are either opposites or are essentially connected to an opposite
(e.g., water is cold, fire is hot).

5. Therefore, no element, no familiar stuff can be the original archê.

What, then, does apeiron mean? These have all been considered possibilities:

1. Spatially infinite.
2. Qualitatively indefinite.
 3. Temporally infinite (i.e., eternal).

(2) seems most plausible: Anaximander posits the apeiron in response to Thales. His
objection to water cannot have been that there was only a finite amount of it. Rather, it was that
water is a determinate kind of stuff, essentially cold and wet. If originally there was only water,
we are left with no account of how there could be any hot, or dry, or fire. See KRS 109-110.

What’s crucial for Anaximander is that the original element be neutral in quality,
independent of all the so-called elements (earth, air, fire, water) and pairs of opposites (hot/cold,
wet/dry). Still, he may also have supposed it to be infinite in extent (i.e., without spatial
boundaries).

For details on Anaximander’s cosmological theory, see Guthrie, pp. 89-90.

Assessment of Anaximander:

1. A response to a (perceived) logical difficulty in Thales’ theory.

2. Postulation of a theoretical entity to explain observable phenomena.
3. The postulation of something beyond experience was not new (cf. the gods). What was
new: what is postulated is not personified or anthropomorphic. It is a kind of matter.
4. Problem: how can the apeiron contain the opposites it gives rise to and still be a simple
unity? Cf. Guthrie, p. 87.
 Anaximenes
1. Anaximenes postulates air as the archê. This may seem to be a throwback to Thales, a step
backward after Anaximander; but I will argue that is is not.
2. Anaximenes is offering a new world view:
a. Anaximander thought of the basic stuffs and qualities of the world as opposites in
conflict.
b. Anaximenes had a different conception: the basic stuffs and qualities are not
opposed, but different stages of a continuum.
3. Rarefaction and Condensation:

Read the fragments in Plutarch (21 = B1), Simplicius (16 = A5), and Hippolytus (18 = A7).
This is the basic picture:

Fire AIR Wind Cloud Water Earth Stone

The green arrow represents condensation; the blue arrow represents rarefaction. Each kind
of stuff in the continuum can rarefy or condense into either of its neighbors (e.g., water can
rarefy into cloud, or condense into earth). As the diagram above shows, then, each kind can
either condense or (eventually) rarefy into air.

4. Why is air the basic stuff in Anaximenes’ view of the world? He might have picked any
of the items in the continuum.
a. He rejected the apeiron (perhaps because it was unperceivable, and he could
therefore not be certain of its existence).
b. Among the familiar elements, air is the most like the apeiron as Anaximander
conceived it. Air is the most neutral of the elements.
c. He probably believed that air was the original element, out of which the others
developed by the process of rarefaction and condensation.

5. In what sense is air the archê? There are two possibilities:

a. Cosmogony (explanation of the origin of the universe). The key concept: Y was
made from X. In this case, Anaximenes’ theory is that everything that exists
developed out of the original air.
b. Constituent analysis. (Cf. Barnes, Presocratics 41.) The key concept: Y is
made of X. In this case, Anaximenes’ theory is that everything that exists is now
actually made of air.

(Barnes thinks that Anaximander would not distinguish these — that he is actually
doing both.)
6. Pitfalls in the interpretation of the principle of Rarefaction and Condensation:
a. It sounds quantitative — even atomistic — but that can hardly have been what
Anaximenes had in mind. For:
b. The conception of an atom had not yet been invented, and
c. A particulate (or perhaps even any quantitive) interpretation of Anaximenes’ idea
leads to an incoherence in the theory.

7. The incoherence of Anaximenes’ theory on the particulate interpretation:

a. If matter is particulate, then a difference in density is a difference in the number of
particles per unit of volume. Cf. McKirihan, p. 51: “Rarity and density are
quantitative notions: more or less of the same stuff in the same place.”
b. E.g., earth is denser than water in that earth contains more particles per liter than
water does.
c. Particles of what? Presumably, of the basic stuff, i.e., air.
d. But air itself is one of the natural stuffs in the continuum, along with earth and
water. (Air is denser than fire, less dense than water.)
e. So on the particulate version of Anaximenes’ theory, it should make sense to ask:
how many particles (of air) are there per liter of air?
f. But the question is incoherent. Air cannot be both a natural substance whose nature
is determined by its density (measured in terms of number of particles per liter) and
the basic particles themselves.
g. The underlying confusion: air would be both explanans and explanandum. I.e., the
basic stuff in terms of which differences are explained, and something whose
difference from other natural stuffs also needs to be explained.
8. Did Anaximenes attempt to explain qualitative differences in quantitative terms? He is
often credited with having done so. See, for example, Burnet EGP §26 (endorsed by
Guthrie 126-27):

“… a theory which explains everything as a form of a single

substance is clearly bound to regard all differences as quantitative.
The only way to save the unity of the primary substance is to say
that all diversities are due to the presence of more or less of it in a
given space.”

If this were what he is doing, it would be a very important step (cf. later scientific
developments: wave length of light, atomic number, etc.) This is a tempting interpretation,
but unlikely.

a. Cf. Barnes, Presocratics p. 46:

“Was Anaximenes really a precocious quantifier, a

Presocratic Boyle? Alas, I suspect he was not. Greek
scientists were in general averse to, or incapable of,
the application of mathematics to physical processes
ands phenomena; and there is no evidence that
 Anaximenes himself had any such application in
mind: he had no scale and no instrument for
measuring density, and for him density was a
quantitative notion only in the weakest sense.”

b. Cf. McKirihan, p. 51:

“There is no reason to think that he conceived of

analyzing rarity and density in numerical terms. …
Moreover, though ‘more’ and ‘less’ are quantitative
concepts, it is not clear that Anaximenes understood
rare and dense in that way. For us, rarity and density
depend on how much of something there is in a given
volume, but the idea of ‘a given volume’ is rather
sophisticated, and dense and rare themselves can be
thought of as qualities just as well as hot and cold
can. Anaximenes had the idea of analyzing one
feature in terms of another, but it is anachronistic to
see him as the originator of the belief that science is
essentially quantitative.”

9. Summary of Anaximenes’ achievement: See Barnes, Presocratics, p. 47:

“We need not embrace Anaximenes’ conclusions in order to admire

his principles and his methodology: observations of a puzzle
situation lead him to form explanatory theories of successively
greater generality. And the final theory has many of the hallmarks
of science: it is highly general; it is devastatingly simple; it explains
the original puzzle; and it applies to, and can therefore be tested
against, a mass of superficially unconnected phenomena.”

10. Anaximander and Anaximenes compared:

a. They were both monists: they tried to explain diversity in terms of simplicity. To
give a single explanation of a variety of different phenomena. (Like contemporary
“string theory” — a theory of everything.)
b. Anaximander had a bold vision: he attempted to explain observable phenomena in
terms of a single, basic, unobservable entity (the apeiron).
c. Anaximenes replaces Anaximander’s basic notion of opposition with that of
a continuum of differences.
d. Anaximenes’ choice of air as the “material substratum” seems retrograde — a
throwback to Thales. But there are advantages to Anaximenes’ theory:
i. It is closer to experience; it does not rely on unobservables.
ii. There is at least a suggestion of trying to reduce qualitative differences
to quantitative ones.
iii. There is an actual theory to explain how the process of transmutation
works.
iv. An attempt to explain the mechanism of change, to answer the question
“how does change occur”?
 Heraclitus
Introduction

1. Fl. 500 B.C. in Ephesus, north of Miletus in Asia Minor. He was known in antiquity as “the
obscure.” And even today, it is very difficult to be certain what Heraclitus was talking
about. As Barnes says (Presocratics, p. 57):

“Heraclitus attracts exegetes as an empty jampot wasps; and each

new wasp discerns traces of his own favourite flavour.”

The reason for this is Heraclitus’s dark and aphoristic style. He loved to appear to contradict
himself. Some of his doctrines sound incoherent and self-contradictory even if he did not
perhaps intend them that way.

2. One thing seems certain: Heraclitus had an extremely negative reaction to Milesian
thought. For the Milesians, what is real is fixed and permanent; change somehow had to
be explained away. They understood changes as alterations of some basic, underlying,
material stuff which is, in its own nature, unchanging. Heraclitus reversed this: change is
what is real. Permanence is only apparent.
3. Heraclitus had a very strong influence on Plato. Plato interpreted Heraclitus to have
believed that the material world undergoes constant change. He also thought Heraclitus
was approximately correct in so describing the material world. Plato believed that such a
world would be unknowable, and was thus driven to the conclusion that the material world
was, in some sense, unreal, and that the real, knowable, world was immaterial.

The unity of opposites

1. A number of fragments suggest that Heraclitus thought that opposites are really one.

Main fragments: RAGP numbers 67, 66, 78, 77, 82 (= B61, B60, B88, B67, B62)

See also: 80 (=B111), 53 (=B84a).

2. What does this mean? Does Heraclitus think that hot = cold, that mortality = immortality,
etc.? Does he think, in general, that each property F that has an opposite F' is identical
to its opposite? Is the unity of opposites thesis best understood (in logical symbols) as:

∀F(F = F)?

This is not likely. The fragments suggest, rather, that he thinks that opposites may be
present in the same thing, or coinstantiated. That is, that one and the same thing may be
both hot and cold, pure and polluted, etc.
3. But what claim is Heraclitus making about the coinstantiation of opposites? Here are a
couple of possibilities:
a. Some object instantiates at least one pair of contrary properties.

∃x ∃F (Fx & Fx)

b. Every object instantiates every pair of contrary properties.

∀x ∀F (Fx & Fx)

Of these, (a) seems insufficiently general to be of much interest, and (b) seems too
strong to have any plausibility.

4. Barnes suggests that the unity thesis can be represented as a conjunction of the following
two claims:
a. Every object instantiates at least one pair of contrary properties.

∀x ∃F (Fx & Fx)

b. Every pair of contrary properties is coinstantiated in at least one object.

∀F ∃x (Fx & Fx)

And this is what I shall take it to mean. But what is it for contrary properties to be
coinstantiated in an object? One possibility is that it is for the object to manifest
both of the opposed properties simultaneously and without qualification.

5. But if this is Heraclitus’s conclusion, his argument for it is weak. He argues that sea-water
can be both pure and polluted since it brings life to fish and death to humans. But if he
thinks that sea-water is therefore both pure and polluted, full-stop, he has committed (what
Barnes calls) the “fallacy of the dropped qualification.” Sea-water is good for fish and
bad for humans, but from this it does not follow that it is both good (simpliciter) and bad
(simpliciter).

Similarly, he contends that “day and night are one” and “the same thing is both living and
dead.” But here he is describing cases in which one opposite succeeds another, not cases
in which a single object is simultaneously characterized by both opposites.

6. This succession of opposites (day following night, death following life) gets to the key
idea: change. To say that every object manifests some pair of contrary properties in this
sense (successively) is just to say that every object undergoes change. So the doctrine of
“unity of opposites” is , for Heraclitus, a way of making the point that every object is
subject to change and is, indeed, always undergoing some kind of change or other.
7. It’s possible, however, that Heraclitus’s idea of a unity of opposites involved more than
just the succession of opposed states that occurs in cases of change. His example of a bow
 or a lyre may illustrate a kind of opposition in which the opposites
are simultaneously compresent in a single object. Cf. fr. 59=B51:

They do not understand how, though at variance with itself, it agrees

with itself. It is a backwards-turning attunement like that of the bow
and lyre.

The point comes out more clearly in Freeman’s (slightly less literal) translation:

They do not understand how that which differs with itself in is

agreement: harmony consists of opposing tension, like that of the
bow and the lyre.

Here the tension between opposed forces - the string being pulled one way by one end of
the bow and the other way by the other - enables the bow to perform its function, to be the
kind of thing that it is. It seems static, but it is in fact dynamic. Beneath its apparently
motionless exterior is a tension between opposed forces. Cf. KRS, 193:

“... the tension in the string of a bow or lyre, being exactly balanced
by the outward tension exerted by the arms of the instrument,
produces a coherent, unified, stable and efficient complex. We may
infer that if the balance between opposites were not maintained, for
example if ‘the hot’ began seriously to outweigh the cold, or night
day, then the unity and coherence of the world would cease, just as,
if the tension in the bow-string exceeds the tension in the arms, the
whole complex is destroyed.”

We should not be surprised to find this, for, as Heraclitus tells us, ‘nature loves to hide’
(12=B123) and ‘An unapparent connection (harmonia) is stronger than an apparent one’
(37=B54).

These two themes - the tension of the bow and the opposites - are tied together beautifully,
if somewhat metaphorically, in fragment 64 (=B48):

The name of the bow (biós) is life (bíos), but its work is death.

[The accent is on different syllables in the two Greek words, but they are spelled the same.]
The bow in tension represents the tension between opposites in conflict; the opposition is
expressed metaphorically in the name of the bow, which (with the help of a pun) means
just the opposite of what the bow’s work is.

The Logos

1. Heraclitus stresses the importance of (what he calls) “the logos”. This term can have a
variety of meanings: word, statement, reason, law, ratio, proportion, among others.
 (Barnes translates it as account.) It is related to the verb “to say” - a logos is something that
is said.
2. Consider fragments 1, 2, 11, 42 (=B1, B2, B50, B45). We are told that a (or the) logos can
“hold” and be “heard” and “understood” and things “come to be in accordance with” it (1),
that it is “common” (2), that it is wise to “listen to it” (11), and that it can be “so deep” (42)
that its limits can never be discovered. What kind of a thing, then, is a logos?
3. Barnes thinks there is no special importance to be attached to Heraclitus’s use of this term
(see Presocratics p. 59) — a logos is just “what is said.” But this strikes me as too
deflationary. There does seem to be some genuine content to Heraclitus’s notion of logos.
These are its main ingredients:
a. There is an orderly, law-governed process of change in the universe. (Compare
fragment 55=B80 with Anaximander, who equates strife with injustice; for
Heraclitus, strife is justice, and is ranked along with necessity as that in accordance
with which all things happen.)
b. The unity of diverse phenomena is to be found not in their matter, but in their logos.
Indeed the very identity of an object depends not on the matter that composes it,
but on the regularity and predictability of the changes it undergoes. (Again, a huge
departure from the Milesians, who emphasized the material unity of all things.)
c. The lyre (cf. above) is a good example of a logos in action. The orderly balance of
opposed forces is what keeps the lyre functioning. The harmony of the lyre is an
instance of the logos.
d. Another good example in which the nature of a thing is given by its logos, and by
the changes it undergoes, rather than by a list of its ingredients, is found in his
discussion of the mixed drink that the Greeks called kykeon (here translated
“posset”) — a mixture of wine, barley and grated cheese (54=B125):

even the posset (kykeon) separates if it is not being stirred.

His point is that the continued existence of a certain kind of thing depends on its
undergoing continual change and movement. What makes something a posset is
not just what it’s made of (not just any collection of wine, barley, and cheese is a
posset), but how it behaves, what kind of process it undergoes.

In a way, then, the logos for something is rather like a recipe. That is, it is more
than a list of ingredients. It includes an account of how they are put together, and
how they interact.

Puzzles about Identity and Persistence

The puzzling doctrine for which Heraclitus is best known is reported by Plato (Cratylus 402A):

Heraclitus, you know, says that everything moves on and that nothing is at rest; and, comparing
existing things to the flow of a river, he says that you could not step into the same river twice.

Plutarch, no doubt following Plato, also ascribes this idea to Heraclitus (39=B91). The idea is this:
since the composition of the river changes from one moment to the next, it is not the same
(numerically the same) river for any length of time at all. Note that Plato thinks that Heraclitus
uses the river as an example of what he takes to be a general condition: everything is like a river
in this respect. That is, nothing retains its identity for any time at all. That is: there are no
persisting objects.

Indeed, according to Aristotle, there was a follower of Heraclitus who carried it even further
(Metaph. 1010a7-15):

Seeing that the whole of nature is in motion, and that nothing is true of what is
changing, they supposed that it is not possible to speak truly of what is changing in
absolutely all respects. For from this belief flowered the most extreme opinion of
those I have mentioned — that of those who say they ‘Heraclitize’, and such was
held by Cratylus, who in the end thought one should say nothing and only moved
his finger, and reproached Heraclitus for saying that you cannot step in the same
river twice — for he himself thought you could not do so even once.

Did Heraclitus mean to say that there are no persisting objects? Not likely. What Heraclitus
actually said was more likely to have been this:

Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow. (38=B12)

This sounds more like a genuine quotation from Heraclitus. It fits the pattern of the “unity of
opposites” fragments: suppose you step in the water of a river. What you step in is both
the same anddifferent. So the pair of contraries - same and different - are coinstantiated in the
same object. And, once again, it exhibits Heraclitus’s familiar tendency to appeal to different
qualifications when applying a pair of opposed concepts: what you step in is different water but
the same river.

Moreover, Plato’s idea seems to get Heraclitus backwards. If Heraclitus thought, as Plato suggests,
that a compound object does not persist if its component parts get replaced, then he would be
making the matter, rather than the orderly process of change, the logos of that object.

[For more on puzzles about identity and persistence, read about the famous case of the Ship of
Theseus.]

The Flux Doctrine

1. This is the view that everything is constantly altering; no object retains all of its component
parts, or all of its qualities or characteristics, from one moment to the next.
2. Plato attributes the Doctrine of Flux to Heraclitus. And it is because he thought Heraclitus
was a Fluxist that he thought Heraclitus denied that there were any persisting objects.
3. But even if Heraclitus was a Fluxist (which is far from clear) it does not follow that he had
to deny that there are persisting objects. If an object is more like a process than like
a static thing, then one and the same object can endure even though it is undergoing
constant change.
 Further, there are different degrees of Fluxism:

a. Extreme fluxism: The most extreme is: at every moment, every object is
changing in every respect. Perhaps an extreme Fluxist is committed to the denial
of persisting objects.
b. Moderate fluxism: A less extreme version of Fluxism: at every moment, every
object is changing in some respect or other. A proponent of this less extreme
Flux doctrine could well allow for the persistence of objects through time.
4. Heraclitean Fluxism
a. It is unlikely that Heraclitus was an extreme fluxist. His discussions of change in
general, and the river fragments in particular, suggest that he thought that change
and permanence could co-exist, that is, that an object could persist in spite of
continually undergoing change in some respect or other.
b. If you step in the same river, you step in different waters: the river is still
(numerically) the same river even though it has changed (compositionally), in
that it (the same river) is now composed of different waters.
c. So it is unlikely that Heraclitus denied that there are persisting objects.
Identity, Persistence, and the Ship
of Theseus
Heraclitus’s “river fragments” raise puzzles about identity and persistence: under what
conditions does an object persist through time as one and the same object? If the world contains
things which endure, and retain their identity in spite of undergoing alteration, then somehow those
things must persist through changes. Heraclitus wonders whether one can step into the same river
twice precisely because it continually undergoes changes. In particular, it
changes compositionally. At any given time, it is made up of different component parts from the
ones it was previously made up of. So, according to one interpretation, Heraclitus concludes that
we do not have (numerically) the same river persisting from one moment to the next.

Plato is probably the source of this “paradoxical” interpretation of Herclitus. According to

Plato, Heraclitus maintains that nothing retains its identity for any time at all:

“Heraclitus, you know, says that everything moves on and that nothing is at rest;
and, comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says that you could not step
into the same river twice” (Cratylus 402A).

But what Heraclitus actually said was more likely to have been this:

“On those who enter the same rivers, ever different waters flow.” (fr. 12)

On Plato’s interpretation, it’s not the same river, since the waters are different. On a less
paradoxical interpretation, it is the same river, in spite of the fact that the waters are different. On
both interpretations of Heraclitus, he holds the Flux Doctrine: Everything is constantly altering;
no object retains all of its component parts from one moment to the next. The issue is: what does
Flux entail about identity and persistence? Plato’s interpretation requires that Heraclitus held what
might be called the Mereological Theory of Identity (MTI), i.e., the view that the identity of an
object depends on the identity of its component parts. This view can be formulated more precisely
as follows:

For any compound objects, x and y, x = y only if every part of x is a part of y, and
every part of y is a part of x.
I.e., an object continues to exist (from time t1 to time t2) only if it is composed of
all the same components at t2 as it was composed of at t1. Sameness of parts is
a necessary condition of identity.

It now seems that if we want to allow that an object can persist through time in spite of a
change in some of its components, we must deny MTI. An object x, existing at time t1, can be
numerically identical to an object y, existing at time t2, even though x and y are not composed of
exactly the same parts.
 But once you deny MTI, where do you draw the line? Denying MTI leaves us vulnerable
to puzzle cases, the mother of all of which is the following.

The Ship of Theseus

This is a puzzle that has been around since antiquity, probably later than Heraclitus, but
not much later. It first surfaces in print in Plutarch (Vita Thesei, 22-23):
“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and
was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for
they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber
in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the
philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the
ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.”

Plutarch tells us that the ship was exhibited during the time [i.e., lifetime] of Demetrius
Phalereus, which means ca. 350-280 BCE. (Demetrius was a well-known Athenian and a member
of the Peripatetic school, i.e., a student of Aristotle. He wrote some 45 books, and was also a
politician).

The original puzzle is this: over the years, the Athenians replaced each plank in the original
ship of Theseus as it decayed, thereby keeping it in good repair. Eventually, there was not a single
plank left of the original ship. So, did the Athenians still have one and the same ship that used to
belong to Theseus?

But we can liven it up a bit by considering two different, somewhat modernized, versions. On
both versions, the replacing of the planks takes place while the ship is at sea. We are to imagine
that Theseus sails away, and then systematically replaces each plank on board with a new one. (He
carries a complete supply of new parts on board as his cargo.) Now we can consider these two
versions of the story:

a. Simple version: Theseus completely rebuilds his ship, replaces all the parts, throws the old
ones overboard. Does he arrive on the same ship as the one he left on? Of course it
has changed. But is it it?

Let A = the ship Theseus started his voyage on.

Let B = the ship Theseus finished his voyage on.

Our question then is: Does A = B? If not, why not? Suppose he had left one original
part in. Is that enough to make A identical to B? If not, suppose he had left two, etc. Where
do you draw the line?

b. Complex version: Like the simple version, but with one addition -- following Theseus in
another boat is the Scavenger, who picks up the pieces Theseus throws overboard, and uses
them to rebuild his boat. The Scavenger arrives in port in a ship composed of precisely the
 parts that composed the ship Theseus started out in. He docks his ship right next to one that
Theseus docked.

Now we have:

C = the ship the Scavenger finished his voyage on.

Our problem is to sort out the identity (and non-identity) relations among A, B, and C.
The only “obvious” fact is that B C (after all, they are berthed side by side in the harbor,
so they can hardly be one and the same ship!). Beyond that, there are two alternatives:

i. MTI tells us that A = C. The ship on which Theseus started his voyage, namely A,
is identical to the ship on which the Scavenger finished his voyage, namely C. So
we have two ships: one (A) that was sailed out by Theseus and (C) sailed in by the
Scavenger, and another one (B) that was created (out of new parts) during the
voyage and was sailed into port by Theseus.
ii. The alternative is to abandon MTI and hold that A = B. On this account, we still
have two ships, but their identity and non-identity relations are different: one ship
(A) was sailed out by Theseus and (B) sailed in by Theseus, and another one (C)
was created (out of used parts) during the voyage and was sailed into port by the
Scavenger.

Unfortunately, both alternatives lead to unintuitive consequences.

i. The problem with alternative (i) is that it requires Theseus to have changed ships
during the voyage. For he ends up on B, which is clearly not identical to C. But
Theseus never once got off his ship during its entire voyage: Theseus got on board
a ship (A), sailed a voyage during which he never got off the ship, and arrived at
his destination in a ship (B). He was on just one ship during the whole process, but
alternative (i) seems to require that he was on (at least!) two different ships.
ii. The problem with alternative (ii) is that in holding that A = B and admitting (as it
must) that B C , it must also hold that A C . Yet every part of A is a part of C,
and every part of C is a part of A! So A and C are two different ships even though
their parts are the same; and what of A and B? They have no parts in common, and
yet A and B are the same ship.

These results seem as paradoxical as the view that there are no persisting objects.

Conclusion: MTI seems too strong. It denies identity to objects that we think of as persisting
through time. But that leaves us with some problems:

a. What do we replace it with? Spatio-temporal continuity (the intuition behind our

alternative (ii), above) is the most promising (and common) suggestion. A persisting object
must trace a continuous path through space-time. And tracing a continuous path is
compatible with a change of parts, so long as the change is gradual and the form or shape
 of the object is preserved through the changes of its component materials. So it appears
that we can replace MTI with the theory of spatio-temporal continuity (STC).
b. But STC is also problematic. For it is easy to imagine cases in which our intuitions tell us
that we have numerical identity without spatio-temporal continuity. Consider that an object
can be disassembled and then reassembled. (Think of a bicycle that is taken apart. The parts
are then placed in a number of separate boxes, which are then shipped, separately, across
country. The boxes are then unpacked and the bicycle is reassembled.) How do we account
for its identity? STC breaks down in this case, for there is no continuously existing bicycle-
shaped object tracing a smooth path through space-time. But MTI gives us the right result:
the reassembled bicycle is made of exactly the same parts as the one that was taken apart,
and so is numerically the same bicycle.

In fact, there is a way of describing the case of Theseus’s ship that seems to demand
MTI rather than STC. Suppose the ship (A) is in a museum, and a clever ring of thieves is
trying to steal the ship by removing its pieces one at a time and then reassembling them.
Each day, the thieves remove another piece, and replace it with a look-alike. When they
have removed all the original pieces, we are left with this situation. There is a ship, B, that
is in the museum (made of all new materials), and there is a ship, C, in the possession of
the thieves (the original pieces of A now reassembled). Which ship is A (Theseus’s original
ship)? Surely not B—it’s just a copy of A, left behind in the museum by the crooks to cover
up their crime. It is C that will interest the antique dealer who is interested in buying A, the
original ship.

We are still struggling with Heraclitus’s puzzle.

 Parmenides: Stage 1
Issues among Presocratics studied so far: change vs. permanence. Milesians looked for a
permanent reality underlying change. They thought that change was real, but could be understood
only in terms of something permanent.

Heraclitus found change itself to be the only thing that was permanent. The search for a
permanent material substratum is illusory, he thought.

Now comes Parmenides — a turning point in the history of western philosophy - for he
denies the reality of change. For Parmenides, change is impossible. The very notion of change is
incoherent.

This is not just an assumption that Parmenides makes. Nor is it based on observation.
(Quite the contrary: things certainly do appear to change.) Rather, it is the conclusion of a strictly
deductive argument, from more basic premises.

And it is not the only startling conclusion Parmenides draws. For he also holds that there
is no coming into existence, or ceasing to exist. According to Parmenides, everything that exists
is permanent, ungenerated, indestructible, and unchanging.

According to traditional interpretation (no longer universally accepted, but still common)
Parmenides goes even further, denying that there is such a thing as plurality. On this view,
Parmenides denies that there are many things, maintaining instead that only one thing exists. (It’s
not so clear, however, what he thought this one thing is.)

Parmenides is without doubt the most difficult and obscure of the Presocratics. There are
numerous different and conflicting interpretations of the curious bits of prose, poetry, and
argumentation in the surviving fragments of his work, The Way of Truth. I won’t try to canvas
them all. I’ll just sketch out one line that makes some sense of what Parmenides says.

Parmenides was a native of Elea, a Greek city in southern Italy (somewhat south of present
day Naples), born about 515-510 B.C. His great work consists of a poem in two main parts. 154
lines of this poem have survived, almost all of which is from the first part. (Experts think that about
90% of the first part has survived.) The two parts of the poem correspond to what Parmenides
called “the two ways.”

1. The Two Ways

Parmenides distinguishes two “routes” or“ways” or “roads” of inquiry. He then

argues against one of these, and in favor of the other. The one he favors he calls The Way
of Truth; the other he says is “a path entirely unable to be investigated.” His argument is
contained in fragments 2, 3, 6, and 8:
 Come now, I will tell you ... the only routes of inquiry that are for
thinking: the one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be,
is the path of Persuasion (for it attends upon Truth), the other, that
it is not and that it is right that it not be, this indeed I declare to you
to be a path entirely unable to be investigated: For neither can you
know what is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor can you
declare it. [2=B2]

For the same thing is for thinking and for being. [3=B3]

It is right both to say and to think that it is what-is; For it can be,
but nothing is not. [6=B6]

Just one story of a route is still left: that it is. [8=B8]

2. Preliminary questions

Before we proceed, we must answer the following questions:

a. When Parmenides says “It is” or “It is not,” what is “it”? What is the subject of
these assertions?
b. What is the sense of “is” here?
c. What does Parmenides mean when he says “it is right both to say and to think that
it is what-is”? (6=B6).

The most plausible answers are:

a. Many suggestions have been made (“being,” “what can be known,” “whatever
exists,” among others). But the most straightforward and best suggestion is that the
subject is any putative object of inquiry. When you inquiry into something, you
must make an assumption about the object of your inquiry: either it is, or it is not.
b. What do these assumptions amount to? We must decide what “is” means here. It is
notorious that “is” has a number of different senses. The leading candidates here
are the existentialand predicative senses.

But the most plausible, and most popular, way of interpreting Parmenides is with
the existential “is”. For “is” in the predicative sense is incomplete. If you say “It
is” you haven’t made an assertion. “It is what?” is the appropriate response. But
“is” in the existential sense means “exists,” and hence it is complete. “It is” means
“it exists,” and this is a complete assertion.

c. Another, more helpful, translation of this line reads: “That which is there to be
spoken and thought of must be. For it is possible for it to be, but not possible for
nothing to be.” When Parmenides says that something “is there to be spoken” or “is
there to be thought of,” he means that it is (to put it roughly) available for being
spoken about, available for thinking. More precisely, he is making a modal claim:
 that it is possible for it to be spoken of, that it is possible for it to be thought
about. That is, he is making a claim about what thepossible objects of
reference and the possible objects of thought are.

3. Deciphering the argument in fragments 2, 3, 6, and 8

a. The argument as it appears in the text:
1. There are only two routes (or “roads” or “ways”) of inquiry: (a) “it is,” or
(b) “it is not.”
2. The second way, (1b), is “entirely unable to be investigated.”
3. For “you may not know that which is not, nor may you declare it.”
4. For “the same thing is for thinking and for being.”
5. “That which is there to be spoken and thought of must be. For it is possible
for it to be, but not possible for nothing to be.”
6. “There is still left a single story of a way, that it is.”
b. On the existential interpretation, a first stab at interpreting the argument looks like
this:
1. If something is inquired into, i.e., thought about, then either: (a) it exists, or
(b) it does not exist.
2. The second alternative is impossible (“entirely unable to be investigated”).

What follows is an argument against the second alternative (1b):

3. For it is impossible to think about (“know”) or speak about (“declare”) what

does not exist. [= a rejection of (1b)]
4. For the things that can be thought about are the same as the things
that can exist (“is for thinking” means “can be thought about”; “is for
being” means “can exist”).
5. Anything that can exist and can be thought about must exist; for it can
exist, and nothing (i.e., what does not exist) cannot exist.
6. Only the first alternative is possible: if something can be thought about, then
it actually exists.
c. The key to the argument is the move from (4) and (5) to (3). (4) and (5) are clearly
premises from which (3) is inferred.
d. (4) draws a crucial connection between the possibility of existing and
the possibility of being thought about:

It is possible for x to exist iff it is possible for x to be thought about (i.e.,

iff x is conceivable).

(5) collapses the distinction between what can exist and what does exist:

What can exist, does exist. What does not exist, cannot exist.
4. Summary of results so far

Parmenides is offering an argument in support of his central thesis:

(CT) That which is not cannot be thought about or spoken about.

In this first stage, he presents his argument. In stage 2, he will go on to draw the logical
consequences of CT. Note that there are three crucial ideas involved here:

a. Existence (what actually exists).

b. Possibility (what can exist).
c. Conceivability (what can be thought about).

Parmenides’ two premises link these ideas. One premise (step (4) in the argument) links
(b) to (c): what can be thought of = what can exist. The other premise (step (5) in the
argument) links (a) to (b): what can exist does exist; what is, must be. Taken together, the
two premises link (a) to (c): what can be thought of = what actually exists.

5. Formal reconstruction of the argument for the central thesis (CT)

Premises:

a. A thing can be thought about only if it is possible for it to exist. [= step (4) above]

b. Anything that does not exist, cannot exist. [= step (5) above]

But (b) is equivalent to:

c. Anything that can exist, does exist.

From (a) and (c) it follows that:

d. A thing can be thought about only if it exists.

And (d) is equivalent to:

e. Anything that does not exist, cannot be thought about. [= (3) above]

In symbols:

Tx: x is thought about

Ex: x exists
: it is possible that …

a. ∀x ( Tx → Ex) Premise
 b. ∀x (¬Ex → ¬ Ex) Premise
c. ∀x ( Ex → Ex) From (b) by contraposition
d. ∀x ( Tx → Ex) From (a) and (c) by hypothetical syllogism
e. ∀x (¬Ex→ ¬ Tx) From (d) by contraposition

6. Comments on Parmenides’ conclusion

Parmenides does not allow that you can think about what does
not actually exist but could possibly exist. His argument rules out any distinction
between what is and what is not but might be. Parmenides (as Ring says) collapses
modal distinctions. For him:

what is possible = what is actual = what is necessary.

As Parmenides says (2): “it is and ... it is not possible for it not to be.” What is
cannot possibly be otherwise. What can exist does exist, indeed must exist.

Parmenides is posing constraints on language and on thought, a limit on what

can be spoken of or thought about: we cannot speak or think about things that are not
(real), that do not exist. That means that much of what goes by the name of “speaking”
or “thought” really won’t count as such for Parmenides. If you do anything that
Parmenides would call “speaking or thinking of what is not,” Parmenides would not
even deign to call it speaking or thinking. For he could argue (along the lines that Plato
suggested, cf. Sophist 237C-E):

If you are speaking of what is not, then what you are speaking
about is nothing, i.e., is not anything at all. That is, you are not
speaking of anything, which is to say that you are not even
speaking. For speaking is always speaking of something, and in
the (alleged) case of “speaking of what is not” there is nothing
that is being spoken of. So there is no such thing as “speaking of
what is not.”

An exactly similar argument could be used to establish the conclusion that there
is no such thing as “thinking of what is not.”

7. Evaluation of the argument

It is clearly a formally valid argument. But is it sound? The first premise seems
plausible: how could a thing exist if it is not even possible to speak or think about it?
And how could one speak or think about something that could not even possibly exist?

But what of the second premise [(5) in our reconstruction of Parmenides’ argument]?
It seems false to say that only what actually, in fact, exists could possibly exist. Why
should Parmenides believe this?
 a. Barnes (Presocratics, p. 167) suggests the following: “What doesn’t exist can’t
exist” is ambiguous. It might mean either of the following (which are not
equivalent):

i. It is not possible that what does not exist exists.

∀x ¬ (Ex & ¬Ex)

i.e., for any object, necessarily, if it doesn’t exist, then it doesn’t

exist.
∀x (¬Ex → ¬Ex) [‘ ’ means ‘it is necessary that’.]

ii. If a thing does not exist, then it is not possible for it to exist.

∀x (¬Ex → ¬ Ex)

i.e., for any object, if it doesn’t exist, then its non-existence is a

matter of necessity.

∀x (¬Ex → ¬Ex)

(i) is true, indeed a truism. But, as we have seen, the argument requires (ii); and
(ii) is false.

b. This difference can be seen more clearly if we consider a simpler case: the
ambiguity of “what exists must exist.” It might mean:
i. Necessarily, what exists, exists.
∀x (Ex → Ex)
I.e., for any object, it is necessary that if it exists, it exists. (Necessity
of the conditional.)

ii. What exists, exists necessarily.

∀x(Ex → Ex)
I.e., for any object, if it exists, then it is a necessarily existing
object. (Necessity of the consequent.)
c. Let us be clear that it is a modal confusion to infer (ii) from (i). We can
paraphrase these two different claims as follows:
i. In every possible world, the things that exist (in that world), exist
(in that world).
ii. Whatever (actually) exists, exists in every possible world.

All (i) tells us that that it is impossible for there to be a world whose
population includes things that do not exist in that world. This is (trivially)
true. There is no world whose existents do not exist in that world.
 But what (ii) tells us that that it is impossible for there to be a world whose
population includes things that do not exist in the actual world. This is a
substantive claim, almost surely false, that does not follow from (i). It is by no
means obvious that there is no world whose existents do not exist in the actual
world. (E.g., your parents might have had one more child than they actually
did.)

d. Another possibility is that Parmenides is not caught in a modal confusion; he is

quite self-consciously asserting (ii). His line of reasoning might go like this:

Suppose something does not exist. How, then, would it be possible for
it to exist? Can it come into existence? No, for there is nothing for it to come
into existence from. So if it doesn’t now exist, it’s never going to come into
existence, and it couldn’t possibly exist.

This line of reasoning has a certain plausibility, and it would certainly have
appealed to Parmenides (cf. fr. 8: “For what birth will you seek for it? How and
from where did it grow?”). But it is clearly defective, for two reasons:

i. For x to be a possible existent, we don’t have to come up with an

account of how x might come into existence. E.g., an eternal God
might be possible, but we could not explain how such a Being might
come into being. God (if God exists) was not born.
ii. Parmenides seems to assume that a thing can come into existence
either (a) from being or (b) from not-being. He would rule out (a)
on the grounds that a thing can’t come into being from itself; he
would rule out (b) on the grounds that nothing comes from nothing.

But Parmenides has overlooked the possibility that a thing can

come into existence from something else. This would be neither from
itself, nor from nothing; since it would be from a different being, it
would, in a way, be both from a being and from a not-being. It would
come into existence from a different being, and from not having itself
previously existed. [This is a possibility that Aristotle pursues.]

8. An alternative account

There is another possible reason why Parmenides might have believed that it is
impossible to talk or think about what does not exist. One might find another argument
for the Central Thesis, inspired by B8, lines 34-35:

“Thinking and the thought that it is are the same. For not without
what is, in which it is expressed, will you find thinking.”

The idea is that thinking just is thinking of something that exists. An argument
for CT along these lines might look like this:
a. S is thinking ↔ S is thinking of something. premise
S is thinking of something ↔ There is
b. premise
something S is thinking of.
S is thinking of what does not exist ↔ There
c premise
is nothing S is thinking of
There is nothing S is thinking of ↔ S is
d. From (b), by contraposition
thinking of nothing.
e. S is thinking of nothing ↔ S is not thinking. From (a), by contraposition
S is thinking of what does not exist ↔ S is From (c), (d), (e),
f.
not thinking. by hypothetical syllogism

As noted above, this seems to be the way Plato interpreted Parmenides; cf.
again Sophist 237C-E, where what is at issue is “saying,” or “talking about,” rather than
“thinking.” But the argument Plato supplies works the same way in the case of either
speaking or thinking.

How should one respond to this argument? One response is to say that there is an
ambiguity in the notion of “thinking of something.”

1. In one sense, to say that one is thinking of something is to say that

there is an object of thought — an objectively existing thing which
has the (additional) feature of being thought about.
2. In another sense, it is to say that there is a thought content — some
proposition or concept being entertained.

Thus, each of the premises needs to be evaluated in light of this distinction. (a) is
plausible only if it concerns thought contents: if you are thinking, there must be a
content to your thought; on the “object” reading, (a) begs the question. (b) is plausible
only if both antecedent and consequent involve the same sense of “thinking of
something.” For (c) to play any role in the argument, however, its consequent must
concern thought contents, and its antecedent must concern thought objects: if there is
no existing object that S is thinking of, then there is no content to S’s thought. But, so
interpreted, (c) is both question-begging and equivocates on the notion of “thinking of
something.”
 Parmenides: Stage 2
After establishing his central thesis, that it is impossible to think or talk about what does
not exist, Parmenides attempts to deduce from this thesis the following conclusions:

1. There is no coming into existence or ceasing to exist.

2. There is no alteration or change.
3. There is no movement.
4. There is no plurality.

How did Parmenides get from his central thesis to these extraordinary conclusions?

1. Generation & Destruction

Suppose you say that something, x, comes into existence. That means that you
are committed to saying that there was a time when x did not exist. So you are
committed to talking about what does not exist. But you can’t do that. So you can’t say
(i.e., it makes no sense to say) that anything comes into existence. (Parallel argument
for the impossibility of ceasing to exist.)

Given that there can be no coming into existence or going out of existence,
important consequences follow. Parmenides seems to have thought that it followed that
there could be no difference between past, present, and future. Cf. 8=B8:

Nor was it ever nor will it be, since it is now, all together, one,
holding together. ... it is right either fully to be or not.

Parmenides would no doubt support this inference as follows: How could the
present differ from the past, or from the future? Any difference from one time to another
would involve some (previous) state of affairs going out of existence, and some (new)
state of affairs coming into existence to replace it.

That is: if there is no generation and no destruction, then there can be no

temporal differences. The world is exactly the same at one time as it is at any other
time.

2. Change

It is clear that without temporal differences, there can be no change. For change
involves the world being different from one time to another, and such differences would
involve things coming into or going out of existence.

We can get some confirmation that this was Parmenides’ line of thought by
looking at what his follower Melissus wrote (7=B7). If something were to change or
alter, what was previously the case would have to cease to be the case, and what
 previously was not the case would come to be the case. I.e., if the barn changes color,
it (say) becomes red. I.e., the barn’s being redcomes into existence. But that’s already
been ruled out.

(Melissus puts it in terms of arrangements, not states-of-affairs: if a thing

changes in any respect, it is “rearranged”; if it is rearranged, a new arrangement comes
into existence. But nothing can come into existence.)

3. Movement

Melissus’s version of the argument has it that movement can occur only if the
moving thing has an empty space to move into, and that the empty is the same thing
as nothing, or not-being. But not-being can’t be. So there can’t be any movement.

Parmenides might, however, reach the same conclusion by a different route:

movement is just a kind of change (change of location), and change cannot occur unless
temporal differences are real. But Parmenides has rejected temporal differences.
Suppose you move from Seattle to Chicago. That means that you are in Seattle at one
time and in Chicago at another time. But that’s impossible, for there’s no difference
between the way the world is at one time and the way it is at any other time.

4. Plurality

Here it is hardest to see what Parmenides’ argument might have been. Why
can’t there be a world of many ungenerated, unchanging, indestructible things? (Cf.
atomism). Parmenides does not seem to give any argument against plurality, but the
tradition has counted him as a monist, who believes that reality is one and that there
cannot be a plurality of things.

A number of recent interpreters, including Barnes, go against the tradition,

claiming that Parmenides was not a monist! Cf. Presocratics, p. 207. This is an
intriguing idea, but not completely convincing. For when Zeno argued against plurality,
he thought he was supporting Parmenides. If Zeno had been wrong about this,
Parmenides could have corrected him!

Certainly Melissus, a follower of Parmenides, thought that it was a consequence of

Parmenides’ arguments that there could be no plurality. So it is worth considering how
one might construct a Parmenidean argument against plurality. There are several
possible lines one might take. It is not clear, however, which (if any) of these
Parmenides would have followed.

a. Suppose there were more than one thing. Then there would have to be
something separating one from the other, otherwise they would not be two. But
then what separates one from the other? Is there a space between them? No, that
can’t be, for there is no empty space. Is there then no space between them? Then
they run together, and are one, not two.
 b. If there were two things, (say) Castor and Pollux, it would be true to say that
one of them is not the other, i.e., that Castor is not Pollux. But then we are
“saying what is not,” which is impossible.

[But how is that a case of talking about what does not exist? When we
say that Castor is not Pollux, what is the non-existent thing we are denying the
existence of? A devout Parmenidean would have to say that we are denying the
existence of Castor’s being Pollux.]

c. A more plausible line might go like this: Parmenides thinks that the world is
devoid of movement or qualitative change. He would presumably also hold
that there cannot be any qualitative difference; indeed, there cannot be
difference of any kind.

For suppose there is a difference between a and b. That means there

must be some property, F, such that a is F and b is not F. But when you say
that b is not F you are violating Parmenides’ rules; for you are saying that the
F-ness of b does not exist.

So the universe is devoid of difference of any kind. So how

can a and b be two things? There is no difference between them. There is no
property that a has and b lacks. So a = b. And, generalizing:

For any x and for any y, x = y

5. Negation and non-existence

On any interpretation, it seems that Parmenides would say that any denial
(any negative statement) is a denial of existence. And it is easy to see why a
Parmenidean would hold that a denial of existence cannot be
both meaningful and true. For if it were true, then what it is about would be non-
existent. So it wouldn’t be about anything. And if it’s not about anything, then it is not
even meaningful. If you can’t talk about what doesn’t exist, then you can’t
even deny its existence. So denials of existence (“negative existential statements”) are
impossible.

[“x does not exist” is not true unless x does not exist. But if the subject of a
statement does not exist, the statement is not meaningful. The problem with negative
existentials is this: a necessary condition of their truth is a sufficient condition of their
meaninglessness.]

The best response to Parmenides here is to point out (as Plato did) that not all
denials are denials of existence. When one says that cows don’t fly, one is not referring
to flying cows, and saying of them that they don’t exist. One is referring to cows, and
saying of them that they don’t fly.
 Conversely, the statement that birds fly should not be analyzed as referring to
the flying of birds and saying of it that it exists (even if it seems harmless to do so). It
is not the statement as a whole that refers, but only its individual parts.

“A statement must have existential force”: yes, but only in the sense that its
(simple) terms must refer to things that exist. But that doesn’t mean that the
statement itself must refer to something else (a “fact,” or a “state of affairs”) that exists.

6. A summary of Parmenides’ views

a. He makes some basic assumptions about thought and existence:
1. x can be thought about iff x can exist.
2. if x does not exist, then x cannot exist.
b. From these basic assumptions, he derives his central thesis:

It is impossible to talk or think about what does not actually exist.

c. From this central thesis, he derives several important corollaries that fly in the
face of common sense:

There is no such thing as: generation and destruction, motion, change,

qualitative difference, plurality.

d. The argument for these corollaries is that anyone who tries to assert that there
is such a thing as change (etc.) is reduced to attempting to talk about what does
not exist.
7. A summary of Parmenides’ errors
a. He thought that what does not exist could not exist (possibly confusing this idea
with the truism that, necessarily, if something does not exist then it does not
exist).
b. He thought that denials of existence are impossible (i.e., they cannot be both
meaningful and true).
c. He thought that all denials, all “is not”s, are denials of existence.
 Zeno’s Paradox of the Race
Course
1. The Paradox

Zeno argues that it is impossible for a runner to traverse a race course. His reason is
that

“there is no motion, because that which is moving must reach

the midpoint before the end” (6=A25,
Aristotle, Physics 239b11-13).

Why is this a problem? Because the same argument can be made about half of
the race course: it can be divided in half in the same way that the entire race course can
be divided in half. And so can the half of the half of the half, and so on, ad infinitum.

So a crucial assumption that Zeno makes is that of infinite divisibility: the

distance from the starting point (S) to the goal (G) can be divided into an infinite
number of parts.

2. Progressive vs. Regressive versions

How did Zeno mean to divide the race course? That is, which half of the race
course Zeno mean to be dividing in half? Was he saying (a) that before you reach G,
you must reach the point halfway from the halfway point to G? This is
the progressive version of the argument: the subdivisions are made on the right-hand
side, the goal side, of the race-course.

Or was he saying (b) that before you reach the halfway point, you must reach
the point halfway from S to the halfway point? This is the regressive version of the
argument: the subdivisions are made on the left-hand side, the starting point side, of
the race-course.

If he meant (a), the progressive version, then he was arguing that the runner
could not finish the race. If he meant (b), the regressive version, then he was arguing
that the runner could not even start the race. Either conclusion is repugnant to reason
and common sense, and it seems impossible to ascertain which version Zeno had in
mind.

But it turns out that it really doesn’t matter which version Zeno had in mind.
For although this may not be obvious, the conclusions of the two versions of the
argument are equivalent. Let us see why.
 Since Zeno was generalizing about all motion, his conclusion was either (a)
that no motion could be completed or (b) that no motion could be begun. But in order
to begin a motion, one has to complete a smaller motion that is a part of it. For consider
any motion, m, and suppose that m has been begun. It follows that some smaller initial
portion of m has been completed; for if no such part of m has been completed, m could
not have yet begun. Hence, if no motion can be completed, then none can be begun.

It is even more obvious that if no motion can be begun, then none can be
completed. So the conclusion of (a) (“no motion can be completed”) entails, and is
entailed by, the conclusion of (b) (“no motion can be begun”). That is, the two
conclusions are logically equivalent. Hence we needn’t worry about how Zeno wanted
to place the halfway points.

3. Terminology

R the runner
S the starting point (= Z0)
G the end point
Z1 the point halfway between S and G
Z2 the point halfway between Z1 and G
Zn the point halfway between Zn-1 and G
Z-run a run that takes the runner from one Z-point to the next Z-point

4. Zeno’s Argument formulated

1. In order to get from S to G, R must make infinitely many Z-runs.
2. It is impossible for R to make infinitely many Z-runs.
3. Therefore, it is impossible for R to reach G.
5. Evaluating the argument
a. Is it valid? Yes: the conclusion follows from the premises.
b. Is it sound? I.e., is it a valid argument with true premises? This is what is at
issue.
c. One might try to object to the first premise, (1), on the grounds that one can get
from S to G by making one run, or two (from S to Z1 and from Z1 to G). But this
is not an adequate response. For according to the definitions above, the runner,
if he passes from S to G, will have passed through all the Z-points. But to do
that is to make all the Z-runs.

Alternatively, one might object to (1) on the grounds that passing

through all the Z-points (even though there are infinitely many of them) does
not constitute making an infinite number of Z-runs. The reason might be that
after you keep halving and halving the distance, you eventually get to distances
 that are so small that they are no larger than points. But points have no
dimension, so no “run” is needed to “cross” one. But this is a mistake.
For every Z-run, no matter how tiny, covers a finite distance (>0). No Z-run is
as small as a point.

So we have established that the first premise is true. (Note: this does
not establish that R can actually get from S to G. It only establishes that if he
does, he will make all the Z-runs.)

d. The crucial premise is (2). Why can’t R make infinitely many Z-runs? Our
difficulty here is that Zeno gives no explicit argument in support of (2).
6. Supporting the second premise

There are three possible reasons that might be given in support of (2).

a. To make all the Z-runs R would have to run infinitely far.

b. To make all the Z-runs R would have to run forever (i.e., for an infinite
length of time).
c. To make all the Z-runs R would have to do something it is logically
impossible to do. (I.e., the claim that R makes all the Z-runs leads to a
logical contradiction.)

Which of these reasons did Zeno have in mind? Aristotle assumed that (b) was what
Zeno intended (and he based his refutation on that assumption). More recent critics
have suggested that Zeno’s argument can be made much more interesting if we use (c)
to support his second premise. We will consider both (b) and (c) later. But since there
is some reason to think that Zeno believed (a), we will begin there.

To see why one might think that Zeno had (a) in mind, we will examine a related
argument that he actually gave: his argument against plurality. We will then return to
the race course.
Zeno: Argument against Plurality
1. Introduction

The argument is contained in 4=B1 and 3=B2 (from Simplicius’ commentary

on Aristotle’s Physics). But there is a problem with the text, and some of the argument
is garbled or lost. Fortunately, we can reconstruct it. Zeno attempts to show that the
assumption that there are many things leads to a contradiction: viz., that each thing
is both infinitely small and infinitely large.

There are two limbs to the argument. The pluralist’s assumption, “There are many
things,” leads to these two conclusions:

A. Each thing is “so small as not to have size.”

B. Each thing is “so large as to be unlimited.”

Simplicius’s text does not preserve (A) completely. It starts with (A), and then is
garbled and switches over to (B). But we can reconstruct the argument for (B).

2. The Argument

Simplicius (in 4=B1) preserves one key principle (“if it exists, each thing must have
some size and thickness”). It is a premise that Zeno thinks his materialist/pluralist
opponents must accept. 3=B2 contains an argument in support of this principle
(“Suppose that x has no size. Then when x is added to a thing it does not increase the
size of that thing, and when x is subtracted from a thing, that thing does not decrease in
size. Clearly, x is nothing, i.e., does not exist.”). So the argument begins with this
premise:

1. What exists has size (magnitude).

Zeno also seems to be making the following two assumtions:

2. What has size can be divided into (proper) parts that exist.
3. The part of relation is transitive, irreflexive, and asymmetical.

Proper parts: x is a proper part of y iff x is a part of y and y is not a part of x

Transitive: if x is a part of y and y is a part of z, then x is a part of z.

Irreflexive: x is not a part of x.

Asymmetical: if x is a part of y, then y is not a part of x.

 The rest of his argument is preserved in 4=B1. Roughly paraphrased, it runs:

4. Pick any existing physical object, x.

5. x has size. [from 1 and 4]
6. x has parts. [from 2 and 5]
7. Let x' be one of those parts; then x' “must be apart from the rest” of x. That is,
one part of x must protrude, or “be in front” of the rest of x, as Zeno goes on
to say.

Now Zeno says that the same argument applies to x'!

8. So some part of x' (call it x'') protrudes from the rest of x', and so
on, ad infinitum.

Since Zeno is assuming, reasonably enough, that the part of relation is

transitive (i.e., that the parts of the parts of x are also parts of x) it follows
that x is composed of an infinite number of parts (since x', x'', x''',
etc., ad infinitum, are all parts of x).

9. So x has infinitely many parts. [from 8 and 3]

Zeno immediately infers that such an object (with infinitely many parts)
must be infinitely large.

10. So x is infinitely large. [from 9 and ?]

3. Evaluation of the argument

Everything is fine up to step (9). But (9) does not entail (10). Zeno seems to be
implicitly assuming (what I’ll call) the Infinite Sum Principle: viz., that the sum of
an infinite number of terms is infinitely large. (9), together with the Infinite Sum
Principle, entails (10). And from (10) it follows (by Universal Generalization)
that every magnitude is infinitely large, which is the conclusion of the second limb.

The Infinite Sum Principle appears to be correct. But is it? What makes
it seem correct is the observation that you can make something as large (a finite size)
as you want out of parts as small as you want, and it takes only a finite number of them
to do this! To see that this is so, consider the following: pick any magnitude, y, as large
as you like; and pick any small magnitude, z, as small as you like (but z > 0). It is
obvious that you can obtain a magnitude at least as large as y by adding z to itself
a finite number of times. That is:

∀y ∀z ∃x (x · z y)
 For every y and for every z, there is at least one x such that x times z is greater
than or equal to y.

If y and z are finite, no matter how large y is and no matter how small z is, if
you have enough things (but still only finitely many) each of which is at least as large
as z you get a totalmagnitude at least as large as y. So, the reasoning goes, if you had
an infinite number of z’s, you’d get an infinitely large sum.

This may seem convincing, but it doesn’t support the Infinite Sum Principle.
For this argument has been assuming that of our infinitely many parts, there is
a smallest. (More precisely, there is one than which none is smaller.) What our
argument actually supports is only an amended version of the Infinite Sum Principle.

The sum of an infinite number of terms, one of which is the smallest, is

infinite.

This amended principle is true. But it won’t help Zeno. For in his series there
is no smallest term! That is, x' is smaller than x, and x'' is smaller than x', etc. We have
an infinite series of continually decreasing terms. And the sum of such a series may be
finite.

E.g.: 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + . . .+ . . .= 1.

[If this last point seems puzzling, you need to learn a little about infinite
sequences, limits of infinite sequences, infinite series, and sums of infinite
series. Please take a moment to study themathematical background to Zeno’s
paradoxes.]

4. Review

Zeno’s argument is based on two principles:

o Infinite Divisibility Principle

o Infinite Sum Principle

He gives a compelling argument for the first, but does not even mention the second.
From these he infers his conclusion that every magnitude is infinitely large.

This argument is valid, but unsound. For the Infinite Sum Principle is false.

We can fix the Infinite Sum Principle by restricting it to infinite sets with
smallest elements. The amended principle is true, and so the resulting argument’s
premises are both true. But this amended argument is invalid. For the amended
principle requires that there be smallest parts, and the Infinite Divisibility Principle
does not guarantee that there are such parts - it allows the parts to get smaller and
smaller, ad infinitum.
 We can make Zeno’s argument valid, but then one of its premises is false. Or
we can make both of its premises true, but then it is invalid. Either way, Zeno’s
argument is unsound.
 The Race Course: Part 2
1. Our look at the plurality argument suggests that Zeno may have thought that to run all
the Z-runs would be to run a distance that is infinitely long. If this is what he thought,
he was mistaken.

The reason the sum of all the Z-intervals is not an infinitely large distance is
that there is no smallest Z-interval. And Zeno does not establish that there is some
smallest Z-run. (If there were a smallest Z-run, he wouldn’t have been able to show that
R had to make infinitely many Z-runs.)

2. What about Aristotle’s understanding of Zeno? Here is what he says [RAGP 8=A25]:

“Zeno’s argument falsely assumes that it is impossible to

traverse or come into contact with an infinite number of things
individually in a finite time” (Physics 233a21-24).

3. Aristotle points out that there are two ways in which a quantity can be said to be infinite:
in extension or in divisibility. The race course is infinite in divisibility. But, Aristotle
goes on, “for time itself too is infinite in this way.”

Hence, there is a sense in which R has an infinite number of distances to cross.

But in that sense he also has an infinite amount of time to do it in. (If a finite distance
is infinitely divisible, then why isn’t a finite time also infinitely divisible?)

4. So Zeno cannot establish (2) for either of the first two reasons we considered: to make
all the Z-runs, R does not have to run infinitely far. Nor does R have to keep running
forever.

Logical Impossibility: Infinity Machines & Super-Tasks

1. On this reading, Zeno’s argument attempts to show that it is logically

impossible for R to reach G. That is, Zeno’s puzzle is not that the runner has to run too
far, or that the runner has to run for too long a time, but that the claim that the runner
has completed all the Z-runs leads to a contradiction.
2. Following James Thomson [“Tasks and Super-Tasks,” on reserve], let us define
a super-task as an infinite sequence of tasks. Can one perform a super-task? Bertrand
Russell thought that one could, as Thomson explains [“Tasks and Super-Tasks,” p. 93]:

“Russell suggested that a man’s skill in performing operations

of some kind might increase so fast that he was able to perform
each of an infinite sequence of operations after the first in half
the time he had required for its predecessor. Then the time
 required for all of the infinite sequence of tasks would be only
twice that required for the first. On the strength of this Russell
said that the performance of all of an infinite sequence of tasks
was only medically impossible.”

But Thomson argues that to assume that a super-task has been performed in
accordance with Russell’s “recipe” leads to a logical contradiction.

a. Thomson’s Lamp example [“Tasks and Super-Tasks,” pp. 94-95]:

“There are certain reading lamps that have a

button in the base. If the lamp is off and you press
the button the lamp goes on, and if the lamp is on
and you press the button the lamp goes off. So if
the lamp was originally off, and you pressed the
button an odd number of times, the lamp is on,
and if you pressed the button an even number of
times the lamp is off. Suppose now that the lamp
is off, and I succeed in pressing the button an
infinite number of times, perhaps making one jab
in one minute, another jab in the next half minute,
and so on, according to Russell’s recipe. After I
have completed the whole infinite sequence of
jabs, i.e. at the end of the two minutes, is the lamp
on or off? It seems impossible to answer this
question. It cannot be on, because I did not ever
turn it on without at once turning it off. It cannot
be off, because I did in the first place turn it on,
and thereafter I never turned it off without at once
turning it on. But the lamp must be either on or
off. This is a contradiction.”

b. Applying this to the race course [“Tasks and Super-Tasks,” pp. 97-98. By ‘Z’
here Thomson means the set of Z-points.]:

“… suppose someone could have occupied every

Z-point without having occupied any point
external to Z. Where would he be? Not at any Z-
point, for then there would be an unoccupied Z-
point to the right. Not, for the same reason,
between Z-points. And, ex hypothesi, not at any
point external to Z. But these possibilities are
exhaustive. The absurdity of having occupied all
the Z-points without having occupied any point
external to Z is exactly like the absurdity of
 having pressed the lamp-switch an infinite
number of times….”

3. This gives us an argument that can be set out like this:

a. We know that no Z-run reaches G.
b. Suppose R makes all the Z-runs and no other runs.
c. Then R has not reached G. [From (a). Reason: no Z-run reaches G, and R has
not made any other runs.]
d. But R cannot be to the left of G. [From (b). Reason: R has made all the Z runs,
and if R were to the left of G, there would still be Z-points between R and G, so
not all the Z-runs would have been made.]
e. So R has reached G. [From (d)]

Since (b) leads to a contradiction [(c) contradicts (e)], it is logically

impossible for (b) to be true. Therefore,

f. It is impossible for R to make all the Z-runs.

4. Does the argument work? Thomson thinks that it does not, because it does not prove
(f), but only a weaker conclusion:

It is impossible for R to make all the Z -runs without making a run that is not
a Z -run.

So Thomson’s response to Zeno is that one can make all the Z-runs simply by
making a run (e.g., a G-run) that is not a Z-run. To think this is impossible requires an
equivocation on the word ‘run’.

This turns out to be a weak reply. For although it shows that Zeno doesn’t get
his contradiction from the assumption that R makes all the Z-runs, it concedes too much
to Zeno. For it supposes that there is some description of a super-task (“making all
the Z-runs and no other runs”) that does lead to a contradiction.

That is, Thomson maintains both:

i. “R makes all the Z-runs and no other runs” entails “R reaches G” and
ii. “R makes all the Z-runs and no other runs” entails “R does not reach G.”

But as Paul Benacerraf has shown (in the article “Tasks, Super-tasks, and the
Modern Eleatics,” on e-reserve) neither of these entailments holds. That is, we cannot
derive a contradiction even from the assumption that R makes all the Z-runs and no
others.

5. Benacerraf’s key claim: From a description of the Z-series, nothing follows about
any point outside the Z-series.
 We can apply this point to both the lamp and the race course:

a. The lamp: Nothing about the state of the lamp after two minutes follows from
a description of the lamp’s behavior during the two-minute interval when the
super-task was being performed. It does not follow that the lamp is on; it
does not follow that the lamp is off. It could be either.
b. The race course: Nothing about whether and when the runner
reaches G follows from the assumption that he has made all the Z-runs and no
others.

6. This is because G is the limit point of the infinite sequence of Z-points. It is not itself
a Z-point. If we assume that the runner makes all the Z-runs and no other runs, we have
the following options about G. It can be either:

a. The last point R reaches, or

b. The first point R does not reach.

It must be one of these, but it does not have to be both. Benacerraf

explains why (“Tasks, Super-Tasks and the Modern Eleatics,” p. 117-118):

“… any point may be seen as dividing its line

either into (a) the sets of points to the right of and
including it, and the set of points to the left of it;
or into (b) the set of points to the right of it and
the set of points to the left of and including it:
That is, we may assimilate each point to its right-
hand segment (a) or to its left-hand segment (b).
Which we choose is entirely arbitrary …”

Consequently, both of the following situations are possible:

a. R makes all the Z-runs and no others, and reaches G.

b. R makes all the Z-runs and no others, and does not reach G.

All that “R makes all the Z-runs and no others” entails is

that R reaches every point to the left of G, and no point to the right of G. It
entails nothing about whether G itself is one of the points reached or one of the
points not reached.

So while Thomson thinks that both entailments (i) and (ii) hold,
Benacerraf shows that neither of them holds.

2. Benacerraf’s vanishing genie

suppose the runner is a genie who vanishes as soon as he makes all the Z-runs. There
is a temptation to say that there must be a last point he reaches before he vanishes. And
 that would have to be G. So how is it possible for him to make all the Z-runs without
reaching G?

Benacerraf gives us a beautiful illustration of this possibility by adding one new

wrinkle — a shrinking genie: [“Tasks, Super-Tasks and the Modern Eleatics,” p. 119]:

“Ours is a reluctant genie. He shrinks from the thought of

reaching 1. In fact, being a rational genie, he shows his
repugnance against reaching 1 by shrinking so that the ratio of
his height at any point to his height at the beginning of the race
is always equal to the ratio of the unrun portion of the course to
the whole course. He is full grown at 0, half-shrunk at ½, only
1/8 of him is left at 7/8, etc. His instructions are to continue in
this way and to disappear at 1. Clearly, now, he occupied every
point to the left of 1 (I can tell you exactly when and how tall he
was at that point), but he did not occupy 1 (if he followed
instructions, there was nothing left of him at 1). Of course, if we
must say that he vanished at a point, it must be at 1 that we must
say that he vanished, but in this case, there is no temptation
whatever to say that he occupied 1. He couldn’t have. There
wasn’t enough left of him.”

8. The mistake in Thomson’s argument (which tries to show that a contradiction can be
derived from the assumption that the runner makes all the Z-runs and no others) is to
assume that one and the same point, G, has to be both the last one that R reaches and
the first one that he doesn’t reach.

But this assumption is mistaken. G divides the space R traverses from the space
that he does not traverse. But G itself cannot be said to belong to both spaces (even
though it is arbitrary which of the two we associate it with). Indeed, if there is such a
thing as the last point R (or anyone) reaches, then there cannot be a first point that he
does not reach.

The reason is that (as Zeno is assuming) space is a continuum; points in space
do not have next-door neighbors. There is no next point after G. Therefore,
if G is last point R reaches, then there is no first point R does not reach.
Consequently, G cannot be that point. So Thomson’s argument fails.

Movement through a continuum, through infinitely divisible space, is indeed a

puzzling phenomenon. But it does not lead to Zeno’s paradox.

9. Historical Addendum

Philosophers all too rarely admit their mistakes. But remarkably, Thomson later
conceded (in Salmon, Zeno’s Paradoxes, pp. 130-138) that Benacerraf’s criticism is
correct:
“Benacerraf’s excellent article puts it beyond doubt that much
of “Tasks and Supertasks” is mistaken. …

When I wrote “Tasks and Supertasks” I thought that the idea of

a super-task being completable was suspect because or to the
extent that one could not say what situation would result from
its completion. … I thought that there was some conceptual
difficulty about the idea of a lamp having been turned on and off
infinitely often, because, roughly speaking, of the question about
the state of the lamp immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, I
tried to make out that there was a difficulty here by arguing that
the lamp could not be in either of its two states. This argument
was worthless, because (as Benacerraf points out) it ascribed to
the crucial time a property that can be ascribed, without
circularity, only to earlier times. I also said that the difficulty
about the lamp was like that of occupying all the points along
the racecourse (the Z-points) without occupying their limit, and
this too was wrong.

I am now inclined to think that there are no simple knock-down

arguments to show that the notion of a completed super-task is
self-contradictory.”
 Zeno’s Paradox of the Arrow
A reconstruction of the argument

(following 9=A27, Aristotle Physics 239b5-7:

1. When the arrow is in a place just its own size, it’s at rest.
2. At every moment of its flight, the arrow is in a place just its own size.
3. Therefore, at every moment of its flight, the arrow is at rest.

Aristotle’s solution

• The argument falsely assumes that time is composed of “nows” (i.e., indivisible
instants).
• There is no such thing as motion (or rest) “in the now” (i.e., at an instant).

Weakness in Aristotle’s solution: it seems to deny the possibility of motion or rest “at an
instant.” But instantaneous velocity is a useful and important concept in physics:

The velocity of x at instant t can be defined as the limit of the sequence of x’s
average velocities for increasingly small intervals of time containing t.

In this case, we can reply that if Zeno’s argument exclusively concerns (durationless)
instants of time, the first premise is false: “x is in a place just the size of x at instant i” entails
neither that x is resting at i nor that x is moving at i.

Perhaps instants and intervals are being confused

“When?” can mean either “at what instant?” (as in “When did the concert begin?”) or
“during what interval?” (as in “When did you read War and Peace?”).

1a. At every instant at which the arrow is in a place just its own size, it’s at rest. (false)
2a. At every instant during its flight, the arrow is in a place just its own size. (true)
1b. During every interval throughout which the arrow stays in a place just its own size,
it’s at rest. (true)
2b. During every interval of time within its flight, the arrow occupies a place just its
own size. (false)

Both versions of Zeno’s premises above yield an unsound argument: in each there is a
false premise: the first premise is false in the “instant” version (1a); the second is false in the
“interval” version (2b). And the two true premises, (1b) and (2a), yield no conclusion.

A final reconstruction
 In this version there is no confusion between instants and intervals. Rather, there is a
fallacy that logic students will recognize as the “quantifier switch” fallacy. The universal
quantifier, “at every instant,” ranges over instants of time; the existential quantifier, “there is a
place,” ranges over locations at which the arrow might be found. The order in which these
quantifiers occur makes a difference! (To find out more about the order of quantifiers, click
here.) Observe what happens when their order gets illegitimately switched:

1c. If there is a place just the size of the arrow at which it is located at every instant
between t0 and t1, the arrow is at rest throughout the interval between t0 and t1.
2c. At every instant between t0 and t1, there is a place just the size of the arrow at which
it is located.

We will use the following abbreviations:

L(p, i) The arrow is located at place p at instant i

R The arrow is at rest throughout the interval between t0 and t1

The argument then looks like this:

1c. If there is a p such that for every i, L(p, i), then R.

∃p ∀i L(p, i) → R
2c. For every i, there is a p such that: L(p, i).
∀i ∃p L(p, i)

But (2c) is not equivalent to, and does not entail, the antecedent of (1c):

There is a p such that for every i, L(p, i)

∃p ∀i L(p, i)

The reason they are not equivalent is that the order of the quantifiers is different. (2c)
says that the arrow always has some location or other (“at every instant i it is located at some
place p”) - and that is trivially true as long as the arrow exists! But the antecedent of (1c) says
there is some location such that the arrow is always located there (“there is some place p such
that the arrow is located at p at every instant i”) - and that will only be true provided the arrow
does not move!

So one cannot infer from (1c) and (2c) that the arrow is at rest.

The Arrow and Atomism ( for further )

 The Pluralists
1. Parmenides’ successors seemed to be concerned with these five central Parmenidean
doctrines:

1. Monism: there is no plurality.

2. There is no motion.
3. There is no generation or destruction.
4. There is no qualitative change or differentiation.
5. There is no void.

2. All of the pluralistic responses to Parmenides (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the

Atomists) were influenced by him, but rejected his extreme monism. They sought to
reconcile, as much as possible, Parmenideanism with common sense.

3. They all disagreed with Parmenides about (1) and (2): all maintained plurality and
motion. But they all accepted (3): there is no coming into existence or ceasing to exist.
Where they differ among themselves is over (4) and (5): the reality of qualitative
differences and the existence of the void.

4. Empedocles and Anaxagoras broke ranks with Parmenides over (4), but toed the line
on (5). The atomists agreed with Parmenides that there is no genuine qualitative change,
but claimed that there was empty space - a void. These points are all summarized in
the table below:

Pluralists’ Scorecard

The Atomists
Empedocles &
Parmenides Leucippus &
Anaxagoras
Democritus

Plurality - + +

Motion - + +

Generation &
- - -
Destruction

Qualitative
Difference - + -?
& Change

Void - - +
5. It is also instructive to compare the ways different pluralists responded to Zeno. Zeno’s
argument against plurality makes this explicit assumption:

a. Whatever has size has parts.

It also assumes implicitly (as we saw) that:

b. There is a smallest size part.

Here’s how two pluralists, Anaxagoras and Democritus, responded.

Anaxagoras

Accepts (a), but denies (b): “Of the small, there is no smallest,” he says.

Democritus

Accepts (b), but denies (a): Atoms have size, but don’t have parts
(cf. 11=A13).

Empedocles
1. Areas of agreement with Parmenides

a. No generation/destruction:

Fools. For their thoughts are not far-reaching, who expect that
there comes to be what previously was not, or that anything
perishes and is completely destroyed. (36=B11)

For it is impossible to come to be from what in no way is, and it

is not to be accomplished and is unheard of that what is perishes
absolutely. (39=B12)

...There is coming to be of not a single one of all mortal things,

nor is there any end of deadly death .... (35=B8)

b. No void:

None of the whole is either empty or over-full. (40=B13)

2. Areas of disagreement with Parmenides

 a. Pluralism - the four elements:

Hear first the four roots of all things: Shining Zeus [fire] and
life-bringing Hera [air] and Aidoneus [earth] and
Nestis [water] who with her tears moistens mortal
Springs. (34=B6)

b. Qualitative difference:

... For these [the four elements] are all equal and of the same
age, but each rules in its own province and possesses its own
individual character, but they dominate in turn as time
revolves. (43=B17, line 27)

c. Motion:

And these [sc. the elements] never cease continually

interchanging, at one time all coming together into one by Love,
and at another each being borne apart by the hatred of
Strife.(43=B17, line 6)

...For there are just these things [i.e., the four elements], and
running through one another they come to be both humans and
the tribes of other beasts at one time coming together into a
single cosmos by Love and at another each being borne apart by
the hatred of Strife .... (48=B26)

Note that Empedocles not only accepts the existence of motion, but
offers an explanation of it, in terms of two primitive forces, Love (which moves
things together) and Strife (which separates them).

3. Generation and Change

Apparent generation and apparent change are explained away in terms of the
activity of the underlying elements, under the control of the motivating forces of Love
and Strife.

... Thus in that they have learned to grow to be one out of many
and in that they again spring apart as many when the one grows
apart, in that way they come to be and their life is not lasting ....
(43=B17, line 9)

Whenever they [sc. the elements] arrive in the aither mixed so

as to form a man or one of the wild beasts or bushes or birds,
that is when <people> speak of coming into being; and
whenever they are separated, that <is what they call> the ill-
 starred fate of death. They do not call it as is right, but I myself
too assent to their convention. (37=B9).

There is ... only mixture, and separation of what is mixed, and

nature [or, birth, phusis] is the name given to them by
humans. (35=B8)

4. Reductionism

Empedocles’ theory is reductionistic. Such apparent stuffs as bone or blood, and such
apparent entities as frogs and trees, are, according to his theory, reduced to complex
combinations of elements.

So although there appear to be more kinds of stuff than just the elements, they are not
“real,” but only aggregates of the real entities (E, A, F, W):

For from these [sc. the elements] come all things that were and
are and will be in the future. Trees have sprouted and men and
women, and beasts and birds and fishes nurtured in water, and
long-lived gods highest in honors. For there are just these
things [i.e., the elements], and running through one another they
come to have different appearances, for mixture changes
them. (45=B21)

Empedocles even tries to quantify precisely the reduction of ordinary objects to

compounds of elements:

Pleasant earth in her well made crucibles obtained two parts of

bright Nestis out of the eight, and four of Hephaestus, and white
bones came into being, fitted together divinely by the glues of
Harmonia. (79=B96)

This gives us a kind of primitive chemistry with obvious Pythagorean overtones:

Bone = 2W + 4F + 2E

We’re told there are 8 parts in all, that some of them are earth, that 2 are Nestis (water)
and 4 are Hephaestus (fire). So we solve for E:

E = 8 - (2 + 4) = 8 - 6 = 2

The formulas Empedocles gives (like the one above for bone) are reductionistic
in character. Entities in “common sense” ontology are reduced to (complexes of) the
four elements - the only genuine entities in Empedocles’ ontology.
5. Summary

Only the elements are real, and the elements don’t change. Thus, the real is
unchanging, just as Parmenides said. But there is some sort of change in a world
without void, packed full of ungenerated and unchanging elements, when the elements
mix with one another.

6. Problems for Empedocles

a. Motion: how is motion possible if there is no empty space? How do things have
room to move?

b. Mixture: how do the elements mix? How do they “run through one another”
(48=B26)? Aristotle supposed that, to solve this, Empedocles would have to
smuggle in a notion of a void: elements would contain “gaps” into which other
elements could flow. Here is how Aristotle puts the criticism (GC 325b1):

Leucippus maintains that all alteration and all

being affected comes to be in this way, the
disintegration and corruption of things coming to
be by way of the void - and similarly also growth,
solid bodies slipping in through the gaps.
Empedocles is bound to speak in more or less the
same way as Leucippus does. A number of solid
bodies exist, and are undivided, unless there are
continuous passages everywhere. But this is
impossible, because there would be nothing else
solid over and above the passages, but everything
would be a void. So the things which are in
contact are necessarily undivided, and what is
between them is a void, and this is what
Empedocles calls ‘passages’. And this is how
Leucippus too speaks of action and passion.
 Anaxagoras
1. Like Empedocles, Anaxagoras denied that there could be any coming into being or
passing away (17=B17):

The Greeks are wrong to accept coming to be and perishing, for

no thing comes to be, nor does it perish, but they are mixed
together from things that are and they are separated apart. And
so they would be correct to call coming to be being mixed
together, and perishing being separated apart.

2. And, like Empedocles, he thinks that there is genuine qualitative difference among
things. But, unlike Empedocles, he does not limit himself to 4 elements. In their place,
he helps himself to an infinity of different stuffs.
3. For Anaxagoras, not only Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, but also blood, gold, hair, bone,
etc., are all elemental, not reducible to more primitive parts.

Why does he hold this? Cf. Robinson (p. 176):

According to Empedocles, bone is made up of earth, air, fire,

and water, blended in a certain proportion. It should be possible,
therefore, to break it down again into these elements. The
difficulty is that when this is done the bone ceases to be bone
any longer; and if Parmenides is right, this is impossible. If
bone is, it cannot cease to be.

4. Moreover, Anaxagoras seems to have reasoned that if bone is made up of those

elements in that proportion, you should be able to generate bone out of something else,
that is not bone. But Anaxagoras tried to be a good Parmenidean. As he writes
(10=B10):

For how could hair come from not hair or flesh from not flesh?

5. How does Anaxagoras propose to get out of this difficulty? Robinson again:

Anaxagoras sought to evade this difficulty by insisting that bone

is homoiomerous, i.e., made up of parts having the same nature as the whole.
No matter how far it is broken down, what remains is bone.

Bone is not made up of other elements. Every part of bone has the same nature
as the whole. Every part of bone is bone; every part of gold is gold, etc. This is
Anaxagoras’s notorious principle of Homoiomereity (or uniformity, lit. “like-
partedness”):

(H) Every part of any kind of stuff, S, is itself S.

 It is controversial whether Anaxagoras maintained (H), which is not asserted in
any fragments. There is evidence for it in the testimonia, however. Cf. Aristotle’s
summaries in 25=A43 (Aristotle, De Caelo 302a28-b3) and 26=A46 (Aristotle, On
Coming-to-be and Ceasing-to-be 314a18):

25: Anaxagoras says the opposite of Empedocles about the

elements. . . . For the homoiomerous things (I mean flesh and
bone and each of the things of that sort) are elements, but air
and fire are mixtures of these and of all the other seeds, for each
of them is a conglomeration of invisible [amounts] of all the
homoiomerous things.

26: Anaxagoras . . . says that the elements are unlimited in

number. For he makes the elements homoiomerous things, such
as bone and flesh and marrow, and each of the others whose
parts have the same name [as the whole].

6. Thus, Anaxagoras saw the Empedoclean theory as subject to Parmenidean objections:

the creation of a compound out of its elemental parts, or the division of a compound
into those parts, would be deriving what is from what is not, or what is not from what
is. Cf. KRS, p. 370:

Anaxagoras seems to have felt that Empedocles had not gone far
enough. If everything consisted solely of the four elements, then
in putting together the four elements in different proportions to
form, say, flesh or bone, Empedocles had not, to Anaxagoras’s
mind, succeeded in eliminating the coming-into-being of
something new.

So Anaxagoras’s principle (H) is designed to enable him to deny the existence of real
generation and destruction.

a. Possible Empedoclean reply: compounds (of the elements) aren’t real. The
realities are the elements. We should not describe a mixing of elements as a
coming to be.
b. Anaxagoras’s rejoinder: this leaves Empedocles with a narrow ontology that
flies in the face of common sense. Empedocles would have to deny that such
things as bone and blood are real.
7. But it certainly appears as if bone can come from what is not bone, or flesh from what
is not flesh. E.g., a chicken eats corn, and drinks water, and what comes to be
is flesh and feathers. How, then, can we avoid having to admit that there are cases of
coming into being from what is not? Anaxagoras solved this problem with the second
important principle of his physical theory. He held that there is already flesh, and
feathers, etc., in the corn. As KRS continue:
 The only way to do that [i.e., to succeed in eliminating the
coming-into-being of something new] was to posit in everything
the presence ab initio of everything which might emerge from
it.

This might give us a principle like this: if stuff y can come from stuff x, there
must be a portion of y already in x.

But Anaxagoras went further. For he seems to have imagined that there are no
limits on what kinds of changes are possible. That is, anything can come from anything.
This leads to the principle of Universal Mixture (11=B11, cf. also 6=B6):

In everything there is a portion of everything ....

This is most plausibly construed as a principle about kinds of stuff (cf.

Barnes, The Presocratics, pp 320-323):

(UM) For any kinds of stuffs, S, S': in each piece of S there is a portion of
S'.

That is, every piece of gold contains portions of wood, flesh, hair, water, silver,
etc. Anaxagoras’s principle (UM) is designed to enable him to allow for the existence
of real change withoutallowing for real generation and destruction.

8. (UM) is certainly a bizarre principle, however well motivated it may be. Some critics
have found it worse than bizarre. They think it flatly contradicts (H). Thus, Cornford:

Anaxagoras’s theory of matter rests on two propositions which

seem flatly to contradict one another. One is the principle of
homoiomereity: a natural substance such as a piece of gold
consists solely of parts which are like the whole and like one
another - every one of them gold and nothing else. The other is:
“There is a portion of everything in everything,” understood to
mean that a piece of gold . . . so far from containing nothing but
gold, contains portions of every other substance in the world.

9. Is Cornford right? Or can Anaxagoras, without contradiction, maintain that every part
of a lump of gold is itself gold and still maintain that every piece of gold contains
portions of all the other stuffs (including ones which are not gold)?
10. Various ways out have been proposed.
a. Guthrie: “homoiomerous” was Aristotle’s word, not Anaxagoras’s.
Anaxagoras’s elements were the natural stuffs that Aristotle called
homoiomerous. But Anaxagoras didn’t think they were like-parted. Rather, they
contained everything. So Anaxagoras doesn’t hold (H).
 b. Vlastos: what’s present in every kind of stuff is every opposite, not every kind
of stuff. So (UM) doesn’t contradict (H).
11. But are (H) and (UM) really incompatible? If it can be shown that they are compatible
after all, we will not have to look for a way out in the manner of Guthrie or Vlastos.

Let us reconsider the argument for saying that (H) and (UM) are inconsistent.
Suppose we have a lump of gold, L. (UM) tells us that it is a universal mixture, and
(H) tell us that all of its parts are gold. So we consider some part of it, P. (H) tells us
that P is gold and that P, like L, is an instance of universal mixture - it contains every
kind of stuff within it. Why not? There does not seem to be any inconsistency yet. L is
both gold and contains a mixture within, and so is P. Evidently, the trouble is thought
to come when we consider the parts of P. Are they also both gold and instances of
universal mixture? The underlying assumption seems to be that one can maintain that
the parts of L are both gold and instances of universal mixture only until one reaches
some part, P*, which cannot be further broken down into parts. What can we say
about P*? (H) says it is gold, and (UM) says it is a mixture. But how can it be a mixture
if it has no parts? So (H) and (UM) cannot both be true about P*.

But notice that this argument implicitly assumes that a process of division
of L will ultimately lead us to an indivisible part, P*. And it is P* that we have shown
cannot be both homoiomerous (i.e., pure gold) and a universal mixture.

So our argument to show that (H) and (UM) are inconsistent has implicitly been
assuming a third principle: that every process of division comes to an end - that matter
is only finitely divisible.

12. But Anaxagoras did not assume this. Indeed, he explicitly denied it. Cf. 3=B3:

For of the small there is no smallest, but always a smaller.

This is Anaxagoras’s principle of Infinite Divisibility. There are no atoms.

[A question that naturally arises here is the relation of Anaxagoras to Zeno. For more
on this issue, see this supplementary note.]

As applied to the argument at hand, the principle of Infinite Divisibility means that we
will never reach a part, P*, about which we get the contradictory result that it contains
no parts but still satisfies (UM).

13. But this still leaves us with a puzzle: how can L, our lump of gold, have other things
(e.g., silver, lead, sugar) in it, when all of its parts are gold? If no part of L is silver,
how can there be silver in the gold? Or flesh in the corn?

To answer this question, we must distinguish between the (physically

discriminable) parts of a substance and the portions of stuff which it contains.
 The distinction between parts and portions is one that only a non-atomist can
coherently make. The idea is simple. Suppose we mix flour, water, chocolate, and eggs
together, and bake them into a cake. There is a portion of flour in the cake, and a portion
of eggs, etc. But no matter how finely we divide the cake up, we will not recover the
flour or the eggs. As Anaxagoras would say, “every part of the cake is cake.” We are
not forced to say whether the ultimate particles we arrive at are cake-particles or flour-
particles, for there are no ultimate particles making up the cake.

So the reason why there can be silver in a lump of gold, L, even though every
part of L is gold, is that not every portion is a part. There are portions of silver, etc.,
in L even though every part of L is gold.

(H) tells us that every part of S is itself S.

(Every part of the cake is cake.)

(UM) tells us that for every pair of kinds of stuff, S and S', there is a portion of S in S'.

(There is a portion of every kind of stuff in the cake. And there is a portion of
every kind of stuff in every part of the cake. But every part of the cake is cake.)

14. But (UM) still sounds odd. If everything is in everything, why isn’t every kind of stuff
the same as every other kind? How can there be different kinds? The answer is in
Anaxagoras’s principle of Predominance:

(P) Each kind of stuff is called after the ingredient of which it contains
most.

Cf. 24=A52 (Aristotle, Physics 187b2-6):

. . . things appear to differ from each other and are called by

different names from one another based on what is most
predominant in extent in the mixture of the infinitely many
[components]. Nothing is purely or as a whole pale or dark or
sweet or flesh or bone, but whatever each contains the most of
is thought to be the nature of that thing.

15. Many commentators have found (P) to be an incoherent principle. [Strang, AGP (1963),
rebutted by Kerferd (“Anaxagoras and the concept of matter before Aristotle,” on
reserve).] The problem, simply put, is that the definition of, e.g., gold as that stuff in
which gold predominates, is wildly circular. Gold cannot be defined as that stuff
which contains gold as its dominant ingredient. For how do we define the gold which
is the ingredient? There are two possible responses on Anaxagoras’s behalf.
a. One is Kerferd’s (pp. 501-2), according to which Anaxagoras was not
attempting to give definitions, but to describe change:
 It is true to say that we cannot give an account of
substances such as gold by analyzing them into
“a predominance of gold” and so on to infinity.
In such a case we have failed to give either a
satisfactory definition or a satisfactory account of
gold because we have included the term gold in
our attempts at definition and description. But it
is not an objection to any position maintained by
Anaxagoras, as he had no reason to attempt a
definition or a description of gold in this way. He
is concerned with change and not with
description or definition.

b. Another response appeals once again to the distinction

between parts and portions. We cannot define gold as the stuff in which gold
predominates. What we can do is to say that the nature of any (naturally
occurring) stuff (or of any part of it) is that of its predominant (pure) portion.
So what makes this hunk of metal gold is the fact that gold is the element of
which it has the largest portion. But the question: “What makes the
gold portion of this hunk of gold gold?” is meaningless.
16. Problems with the theory of Nutrition:

One reason Anaxagoras maintained (UM) was to account for our ability to take
in nourishment. We eat wheat, and our flesh increases. When we eat too many
chocolate chip cookies, our bodies bulk up with flesh, not with chocolate chip cookies.
The idea is that we extract the flesh already present in the food we eat. An ancient
scholiast (Aetius, I, 3, 5) describes the theory (portion of A46 not reprinted in RAGP):

We take in nourishment that is simple and homogeneous, such

as bread or water, and by this are nourished hair, veins,
arteries, flesh, sinews, bones and all the other parts of the body.
Which being so, we must agree that everything that exists is in
the nourishment we take in, and that everything derives its
growth from things that exist. There must be in that nourishment
some parts that are productive of blood, some of sinews, some
of bones, and so on - parts which reason alone can apprehend.

But notice that the theory of nutrition requires that wheat contain not
just portions of flesh, but physically removable parts that are flesh. Unless the flesh
that’s in the wheat (as a part, or a portion - i.e., in the wheat in some sense of “in”) can
be extracted and join the flesh of the body, then one’s flesh will not, according to the
theory, bulk up from eating wheat.

But if the wheat contains removable parts that are flesh, principle (H) seems to
collapse: not every part of wheat will be wheat. Some parts will be flesh.
 One might think to save Anaxagoras by appealing to (UM). For any fleshy part
of the wheat that is extracted will, by (UM), contain portions of everything, including
wheat. So even the fleshy parts of the wheat are still, at least in part, wheat.

But this will not do. For (P) tells us that only a mixture in which wheat
predominates is wheat. If wheat is only a minority ingredient in some fleshy part, then
that part is flesh and not wheat. A minority element in a mixture does not contribute to
the determination of the nature of that mixture. (H) and (P) together entail that flesh
must predominate in all of the homoiomerous parts of flesh.

17. CONCLUSION:

(H), (UM), and (P) are logically consistent: they do not entail a contradiction. But our
way of showing them to be consistent reveals that they are incompatible with the theory
of nutrition that has been attributed to him.

{(H), (UM), (P), + Anaxagoras’s theory of nutrition} leads to a contradiction.

 Atomism
1. The Atomists:

Atomism was devised by Leucippus and his student Democritus. Democritus

was born about 460 B.C., which makes him about 40 years younger than Anaxagoras,
and about 10 years younger than Socrates.

“Atomism is the final, and most successful, attempt to rescue the

reality of the physical world from the fatal effects of Eleatic
logic by means of a pluralistic theory.” (Guthrie, vol. 2, p. 389)

2. Overview of atomism:
a. Imagine each atom, taken by itself, as a Parmenidean unit. Each is indivisible.
There is no differentiation between one part of an atom and another part. There
is no empty space within an atom - it’s a plenum.
b. Thus, the atomists tried to agree with Parmenides about everything except
the number of real beings.
c. Comparison with Anaxagoras and Empedocles: theirs was
a qualitative pluralism. The atomists offered a quantitative pluralism.
3. Properties of atoms:

Each atom is uniform, homogeneous, colorless, tasteless, and indivisible. (We

will inquire in a moment into precisely the sense in which atoms are indivisible.)

Atoms have size, shape, and (perhaps) weight. And they can move. That is,
atoms have (what have come to be called) primary qualities. As for
such secondary qualities as color, taste, etc., atoms do not have them - an atom cannot
be yellow, or salty.

4. The reality of the void:

The void (empty space) is real, and exists just as much as the atoms do. Cf.
fragments 3=A6, 5=A37, 12=A14, 16=B156, 27=A14, 42=B9.

Fragment 16 is especially interesting here:

There is no more reason for the “hing” {Greek den} to be than

the nothing {Greek mêden, not-hing}.

Democritus takes the Greek word for “nothing” (mêden) and subtracts the
Greek word for “not” (mê), and ends up with the (otherwise meaningless) Greek den.
He seems to be thinking that it would be unreasonable for us to deny the existence of
something for which we have a word (“nothing”) when we are willing to assert the
 existence of what we don't even have a word for, namely, what the word “nothing” is
the negation of (since “hing” isn't really a word).

5. Democritus’s atomistic universe:

Atoms move about in the void (empty space), collide, attach to others to form
compounds. These compounds can have secondary qualities, but such qualities can be
reduced to the primary qualities of their component atoms. Cf. 31=A129:

He makes sweet that which is round and good-sized; astringent

that which is large, rough, polygonal, and not rounded; sharp
tasting, as its name indicates, that which is sharp in body, and
angular, bent and not rounded; pungent that which is round and
small and angular and bent; salty that which is angular and
good-sized and crooked and equal sided; bitter that which is
round and smooth, crooked and small sized; oily that which is
fine and round and small.

That is, the (secondary) qualities of a compound are completely determined by and
reducible to the (primary) qualities of its component atoms.

6. Democritus vs. Anaxagoras

a. Anaxagoras's principle of Homoiomereity tells us, e.g., that every part of sugar
is sugar. That suggests that he would endorse this inference:

Sugar is sweet; therefore, the parts of which sugar is composed are sweet.

b. But Democritean atoms themselves do not have these secondary properties: the
atoms are imperceptible. Thus, Democritus would reject this inference:

Sugar is sweet; therefore, the atoms of which sugar is composed are sweet.

Instead, Democritus might reason as follows:

Sugar is sweet; therefore, the atoms composing sugar are round and good-
sized.

c. Both Anaxagoras and Democritus agree that the properties of a large-scale

object are a function of the properties of its small-scale components. But
Democritus is the first to see the properties of large-scale objects as emergent-
not just repeating the properties of the components, but arising from them
although being different from them.
7. Appearance vs. Reality
a. The coming together of atoms to form compounds appears to be generation
(new things appear to come into existence) but it is explained away, as in
 Empedocles. For arrangementsand clusters of atoms are not real, according
to Democritus.
b. Nor are the apparent properties of those compounds of atoms real. Such a
compound may appear to be white, or green, but this is not so. There is nothing
that is really white or green.
c. The only things that are real are the atoms, and the empty space they move
about in. Cf. 42=B9:

By convention, sweet; by convention, bitter; by

convention, hot; by convention, cold; by
convention, color; but in reality, atoms and void.

8. Determinism

The picture is entirely mechanistic. The movement of atoms is explained

without recourse to reasons, motives, Mind, the Good, Love, Strife, as was common
among other Presocratics. Our only fragment from Leucippus attests to this (1=B2):

No thing happens at random but all things as a result of a reason

and by necessity.

This is causal determinism.

a. An individual atom has no choice concerning its movements. If pushed, it

moves. Its “motivational forces” are all external.
b. The compounds of atoms don’t have any choice, either. For their movements
are all a function of the movements of their component atoms. The movement
of an entire system of atoms is just the sum of the movements of all of its
individual component atoms.
c. Explanations are bottom up, not top down. That is, the movements and
behavior of a compound of atoms (e.g., a tree, an animal) are to be understood
as the sum of the individual movements of all the atoms composing that
compound. Thus, one explains why the tree or animal moves in such-and-such
a way by explaining why each of its component atoms moves as it does. (It is
this kind of explanation that particularly exercised Plato, who thought this idea
was a colossal mistake. Cf. Phaedo 98c)
9. Ancient vs. Modern Atomism

This very compelling world-view has given rise to a mechanistic, deterministic,

point of view that has been even more popular in modern times than it was in ancient
times. (Contemporary problems about deterministic physics arising from quantum
mechanics have considerably weakened the support for this point of view. The classical
Newtonian view that quantum theory has replaced is basically Democritean.)

The ancient atomists may appear to have provided a brilliant anticipation of a

much later scientific theory. But is this picture accurate? Our enthusiasm for the
achievements of the ancient atomists must be tempered by a closer look at the basis of
their view.

Their impetus did not come from physical inquiries, but from
the logical and metaphysical positions of Parmenides and Zeno. As Barnes says
(Presocratics, p. 346: “the first atoms came from Elea.” Atoms were postulated in
response to the Eleatic view that a truly real entity must be one and indivisible. So we
must ask: In what sense were Democritus’s atoms indivisible? Democritus might
have meant either of the following:

a. It is physically impossible to divide an atom.

b. It is logically or conceptually impossible to divide an atom.

If (a) is the Democritean position, then it would make sense to talk about
the parts of an atom - there might even be such parts - although it would not be
physically possible to separate the parts.

If (b) is what Democritus maintained, then this sort of talk makes no sense. The
very idea of “splitting an atom” would represent not just a technological
difficulty (or even a technological impossibility) but a conceptual absurdity.

Opinion is divided on this issue.

a. In favor of (a) are

i. Burnet (EGP, p. 336):

We must observe that the atom is not mathematically indivisible,

for it has magnitude; it is however physically indivisible,
because, like the One of Parmenides, it contains no empty space.

ii. KRS, p. 415:

[An atom] is presumably only physically, not notionally,

indivisible, since for example atoms differ in size.

b. In favor of (b) are

i. Guthrie (vol. 2, p. 396):

Democritus held that his atoms, being not only very small but
the smallest possible particles of matter, were not only too small
to be divided physically but also logically indivisible.

ii. Furley: I will give a quick sketch of the case he makes for (b).

Furley’s argument for theoretically indivisible Democritean atoms:

 a. Aristotle says that atoms were postulated to meet (what he called) Zeno’s
“Dichotomy Argument.” This would be either the paradox of the race course,
or the paradox of plurality.
b. But, as we have seen, both of these arguments of Zeno’s are meant to show that
infinite divisibility (whether physical or theoretical) leads to absurd results.
Hence,
c. The atomists would not be meeting Zeno’s argument unless they conceived of
atoms as both physically and theoretically indivisible. Furley (p. 510):

A theoretically divisible atom would not answer

either of Zeno’s arguments. [The plurality
paradox] would show that an atom theoretically
divisible to infinity must be infinite in
magnitude; and [the race course] would show
that such an atom could never be traversed - that
is, if one starts imagining it, one can never
imagine the whole of it.

Furley’s conclusion is supported by further evidence from Aristotle, who claims that
atomism conflicts with mathematics (De Caelo 303a20):

They must be in conflict with mathematics when they say there

are indivisible bodies.

But an atom that is (merely) physically unsplittable would not conflict with
mathematics.

If this interpretation is correct, and atoms are theoretically indivisible, then the
differences between the Democritean view and modern scientific atomism are greater
than the similarities.

Objections to theoretically indivisible Democritean atoms.

a. According to Simplicius, Democritus thought that atoms had size and shape:

5=A37: For some of them are rough, some are

hooked, others concave and others convex, while
yet others have innumerable other differences.

27=A14: These atoms, which are separate from

one another in the infinite void and differ
in shape and size and position and arrangement,
move in the void . . . .

b. But it is hard to see how someone could conceive of atoms as having size and
shape, and still being theoretically indivisible. For it would seem that, for any
 size x, we can always think of something that is only half that size: we can
always divide x by 2.

10. Atomism and Mathematics

It’s possible that Democritus thought not just of matter, but also of space in an
atomistic way. That is, the size of an atom would be an atomic space. In such a system,
the ultimate unit of measurement would be the size of an atom. Within that
framework, the very notion of half of an atomic space would be unintelligible. So,
Democritus would be able to say, coherently, that an atom has size even though it is
theoretically indivisible.

a. The “Weyl Tile” Argument:

But if Democritus “atomized” space in this way (as he very likely did),
he runs into another problem. For Euclidean geometry (in particular, the
Pythagorean theorem) requires that space be continuously divisible. Hence, if
atomism denies the continuity of space, it will fail to get mathematics right.

Why is this? There is a famous argument by the mathematician

Hermann Weyl that clearly shows what is problematical about atomistic
geometry. (Note that the name “Weyl” is pronounced “vile.” Hence this is
jokingly called the “Weyl tile” argument.) Here is the argument (vile indeed!):

Consider any geometrical figures (e.g., squares, triangles, etc.) with

straight lines as sides. The length of each side will be measured in (space)
atoms, and each side will be assigned an integer as its measure. (Each side will
be n atomic units long, where n is a positive integer.)

Now consider a square whose side is some whole number of atoms long.
How long is the diagonal of the square? (Weyl suggested that we think of each
atom as a tile, so that the length of a side that is n atomic units long is
represented by a row of n tiles lying along the side. Our question then becomes:
how many tiles lie along the diagonal of the square?)

Since the diagonal of a square divides it into two right triangles, we get
our answer from the Pythagorean theorem: the square of the hypotenuse of a
right triangle = the sum of the squares of the other two sides:

\[c^2 = a^2 + b^2\]

We solve for c by taking the square root of each side of the equation:

\[c=\sqrt{a^2 + b^2}\]
 In the case in which c is the diagonal of a square, the sides a and b are
equal. So in the case of a square, we have a + b = a + a = 2a.
So a2 + b2 = a2 + a2 = 2a2. That gives us:

\[c=\sqrt{2a^2}\]

But √xy = √x√y. Applying that to our equation above, we get:

\[c = \sqrt{a^2}\sqrt{2}\]

Since √a2 = a, this means that:

\[c = a\sqrt{2}\]

But this is an irrational number (since √2 is irrational, and the product

of an integer and an irrational number is itself irrational). And notice that this
is true irrespective of the size of a. So the situation does not change if we
suppose that the sides of the square are composed of a very large number of
very small “space atoms.” Even if the sides are billions of atoms long, the
length of the hypotenuse will still be an irrational number of such atoms. Let a,
the number of atoms in the side of a square, be as large as you like, and let c be
the number of atoms in the hypotenuse; c will still be an irrational number,
for c = a √2. This means that there is no integer, c, such that the diagonal of a
square is c space atoms long if its side is some integer n space atoms long. To
put it another way, the diagonal and the side of a square cannot both be
measured atomistically.

So “atomistic geometry” seems inherently flawed. If we measure the

sides of a square as a whole number (of atomic units), and we try to measure
the diagonal as a whole number (of atomic units), we will never get
the correct answer to the question: “How long is the diagonal of a square?”

b. Zeno’s Paradox of the Arrow:

Zeno’s argument that an (apparently) moving arrow is really at rest

throughout its flight seems easy to evade if one insists that space is continuous
(and hence infinitely divisible). But an atomist who insists on theoretically
indivisible atoms seems bound to deny that space is infinitely divisible. And
Zeno’s Arrow Paradox poses an especially troubling problem for such an
atomist.

For how will the arrow (or any object, in fact) move through an atomic
space? Since the space cannot be divided, the tip of the arrow must advance
from one end of the space to the other without ever having occupied any of the
intervening space. At one moment, t1, it’s in one place, p1; at some later
moment, t2, it’s in another place, p2. But if you pick any time tithat falls
 between t1 and t2, the arrow is either still at p1 or already at p2. It never
moves from p1 to p2, because the space from p1 to p2 is atomic and therefore
cannot be divided.

Although we cannot, of course, be certain that Zeno intended his Arrow

Paradox specifically against the atomists, it constitutes a formidable objection
to an “atomic” conception of space.

(Nevertheless, physicists are still enamored of the idea that space and
time come in discrete “quanta” which cannot meaningfully be further
sudivided, even conceptually. If you want proof, check out this New York
Times article of December 7, 1999.)

11. Do atoms have shape?

Finally, let us consider Democritus’s idea that atoms have shape:

a. Democritus did not think that atoms merely had magnitude. He thought that
they had different sizes, and shapes. And this seems to conflict with the idea
that there are atomic sizes. For how could one atom be larger than another
unless one of them were either larger than (or smaller than) the atomic size?
b. Perhaps Democritus thought that there was a smallest size atom, and the size
of that atom was the atomic unit of measurement. But if that atom has a shape,
the view seems to unravel. Cf. Furley (p. 521):

Democritus’ atoms had many variations in shape

and size. There seems to be an inescapable
contradiction here. If we take together a smaller
atom and a larger one, we can always distinguish
in the larger one that part which is covered by the
smaller and that which is not. Even within the
limits of a single atom, supposing it to be of a
complex shape (say hook-shaped), we can
always distinguish one part of the shape from
another (say the hook from the shaft).

c. Furley concludes that Democritus did, indeed, think of his atoms as

being both theoretically indivisible and differing in shape, and that his view
was therefore internally inconsistent.
d. For more on this interpretation, see Guthrie, vol. 2, Appendix, pp. 503-7.

For an opposing view, cf. Barnes, Presocratics, 352-360. Barnes

considers the idea that Democritean atoms are theoretically indivisible, in three
different senses: conceptually, geometrically, and logically indivisible. He
argues that the available texts do not adequately support the idea that atoms are
theoretically indivisible, and concludes that the case has not been proven either
way.
 Socratic Definitions
I. The “What is X?” Question

1. Socrates asked a simple kind of question that revolutionized philosophy: “What is it?”
2. Usually raised about significant moral or aesthetic qualities (e.g., justice, courage,
wisdom, temperance, beauty).
3. Such questions are the central concern of the “Socratic” (early) dialogues of Plato.
4. A so-called “Socratic definition” is an answer to a “What is X?” question.
5. Socratic definitions are not of words, but of things. Socrates does not want to know
what the word ‘justice’ means, but what the nature of justice itself is.
6. A correct Socratic definition is thus a true description of the essence of the thing to be
defined. I.e., definitions can be true or false.

II. The Importance of Socratic Definitions

A. They are objective.

1. Socrates was opposed to the moral relativism of the Sophists.

2. He believed that there were objective moral standards; that they could be discovered;
that there were right and wrong answers to moral questions that went beyond mere
opinion and popular sentiment.

B. They are fundamental for knowledge.

1. Socrates claims that until you know what a thing is, you can’t answer any other
questions about it.
2. So any inquiry into any moral question presupposes an answer to the relevant “What
is X?” question. Not just that there is such an answer, but that the inquirer is in
possession of it.
3. E.g., in the Meno, Socrates claims that you cannot answer a question about virtue
(“Can it be taught?”) until you have answered a more fundamental question:
“What is it?”
4. In general, he thought that a person’s having knowledge involving a concept, X,
depends upon his knowing the correct answer to the “What is X?” question.

C. They are fundamental for morality.

1. He thought that the possibility of morality (moral character, moral behavior) depended
on knowledge of definitions.
2. Virtue is knowledge: if you know what is right, you will do what is right. Knowing a
Socratic definition is thus (apparently) necessary and sufficient for moral behavior.

III. The Objectivity of Definitions

A. Objective fact vs. opinion

The definition of a moral quality is not a matter of what people think. You cannot
determine what goodness, or justice, or piety, is by conducting a poll. Consequently, whether
something or someone has a given moral quality is also not a matter of mere opinion. Whether
an act or a person is good, or just, or pious, for example, is not to be settled by a vote.
B. The Euthyphro

The Euthyphro gives us a good example of Socrates’ belief that moral qualities
are real, not conventional. Euthyphro suggests that piety can be defined as what the gods all
love(9e). Socrates objects. Even if all the gods agree about which things are pious, that doesn’t
tell us what piety is. (Even a poll of the gods is just a lot of opinions.) He gets Euthyphro to
admit that it is not because they are loved by the gods that things are pious. Rather, they are
loved by the gods because they are pious.

So piety cannot be defined as being god-loved. For if it were to be so defined, since

Euthyphro admits that:

the gods love pious things because they are pious

he would also have to accept (substituting ‘god-loved’ for ‘pious’) that

the gods love pious things because they are god-loved.

But this Euthyphro rightly denies. For it would lead to circularity. The gods cannot love
things because they love them. That would make their love whimsical and without foundation.
If the gods love something because it is pious, then its being pious must be something
independent of their loving it - something independent of opinion - something objective.

Another way of putting the point: moral qualities are not like such qualities
as fame or popularity. A thing is popular just because people like it. If you ask them why they
like it, they may have their reasons: because it’s bright, or flashy, or durable, or economical,
or beautiful, etc. But someone who answers “I like it because it’s popular” is making some
kind of mistake. For he seems to have no reason for liking it other than the fact that most other
people like it. But what reason do they have?

If their reason is the same as his, they may all be making a huge mistake. They all agree
with one another in admiring it, but there’s nothing about it they admire. If they have some
other reason, then his reason seems to depend on theirs. His liking it because they like it is
rationally justifiable only to the extent that their reason for liking it is a good one.

C. The Zsa Zsa Gabor paradox

Euthyphro’s proposed definition leads to something like (what I’ll call) the Zsa Zsa
Gabor paradox:
 Zsa Zsa is famous. She appears on talk shows, and everyone knows who she is.
But what does she do? What is she famous for? As the joke goes, she’s famous for
being famous.

But that’s just to say that there really isn’t any reason for Zsa Zsa to be famous.
We’re all making some kind of mistake to pay any attention to her. Likewise, if piety
were being god-loved, the gods would all be making a mistake in admiring an act for
its piety. For they would be admiring nothing other than their own admiration.

IV. Faulty Definitions

There are two ways definitions can go wrong: problems with form, and problems
with content.
A. Problems with form: why enumerations can’t be definitions
Socrates insists that merely citing an instance, or a list of instances (rather than
giving a general formula, or description) is inadequate.
1. Examples

Euthyphro 6d: piety is doing what I am doing now.

Meno 74c-d: defining shape as roundness, or color as white or as white + a list

of other colors.

2. Practical Objections
Trying to list all the instances of the definiendum is likely to be
practically unworkable.

E.g., you can’t expect to define ‘brother’ by listing all the brothers in
the world. And even if you were presented with a such a list, how could
you tell what one thing they are all instances of? You might not even
have time to go through the entire list.

3. Theoretical objections
a. A complete list of instances is not always possible.
E.g., try to define “even number” by enumeration. You can’t
give a complete list. What about a partial list, with dots …? E.g.:
2, 4, 6, 8, ….
But what tells you the right way of continuing the enumeration?
We all “know” that the next number is 10. But that’s because we
infer that the principle behind the enumeration is to list all the
even numbers. Still, why can’t the next number be 2? A fuller
enumeration might be:
 2, 4, 6, 8, 2, 4, 6, 8, ….
(Cf. Wittgenstein on “knowing how to go on,” Philosophical
Investigations, §§151-155.)
b. A complete list of instances is not necessary.
It is possible to know the definition without being able to
produce a complete enumeration of its instances. (E.g., you know what
it is to be a brother even though you don’t know who all the brothers
are.)
c. A complete list of instances is not sufficient.
Even a complete enumeration of instances may not determine a
single definition. That is, there may be two or more logically distinct
definitions, incompatible with one another, but each of which is
compatible with all of the instances.
B. Problems with content
The most common problem that Socrates finds with the content of a
definition (although not, as we will see, the only kind of problem) it that the
proposed definition fails to pick out the right things. A definition may be
formally correct but still go wrong if it does not capture the right class of
instances. The description may be

1. Too broad

• I.e., it gives a necessary but not a sufficient condition. E.g., defining

“brother” as “sibling.”
• Example at Meno 73d: defining virtue as the ability to rule. (Includes
tyrants who rule unjustly.)

2. Too narrow

• I.e., it gives a sufficient but not a necessary condition. E.g., defining

“brother” as “unmarried male sibling.”
• Example at Meno 71e: defining virtue as managing a home well. (Leaves
out virtuous children.)

Note that a definition may be both too broad and too narrow, i.e., it may
admit instances that it should exclude, and exclude instances that it should
admit. E.g., defining “brother” as “unmarried sibling.” This condition is neither
sufficient for being a brother (it includes some sisters, who should be excluded)
nor necessary for being a brother (it excludes married brothers).
 Example at Meno 73d: the ability to rule is both too broad (includes tyrants)
and too narrow (excludes children).

V. Conditions for a Correct Definition

Some jargon. We’ll call the term to be defined the definiendum, and the term that is
offered to define it the definiens. We can then reserve the term definition for the whole formula
defining thedefiniendum in terms of the definiens. Thus, in the definition ‘A brother is a male
sibling’ (or, ‘brother =df male sibling’), ‘brother’ is the definiendum and ‘male sibling’ is
the definiens.

A. The “application” requirement

This requirement is simply that the definiens neither be too broad nor
too narrow. The definiens must provide (materially) necessary and sufficient
conditions. I.e., the proposed definiens should apply to the right things, viz.
exactly the things that the definiendum applies to. To use some logical jargon:
the definiens should be extensionally equivalent to the definiendum:

X =df ABC only if every instance of X has characteristics ABC, and

everything that has characteristics ABC is an instance of X.

Most definitions found faulty in the dialogues fail the application

requirement - the proposed definiens turns out not to be extensionally
equivalent to the definiendum. But extensional equivalence by itself is not
enough.

B. The “explanatory” requirement

At Euthyphro 11a-b Socrates agrees that piety is loved by all the gods,
and that what all the gods love is pious, but still objects to defining piety as what
all the gods love. His objection is that it is not because it is loved by the gods
that a pious thing is pious.

This suggests an additional requirement, that the definiens should in

some way explain the definiendum:

X =df ABC only if every instance of X is so because it has characteristics ABC.

These two necessary conditions are probably jointly sufficient:

X =df ABC iff

(1) every instance of X has characteristics ABC, and everything
that has characteristics ABC is an instance of X, and
 (2) every instance of X is an instance of X because it has
characteristics ABC.

VI. The Relations between Definitions and Instances

How does one arrive at a definition? Socrates’ method is to examine particular cases,
reworking his definition as he goes, until (if ever) he gets it right.

But how can he tell, in a particular case, whether he actually has an instance to which
the definition applies? For he maintains that you cannot know anything about, e.g., virtue, until
one knows what virtue is. But if I know that reading War and Peace is virtuous, don’t I know
something about virtue, viz., that reading War and Peace is an instance of it?

This is a problem for Socrates: how can one recognize an instance of X as such when
one doesn’t yet know what X is? Call this “The problem of recognizing instances.” (It’s the
first half of the general recognition problem, of which more below.)

VII. The Search for Definitions: the Recognition Problem

This is an epistemological problem, similar to the problem of recognizing instances.

This time, the problem is:

how can you recognize when a proposed definition is the correct one?

This is the problem of recognizing the correct definiens. The correct definiens is the
one that applies to all and only the instances of the definiendum, and for the right reason. So to
recognize the correct definiens, we have to be able to recognize the instances. But we can’t do
this, according to Socrates, until we know what the definition is.

Plato is aware of this problem. It arises in the Meno at 80d-e, in the form of “Meno’s
Paradox,” or “The Paradox of Inquiry,” to which we now turn.
 Meno’s Paradox
I. A Puzzle about Definitions

Socrates has told us he knows how to reject faulty definitions. But how does
he know when he has succeeded in finding the right definition? Meno raises an
objection to the entire definitional search in the form of (what has been called) “Meno’s
Paradox,” or “The Paradox of Inquiry” (Meno 80d-e).

The argument can be shown to be sophistical, but Plato took it very seriously.
This is obvious, since his response to it is to grant its central claim: that you can’t come
to know something that you didn’t already know. That is, that inquiry never produces
new knowledge, but only recapitulates things already known. This leads to the famous
Doctrine of Recollection.

II. An Objection to Inquiry

A. The argument known as “Meno’s Paradox” can be reformulated as follows:
1. If you know what you’re looking for, inquiry is unnecessary.
2. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, inquiry is impossible.
3. Therefore, inquiry is either unnecessary or impossible.
B. An implicit premise:

Either you know what you’re looking for or you don’t know what you’re
looking for.

And this is a logical truth. Or is it? Only if “you know what you’re looking for”
is used unambiguously in both disjuncts.

III. The Ambiguity

Suppose Tom wants to go to the party, but he doesn't know what time it begins.
Furthermore, he doesn't even know anyone who does know. So he asks Bill, who
doesn't know when the party begins, but he does know that Mary knows. So Bill tells
Tom that Mary knows when the party begins. Now Tom knows something, too—that
Mary knows when the party begins.

So Tom knows what Mary knows (he knows that she knows when the party begins).
Now consider the following argument:

A. Tom knows what Mary knows.

B. What Mary knows is that the party begins at 9 pm.
C. What Mary knows = that the party begins at 9 pm.
D. Therefore, Tom knows that the party begins at 9 pm.
 What is wrong with this argument? It commits the fallacy of equivocation.

In (A), “what Mary knows” means what question she can answer. But in (B) and
(C), “what Mary knows” means the information she can provide in answer to that
question.

IV. Evaluating the Argument

There seems to be an equivocation in “what you’re looking for”:

A. The question you wish to answer.

B. The answer to that question.

Using sense (A), (2) is true, but (1) is false; using sense (B), (1) is true, but
(2) is false. But there is no one sense in which both premises are true. And from
the pair of true premises, (1B) and (2A), nothing follows, because of the
equivocation.

To see the ambiguity, consider the question: “Is it possible for you to know
what you don’t know?”

In one sense, the answer is “no.” You can’t both know and not know the
same thing. (Pace Heraclitus.) In another sense, the answer is “yes.” You can
know the questions you don’t have the answers to.

V. How Inquiry is Possible

So this is how inquiry is possible. You know what question you want to
answer (and to which you don’t yet know the answer); you follow some
appropriate procedure for answering questions of that type; and finally you
come to know what you did not previously know, viz., the answer to that
question.

The argument for Meno’s Paradox is therefore flawed: it commits

the fallacy of equivocation. But beyond it lies a deeper problem. And that is
why Plato does not dismiss it out of hand. That is why in response to it he
proposes his famous “Theory of Recollection.”

VI. The Theory of Recollection

A. Concedes that, in some sense, inquiry is impossible. What appears to
be learning something new is really recollecting something already known.
B. This is implausible for many kinds of inquiry. E.g., empirical inquiry:
1. Who is at the door?
2. How many leaves are on that tree?
3. Is the liquid in this beaker an acid?
 C. In these cases, there is a recognized method, a standard procedure, for arriving
at the correct answer. So one can, indeed, come to know something one did not
previously know.
D. But what about answers to non-empirical questions? Here, there may not be a
recognized method or a standard procedure for getting answers. And Socrates’
questions (“What is justice,” etc.) are questions of this type.
E. Plato’s theory is that we already have within our souls the answers to such
questions. Thus, arriving at the answers is a matter of retrieving them from
within. We recognize them as correct when we confront them. (The
“Aha!” erlebnis.)
VII. Plato’s demonstration of the theory

Plato attempts to prove the doctrine of Recollection by means of his interview

with the slave-boy.

A. Note that it is non-empirical knowledge that is at issue: knowledge of a

geometrical theorem. (A square whose area is twice that of a given
square is the square on the diagonal of the given square.)
B. How successful is Plato’s proof of the doctrine of recollection?

VIII. The “Proof” of Recollection

A. Call the geometrical theorem in question P. Plato assumes:
1. At t1 it appears that the boy does not know that P.
2. At t2 the boy knows that P.
3. The boy does not acquire the knowledge that P during the interval
between t1 and t2.
B. Plato thinks that (2) is obviously correct, since at t2 the boy can give a proof
that P. And he thinks that (3) is correct since Socrates doesn’t do any
“teaching” - he only asks questions.
C. But (2) and (3) entail that the appearance in (1) is mistaken - at t1 the
boy did know that P, since he knows at t2 and didn’t acquire the knowledge in
the interval between t1 and t2.
D. Crucial assumptions by Plato:
1. Socrates didn’t do any teaching.
2. The only way to acquire new knowledge is to be taught it.
E. Both assumptions are dubious:
1. Socrates asks leading questions. He gets the boy to notice the diagonal
by explicitly bringing it up himself.
2. The disjunction - either the boy was taught that P or he already knew
that P - may not be exhaustive. There may be a third
 alternative: reasoning. That is, deducing the (not previously
noticed) consequences of what you previously knew.
IX. Interpretations of “Recollection”

Plato certainly thinks he has proved that something is innate, that something
can be known a priori. But what? There seem to be three possibilities, in order of
decreasing strength:

A. Propositions: such as the geometrical theorem P. They are literally in

the soul, unnoticed, and waiting to be retrieved. According to this
reading of “recollection,” propositions that can be known a priori are
literally innate.
B. Concepts: such as equality, difference, odd, even, etc. We are born with
these - we do not acquire them from experience. We make use of these
when we confront and organize our raw experiences. According to this
reading of “recollection,” there are a priori concepts that we have prior
to experience.
C. Abilities: such as that of reasoning. We are born with the innate ability
to derive the logical consequences of our beliefs. We may form our
beliefs empirically, but we do not gain our ability to reason empirically.
According to this reading of “recollection,” there is no innate
knowledge and there are no a priori concepts. All but the most hard-
boiled empiricist can accept (C).

Plato talks as if he has established (A), but the most he establishes in

the Meno is (B) or (C). But perhaps that is all he is intending to establish (cf.
Vlastos article, “Anamnêsis (Recollection) in the Meno,” on e-reserve. And see
esp. Meno 98a: recollection = giving an account of the reasons why.)

X. How the Doctrine of Recollection is supposed to solve the problem of recognizing

instances

You can recognize an instance of X when you don't know what X is, in
the following sense: you already know implicitly (intuitively) what X is, at
least well enough to recognize instances of it. What you lack is
an explicit (articulated, formulated) account of what X is.

This seems to support (B), rather than (A). For it supposes that you have
(implicitly) the concept of X even though you cannot produce
the proposition that expresses the definition of X.

In the Phaedo, Plato offers a different argument that also appears to be

aiming at (B). This is the argument from imperfection, which purports to
show that the imperfection of the physical world proves that we must have a
priori concepts that cannot be derived from experience. Rather, the very
possibility of our having experience at all requires that we already have these
concepts.

So even if “recollection” is only inference misdescribed, there is still

room for Plato to argue that inference requires the use of concepts that cannot
themselves be acquired empirically.
 Theory of Forms
I. Background

A problem for the Socratic search for definitions: how do you know when a
definition is correct? You have to (at least) understand the definition, i.e., you have
to understand the terms in the definiens. But how do you do that? By
understanding their definitions? This leads to either circularity or an infinite regress.

The problem arises if we try to give a linguistic account of understanding. The

knowledge of a definition according to such an account would have to
be propositional knowledge. That is: we explain what X is by offering the definition

X =df ABC.

This just invites the question: how do we know that X is ABC? If we answer
this by saying that we know what A, B, and C are, and if we have to explain our
understanding of A, B, and C in a similar way, there is no way out.

Plato’s idea: at some point, one must invoke a kind of knowing that
is not propositional - i.e., not a matter of knowing that something-or-other - but is
more like knowledge by acquaintance. More graphically: one must invoke a kind of
knowing that is not a matter of grasping a definition of one term by means of other
terms, but of grasping the thing itself.

This is the way recollection seems to be understood in the Phaedo. Recollection

is the epistemological mechanism, and the Forms are the objects to which the
mechanism is applied.

[Plato may be right in rejecting the idea that understanding can be adequately
explained in terms of knowing that, but wrong in proposing a kind of knowledge by
acquaintance in its place. The proper contrast is not between knowledge by description
(knowing that p) and knowledge by acquaintance (knowing x), but between
knowing that and knowing how. That is, having a concept is not a matter of being
acquainted with an item available only to the gaze of an intellect, but of having certain
abilities and capacities. Cf. Aristotle and Ryle.]

II. Characteristics of Forms

A. A general metaphysical and epistemological theory. Central to all of Plato’s
thought, but nowhere systematically argued for. Not stated in any one dialogue;
we must cull from several (but principally Phaedo and Republic).
B. A theory of postulated abstract objects, deriving from the Socratic “What
is X?” question, which presupposes that there is a single correct answer to the
“What is X?” question.
 1. The correct answer is not a matter of convention, of what we all (or
most of us) think.
2. What makes such an answer correct: it is an accurate description of an
independent entity, a Form.
3. Forms are thus mind-independent entities: their existence and nature is
independent of our beliefs and judgments about them.
C. The Phaedo contains an extended description of the characteristics and
functions of the forms:
▪ Unchangeable (78c10-d9)
▪ Eternal (79d2)
▪ Intelligible, not perceptible (79a1-5)
▪ Divine (80a3, b1)
▪ Incorporeal (passim)
▪ Causes of being (“The one over the many”) (100c)
▪ Are unqualifiedly what their instances are only with qualification
(75b)
D. Other dialogues fill out the picture: non-temporal (Tim. 37e-38a); non-spatial
(Phaedr. 247c); they do not become, they simply are (Tim. 27d3-28a3).
E. Phaedo 80b provides a good summary, listing all the attributes of Forms that
souls also have: “divine, deathless, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, always
the same as itself.”
III. Terminology

Forms are sometimes called “Ideas” - Plato’s words are eidos and idea, and the
latter suggests the English “idea.” But this gives the wrong idea.

For Plato’s Forms are not mental entities, nor even mind-dependent. They are
independently existing entities whose existence and nature are graspable only by the
mind, even though they do not depend on being so grasped in order to exist.

IV. What the Forms do

The forms are postulated to solve certain philosophical problems:

1. Epistemological: what are the objects of knowledge? How is knowledge

possible? How is knowledge distinguished from (mere) belief or opinion?

Plato’s objection to the physical universe: it’s Heraclitean (as he

conceived Heraclitus’s theory). Objects in flux can’t be known.

2. Metaphysical: What things are real? Is there a mind-independent reality? Is

there anything permanent behind the changing phenomena that can be
perceived?
 The two-worlds theory: Cf. the Allegory of the Cave in Republic VII.
The intelligible world is Parmenidean, the visible world is Heraclitean. Forms
in the intelligible realm are postulated to be the objects of knowledge. The
metaphysical theory is thus designed to fit epistemological requirements.

3. Moral: can there be moral knowledge? Are there objective moral truths? Is
morality founded in nature or convention?

For Plato, goodness and being are intimately connected. Plato’s

universe is value-ridden at its very foundations: value is there from the start,
not imposed upon an antiseptic, value-neutral reality by the likes of us - external
imposers of value on what in itself has no intrinsic value.

This connection explains why it is a single theory that aims to answer

both metaphysical and ethical questions. Understanding how this can be so is
one of the hardest - but most important - things to do in understanding Plato.

The Form of the Good is at the top of the hierarchy of Forms,

illuminating all of the others (as the sun illuminates objects in the visible realm,
to use Plato’s famous metaphor from the Republic).

An interpretation of this: knowing what something is can’t be divorced

from knowing whether it's good. One can’t know what it is to be an F unless
one knows what it is to be a good F: a non-defective example of its kind. Here
is one way to see the connection: imagine a good head of lettuce. Now imagine
another head of lettuce, but not as good as the first. And so on. There comes a
point at which our example becomes so bad that it ceases to be a head of lettuce
at all. If there were no connection between goodness and being, there would be
no reason to expect this.

4. Semantical: what do general terms stand for? What is it that we grasp when we
understand something? Cf. again the Allegory of the Cave in Republic VII.

V. Arguments for Existence of Forms

Plato sometimes writes as if he takes the existence of Forms for granted, as a

matter of faith. But sometimes he offers arguments for them. Each argument is
connected to a function Plato has in mind for Forms to play. Some of these “reasons”
for believing in Forms don’t really add up to arguments, but some do. Plato, in any
event, was not very systematic about his arguments.

1. Forms are objects corresponding to Socratic definitions.

A Form is supposed to provide an objective basis for moral concepts. A

definition is correct just in case it accurately describes a Form. The definition
of Justice, e.g., is that statement which correctly tells us What Justice Is.
2. Forms are objects of recollection.

The knowledge we get when we are in possession of a Socratic

definition is a priori, not empirical. So Forms are the entities for such a
priori (= recollectible) truths to be about.

3. “Imperfection” argument.

Forms are the real entities to which the objects of our sensory experience
(approximately) correspond. We make judgments about such properties
as equal, circular, square, etc., even though we have never actually
experienced any of them in perception. Forms are the entities that perfectly
embody these characteristics we have in mind even though we have never
experienced them perceptually.

4. Argument from knowledge (“from the sciences”).

What is our knowledge “about”? When we know something, what is our

knowledge knowledge of? Plato supposes that there is a class
of stable, permanent, and unchanging objects that warrant our knowledge
claims.

5. “One Over Many” argument.

A famous passage in the Republic (596a) suggests a semantic role for

the Forms (“there is one Form for each set of many things to which we give the
same name”). That is, when you use the word ‘just’ and I use the word ‘just’,
what makes it one and the same thing that we’re talking about? Plato’s answer
is: the Form of Justice, the “one over the many.”

Plato believes that there is a non-conventionalist answer to questions of

meaning: there is some one thing that is referred to by ‘just’ whenever it is used.
Hence, when you talk about justice and I talk about justice, we are talking about
the same thing. We belong to the same world, not each of us in his own private
world. If we disagree in what we apply the term ‘just’ to, we cannot both be
right.

The last three of these arguments are especially important. They

correspond to three of the problems the Forms are supposed to solve. We’ll look
at the first of these in the Phaedo, and at the others later.
 Phaedo
I. The “Imperfection Argument” (Phaedo 74-76)

This is both an argument for the existence of Forms and an argument for our
possession of a priori concepts. Plato bases the argument on the imperfection of
sensible objects and our ability to make judgments about those sensible objects. (The
Forms are supposed to be the perfect objects that the sensibles only imperfectly
approximate).

The argument as given at Phaedo 74-76 concerns the concept of equality, but
it could equally well be given with respect to a number of different concepts (any
concept that might have some claim to being an a priori concept).

The argument tries to show that we cannot abstract the concept of equality from our
sense-experience of objects that are equal. For

a. We never experience (in sense-perception) objects that are really,

precisely, equal, and
b. We must already have the concept of equality in order to judge the things we
encounter in sense-perception to be approximately, imperfectly, equal.

The argument can be schematized as follows:

1. We perceive sensible objects to be F.

2. But every sensible object is, at best, imperfectly F. That is, it is both F and
not F (in some respect - shades of Heraclitus??). It falls short of being
perfectly F.
3. We are aware of this imperfection in the objects of perception.
4. So we perceive objects to be imperfectly F.
5. To perceive something as imperfectly F, one must have in mind something
that is perfectly F, something that the imperfectly F things fall short of. (E.g.,
we have an idea of equalitythat all sticks, stones, etc., only imperfectly
exemplify.)
6. So we have in mind something that is perfectly F.
7. Thus, there is something that is perfectly F (e.g., Equality), that we have in
mind in such cases.
8. Therefore, there is such a thing as the F itself (e.g., the Equal itself), and it is
distinct from any sensible object.

II. A contemporary analogue

The linguist Noam Chomsky describes what he calls “The Argument from the
Impoverished Stimulus” as a classic rationalist argument. It notes that we classify
physical shapes that we experience (written, printed, drawn, etc.)
 as inexact representations of geometrically perfect regular figures (squares, circles,
triangles, etc.). Why don’t we classify them as exactrepresentations
of irregular figures?

The idea is that our sensory stimuli are “impoverished.” We never experience
perfect squares, circles, triangles, etc. Yet we have these concepts, and we classify
things accordingly. How did we acquire these concepts if we have never experienced
anything that they (literally) apply to?

III. Evaluation of Plato’s argument

The argument has two faces. Plato uses it not only (1) to establish
the existence of supra-sensible Forms, but also (2) to establish that we have cognitive
contact with them in a prenatalstate. But we should separate these two faces of the
argument. For one who was convinced that the argument shows that there must be such
objects for a priori concepts might well not be convinced that the argument shows that
we must have had some disembodied contact with those objects at some time before
we were born.

As an argument for prenatal contact with the Forms, the argument has obvious flaws.

a. It leaves open the possibility that we are so constituted as to have the concept
of equality - i.e., that it is wired in to our brains (or whatever). This would mean
that we acquire it atbirth. Plato closes this possibility off at 76d1-3: he must
think it obvious that we don’t have the concept at birth (since we can’t use it
then). We lose it at birth and regain it later, viaexperience. But he does not
establish that we lack the concept at birth (we can’t use it, but that doesn’t mean
we don’t have it).

In any event, he does not take this possibility seriously. He has no way
to meet the (non-Platonic, anti-empiricist) claim that we have the concept wired
in at birth, and hence do not have it before birth (or, at any rate, not very much
before birth), and then begin to employ it (fumblingly, at first) in our early
childhood bouts with sense-perception. [This is rationalism but without ante-
natal existence.]

His not taking this kind of rationalist position seriously may be due to
some features his own view shares with empiricism.

Affinities with empiricism:

Plato has it that we derive our concept of equality from experience of

objects, after all (just as the empiricist does). However, for Plato, the experience
is disembodied “experience” of non-physical “objects” of contemplation - the
Forms.
 Affinities with rationalism:

Plato, like the classic 17th C. rationalists, maintains that we do not

derive our concepts from sense-experience by abstraction.

Plato’s argument that our sensory judgments of (near) equality depend

on our having the concept of perfect equality, and that our having such a
concept depends upon there being such a thing as perfect equality (i.e., the Form
The Equal Itself) for our concept to be a concept of, bears a striking similarity
to other rationalist arguments. Thus, cf. Descartes (MeditationsIII, HR I, 166):

For how would it be possible that I should know

. . . that something is lacking in me, and that I am
not quite perfect, unless I had within me some
idea of a Being more perfect than myself, in
comparison with which I should recognize the
deficiencies of my nature?

The structure of the argument is the same as Plato’s:

1. I judge myself to be imperfect.

2. That is, I judge myself to lack perfection.
3. Hence, I have the idea of perfection.
4. Hence, there is a being that this idea is an idea of.

[There is an added wrinkle in Descartes’ case: (4) is not deduced

directly from (3) but rather by appeal to the principle of the reality of that
of which we have a clear and distinct idea and the claim that our idea of
perfection is clear and distinct. Plato echoes Parmenides in deducing (4)
from (3).]

b. A second flaw in the argument:

Socrates notes that in the case of “sensible equals,” you see their
imperfection - their “falling short” of Equality Itself, which they “strive to be like.”
The sensible equals, nevertheless, “make you think of” (ennoein, 74d1, lit. “put you
in mind of”) Equality itself. “And this must be a case of recollection,” says Socrates.

But “making one think of” or “putting one in mind of” is not the same as,
and does not entail, reminding one of. A 2:15 marathon puts me in mind of, i.e.,
gives me the idea of, a 1:30 marathon, but it hardly reminds me of it. I can’t be
reminded of what I’ve never experienced, but I certainly can be put in mind of such
a thing. At least, Plato has no right to assume the contrary.
 Forms As Objects Of
Knowledge: Rep. 476-480
1. Overview

a. Plato begins with two simple premises:

Knowledge is of what is.

Knowledge is infallible.

b. He then moves on to conclusions about what is, or being.

c. Thus Plato bases metaphysical (ontological) conclusions on epistemological
premises.

Epistemological Side Ontological Side

Knowledge Being (= what is)

Infallibility ?

Plato is looking for the feature of what is that accounts for the fact that
knowledge can’t be mistaken. The infallibility of knowledge is a feature (on the
epistemological side) that must be matched (accounted for?) by some feature on the
metaphysical side.

d. Plato tries to find this feature by considering a state of mind which

is like knowledge but is not infallible: belief, or opinion (doxa).
e. What accounts for the errors that belief (opinion) is prone to? What accounts for
mistakes in judgment? Plato’s answer:

The cognitive unreliability of the objects of belief.

That is, our judgments are unreliable because and in so far as the things our
judgments are about let us down. In what ways do they let us down?

▪ They change.
▪ They can cease (or fail) to exist.
▪ They can be false.

All of these possibilities may come into play (each involves a different sense of
“is” - a different sense in which the objects of belief or opinion can fail to “be.”
 f. This distinction between knowledge and belief is crucial for Plato - without it, he
would not have his main support for the theory of Forms. That he continues to have
this concern (after the Republic) is made clear in this passage in the Timaeus (51d):

If understanding and true opinion are distinct, then

these “by themselves” things definitely exist - these
Forms, the objects not of our sense perception but of
our understanding only. But if - as some people
think - true opinion does not differ in any way from
understanding, then all the things we perceive
through our bodily senses must be assumed to be the
most stable things there are. But we do have to speak
of understanding and true opinion as distinct, of
course, because we can come to have one without the
other, and the one is not like the other . . . Since these
things are so we must agree that (i) that which keeps
its own form unchangingly, which has not been
brought into being and is not destroyed, which
neither receives into itself anything else from
anywhere else, nor itself enters into anything else
anywhere, is one thing. It is invisible - it cannot be
perceived by the senses at all, and it is the role of
understanding to study it. (ii) The second thing is that
which shares the other’s name and resembles it. This
thing can be perceived by the senses, and it has been
begotten. It is constantly borne along, now coming
into being in a certain place and perishing out of it.
It is apprehended by opinion, which involves sense
perception. . . .

2. The general structure of the argument:

a. There is knowledge. (implicit premise)

b. Knowledge is of what is. (premise)
c. Knowledge is infallible, belief is fallible. (premise)
d. Therefore, what is known must be, what is believed may not be.
e. That is, what is known is something that “purely and absolutely is,” what is believed
is something that “partakes of both being and not-being.”
f. Therefore, there are things that purely and absolutely are - things we call Forms
(the F Itself, etc.). The participants in the Forms (the many Fs, etc.) both are and
are not.
g. That is, Forms are the objects of knowledge; their participants are objects of belief.
3. Interpreting the argument
a. Plato’s three claims:

(K) Knowledge is of what is. (477a1)

(I) Ignorance is of what is not. (477a3)

(B) Belief is of what is and is not. (477a-b)

b. What is the sense of “is” (“be”) involved?

▪ ise: existential
▪ isp: predicative
▪ isv: veridical
c. So Plato’s first premise is one or more of the following: Knowledge has as its
objects:
▪ what ise ( = what exists).
▪ what isp (= what is real[ly F].
▪ what isv (= what is the case, i.e., is true).

It is most plausible to construe these as conditionals:

▪ (Ke) if Kx, then x exists

▪ (Kp) if Kx, then x [really] is [F]
▪ (Kv) if Kq, then q is true

In (Ke) knowledge = acquaintance: If you know (i.e., are acquainted with)

something, then that thing exists.

In (Kv), we have propositional knowledge: If you know something, then that thing
is true.

(Kp) seems to dissolve into the other two, depending on whether we take knowledge
to be acquaintance or propositional knowledge:

▪ If you are acquainted with something, then that thing is real (i.e., exists).
▪ If you know, about something, that it is F, then (it is true that) it is F.

So we can restrict our attention to (Ke) and (Kv).

d. Plato’s second premise (“knowledge is infallible”) seems to make the truth of his
first premise a matter of necessity:

Necessarily, (Ke): What you know must exist.

Necessarily, (Kv): What you know must be true.

 All of these seem plausible enough; but as we shall see, Plato slides from
these innocuous sounding premises to rather startling conclusions.

4. Evaluation of the argument

a. Phase One:

Are the premises innocuous? That is, can they be accepted by one not
antecedently committed to the Theory of Forms? (Remember, Plato is arguing for
the existence of Forms from features of the concept of knowledge.) To claim that
knowledge is infallible seems innocent enough, for all it seems to say is that
knowledge entails truth: Necessarily, if you know that q, then q is true.

But Plato slides from this innocuous reading of the premise to a more
controversial one: that the things that we know are necessary truths; that what we
know is not merely an existent, but something which must exist (a necessary
being).

In the case of ‘ise’, the transition is from “What is known must exist” to
“What is known is a necessary existent.”

In the case of ‘isv’, the transition is from “What is known must be true” to
“What is known is a necessary truth.”

But this is a now-familiar modal fallacy, conflating the necessity of a

conditional statement (necessitas consequentiae) with the necessity of the
consequent of that statement (necessitas consequentis).

Necessitas consequentiae Necessitas consequentis

necessarily (if p, then q) vs. if p then necessarily q

(p → q) vs. p → q

(p → q) may be true even though both p and q are contingent truths. Hence, it
does not entail p → q. Example: Necessarily, if Tom’s shirt is crimson, then
Tom’s shirt is red. (Being crimson entails being red.) But although Tom’s shirt is
crimson, it is not a necessary truth that Tom’s shirt is red (since it is not a necessary
truth that Tom’s shirt is crimson). The color of Tom’s shirt is a contingent matter.

Cf. Parmenides’ treatment of the claim “what exists must exist.”

This fallacy vitiates phase one of Plato’s argument: the argument that takes
us from the truism that knowledge entails truth to the controversial thesis that what
is known is a necessary truth.
b. Phase Two:

The transition from “Knowledge is of necessary truths” to “The objects one

has knowledge about are invariable, fixed, permanent, unchanging - i.e., the
Forms.”

This appears to be a different sort of fallacy: that of transferring a property

of a proposition to the thing(s) the proposition is “about.” It’s not in general true
that if p is about x and phas property F, then x has F. (E.g., one may have a
complex proposition about a simple object, a short proposition about a tall object,
etc.)

Two comments on Plato’s move in Phase Two:

i. Plato’s inclination to suppose that invariable objects are required as the

things invariable (i.e., necessary) truths are about may have been fostered
by his assimilation of propositional knowledge (“knowing that”) to
knowledge by acquaintance (“knowing someone”). For the unalterability of
the propositional object of knowledge seems to require a proposition that
cannot ever fail to be true. And if one stresses the unalterability of the object
of propositional knowledge and slides (unwittingly) into thinking of it as
knowledge by acquaintance, then it appears that an unalterable object that
one can be directly acquainted with is required: a non-propositional object
of contemplation which always remains the same, etc.

The slide from knowledgep to knowledgea is partially concealed by

the fact that, in both cases, what is known can be described as a being,
something that is. Cf. the plausibility of both of principles (Kv) and (Ke):

What you knowp must be (= be true).

What you knowa must be (= exist).

Plato’s move from invariable truths to invariable objects of

knowledge may be made to seem more plausible if one thinks of the bearers
of truth-value - the sorts of things that can be true or false - in a non-
standard way.

The standard way (nowadays): the bearer of truth-value (and hence

the object of propositional knowledge) is what is expressed by a fully
explicit declarative sentence, viz., a proposition. Such things are either true
(eternally) or false (eternally), and don’t go around changing truth-value.
So the proposition that it rained in Seattle on March 14, 1876 is, if true, true
forever. It won’t change in truth-value. It does not differ at all in that respect
from the proposition that 2 + 2 = 4. Thus, on this model it is hard to see why
necessity should have anything to do with fixity of truth-value.
 But suppose we think of the bearers of truth-value (i.e., the things
our cognitive states are about) as corresponding not to fully explicit
declarative sentences, with all the local and temporal parameters filled in
(like “It rained in Seattle on March 14, 1876”) but as corresponding to what
Quine calls “occasion sentences,” i.e., sentences like “It’s raining.” Such
sentences have implicit indexical elements (here, now, I, you, this, etc.)
Such sentences are true on some occasions of utterance, and false on others.

So if, on Monday, you have a belief that you express by saying “It’s
raining,” and, on Wednesday, I have a belief that I express by saying “It’s
raining,” you and I are in the same belief-state. The content of your belief
looks (from the inside) exactly like mine. But we believe different
propositions: what you believe is true, and what I believe is false. So if all
one has to rely on is the contents of one’s mind, one’s belief-state, one
cannot be guaranteed to arrive at the truth. Here, then, is a cognitive state
(belief) that can sometimes go wrong.

But now contrast these (seemingly present tense) sentences:

▪ “Two plus three equals five” (i.e., 2 + 3 = 5)

▪ “The sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal to two right
angles.”

These cannot change in truth-value. And why is that? Contrast them

with “It’s raining.” That can change in truth-value because the weather can
change. But these mathematical statements have fixed truth-values because
they are about objects that don’t change. The eternal truth of “3 + 2 = 5” is
guaranteed by the fact that the entities involved, and the relations asserted
to obtain among them, are not capable of changing in the respects needed
to make the statement turn out to be false.

Plato’s argument in Phase Two now seems much more plausible than
it did before. But there is still room to lodge a complaint:

c. Plato has not allowed for the possibility of fixed and unchanging relationships
among noneternal (contingent) objects. If there were such relationships, his
demands for the objects of propositional knowledge would be met without the need
for immutable objects of acquaintance (= the Forms).

Are there such relationships? Consider these propositions:

▪ Zebras have stripes.

▪ Salt dissolves in water.
▪ Gold has atomic number 79.
 These propositions seem to be invariably true, even though they are not about
invariable objects. What makes “Zebras have stripes” invariably true is not the
existence of an invariable zebra, but the fact that an invariable relationship exists
among ordinary, variable, corruptible, flesh-and-blood zebras.

The discovery, examination, and explanation of such regularities in nature is

the business of natural science, for which Plato makes no provision. His idea that
things that can move and change are cognitively unreliable, and cannot be known,
has the consequence that natural science is impossible!

For natural science - as Aristotle was quick to notice - “must take for granted
that the things that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion (i.e.,
subject to change)” (Phys. 185a12-13). And physical science maintains that there
can be invariable, necessary truths about changeable, corruptible objects.

Instead, Plato supposes that necessary truths are about Forms. If it really is
invariably true that zebras have stripes, this is because of some invariable feature
of the Zebra Itself, an incorruptible and eternal object of contemplation.

Note that a consequence of the line Plato takes is that propositions that appear
to be about sensible, spatio-temporal particulars turn out, if they are to be objects
of knowledge, not to be about those things at all. Which is to say, our knowledge
gets cut off from the world of experience.
The “One Over Many” Argument
1. According to Aristotle, the Platonists had an argument for the existence of Forms that he
called the “One Over Many.” Plato himself never used this title, although he sometimes
described a Form as being a “one over many.”
2. The idea behind the One Over Many is probably best exemplified in Plato’s dialogues in
the principle enunciated at Rep. 596a:

We customarily hypothesize a single form in connection with each

collection of many things to which we apply the same name.

3. The idea is this:

If there is a set of things all of which have the same “name,” then there is a Form
for that set.

By “name” here we should probably understand “general term” or “predicate” (to use the
word that Aristotle invented for this kind of “name”) - that is, a term that can be applied in
the same way to many different things that all have something in common, a term like ‘bed’
or ‘table’. Cf. the next speech in Rep. 596a-b:

Then let’s now take any of the manys you like. For example, there
are many beds and tables ... but there are only two forms of such
furniture, one of the bed and one of the table.

4. What the principle tells us in this case is:

For any set of things to which we apply the term ‘table’, there is a single Form.

This is the Form of Table, or (perhaps) Tablehood, or (as Plato would say) The Table Itself.

5. Since the things to which we apply the term ‘table’ are obviously tables, we can
reformulate this instance of the principle as follows:

For any set of tables, there is a single Form.

6. But surely the principle must tell us more than this. It must tell us in what way the single
Form is relevant to the set of tables (or whatever) it is Over. Here we get some help
from Phaedo100c-d, where we also see One-Over-Many reasoning at work:

... if there is anything beautiful besides Beauty itself, it is beautiful

for no other reason that that it shares in that Beauty. ... nothing else
makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or
however you may describe its relationship to that Beauty we
 mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the
relationship, but that all things are made beautiful by Beauty.

So what the principle tells us can now be fleshed out a bit:

For any set of tables, there is a single Form, and it is in virtue of some relationship
to that Form that they are all made to be tables.

That is, it is the Form of Table that makes something a table.

7. We are now in a position to see why Aristotle called this an argument for the Forms. The
only thing we have seen so far that even looks like an argument would go like this:
a. a, b, and c are all tables (i.e., things to which we apply the name “table”).
b. Therefore, there is a Form (the Table Itself) that a, b, and c all share in; and it is by
virtue of sharing in this Form that they are all tables.

The argument moves from a premise asserting the existence of a plurality of things that
have something in common to a conclusion that asserts the existence of something else.
But what is this something else?

o One might suggest: it is some feature that they all have in common. But this seems
too weak; for it’s already asserted in the premise that they all have something in
common: they are all tables.
o Rather: the conclusion asserts the existence of some entity that explains the fact
that they all have some feature in common.

[Aristotle, in his Peri Ideôn, attributed to the Platonists a more elaborate version of this
argument, but it is not found in any of Plato’s dialogues.]

8. Plato never made completely clear the nature of the relationship between the many things
and the one Form that is “over” them. He tended to use the term “participation” or “sharing
in” to describe this relation. The idea seems to be that it is by participating in a Form that
a thing comes to be the kind of thing that it is - tables are tables because they participate in
the Form Table; beautiful things are beautiful because they participate in the Form Beauty.
That is: participation explains predication. A thing is F because it participates in the
Form, F-ness.
9. But what more can be said about the nature of participation? There are some clues in
the Phaedo. Recall 74-76: equal sticks and equal stones are said to be like the form of
Equality, but to be deficient, to fall short. This suggests that participation involves, at least
in part, deficient resemblance.

This idea is supported by the Allegory of the Cave in Republic 514ff.

10. The view that emerges from these passages (Republic 514ff, 596aff; Phaedo 74-76, 100c-
d) may be called the Resemblance Theory of Predication:
o Forms are paradigms, perfect examples of the properties or common features of
the things they are invoked to explain. These paradigms are accessible to the mind,
and it is by comparison to them that we apply their “names” to objects of sense-
perception. It is by resemblance to a Form that is (perfectly) F that a participant in
that Form is said to be (imperfectly) F.
o The semantic theory embedded in this: general terms are proper names of
Forms. We can apply these terms to participants in the Forms by a kind of courtesy,
provided that the participants measure up sufficiently closely to the paradigms.
11. Plato came to be critical of the resemblance theory of predication. The criticism emerges
in his dialogue Parmenides, to which we now turn.
 The Allegory of the Cave
1. Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc., without (so far
as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms.
2. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this.
3. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained
in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them
burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers
can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows
on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that
pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects
that they do not see. Here is an illustration of Plato’s Cave:

From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York, Signet
Classics: 1999. p. 316.

4. Such prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the things they see
on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing of the real causes of the
shadows.
5. So when the prisoners talk, what are they talking about? If an object (a book, let us say) is
carried past behind them, and it casts a shadow on the wall, and a prisoner says “I see a
book,” what is he talking about?

He thinks he is talking about a book, but he is really talking about a shadow. But he uses
the word “book.” What does that refer to?

6. Plato gives his answer at line (515b2). The text here has puzzled many editors, and it has
been frequently emended. The translation in Grube/Reeve gets the point correctly:

“And if they could talk to one another, don’t you think they’d suppose that the names they
used applied to the things they see passing before them?”
7. Plato’s point is that the prisoners would be mistaken. For they would be taking the terms
in their language to refer to the shadows that pass before their eyes, rather than (as is
correct, in Plato’s view) to the real things that cast the shadows.

If a prisoner says “That’s a book” he thinks that the word “book” refers to the very thing
he is looking at. But he would be wrong. He’s only looking at a shadow. The real referent
of the word “book” he cannot see. To see it, he would have to turn his head around.

8. Plato’s point: the general terms of our language are not “names” of the physical objects
that we can see. They are actually names of things that we cannot see, things that we can
only grasp with the mind.
9. When the prisoners are released, they can turn their heads and see the real objects. Then
they realize their error. What can we do that is analogous to turning our heads and seeing
the causes of the shadows? We can come to grasp the Forms with our minds.
10. Plato’s aim in the Republic is to describe what is necessary for us to achieve this reflective
understanding. But even without it, it remains true that our very ability to think and to
speak depends on the Forms. For the terms of the language we use get their meaning by
“naming” the Forms that the objects we perceive participate in.
11. The prisoners may learn what a book is by their experience with shadows of books. But
they would be mistaken if they thought that the word “book” refers to something that any
of them has ever seen.

Likewise, we may acquire concepts by our perceptual experience of physical

objects. But we would be mistaken if we thought that the concepts that we grasp were on
the same level as the things we perceive.
 Criticism of Theory of Forms
I. A review of the essential points of the middle period Theory of Forms

A. A “Two-Worlds” theory
B. A Form is a “one-over-many”:

There’s a Form whenever two or more things have something in common. Cf. Rep.
596a:

We are in the habit of positing a single Form for each

plurality of things to which we give the same name.

C. Forms are paradigms

D. Things participate in the Forms by being appropriately related to these paradigms
(by resembling them??).
E. Participation explains predication (cf. Phaedo 100c):

A thing’s being equal consists in, and is explained

by, its participating in Equality.

In general: x’s being F is explained by x’s participating in F-ness.

F. A good summary statement is provided at 130e-131a:

There are certain forms, whose names these other

things have through getting a share of them - as, for
instance, they come to be like by getting a share of
likeness, large by getting a share of largeness, and
just and beautiful by getting a share of justice and
beauty.

II. The self-criticism of the first part of the Parmenides

A. How are these extraordinary criticisms intended to be taken?

1. As fatal objections to the Theory of Forms ?
2. As based on misunderstandings of the Theory of Forms that need to be
cleared away?
3. As prima facie problems for the Theory of Forms that demand
modifications of the theory?
B. My view: Some combination of (2) and (3) is probably closest to the truth. Some
of the objections are frivolous, but others are meant to be taken seriously.
III. The Setting of the Parmenides

A. A discussion involving “the young Socrates” and the two Eleatics, Zeno and his
teacher Parmenides.
B. The Eleatics argued for monism, the view that reality is one: a permanent and
unchanging unity. In their view, pluralism, the view that there are many real
things, is false.
C. Socrates offers the Theory of Forms as an alternative to Eleatic monism. It is put
forward as a variety of pluralism that does not give rise to the absurdities that the
Eleatics find in pluralistic theories.
D. Parmenides and Zeno’s reply is to attack the Theory of Forms, to show that it leads
to puzzling consequences of its own.
IV. The Objections to the Theory of Forms

A. The Extent of the World of Forms

What things are there Forms for?

1. Moral and aesthetic ideals: “just, beautiful, good”

2. Natural kinds: “human being”
3. Natural stuffs: “fire, water” [Socrates expresses uncertainty about groups
(2) and (3).]
4. “Undignified” things: “hair, mud, dirt.” [Socrates denies Forms for things
in group (4), but Parmenides says that when he gets older he’ll learn not to
be so fastidious. This is clearly a point where there is a conflict between the
role of Forms as (morally or aesthetically pleasing) paradigms and their
role as universals.]
B. The Nature of Participation

1. Part or Whole? (131a-c): The dilemma of participation:

Is (a) the whole Form, or only (b) a part of it, in each participant?

If (a), then each Form will be “separate from itself” if it is in many things.

If (b), then the Form is divisible, and hence no longer a unity.

[The conclusion of this dilemma seems to be that Forms will either

be divisible or not shareable. But Forms have to be shareable, that is the
whole point of having the theory. So the consequences of making Forms
divisible is pursued.]

2. Puzzling consequences if Forms are divisible (131d-e):

a. The parts of Largeness are small (with respect to Largeness) but still
make the things they are in large. [Note: this conflicts with one of
 Plato’s requirements in the Phaedo: what makes something F must
itself be F.]
b. A part of Equality which is “less than Equality itself” nevertheless
makes what it is in equal.
c. The parts of Smallness are smaller than Smallness itself! And
the addition of such a part to something makes that
thing smaller than it was before the addition of that small part!
C. The Third Man Argument (TMA)

1. An infinite regress argument: “no longer will each of your forms be one,
but unlimited in multitude.” (132b2)
2. The regress is epistemologically vicious.

The Theory of Forms is a theory of judgment (by “judgment” I

mean the mental state that is common to both knowledge and belief).

Judging involves consulting Forms: to judge that x is F is to consult

the Form F-ness and to see x as being sufficiently like F-ness to qualify for
the predicate F. Alan Code suggests that the TMA raises an objection to this
theory of judgment:

The TMA is designed to reduce to absurdity the claim that it is the

consultation of forms which enables us to make judgments. It does
this by showing that if that were the case, we would have to perform
an infinite number of such consultations to make just one judgment.

3. Since the Theory of Forms tries to explain predication, the TMA is also a
challenge to it as a theory of predication. (Recall our examination of
the Phaedo : the Form, the F Itself, is the aitia, or explanation. of
something’s being F.

“Participating in a Form” is supposed to explain predication. And

the upshot of the TMA is that there is something defective about this
explanation:

Trying to explain predication in terms of the notion of participating

in a (paradigmatic) Form leads to an infinite regress, and hence is no
explanation at all.

V. The premises of the TMA

A. Plato is not explicit about the premises of the TMA. We will have to reconstruct
the argument and tease out the implicit premises.
B. To start, let’s try to see how the argument goes, and what features (or alleged
features) of the Theory of Forms are being brought into play. In the table below,
the steps of the “largeness” argument appear on the left; a schematized version
 showing how the argument can be generalized appears on the right. The horizontal
line separates the Form (above the line, the “one over many”) from the things
(below the line) that participate in that Form.

The Steps of the TMA

Step One: We assume a number of things are (or
a, b, c
“appear to us to be”) large.

F-ness1
Step Two: From this we infer that there is a Form
__________
(Largeness) by virtue of which they all appear large.
a, b, c

Step Three: We now consider all of the items

discussed in Step One (viz., all of the large things we __________
were considering) and Largeness, the Form by virtue a, b, c, F-ness1
of which they all are (and appear to us to be) large.

Step Four: From this we infer that they all (i.e., the a form of F-ness
participants and the Form) participate in a Form of _________________
Largeness. a, b, c, F-ness1

Step Five: From this we infer that the Form introduced

in Step Four is a second Form (Largeness2), distinct F-ness2
from the Form (Largeness1) introduced in Step Two. _________________
This second Form is the one by virtue of which the first a, b, c, F-ness1
Form and all of its participants appear large.

Step 6: We now consider all of the items discussed in

Step Five, viz., all of the large things we introduced at ___________________
Step One, the Form we introduced at Step Two, and the a, b, c, F-ness1,
second Form we introduced at Step Four (and F-ness2
distinguished at Step Five).

And so on, ad infinitum.

C. By what principles do we proceed from step to step in this argument?

1. From #1 to #2: A principle that generates a Form for a collection of things
that all appear to have something in common (a “one-over-many”).
2. From #2 to #3: A principle that entitles us to group the Form together with
its participants as constituting a collection whose members all have
something in common. (Like its participants, the Form is something to
 which we can apply the predicate large. That is, a Form can be predicated
of itself.)
3. From #3 to #4: The One-Over-Many principle again.
4. From #4 to #5: What tells us that we have a second Form? That is, what
tells us that #5 shouldn’t be written up this way:

Step #5

F-ness1
_________________
a, b, c, F-ness1

The question really amounts to this: What tells us that F-ness1 and F-
ness2 are two distinct Forms?

Roughly: a principle which tells us that a Form is not one of its own
participants; that a Form does not participate in itself.

D. So the argument appears to have three premises. It has become traditional to call
these “One Over Many”, “Self-Predication” and “Non-Identity”:
1. (OM) There isj a Form for any set of things we judge to share a predicate
in common. I.e.,

If a collection of things, a, b, c, etc., are all F, there is a single Form by

virtue of participating in which they are all F.

2. (SP) The Form by virtue of which things are (and are judged to be) F is
itself F. I.e.,

F-ness is F.

3. (NI) The Form by virtue of which a set of things are all F is not itself a
member of that set. (Equivalently, nothing is F by virtue of participating in
itself.) I.e.,

F-nessn does not participate in F-nessn.

The discovery of these as the three principles underlying the argument is

basically due to the ground-breaking efforts of Vlastos [1954]. But his
reconstruction of the argument was flawed, since he had the idea that (SP) and (NI)
actually contradicted one another. This is important, if true: for if the Theory of
Forms is committed to both (SP) and (NI) and these contradict one another, then
the Theory is inconsistent! But Vlastos has been shown wrong on this. (Cf.
esp. Sellars, Strang, Cohen.)
 VI. Reconstructed, Plato’s argument looks like this (with the justification for each step
provided):

1. a, b, and c are all large. premise

2. There is a Form of Largeness (Largeness1) that they all share in. 1, OM

3. a, b, c and Largeness1 are all large. 1, 2, SP

4. There is a Form of Largeness (Largeness2) that they all share in. 3, OM

5. Largeness2 is not identical to Largeness1. 4, NI

6. a, b, c, Largeness1 and Largeness2 are all large. 3, SP

7. There is a Form of Largeness (Largeness3) that they all share in. 6, OM

And so on, ad infinitum.

VII. Self-Predication vs. Self-Participation

We must distinguish (as Vlastos did not adequately do) between these two notions.

o F-ness is F.
o F-ness participates in F-ness.

Participating in F-ness is supposed to explain being F.

(SP) tells us that we can apply to the Form F-ness that very predicate (“F”) whose
application to sensible particulars is explained in terms of participation in that Form. That
leaves us with the problem of explaining this case of predication: F-ness is F.

(NI) tells us that we can’t explain x’s being F by appealing to x. Hence, the principle is
really better called:

o (NSE) Non-self-explanation, or
o (NSP) Non-self-participation.

[But the label “NI”, due to Vlastos, has stuck. It’s important to realize that it can be
formulated in such a way that it doesn’t contradict (SP).]

VIII. The Role of the TMA’s premises as principles of the Theory of Forms

o (OM) Predication is explained by participation.

o (SP) The explanatory entity (i.e., the Form) is a paradigm.
 o (NI) Explanations are not circular or vacuous.

What would be the consequences for the Theory of Forms of giving up one of these
principles?

Principle abandoned Consequence for Theory of Forms

(OM) The theory becomes incomplete.

(SP) Forms will no longer be paradigms.

(NI) Some explanations become circular.

IX. Forms and Standards

A. Plato’s Forms as Paradigms

SP (and along with it Plato’s paradigmatism) have proved to be the hardest of the
aspects of TF to make sense of. It helps if we compare paradigmatic Forms to
standards of weight and measure.

Forms are less like properties or universals than they are like standards of
measure. That's because a Form's participants are supposed to be compared to ,
or measured against the Form in the process of judging whether they are entitled
to have the Form's name applied (as a predicate) to them.

In much the same way, a stick is a meter long because it has the same length as the
Standard Meter, or to weigh a kilogram because it weighs the same as the Standard
Kilogram.

B. Paradigmatism entails Self-Predication

In a theory of Standards, self-predication makes sense:

▪ The Standard Meter is one meter long.

▪ The Standard Kilogram weighs one kilogram.

That’s because standards of weight and measure are physical objects that play
a certain role in a system of weights and measures. They are paradigms against
which other things are compared. Although Plato’s Forms are not physical objects,
they still are paradigms.
 Does paradigmatism entail self-predication? It’s hard to see how it fails to. How
can the paradigmatic F thing fail to be F ? How could the Standard Kilogram fail
to weigh one kilogram?

There are two different approaches one might take here:

▪ “The standard pound must weigh a pound; one might say, it weighs a pound
no matter what it weighs.” (P. T. Geach)
▪ “There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long,
nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris.”
(Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §50.)

Neither seems exactly right. Contra Wittgenstein: how could the standard
meter not be a meter long? It’s not longer than a meter, and not shorter than a meter,
and it does have a length—viz., 39.37 inches. So it’s a meter long. Contra Geach:
no matter what it weighs? Suppose we discover that the standard meter—the bar
kept locked up in Paris—has shrunk in half overnight. Is it still a meter long? Surely
not.

C. Standards and Change

The problem with using physical objects as standards is that they are not immune
to change. (Notice that Plato's Forms don’t have this problem.) The problem has
come to the fore in the case of the Standard Kilogram.

The kilogram was conceived to be the mass of a liter of water, but accurately
measuring a liter of water proved to be very difficult. Instead, an English goldsmith
was hired [in 1889] to make a platinum-iridium cylinder that would be used to
define the kilogram. … No one knows why it is shedding weight, at least in
comparison with other reference weights, but the change has spurred an
international search for a more stable definition. … “It’s certainly not helpful to
have a standard that keeps changing,” says Peter Becker, a scientist at the Federal
Standards Laboratory. … The final recommendation will be made by the
International Committee on Weights and Measures, a body created by international
treaty in 1875. The agency guards the international reference kilogram and keeps it
in a heavily guarded safe in a château outside Paris. It is visited once a year, under
heavy security, by the only three people to have keys to the safe. The weight change
has been noted on the occasions it has been removed for measurement. ( New York
Times , May 23, 2003)

So we really can’t simply declare that the standard kilogram weighs one
kilogram no matter what happens. We need to be sure that it continues to have the
same weight that it did. Which means that it must be weighed against something
else. This is to admit that the Standard itself requires a distinct standard against
which to be compared. So not just SP, but even NI, enter into our account of what
 to do when a standard undergoes change. Small wonder that scientists are seeking
a definition of ‘kilogram’ that does not depend on a physical object of fixed weight
as a standard.

XI. Conclusion

A. The upshot of the TMA is that the Theory of Forms cannot provide
a complete account of predication by means of the notion of participation.
B. But since all three assumptions work together to yield the regress, why single out
OM? So long as Plato’s theory likens forms to standards (in their role as
paradigms), SP and NI seem correct. OM should then be rejected on the grounds
that it is in the nature of a paradigm of F-ness that nothing explains its being F.
Rather, it explains other things’ being F. This means that there will always be at
least one “many” (at least one set of F’s) to which we cannot apply OM.
C. What the TMA shows is that a paradigmatic theory of predication cannot be
both complete (in the sense of providing an explanation of every case of
predication) and non-circular. For the paradigm itself must bear the predicate, and
there we have a case of predication that the theory cannot explain without
circularity.
XII. Plato’s Reaction

A. How did Plato react to the TMA? This is a difficult question. We can make some
guesses based on the contents of later dialogues. (Our clues do not all point toward
a single answer.)

1. The Timaeus is usually thought to be a later dialogue. And it contains the

full-blown, unreconstructed Theory of Forms. (But cf. Owen, “The place of
the Timaeus . . .”).
2. Strang: Plato gave up paradigmatism and the doctrine of recollection. He
says (in Vlastos, Plato: A Collection . . ., pp. 198-99):

In the interval between the second act [the middle period] and the
third [late period], which begins with the Parmenides, the
paradigmatic eidos and its brother, recollection, have been unmasked as
impostors and quietly buried. The TMA is offered by way of justifying the
action taken as technically correct. . . .

The more you become aware of, and enthralled by, the peculiar
anatomy of individual Forms, the fewer and the less important become the
things that can be said about Forms in general. They remain unchanging
(Prm. 135C1), if only to be the subject matter of timeless truths; they remain
single (Phlb. 14E5 ff.); but what they do not remain is paradigms.

3. Evidence from the Sophist:

 a. Self-participation allowed? (cf. 255e, which seems to entail
that Difference participates in itself.)
b. Plato’s talk of blending of kinds (a word he begins to use more and
more rather than the middle period’s “Form” or “Idea”) suggests that
he’s starting to think of Forms as more like collections. This fits well
with Strang’s idea: Forms as kinds are not likely to be thought of
any more as paradigms.
4. Plato abandons or modifies OM? Pol. 262d supports this: Plato contends
that it would be a mistake to think that non-Greeks constitute a real class
because they all have the common name Barbarian.

References

Cohen, S. M., “The Logic of the Third Man,” Philosophical Review 80 (1971) 448-475. [Jump
back to text.]

Geach, P. T., “The Third Man Again,” Philosophical Review 65 (1956) 72-82. [Jump back
to text.]

Owen, G.E.L., “The Place of the Timaeus in Plato’s Dialogues,” Classical Quarterly n.s. 3
(1953) 79-95; also in Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics, ed. by R. E. Allen (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1965) 313-338. [Jump back to text.]

Sellars, W., “Vlastos and the Third Man,” Philosophical Review 64 (1955) 405-437. [Jump back
to text.]

Strang, C., “Plato and the Third Man,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. vol. 37
(1963) 147-164; also in Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, vol. 1, ed. by G. Vlastos (New
York: Anchor, 1971) 184-200, and on reserve in OUGL. [Jump back to text.]

Vlastos, G., “The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides,” Philosophical Review 63 (1954)
319-349; also in Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics, ed. by R. E. Allen (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1965) 231-263. [Jump back to text.]
 Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus
The Forms vs. the Cosmos

The world of Forms

1. The world of being; everything in this world “always is,” “has no becoming,” and “does
not change” (28a).
2. It is apprehended by the understanding, not by the senses.

The physical world (= the Cosmos)

1. The world of becoming; everything in this world “comes to be and passes away, but
never really is” (28a).
2. It is grasped by opinion and sense-perception.
3. The cosmos itself came into being, created using as its model the world of Forms.

The Demiurge (Creator)

Literally, “craftsman.” The creator of Plato’s physical world is not a divine intelligence or
a personal ruler, but (as it were) a manual laborer. Cf. Vlastos, Plato’s Universe (pp. 26-27):

That the supreme god of Plato’s cosmos should wear the mask of a manual worker
is a triumph of the philosophical imagination over ingrained social prejudice. ... But
this divine mechanic is not a drudge. He is an artist or, more precisely, what an
artist would have to be in Plato’s conception of art: not the inventor of new form,
but the imposer of pre-existing form on as yet formless material.

The Elements

• The physical world must have bodily form; it must be visible and tangible (31b).
• Hence, its ingredients must include fire and earth.
• Since fire and earth will have to be combined, there must be at least one other ingredient
that serves to combine them.
• But since fire and earth are solids, we require two intermediates to combine them.
• Hence, the demiurge created air and water, and arranged all four elements proportionally:
as fire is to air, air is to water; as air is to water, water is to earth.
• As we will see below, we have not reached the bottom with these four elements: there are
(geometrical) atoms of which these elements are composed.

Features of the Cosmos

A living being
 Because it is based on the Form of living being (= Animal)

Unique

Because it is based on a unique model (the Form of living being), and the
Demiurge makes it as much like its model as he can (subject, of course, to the limitations
imposed by the fact that it’s made of matter).

It has a soul

Because it is a living being

Spherical

Because that is the most perfect and most beautiful shape

Temporal

That is, there is time in the cosmos - it is characterized by temporal predicates. This
is because it is modeled on a Form, an eternal being.

The cosmos cannot be eternal, as a Form is, since it comes into being. But it is as
much like a Form, as close to being eternal, as it can be (37d). When the Demiurge created
the universe, he also created time. But what is Plato’s definition of time?

Plato's text at 37d reads:

[the Demiurge] began to think of making a moving image of

eternity: at the same time as he brought order to the universe, he
would make an eternal image, moving according to number, of
eternity remaining in unity. This, of course, is what we call “time.”
But what is ‘this’? It is sometimes thought that it refers to ‘number’, which would
make the definition be that time is the number according to which the image of eternity
moves. This would bring Plato's definition close to Aristotle’s (“time is the number of
motion (change) in respect of before and after” [Physics 219b2]). On this reading, it is the
cosmos that is the “moving image of eternity,” and time is the number that measures the
change in the cosmos.

But ‘this’ has been traditionally taken to refer to ‘image’, and on this reading,
Plato’s definition is that time is a moving image of eternity. Even if Plato’s text is
grammatically ambiguous, the most plausible way to understand the definition is the
traditional one. Other passages in the Timaeus make it clear that Plato thought of time as a
kind of celestial clockwork - that is, a certain kind of motion, rather than a measure of
motion. Consider 38d and 39d:
 [The Demiurge] brought into being the Sun, the Moon, and five
other stars, for the begetting of time. These are called “wanderers”
[planêta], and they stand guard over the numbers of time. … And so
people are all but ignorant of the fact that time really is the
wanderings of these bodies.

Plato clearly says that time is the wanderings of these bodies - their
movement - and not a kind of number that measures such movement. Abstracting time
from motion was an innovation of Aristotle’s. For Plato, time just is celestial motion.

Note that time applies, strictly speaking, only to the realm of becoming. About the
Forms, which are everlasting, we say “is, and was, and will be,” but, strictly speaking, only
“is” is appropriate (38a). That is, the ‘is’ we use about the Forms is a tenseless ‘is’; the
Forms themselves are, strictly speaking, outside of time.

The Heavenly Bodies

Plato’s account includes the origin of the stars and planets - “to set limits to and stand guard
over the numbers of time” (38c) - which we will skip over here.

Human Beings: Souls, Bodies, and their Parts

Four kinds of living creature (39e-40b)

1. Heavenly gods
2. Winged things
3. Water creatures
4. Land creatures

Human soul (40d-44d)

1. Creation and destruction of the gods (40d-41a)

2. Demiurge instructs gods to make mortals (41a-d)
3. Human souls manufactured
o Made of leftovers from manufacture of world-soul, but of a lower grade of
purity (41d).
o Each soul assigned to a star (41e).
o Death: a just soul returns to its companion star, an unjust soul is reincarnated
for a second try (42b-c).

Human body (44d-47e)

1. Head and limbs (44d-45b)

2. Eyes and vision (45b-46a)
3. Purposes of seeing and hearing (46c-47e)
The Structure of Matter

At this point Plato ends his discussion of the “works of intellect (nous)” and begins
discussing the “works of necessity”. The difference seems to be that the former, but not the latter,
directs its creation with an eye toward what is best.

Here Plato turns to the old Presocratic question: what is the world made of? His answer
both combines and transcends theirs. It mentions the traditional Earth, Air, Fire, and Water (of
Empedocles), but goes beyond them, analyzing them in terms of mathematical objects (shades
of the Pythagoreans) and empty space (the invention of the atomists).

The four elements

The intrinsic nature of fire, water, air, and earth (48b), and how they came into being.

The receptacle

A new concept is introduced, in addition to the model (= the Forms) and the
imitation of the model (= the world of becoming): “the receptacle of all becoming” (49a).

The receptacle is that in which all becoming takes place. The fires that you see
coming into being and being extinguished are just appearances, in the receptacle, of the
Fire Itself (the Form).

At 52b ff, Plato describes the receptacle as “space.”

The coming to be of the elements

The four elements are “the most excellent four bodies that can come into being” (53e). But
how do they come into being? What are they made of? Plato’s answer is that they are all made
of triangles, and constructed in such a way as to explain how the transmutation of elements is
possible.

Overview

Each kind of matter (earth, air, fire, water) is made up of particles (“primary bodies”). Each
particle is a regular geometrical solid. There are four kinds of particles, one for each of the four
kinds of matter. Each particle is composed of elementary right triangles. The particles are like
the molecules of the theory; the triangles are its atoms.

The argument that all bodies are ultimately composed of elementary right triangles is given
at 53c-d: all bodies are 3-dimensional (“have depth”) and hence are bounded by surfaces. Every
surface bounded by straight lines is divisible into triangles. Every triangle is divisible into right
triangles. Every right triangle is either isosceles (with two 45° angles) or scalene. So all bodies can
be constructed out of isosceles and scalene right triangles.
The details

1. The two atomic triangles

Plato notes (54a1) that there is only one kind of isosceles right triangle--namely,
the 45°/45°/90° triangle--whereas there are “infinitely many” kinds of scalene. But of these,
he tells us, “we posit one as the most excellent” (54a7), one “whose longer side squared is
always triple its shorter side” (54b5-6). Plato describes the same scalene triangle,
equivalently, as “one whose hypotenuse is twice the length of its shorter side” (54d6-7).
(The angles of this triangle are thus 30°/60°/90°.)

I’ll call the 30°/60°/90° triangles “a triangles” and the 45°/45°/90° triangles “b triangles.”

a triangle (scalene, 30°/60°/90°) b triangle (isosceles, 45°/45°/90°)

2. Construction of “faces” of particles out of the atomic triangles

o Each face is either an equilateral triangle (t) or a square (s).

o Equilateral triangles (t’s) are made of a triangles.
o Squares (s’s) are made out of b triangles.
o Plato’s description at 54e and 55b tells us that each t is made of 6 a’s, and each s is
made of 4 b’s. (See diagrams, RAGP 640.) But 57c-d makes clear that he envisages
other ways of constructing these faces out of primitive a’s and b’s.
3. Construction of solid particles out of the faces

The construction of the particles is described at 54d-55c. The particles are identified
with the four elements at 55d-56b. Click on the names of the elements to see a diagram of
a particle of that element:

a. Fire: a particle of fire is a tetrahedron (4-sided solid), made of 4 t’s consisting of 24 a’s
altogether.
b. Air: a particle of air is an octahedron (8-sided solid), made of 8 t’s consisting of 48 a’s
altogether.
c. Water: a particle of water is an icosahedron (20-sided solid), made of 20 t’s consisting of
120 a’s altogether.
d. Earth: a particle of earth is a cube (6-sided solid), made of 6 s’s consisting of 24 b’s
altogether.
4. Transformation of elements (described at 56c-57c)

Inter-elemental transformations are among fire, air, and water only. Earth cannot
be transformed into any of the others (54c, 56d).

Transformations can be described at the level of equilateral triangles (that are the
faces of the three solids). Since a fire molecule has 4 faces (one F is made up of 4 t), an air
molecule 8 (one A is made up of 8 t), and a water molecule 20 (one W is made up of 20 t),
any of the following transformations (for example) are possible. (Each transformation is
represented by an equation on the left; its geometrical basis is shown by the equation on
the right.):

1A=2F 8t=2×4t

1W =5F 20 t = 5 × 4 t

2W =5A 2 × 20 t = 5 × 8 t

1 W = 2 A + 1 F 20 t = (2 × 8 t) + 4 t

1 W = 3 F + 1 A 20 t = (3 × 4 t) + 8 t

5. Larger and smaller particles

Since equilateral triangles can be constructed out of a’s (and squares out of b’s) in
more than one way, it is possible to have “molecules” of each of the elements that have
different numbers of atomic triangles (a’s and b’s). These might be considered “isotopes”
of the basic molecules described by Plato (with each t made of 6 a’s, and each s made of
4 b’s).

An equilateral triangle can also be constructed out of 2, or 8, or 18, a’s (and so on,
ad infinitum).

A square can also be constructed out of 2, or 8, or 16, b’s (and so on, ad infinitum).

This means that one “normal” particle of earth (6 s = 24 b) can be transformed into
2 of the smaller “isotopes” of earth (6 s = 12 b)

Similarly, 4 “normal” particles of water (containing 120 a’s each) can combine to
form one huge particle of one of the larger “isotopes” of water (20 sides of 24 a’s each, for
480 a’s altogether).
Final Reflections

Comparison with predecessors

Plato’s theory combines elements of the views of many of his predecessors.

1. Pythagoras

Like Pythagoras, he made the physical universe fundamentally mathematical. But

whereas Pythagoras thought that everything was made of numbers, Plato made geometrical
figures - ultimately, triangles - the atoms of his system.

2. Democritus

Plato, like Democritus, was an atomist. But whereas Democritean atoms were of
all different shapes and sizes, Plato’s came in just two varieties: isosceles and scalene. In
this respect, Plato’s theory was far more elegant than that of Democritus. As Vlastos
comments (Plato’s Universe, pp. 93-4):

Compare [Plato’s theory] with the best of its rivals, the Democritean. There atoms
come in infinitely many sizes and in every conceivable shape, the vast majority of them
being irregular, a motley multitude, totally destitute of periodicity in their design, incapable
of fitting any simple combinatorial formula. If we were satisfied that the choice between
the unordered polymorphic infinity of Democritean atoms and the elegantly patterned order
of Plato’s polyhedra was incapable of empirical adjudication and could only be settled by
asking how a divine, geometrically minded artificer would have made the choice, would
we have hesitated about the answer?

3. Empedocles

Like Empedocles, Plato recognized that four elements - earth, air, fire, and
water - underlay all physical changes. But unlike Empedocles, he found a common atomic
ingredient underlying the elements. Hence, unlike Empedocles, he could explain the
transformation of one element into another.

Problems and Responses

Plato’s theory of matter faces some prima facie problems. We will consider two of them and
suggest how Plato might have responded to them.

1. Problem: Plato’s theory does not allow for transformation of earth into other elements.

Since earth is made of different atoms (isosceles triangles) from the other elements
(scalene triangles), this transformation is impossible, as Plato knew. So what happens
 when, e.g., wood burns? Isn’t earth (which is what, presumably, wood is mostly made of)
converted into fire?

Response: The transformation of one element into another is not an observed

phenomenon, but a theoretical explanation of observations. Plato can account for
this phenomenon by theorizing that it is the water and air components of wood that
are converted into fire; the earth components remain unburned in the ashes that
remain.

2. Problem: The transformation of elements seems to violate the principle of conservation

of matter.

The problem here is that the volumes of the polyhedra in Plato’s “equations” don’t add up
correctly. E.g., consider the “equation”:

1W=3F+1A

which tells us that one water atom can be converted into 3 fire atoms and one air
atom. (There are 20 equilateral triangles, t, involved in this equation.) The problem is that
the volume of one water atom (i.e., one icosahedron) is much greater than the combined
volumes of 3 fire atoms (3 tetrahedra) and one air atom (one octohedron). If we let s be the
length of a side of each equilateral triangle (t) that is a face of each of the polyhedra, we
can calculate these volumes:

Volume of 1 W = 2.1817 s3

Aggregate volume of 3 F + 1 A = .8248 s3

Response: Remember that matter is not a concept Plato is working with. Hence
matter, as we understand it, is not what Plato needs to worry about conserving. In
his view, a material object consists, ultimately, of the triangular atoms composing
the polyhedral corpuscles of the four different elements. Contained within these
polyhedra is empty space- the receptacle, as he called it.

So it is not matter that Plato must conserve, but triangles. On his theory,
when a corpuscle of water is broken down and converted into corpuscles of fire and
air, all of the original triangles in the corpuscle of water are conserved. And the
triangles combine to form the surfaces of the polyhedra. Hence it is not the
total volume of his polyhedra, but their combined surface area that must be
conserved. What remains constant in every transformation, as Vlastos (Plato’s
Universe, p. 90) says, is:

... the aggregate surface area of the corpuscles. If you

press him to say what happens to that portion of the
matter within the icosahedron which cannot be
enclosed within the equivalent surface area of
smaller polyhedra, Plato would say that there is no
such matter: after creation matter exists only in the
form of space encapsulated by polyhedra; what is not
thus encapsulated is empty space, which becomes
matter when captured by envelopes of the approved
stereometric form.
 Predication and Ontology: The
Categories
A theory of ontology attempts to answer, in the most general possible terms, the question what is
there? A theory of predication attempts to answer the question what is it to say something
about something? This is a book about ontology and predication.

1. Ontology: The Ten Categories

In the Categories, we get this list (1b25):

1. Substance
2. Quality
3. Quantity
4. Relation
5. Where
6. When
7. Position
8. Having
9. Action
10. Passion

This is presumably a list of the ten fundamentally different kinds of things that there
are. The first category—substance—is the most important in Aristotle’s ontology.
Substances are, for Aristotle, the fundamental entities. To see why this is so, we will have
to understand what Aristotle says about predication.

2. Predication

o A subject (hupokeimenon) is what a statement is about.

o A predicate (katêgoroumenon) is what a statement says about its subject.

Examples:

o This (particular animal) is a man.

o Man is an animal.
o This (particular color) is white.
o White is a color.

The same thing may be both a subject and a predicate, e.g., man and white above. Some
things are subjects but are never predicates, e.g., this (particular) animal, or this (particular)
color.

3. Two kinds of predication

 Consider the following pair of simple (atomic) sentences:

o “Socrates is a human being”

o “Socrates is wise”

Do both of these atomic sentences have the same kind of ontological underpinning?
I.e., is the structure of the fact that Socrates is a man the same as the structure of the fact
that Socrates is wise? Plato’s account suggests that it is.

o For Plato:“x is F” means that x partakes of the Form, F-ness.

According to Plato, predication, in general, is explicated in terms of the notion

of participating in a Form. In response, Aristotle thinks this oversimplifies. On
Aristotle’s account:

o “Socrates is a human being” tells us something fundamental about what kind of a

thing Socrates is: it is an essential predication.
o “Socrates is wise” tells us something less fundamental, something that merely
happens to be the case: it is an accidental predication.

This idea emerges in the Categories distinction between what is said of a subject and
what is in a subject, introduced as part of the four-fold distinction drawn at 1a20. Since
Aristotle is using the terms ‘said of’ and ‘in’ in a somewhat technical way, we will write
them, from now on, in SMALL CAPS in order to indicate this technical use.

4. Two fundamental relations

Aristotle distinguishes two fundamental relations: being SAID OF a subject and

being PRESENT IN a subject. These correspond, respectively, to the notions (that Aristotle
later develops) of essential and accidental predication, and they cut across all ten
categories.

a. SAID OF a subject
▪ This is a relation of fundamental ontological classification. It is the relation
between a kind and a thing that falls under it.
▪ It is a transitive relation (i.e., if x is SAID OF y and y is SAID OF z, it
follows that x is SAID OF z).
▪ Its relata belong to the same category. A universal in a given category
is SAID OF the lower-level universals and individuals that fall under it.
▪ What is SAID OF a subject is essential to that subject.

Examples:

1. Man is SAID OF Socrates.

2. Animal is SAID OF man.
 3. (Hence) animal is SAID OF Socrates.
4. White is SAID OF this (particular) color.
5. Color is SAID OF white.

b. PRESENT IN a subject

▪ This is a relation of fundamental ontological dependence. What

is PRESENT IN a subject, Aristotle says, belongs to it “not as a part, and
cannot exist separately from what it is in” (1a24).
▪ This is a cross-categorial relation; things PRESENT IN a subject are non-
substances; the things they are PRESENT IN are substances: non-
substances are PRESENT IN substances.
▪ What is PRESENT IN a subject is accidental (non-essential) to that
subject.

Examples:

1. This grammatical knowledge is PRESENT IN a soul.

2. This white is PRESENT IN a body.
3. Color is PRESENT IN body.
5. Universals and Particulars

Although Aristotle does not use these terms in the Categories, it is clear that he intends
to capture the notions of universal and particular with his SAID OF locution:

o A universal is what is SAID OF some subject

o A particular is what is not SAID OF any subject.

Note that there are universals and particulars in all the categories:

▪ Man and animal are universal substances (Aristotle calls them “secondary
substances.”)
▪ Callias and “this horse” are particular substances. (Aristotle calls them
“primary substances.”)
▪ White and color are universal qualities.
▪ “This white” is a particular quality.

6. Category Trees

a. Each category can be thought of as having a tree structure. The category itself can
be divided into its fundamental kinds (e.g., substance can be divided into plants and
animals). Each of these kinds can in turn be divided (e.g., animal can be divided
into the various broad genera of animals). Each of these can in turn be divided into
the fundamental species of the category in questions (e.g., into such basic kinds
as tiger, and horse, and human being). (All of these kinds—animal, tiger, horse—
are what Aristotle calls “secondary substances”.) Finally, we can divide these
 lowest-level kinds into the basic individuals in the category (e.g., human being can
be divided into Socrates, Callias, Coriscus, etc.).
b. Similarly, the category of quality can be divided into subcategories such as color,
which can in turn be divided into red, green, etc. Aristotle thinks that these specific
qualities can be further divided into individuals (analogous to individual
substances) such as this individual bit of white.
c. Thus, each category is ultimately divisible into the individual members of that
category.
d. Here’s a useful chart that illustrates the tree structure of the categories.

7. The fourfold division

This can be found in Categories, Ch. 2.

The SAID OF relation divides entities into universals and particulars; the PRESENT
IN relation divides them into non-substances and substances. Hence, the fourfold division
at 1a20ff produces (in Aristotle’s order of presentation):

a. Universal substances (“secondary substances”)

b. Particular non-substances
c. Universal non-substances
d. Particular substances (“primary substances”)

The chart below summarizes the fourfold division of Aristotle’s ontology:

The Ontology of Aristotle’s Categories

(a) SAID OF a subject (c) SAID OF a subject

not PRESENT IN a subject PRESENT IN a subject

man, horse, animal knowledge, white

Universal Substances Universal non-Substances

(d) not SAID OF a subject (b) not SAID OF a subject

not PRESENT IN a subject PRESENT IN a subject

this man, this knowledge of grammar,

this horse this white

Individual Substances Individual non-Substances

 Notice the following facts about these relations:

1. x is SAID OF something → x is a universal.

2. x is not SAID OF anything → x is a particular.
3. x is PRESENT IN y → x is a non-substance and y is a substance.
4. x is not PRESENT IN anything → x is a substance.
5. x is neither PRESENT IN anything nor SAID OF anything → x is a particular
substance (primary substance).
6. x is PRESENT IN y and x is SAID OF z → y≠z.

(6) may require amplification. The reason is that if x is PRESENT IN y, then y is a

substance and x is a non-substance (e.g., a quality). But if x is a quality and is SAID OF z,
then z is a (more specific) quality. So y is a substance and z is a quality. And no quality is
a substance. For example, knowledge is PRESENT IN the soul (a substance), and SAID
OF grammar (a kind of knowledge). But knowledge is not SAID OF the soul (for the soul
is not a kind of knowledge), and knowledge is not PRESENT IN grammar (for grammar is
not a substance).

8. Cross-categorial predication

a. Predication within a category (“Socrates is a human,” “a tiger is an animal,” “red is

a color”) involves classifying something (whether a particular or a universal) under
some higheruniversal within the same category tree. Predication is a matter of
classification.
b. Cross-categorial predication (“Socrates is wise,” “This horse is white”) is more
complicated. Here we are predicating an accident (something PRESENT IN a
subject) of a substance in which it inheres.
c. Are such (accidental) predications still a matter of classification? Yes. But we are
classifying something PRESENT IN a substance, rather than the substance itself.
d. Example: “This horse is white” classifies a particular bit of color, inhering in this
horse, under the color-universal white.
e. That is: White is SAID OF an individual bit of color that is PRESENT IN this
horse.

9. Primary Substances: the basic individuals

Things that are neither SAID OF nor PRESENT IN any subject Aristotle calls
“primary substances” (protai ousiai).

Primary substances are fundamental in that “if they did not exist it would be impossible
for any of the other things to exist” (2b5). That is, on Aristotle’s account, primary
substances have priority. Aristotle gives this argument for the ontological priority of
primary substances (2a34-2b7):

a. Every secondary (universal) substance is predicated of (i.e., SAID OF) some

primary substance or other.
 b. Every non-substance (whether universal or particular) is PRESENT IN some
primary substance or other.
c. That is, everything other than primary substance is either SAID OF or PRESENT
IN primary substances.
d. Therefore, if primary substances did not exist, neither would anything else.
10. Comparison with Plato

a. The ontological priority is reversed. For Plato, particulars (participants in Forms)

are the dependent entities; the Forms in which they participate are the independent
entities. For Aristotle, it is individuals that are ontologically primary or basic.
b. Aristotle has two kinds of predication relation; Plato’s theory, although less clearly
articulated, seems to have only one.
c. The difference can be seen most clearly if we read Aristotle’s Categories as a
response to the dilemma of participation that Plato brings up in the Parmenides.
11. The dilemma of participation

a. Here is Plato’s presentation of the problem (Parm. 131a-c):

Do you think, then, that the form as a whole - one

thing - is in each of the many ... so, being one and the
same, it will be at the same time, as a whole, in things
that are many and separate, and thus it would be
separate from itself?

Socrates replies with the suggestion that a Form may be “in” many things
in the way that many people may all be covered with one sail. To which Parmenides
replies:

In that case, would the sail be, as a whole, over each

person, or would a part of it be over one person and
another part over another? [“A part,” Socrates
replies.] So the forms themselves are divisible,
Socrates, and the things that partake of them would
partake of a part; no longer would a whole form, but
only a part of it be in each thing.

b. As Plato has Parmenides present the dilemma, both horns are unattractive:

i. If the whole Form is in each participant, then the Form will be “separate
from itself,” which seems impossible.
ii. If only a part of each Form is in each participant, then the Form will be
many, and not one, which also seems impossible. (An even more important
problem, that Plato does not mention: if two different participants have two
different things in them, what makes them have one and the same thing in
common? The theory will not explain what it is supposed to.)
 c. Aristotle’s solution goes between the horns of this dilemma: it is not precisely
correct to say that the whole universal is in each particular of which it is predicated,
nor is it precisely correct to say that it is “only” a part of the universal that is in a
given particular.
d. On Aristotle’s account: white (the genus or universal) is SAID OF the particular
color that is PRESENT IN this horse. So, for one and the same thing, whiteness, to
be in both this horse and that horse (Plato’s problem case) is just for the color of
this horse and the color of that horse both to be classified as white. (White is SAID
OF both of these two individual instances of color.) Whiteness is therefore in both
horses without being “separate from itself” for it is just the common classification
of the particular bits of color in them both.
e. According to Aristotle, what is PRESENT IN individual substances is, ultimately,
individual. But just as individual substances can be classified under universals
(like horse and animal), so too can the qualities, etc., of substances be classified
under universals (like white and color).
f. For more detail on this interpretation of Aristotle’s Categories as a response to
Plato’s Dilemma of Participation, see Matthews and Cohen, “The One and the
Many” p. 644, on reserve.
5. Substances and Change

In Cat. 5, Aristotle points out the hallmarks of substance, one of which is that
substances are the subjects that undergo change [“Most characteristic of substance seems
to be the fact that something one and the same in number can receive contraries” (4a10).]

Thus in the ontology of the Categories, substances are the continuants - the
individuals that persist through change remaining one and the same in number. But, as we
will see, Aristotle’s investigation of the topic of change begins to exert pressure on this
ontology. A claimant (viz., matter) will emerge to challenge the place of individual plants
and animals as the basic subjects of predication and change.
 Aristotle on Change
The Physics

The Physics is a study of nature (ta phusika), as opposed to the Metaphysics (ta meta ta
phusika—lit., “the stuff that comes after the stuff on nature”) which studies beings in general, not
just natural objects.

What is the difference? “Natural things are some or all of them subject to change”
(Physics I.2, 185a12-13). So the study of nature is basically a study of change and the things that
are subject to change.

Puzzles about Change

We know this was a topic that puzzled Aristotle’s predecessors. Plato said that real things
(Forms) don’t change, and restricted change to the realm of appearances—the physical world.
Parmenides went farther still, denying the existence of change altogether.

Change is often described (both by Aristotle and his predecessors) as coming-to-be

(genesis), and Aristotle gives an example of an argument against coming-to-be that sounds
typically Parmenidean (191a30-31):

For what is does not come-to-be (since it already is), and nothing comes-to-be from
nothing.

The argument is basically that there are only two ways that something can come-to-be:
either from what is, or from what is not. But neither is possible. Therefore, nothing can come-to-
be.

Aristotle wants to give an analysis of coming-to-be, i.e., change, that will enable him to
avoid this dilemma. His account is designed to explain both how change in general is possible, and
how coming into existence is possible. We will first look at Aristotle’s account, and then see how
it manages to evade the Parmenidean dilemma.

Aristotle’s Account

Aristotle’s account is contained in Physics I.7. He insists that there must be three basic
ingredients in every case of change. (Plato’s treatment only mentions two: a pair of opposites). In
addition to a pair of opposites, there must be an underlying subject of change.

The basic case of change involves a pair of opposed or contrary properties and a subject
that loses one of them and gains the other. But Aristotle does not even insist that there be an
opposed pair of properties (191a6-7):
 But in another way this is not necessary. For one or the other of the contraries
would, by its presence or absence, be sufficient to bring about a change.

So the ingredients Aristotle insists on are: an underlying subject, a form (i.e., a positive
property) and a lack (or privation) of that form. Aristotle’s examples illustrate these ingredients:

a. A man who was unmusical becomes musical.

b. Some bronze (which was shapeless) becomes a statue.

In case (a), the subject is man, the form is musical and the privation is unmusical. In case
(b), the subject is bronze, the form is statue and the privation is shapeless. The subject—the man,
or the bronze—persists through the change. Of the other terms involved, the earlier ones
(unmusicality, shapelessness) cease to exist, while the later ones (musicality, the statue) come into
existence.

These were cases of coming-to-be (generation), since lacks or privations were replaced by
forms. Ceasing-to-be (destruction) occurs when a form is replaced by a privation—when matter
is deprived of form. This would happen, for example, when a statue is melted down into a shapeless
pool of bronze. The bronze persists, but the statue has ceased to exist.

Response to Parmenides

Aristotle gives his response to Parmenides in chapter 8. He begins (191a30-31) by

summarizing the Parmenidean argument against coming-to-be that we mentioned above:

What is does not come-to-be (since it already is), and nothing comes-to-be from
nothing.

The idea of this argument seems to be this: in a case of coming-to-be, the resulting object
is clearly a being, something that is. From what initial object does it come-to-be? Parmenides
offers us only two choices: either what is or what is not. But if the initial object is what is, and the
resultant object is also what is, we don’t really have a case of coming-to-be—there is no change.
And if the initial object is what is not, we have another kind of impossibility, for nothing can come-
to-be from what is not (ex nihilo nihil fit).

Aristotle’s response is to reject the Parmenidean dilemma “that something comes-to-be

from what is or from what is not” (191a30). He does so, characteristically, by drawing a distinction
where his opponents did not. At 191b4 he says that:

comes-to-be “from what is” … is said in two ways …

Is the initial object a being or a not-being, Parmenides asks? Aristotle’s answer is: in a way
it’s a being, and in a way it’s a not-being. And in a way, it’s not a being, and in a way it’s not a
not-being.
 In effect, the trouble with the Parmenidean argument is that it treats the initial and resultant
objects as if they were simples: not being and being. But, as Aristotle has shown, both are
compounds. The initial object, for example, might be an unmusical man. And this is both in one
way a being and in another way a not being: the initial object is something that is (for it is a man)
and something that is not (for it is not musical).

As for Parmenides’ claim that nothing can come-to-be from what is not, Aristotle agrees
that, on one reading, this is perfectly correct (191b13):

we agree with them that nothing comes-to-be simply from what is not …

That is, the musician does not come into existence out of thin air, out of sheer nothingness.
(We should probably take “simply” (or “without qualification”) here to modify “what is not” rather
than “comes-to-be”—“comes-to-be from what is unqualifiedly not” or “comes-to-be from what is
simply a not-being.”) But this leaves room, Aristotle says, for the musician to come-to-be from
what in a way is not (191b15).

… we still think that in a way there is coming-to-be from what is not, for example,
coincidentally. For a thing comes-to-be from a privation, which is intrinsically
not [what it will become], and does not belong [to what eventually comes-to-be].

(Similarly, we should take “in a way” to modify “what is not” rather than “comes-to-be.”)
In other words, since the musician comes to be from the compound unmusical man, what he
comes-to-be from is in one way a not-being, since he comes-to-be from a privation—the
unmusical. But in a way, what he comes-to-be from is a being, as well, for the initial object is
something that exists, a man. Parmenides, in other words, offers us a false dilemma: that the initial
object is either being or not being. But since the initial object is a compound, in a way it is a being
(it is a man) and in another way it is a not-being (it is not musical).

Accidental vs. Substantial Change

Aristotle notes (190b11) an important feature of change: that which comes to be is always
composite. For example, what comes-to-be is the musical man. But what about Aristotle’s other
case? What is the statue a compound of? Aristotle’s answer: matter and form.

We thus see two different kinds of change in Aristotle’s account:

a. Accidental change (e.g., alteration of a substance): the subject is a substance. E.g., the
man becomes a musician, Socrates becomes pale.
b. Substantial change (generation and destruction of a substance): the subject is matter, the
form is the form of a substance. E.g., the bronze becomes a statue, a seed becomes a tiger,
an acorn becomes an oak tree.

Accidental change can be accommodated within the world of the Categories, a world in which
primary substances (individual horses, trees, etc.) are the basic individuals. But what of substantial
change? This seems to threaten the ontology of the Categories. For substantial change requires a
subject (viz., matter) that seems more basic than the individual plants and animals of
the Categories.

But this creates a problem: if the primary substances of the Categories turn out to be
compounds of form and matter, how can they be the basic ingredients of the world?

Example: a builder is not a basic individual, for Aristotle. A builder is a compound of a subject
and a property: a substance (a human being) and a characteristic (s)he happens to have—the
knowledge of building. How, then, can a tiger retain its status as a basic individual? After all, it,
too, is a compound of a subject and a property: matter and a form that supervenes, a form that the
matter happens to have.

This problem is not addressed in the Physics, but it is one that Aristotle returns to in
the Metaphysics. His answer, as we shall see, is not altogether clear.
 The Four Causes
What are there four of?

1. Aristotle’s doctrine of the four causes is crucial, but easily misunderstood. It is natural for
us (post-Humeans) to think of (what Aristotle calls) “causes” in terms of our latter-day
notion of cause-and-effect. This is misleading in several ways:
a. Only one of Aristotle’s causes (the “efficient” cause) sounds even remotely like a
Humean cause.
b. Humean causes are events, and so are their effects, but Aristotle doesn’t limit his
causes in that way. Typically, it is substances that have causes. And that sounds
odd.
2. But to charge Aristotle with having only a dim understanding of causality is to accuse him
of missing a target he wasn’t even aiming at. We must keep this in mind whenever we use
the word “cause” in connection with Aristotle’s doctrine.
3. We will begin with the question, What is it that Aristotle says there are four of? The Greek
word is aition (plural aitia); sometimes it takes a feminine form, aitia (plural aitiai). And
what is an aition? Part of Aristotle’s point is that there is no one answer to this question.
An aition is just whatever one can cite in answer to a “why?” question. And what we give
in answering a “why?” question is an explanation. So an aition is best thought of as
an explanation than as a cause.
4. Even so, that’s not enough. First, Aristotle thinks that you can ask what the aitia of this
table are, and it’s not clear what sense, if any, it makes to ask for an explanation of the
table. Second, he thinks that, in some sense, a carpenter is an aition of a table, and it’s not
clear in what sense, if any, a carpenter (or anything like a carpenter) could be
an explanation of anything.

Here perhaps Ackrill’s “explanatory factor” is a more illuminating translation

of aition. That is, an aition is something that plays a role as an explanatory factor in the
explanation of something. But, as we’ll see, there are many kinds of explanations.

Where to find the doctrine in Aristotle’s texts

1. In RAGP: Phys. II.3; and (extensively) in Metaph. A.3 ff. See also Part. An. 639b12ff
2. Additionally (not in RAGP): APo. II.11; Metaph. Δ.2; GC 335a28-336a12.

The traditional picture

The picture is Aristotle’s, but the names of the causes are not. Quotations from Physics II.3, 194b24
ff:
 1. Material cause: “that out of which a thing comes-to-be and which persists is said to be a
cause, for example, the bronze is a cause of a statue, the silver is a cause of a bowl, and the
genera of these [is also a cause].”
2. Formal cause: “the form or paradigm, and this is the formula of the essence … and the
parts that are in the formula.”
3. Efficient cause: “the primary starting point from which change or rest originates; for
example, someone who has given advice is a cause, the father [is a cause] of a child, and
in general what does [is a cause] of what is done and what alters something [is a cause] of
what is altered.”
4. Final cause: “[something may be called a cause] in the sense of an end (telos), namely,
what something is for; for example, health [is a cause] of walking.”

This account makes it seem as if Aristotle is offering a catalog of causes, and is claiming that
each thing has four different kinds of cause. But what the account misses is the idea that there is
something ambiguous about the notion of aition.

The ambiguity of aition

Aristotle warns us of the ambiguity at 195a5: “causes are spoken of in many ways.” This is his
usual formula for telling us that a term is being used ambiguously. That is, when one says that x is
the aition of y, it isn’t clear what is meant until one specifies what sense of aition is intended:

1. x is what y is [made] out of.

2. x is what it is to be y.
3. x is what produces y.
4. x is what y is for.

This makes it hard for us to get clear on what Aristotle was up to, since neither “cause” nor
“explanation” is ambiguous in the way Aristotle claims aition is. There is no
English translation of aition that is ambiguous in the way (Aristotle claims) aition is. But if
we shift from the noun “cause” to the verb “makes” we may get somewhere.

The ambiguity of makes

Aristotle’s point may be put this way: if we ask “what makes something so-and-so?” we can
give four very different sorts of answer—each appropriate to a different sense of “makes.”
Consider the following sentences:

1. The table is made of wood.

2. Having four legs and a flat top makes this (count as) a table.
3. A carpenter makes a table.
4. Having a surface suitable for eating or writing makes this (work as) a table.

Aristotelian versions of (1) - (4):

 1a. Wood is an aition of a table.
2a. Having four legs and a flat top is an aition of a table.
3a. A carpenter is an aition of a table.
4a. Having a surface suitable for eating or writing is an aition of a table.

These sentences can be disambiguated by specifying the relevant sense of aition in each case:

1b. Wood is what the table is made out of.

2b. Having four legs and a flat top is what it is to be a table.
3b. A carpenter is what produces a table.
4b. Eating on and writing on is what a table is for.

Static vs. Dynamic Causes

Matter and form are two of the four causes, or explanatory factors. They are used to analyze
the world statically—they tell us how it is at a given moment. But they do not tell us how it came
to be that way. For that we need to look at things dynamically—we need to look at causes that
explain why matter has come to be formed in the way that it has. Change consists in matter taking
on (or losing) form. Efficient and final causes are used to explain why change occurs.

This is easiest to see in the case of an artifact, like a statue or a table. The table has come
into existence because the carpenter put the form of the table (which he had in his mind) into the
wood of which the table is composed. The carpenter has done this for the purpose of creating
something he can write on or eat on. (Or, more likely, that he can sell to someone who wants it for
that purpose.) This is a teleological explanation of there being a table.

This seems like a plausible doctrine about artifacts: they can be explained both statically
(what they are, and what they’re made of) and dynamically (how they came to be, and what they
are for).

Causes of natural objects

But what about natural objects? Aristotle (notoriously) held that the four causes could be
found in nature, as well. That is, that there is a final cause of a tree, just as there is a final cause of
a table. Here he is commonly thought to have made a huge mistake. How can there be final causes
in nature, when final causes are purposes, what a thing is for? In the case of an artifact, the final
cause is the end or goal that the artisan had in mind in making the thing. But what is the final cause
of a dog, or a horse, or an oak tree?

1. What they are used for? E.g., pets, pulling plows, serving as building materials, etc. To
suppose so would be to suppose Aristotle guilty of reading human purposes and plans into
nature. But this is not what he has in mind.
2. Perhaps he thinks of nature as being like art, except that the artisan is God? God is the
efficient cause of natural objects, and God’s purposes are the final causes of the natural
objects that he creates.
 No. In both (a) and (b), the final cause is external to the object. (Both the artisan and God are
external to their artifacts; they impose form on matter from the outside.) But the final causes of
natural objects are internal to those objects.

Final causes in nature

1. The final cause of a natural object—a plant or an animal—is not a purpose, plan, or
“intention.” Rather, it is whatever lies at the end of the regular series of developmental
changes that typical specimens of a given species undergo. The final cause need not be a
purpose that someone has in mind. I.e., where F is a biological kind: the telos of an F is
what embryonic, immature, or developing Fs are all tending to grow into. The telos of a
developing tiger is to be a tiger.
2. Aristotle opposes final causes in nature to chance or randomness. So the fact that there is
regularity in nature—as Aristotle says, things in nature happen “always or for the most
part”— suggests to him that biological individuals run true to form. So this end, which
developing individuals regularly achieve, is what they are “aiming at.” Thus, for a natural
object, the finalcause is typically identified with the formal cause. The final cause of a
developing plant or animal is the form it will ultimately achieve, the form into which it
grows and develops.

References: Physics 198a25, 199a31, De Anima 415b10, Generation of Animals 715a4ff.

3. This helps to explain why form, mover, and telos often coincide (“the last three often
amount to one,” as Aristotle says (198a25)). I.e., why one and the same thing can serve as
three of the causes—formal, efficient, and final.

The telos of a (developing) tiger is just (to be) a tiger (i.e. to be an animal with the
characteristics specified in the definition of a tiger). Thus, the final cause (telos) and formal
cause (essence) amount to the same thing. And Aristotle also says that a source of natural
change (efficient cause) is “a thing’s form, or what it is, for that is its end and what it is
for” (198b3). Hence, one and the same thing serves as formal, final, and efficient cause.

Claims like “a tiger is for the sake of a tiger” or “an apple tree is for the sake of an apple
tree” sound vacuous. But the identification of formal with final causes is not vacuous. It is
to say, about a developing entity, that there is something internal to it which will have
the result that the outcome of the sequence of changes it is undergoing —if it runs
true to form —will be another entity of the same kind—a tiger, or an apple tree.

4. So form and telos coincide. What about the efficient cause? The internal factor which
accounts for this cub’s growing up to be a tiger (a) has causal efficacy, and (b) was itself
contributed by a tiger (i.e. the cub’s father).

This can be more easily grasped if we realize that for Aristotle questions about causes in
nature are raised about universals. Hence, the answers to these questions will also be given
in terms of universals. The questions that ask for formal, final, and efficient causes,
respectively, are:
 a. What kind of thing do these flesh-and-bones constitute?
b. What has this (seed, embryo, cub) all along been developing into?
c. What produces a tiger?

The answer to all three questions is the same: “a tiger.” It is in this sense that these three
causes coincide.

5. Aristotle’s account of animal reproduction makes use of just these points (cf. GA I.21, II.9
and Metaph. Z.7-9):
a. The basic idea (as in all change) is that matter takes on form. The form is
contributed by the male parent (which actually does have the form), the matter by
the female parent. This matter has the potentiality to be informed by precisely that
form.
b. The embryonic substance has the form potentially, and can be “called by the same
name” as what produces it. (E.g., the embryonic tiger can be called a tiger, for that
is what it is, potentially at least.) [But there are exceptions: the embryonic mule
cannot be called by the name of its male parent, for that is a horse (1034b3).]
c. The form does not come into existence. Rather, it must exist beforehand, and get
imposed on appropriate matter. In the case of the production of artifacts, the pre-
existing form may exist merely potentially. (E.g., the artist has in mind the form
he will impose on the clay. Nothing has to have the form in actuality.)
d. But in the case of natural generation, the pre-existing form must exist in actuality:
“there must exist beforehand another actual substance which produces it, e.g. an
animal must exist beforehand if an animal is produced” (1034b17).
6. So the final cause of a natural substance is its form. But what is the form of such a
substance like? Is form merely shape, as the word suggests? No. For natural objects—
living things—form is more complex. It has to do with function.

We can approach this point by beginning with the case of bodily organs. For example, the
final cause of an eye is its function, namely, sight. That is what an eye is for. And this
function, according to Aristotle, is part of the formal cause of the thing, as well. Its
function tells us what it is. What it is to be an eye is to be an organ of sight. To say what a
bodily organ is is to say what it does—what function it performs. And the function will be
one which serves the purpose of preserving the organism or enabling it to survive and
flourish in its environment.

Since typical, non-defective, specimens of a biological species do survive and flourish,

Aristotle takes it that the function of a kind of animal is to do what animals of that kind
typically do, and as a result of doing which they survive, flourish, and reproduce. Cf.
Charlton (Aristotle’s Physics, p. 102):
 . . . the widest or most general kind of thing which all non-defective
members of a class can do, which differentiates them from other
members of the next higher genus, is their function.

7. To say that there are ends (telê) in nature is not to say that nature has a purpose. Aristotle
is not seeking some one answer to a question like “What is the purpose of nature?” Rather,
he is seeking a single kind of explanation of the characteristics and behavior of natural
objects. That is, plants and animals develop and reproduce in regular ways, the processes
involved (even where not consciously aimed at or deliberated about) are all toward certain
ends.
8. There is much that can be said in opposition to such a view. But at least it is not ridiculous,
as is sometimes supposed. In so far as functional explanation still figures in biology, there
is a residue of Aristotelian teleology in biology. And it has yet to be shown that biology
can get along without teleological notions. The notions of function, and what something is
for, are still employed in describing at least some of nature.
 Aristotle on Substance, Matter, and Form

Metaphysics r: the study of being qua being

Aristotle often describes the topic of the Metaphysics as “first philosophy.” In Book IV.1
(T.1) he calls it “a science that studies being in so far as it is being” (1003a21). (This is sometimes
translated “being qua being.”) What does this mean?

“S studies x quay” means that x is the subject matter of science S, andy is the aspect of x under
which S studies it.

Thus, physics studies natural objects—things that are subject to change. These are things that
come into being and go out of being. So physics studies certain beings (the natural ones), and
it studies them in so far as they are subject to change.

Metaphysics, on the other hand, studies beings in general (not just changeable ones) and it
studies them “qua being”—in so far as they are beings.

On this interpretation of “being qua being,” see n. 1 on 1003a21; Aristotle makes clear at
1004b10ff that this is the right interpretation.

But in r.2 Aristotle reminds us (as he frequently says elsewhere) that “being is said in many
ways”. (There were intimations of this in the Categories, where we learned about the ten categories
of being.) But this does not mean that the term being is “homonymous” (i.e., equivocal or
ambiguous). Rather, the term is applied to one central case, and all other uses of the term are
explicated with reference to the central case. G. E. L. Owen has given the label focal meaning to
this kind of multivocity.

Example

Take the term healthy. Many different things can be called healthy: a person, a diet, a
complexion, etc. But they aren’t all healthy in the same sense. A person is healthy because
he has health; a diet is healthy because it leads to health; a complexion is healthy because it
is indicative of health.

Notice that in all cases there is reference to health. And what is the central case of health?
What is it that is healthy in the primary sense? Clearly, a person (or animal, or plant). A diet
is healthy only because it makes a person healthy, and a complexion is healthy only because
it indicates that the person who has it is healthy, whereas a person is healthy because he has
health (and not because of his relation to other things that are healthy in some more central
way than the way a person is healthy).
So one might say that persons are healthy in the primary sense of the term, while diets and
complexions and the like are healthy only in secondary senses of the term.

It is the same with beings, Aristotle tells us (1003b6):

For some things are called beings because they are substances, others because
 they are attributes of substances, others because they are a road to substance,
or because they are perishings or privations or qualities of substance, or
productive or generative of substance ....

This fits in perfectly with what we learned in the Categories, where primary substances
(individuals) were argued to be the ontologically basic things. Beings in other categories (e.g.,
qualities, etc.) owe their existence to the substances they inhere in. Qualities are beings, too,
but not in the way that substances are.

So the study of being qua being must begin with a study of the central cases of being, the things
that are beings in the primary sense: substances.

Metaphysics Z: the study of substance

Aristotle begins book Z (VII) with a reminder that being is said in many ways, and that the
being of substances is central, and that if we are to study being we must study substance. Indeed,
he tells us (1028b3):

... the old question—always pursued from long ago till now, and always
raising puzzles— ‘What is being?’ is just the question ‘What is substance?’

But Aristotle can no longer take it for granted that the old Categories examples of substances—
a man, a horse, a tree—are going to be acceptable as basic items. Why? Because of the
hylomorphic analysis that was introduced in the Physics.

How hylomorphic analysis threatens Categories substances

Matter underlies and persists through substantial changes. A substance is generated

(destroyed) by having matter take on (lose) form. Examples:

1. A house is created when bricks, boards, etc., are put together according to a certain plan
and arranged in a certain form. It is destroyed when the bricks, boards, etc., lose that form.

2. An animal is generated when matter (contributed by the mother) combines with form
(contributed by the father).

This suggests that the primary substances of the Categories, the individual plants and
animals, are, when analyzed, actually compounds of form and matter. And in the
Metaphysics, Aristotle suggests that a compound cannot be a substance (Z.3, 1029a30).
This may seem a strange move for Aristotle to be making. But the idea may be this: a
compound cannot be a basic ontological ingredient. Cf. these compounds:

• a brown horse
• a scholar
Each of these is a compound of substance + attribute. That is:

• a brown horse = a horse + brownness

• a scholar = a human + education
 In these cases, the compound is a compound of entities that are more basic. (“A scholar is
not an ontologically basic item in the world—a scholar is just a human with a liberal
education.”)

If then primary substance (in the Metaphysics conception of primary substance) cannot be a
form-matter compound, what is primary substance? The possibilities seem to be: matter and
form. (Aristotle actually discusses more possibilities—this is a simplification.)

Metaphysics Z.3: the subject criterion

In Z.3, Aristotle considers the claim of matter to be substance, and rejects it. Substance must
be separable and a this something (usually translated, perhaps misleadingly, as “an
individual”).

• Separable: to be separable is to be nonparasitic. Qualities, and other nonsubstances of the

Categories, are not separable. They only exist in substances. Separability, then, amounts
to independent existence.

• This something: [there is much dispute over what Aristotle means by this odd locution]
“Individual” comes close, except for the suggestion that only a primary substance of the
Categories could count as a “this something”. Perhaps an individual plant or animal counts
as a this something, but perhaps other things do, too. For Aristotle seems to count form as,
in some way, a this something (e.g., H.1, 1042a28). But, as a rough gloss, individuality
seems to be what is at issue.

Now it may seem puzzling that matter should be thought to fail the
“separability/individuality” test. For:

• Separability: It seems that the matter of a compound is capable of existing separately from
it. (The wood of which a tree is composed can continue to exist after the tree has ceased to
exist.)
• Individuality: We can certainly pick out a definite, particular, batch of matter as a singular
object of reference: “the quantity of wood of which this tree is composed at this time.”

But perhaps Aristotle’s point is not that matter is neither separable nor individual; all he is
committed to saying is that matter fails to be both separable and individual.

• Separability: Separate from a substance, matter fails to be a this. It owes what individuality
it has to the substance it is the matter of. (What makes this quantity of wood one thing is
that it is the wood composing this one tree.)

• Individuality: Considered as an individual (a “this something”), matter fails to be separate

from substance. (This batch of wood no longer has any unity once it no longer composes
the tree it used to be the matter of—unless it now happens to be the matter of some other
substance that gives it its unity.)
 Objection: Can’t we use a “dummy” word, like “quantity of’ or “collection of,” to give
something a kind of unity? E.g., “the quantity of wood in the table,” “the collection of
parts of which the house is made.” Perhaps, but Aristotle resists the idea that such a thing
is a genuine unity. It’s what he would call a “heap” (cf. 1041b12 and 1045a8), and heaps
do not count as genuine individuals.

So matter cannot simultaneously be both separable and individual, and therefore matter cannot
be substance. The only remaining candidate for primary substance seems to be form (which
Aristotle now begins to call essence). It is clear that Aristotle is now focusing on the concept
of the substance of something—i.e., what it is about an individual plant or animal (what the
Categories called a “primary substance”) that makes it a self-subsistent, independent, thing.
Some evidence:

• Z.3, 1029a30: “the substance composed of both—I mean composed of the matter and the
form—should be set aside ... we must, then, consider the third type of substance [the form],
since it is the most puzzling.”

• Z.6, 1031a16: “a given thing seems to be nothing other than its own substance, and
something’s substance is said to be its essence.”

• Z.11, 1037a6: “it is also clear that the soul is the primary substance, the body is matter, and
man or animal is composed of the two as universal. As for Socrates or Coriscus, if
<Socrates’> soul is also Socrates, he is spoken of in two ways; for some speak of him as
soul, some as the compound.”

• Z.17, 1041a9: “substance is some sort of principle and cause . . . ”

It thus appears that in rejecting the claim that matter is substance, Aristotle is rejecting the
subject criterion as the basis for deciding what a primary substance is. To be a substance is not
to be an ultimate subject, for the ultimate subject of change seems to be matter (perhaps even a
featureless and unknowable prime matter?).

Metaphysics Z. 6-17: form as substance

Aristotle concludes Z.3 by considering three possible candidates for substance: matter, form,
and the compound of matter and form. He has already rejected matter (1029a28), and at 1029a31
he says that the compound “should be set aside, since it is posterior to the other two, and clear.”
Instead, he suggests that we consider the third candidate—form—for the title of substance.

This seems very odd, since we’d expect Aristotle to be rejecting both materialist and Platonist
answers to the question of which things are the substances (i.e., ultimate realities). That would
suggest rejecting both matter and form, and opting instead for the compound.

What may be going here is that Aristotle has shifted away from the population question (which
things are substances?) and toward the explanatory question (what is it that makes something
a substance?). Evidence of this is the frequent occurrence beginning in Z.3 of the locution
 “substance of”—as in 1028a35

For the essence, the universal and the genus seem to be the substance of a given thing ...

The idea is this: when you ask what the substance of x is, you are asking what it is that makes x
a substance. So the reason form gets the nod over the compound is that we are trying to explain
what makes a given hylomorphic compound a substance. In this case, it is pointless and circular
to cite the compound. Our choices seem to be: matter or form. Since matter has been rejected,
form is the default candidate.

Aristotle and Platonism

Does Aristotle’s view that substance is form or essence make him a Platonist? Most
commentators think not, but for different reasons.

• Some think that the kind of essence or form that Aristotle counts as primary substance is
one that is not in any way universal; a form that is as individual as the compound whose
form it is. (Thus, Socrates and Callias would each have his own distinct individual
form—there would be as many individual human forms as there are humans.) This view
is usually supported by appeal to Aristotle’s use of expressions like “your essence”
(“your essence is what you are in your own right,” 1029b17), and “being Socrates”
(1032a8), and to his argument in Z.13 that universals are not substances.

• Others think that the “individual forms” solution is not to be found in Aristotle, and is
anyway unavailable to him. On their view, the primary substance of the Metaphysics is
species form—something that is common to different members of the same species, but
is still, in some plausible sense, an individual (“this something”). This view is usually
supported by appeal to Aristotle’s claim in Z.4 that essence belongs only to species of a
genus, and to his argument in Z.15 that no individual is definable (together with his
account of a definition as a formula that tells us the essence of something).

Metaphysics Z.17: Forms as causes

Z.17 seems to chart a course about substance that is anti-Platonic but does not (so far as I can
tell) decide between the individual-form and species-form interpretations of Aristotle’s doctrine.
The main ideas:

The individual substances of the Categories are, indeed, compounds of matter and form,
but they are not just heaps, or piles, of components. Rather, they’re like syllables.

That is, they’re not just unstructured collections of elements, but have a structure that is
essential to their being what they are. The syllables BA and AB are different, but they are
the same collection of components—they have the same “matter”.

Structure or form is not just an ingredient (or what Aristotle here calls an “element”) in the
compound. Here’s a useful analogy. A recipe is more than just a list of ingredients. It also
includes instructions on how to put the ingredients together. But it would be a mistake to
 think that the instructions are just another ingredient.

Aristotle offers an infinite regress argument for this: if the structure of a compound (e.g., a
syllable) were just another component (along with the letters) then the whole compound
would just be a heap. (E.g., the syllable BA would be a collection consisting of two letters
and one structure. But a structure considered by itself, as an element, is not the structure of
the syllable. The syllable BA consists of two elements structured in a certain way; it isn’t
an unstructured collection of three things, one of which is a thing called a structure.

So substance is the structure or form of a compound of matter and form (i.e., of a plant or
an animal). At the end of Z.17, Aristotle describes substance, in this sense, in three ways:
1. Primary cause of being.

2. The nature (of a plant or animal).

3. Not an element, but a principle.

The resulting view is not Platonism

The form that Aristotle says is primary substance is not, like Plato’s, separable from all
matter (except, perhaps, in thought). And it cannot exist if it is not the form of something.
(E.g., the species-form does not exist if there are no specimens of that species.) But it is still
separable, in Aristotle’s sense, since it is non-parasitic: it does not depend for its existence
on the particular batch of matter it’s in, nor on the accidental characteristics of the compound
it’s the form of.

The form is not a “thing” in the manner of a Platonic form. It’s the way something is, the
way the matter composing an individual compound is organized into a functioning whole.

Nor is it materialism
Why doesn’t this view collapse into materialism? That is, why isn’t the form that can only
exist in matter just a mode or modification of the matter that it informs? Why isn’t matter
more basic than form in the way that the primary substances of the Categories are more
basic than their accidents?

The substantial form (i.e., what makes Socrates human, or, for the proponent of individual
forms, what makes Socrates Socrates) is really the basic entity that persists through change.
This may seem wrong, since when Socrates dies, his matter persists, although he no longer
exists. But when we are tracing the history of Socrates through time, we do not follow the
course of the matter that happens to compose his body at any given moment, but that of the
form that the matter has. (Animals and plants metabolize; the matter that they are composed
of differs from time to time.) So what makes Socrates the kind of thing he is, and what
makes him remain, over time, the same thing of that kind, is the form that he continues to
have.

For Aristotle, the form of a compound substance is essential to it; its matter is accidental.
 (Socrates could have been composed of different matter from that of which he is actually
composed.) Form may be accidental to the matter that it informs, but it is essential to the
compound substance that it is the form of.

Form is what makes the individual plants and animals what they are. Therefore, it is the substance
of those individuals.
 Aristotle on the Soul
Matter and Form

1. Aristotle uses his familiar matter/form distinction to answer the question “What is soul?”
At the beginning of De Anima II.1, he says that there are three sorts of substance:
a. Matter (potentiality)
b. Form (actuality)
c. The compound of matter and form
2. Aristotle is interested in compounds that are alive. These— plants and animals—are the
things that have souls. Their souls are what make them living things.
3. Since form is what makes matter a “this,” the soul is the form of a living thing. (Not its
shape, but its actuality, that in virtue of which it is the kind of living thing that it is.)

Grades of Actuality and Potentiality

1. Aristotle distinguishes between two levels of actuality (entelecheia). At 412a11 he

gives knowing and attending as examples of these two kinds of actuality. (It has become
traditional to call these first and second actuality, respectively.) At 412a22-26 he
elaborates this example and adds this one: being asleep vs. being awake. But he does not
fully clarify this important distinction until II.5 (417a22-30), to which we now turn.
2. At 417a20, Aristotle says that there are different types of both potentiality and actuality.
His example concerns different ways in which someone might be described as a knower.
One might be called a knower in the sense that he or she:
a. is a human being.
b. has grammatical knowledge.
c. is attending to something.

A knower in sense (a) is someone with a mere potential to know something, but no actual
knowledge. (Not everything has this potential, of course. E.g., a rock or an earthworm has
no such potential.) A knower in sense (b) has some actual knowledge (for example, she
may know that it is ungrammatical to say “with John and I”), even though she is not actually
thinking about it right now. A knower in sense (c) is actually exercising her knowledge (for
example, she thinks “that’s ungrammatical” when she hears someone say “with John and
I”).

3. Note that (b) involves both actuality and potentiality. The knower in sense (b) actually
knows something, but that actual knowledge is itself just a potentiality to think certain
thoughts or perform certain actions. So we can describe our three knowers this way:
a. First potentiality
b. Second potentiality = first actuality
c. Second actuality
 4. Here is another example (not Aristotle’s) that might help clarify the distinction.
a. First potentiality: a child who does not speak French.
b. Second potentiality (first actuality): a (silent) adult who speaks French.
c. Second actuality: an adult speaking (or actively understanding) French.

A child (unlike a rock or an earthworm) can (learn to) speak French. A Frenchman (unlike
a French infant, and unlike most Americans) can actually speak French, even though he is
silent at the moment. Someone who is actually speaking French is, of course, the paradigm
case of a French speaker.

5. Aristotle uses the notion of first actuality in his definition of the soul (412a27):

The soul is the first actuality of a natural body that has life potentially.

6. Remember that first actuality is a kind of potentiality—a capacity to engage in the activity
which is the corresponding second actuality. So soul is a capacity—but a capacity to do
what?
7. A living thing’s soul is its capacity to engage in the activities that are characteristic of living
things of its natural kind. What are those activities? Some are listed in DA II.1; others in
DA II.2:
o Self-nourishment
o Growth
o Decay
o Movement and rest (in respect of place)
o Perception
o Intellect
8. So anything that nourishes itself, that grows, decays, moves about (on its own, not just
when moved by something else), perceives, or thinks is alive. And the capacities of a thing
in virtue of which it does these things constitute its soul. The soul is what is causally
responsible for the animate behavior (the life activities) of a living thing.

Degrees of soul

1. There is a nested hierarchy of soul functions or activities (413a23).

a. Growth, nutrition, (reproduction)
b. Locomotion, perception
c. Intellect (= thought)
2. This gives us three corresponding degrees of soul:
a. Nutritive soul (plants)
b. Sensitive soul (all animals)
c. Rational soul (human beings)
 3. These are nested in the sense that anything that has a higher degree of soul also has all of
the lower degrees. All living things grow, nourish themselves, and reproduce. Animals not
only do that, but move and perceive. Humans do all of the above and reason, as well. (There
are further subdivisions within the various levels, which we will ignore.)

Soul and Body

1. A key question for the ancient Greeks (as it still is for many people today) is whether the
soul can exist independently of the body. (Anyone who believes in personal immortality is
committed to the independent existence of the soul.) Plato (as we know from the Phaedo)
certainly thought that the soul could exist separately. Here is what Aristotle has to say on
this topic:

. . . the soul neither exists without a body nor is a body of some sort.
For it is not a body, but it belongs to a body, and for this reason is
present in a body, and in a body of such-and-such a sort (414a20ff).

So on Aristotle’s account, although the soul is not a material object, it is not

separable from the body. (When it comes to the intellect, however, Aristotle waffles. See
DA III.4)

2. Aristotle’s picture is not Cartesian:

a. There is no inner/outer contrast. The soul is not an inner spectator, in direct contact
only with its own perceptions and other psychic states, having to infer the existence
of a body and an “external” world.

There is thus no notion of the privacy of experience, the incorrigibility of the

mental, etc., in Aristotle’s picture.

b. The soul is not an independently existing substance. It is linked to the body more
directly: it is the form of the body, not a separate substance inside another substance
(a body) of a different kind. It is a capacity, not the thing that has the capacity.

It is thus not a separable soul. (It is, at most, pure thought, devoid of personality,
that is separable from the body on Aristotle’s account.)

c. Soul has little to do with personal identity and individuality. There is no reason to
think that one (human) soul is in any important respect different from any other
(human) soul. The form of one human being is the same as the form of any other.

There is, in this sense, only soul, and not souls. You and I have different souls
because we are different people. But we are different human beings because we are
different compounds of form and matter. That is, different bodies both animated by
the same set of capacities, by the same (kind of) soul.