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A Proof in the ΠΕΡΙ ΙΔΕΩΝ Author(s) : G. E. L. Owen Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1957, Vol. 77, Part 1 (1957), pp. 103-111 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
A Proof in the ΠΕΡΙ ΙΔΕΩΝ Author(s) : G. E. L. Owen Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1957, Vol. 77, Part 1 (1957), pp. 103-111 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Author(s): G. E. L. Owen
Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies , 1957, Vol. 77, Part 1 (1957), pp. 103-111
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
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THE PROOF
I. When the same predicate is asserted of several things not homonymously (tk0 d/1wviV'w
but so as to indicate a single character, it is true of them either (a) because they are stri
(KvUpwS) what the predicate signifies, e.g. when we call both Socrates and Plato 'a man
(b) because they are likenesses of things that are really so, e.g. when we predicate 'man' of m
in pictures (for what we are indicating in them is the likenesses of men, and so we signify a
identical character in each); or (c) because one of them is the model and the rest are likenesse
e.g. if we were to call both Socrates and the likenesses of Socrates 'men'.
II. Now when we predicate 'absolutely equal' (-r Ziov a;d') of things in this worl
we use the predicate homonymously. For (a) the same definition (Adyos) does not fit th
all; (b) nor are we referring to things that are really equal, since the dimensions of sens
things are fluctuating continuously and indeterminate. (c) Nor yet does the definition
'equal' apply without qualification (dKptPfls) to anything in this world.
III. But neither (can such things be called equal) in the sense that one is model
another is likeness, for none of them has more claim than another to be either model or likene
IV. And even if we allow that the likeness is not homonymous with the model, the c
clusion is always the same-that the equal things in this world are equal qua likenesses of what
is strictly and really equal.
V. If this is so, there is something absolutely and strictly equal (artL i- aVh'tauov K
KvpIwS) by relation to which things in this world, as being likenesses of it, become and
called equal. And this is an Idea. (Alexander, Met. 82. 11-83. 16 Hayduck.)
I shall refer to this report of the argument in the 7TEpt 13Ecv as P. Its gist, if not its detail
seems clear. What is allegedly proved, for the specimen predicate 'equal', is a doctrine fam
i It has been discussed by Robin (who first assignedtextit of our passage in a clumsy attempt to evade the
to the 7rept i1de&v), Theorie platonicienne des Idees et des
difficulties discussed infra, pp. io4-6. (But notice that,
Nombres, 19-21, 603-5, 607; Cherniss, Aristotle's Criticism
where A uses Socrates and Plato as examples, LF at first
uses Callias and Theaetetus, reverting then to those in
of Plato and the Academy, I, 229-33, esp. n. 137, and Wilpert,
A.) On Robin's attempt (1.c.) to assign LF equal autho-
Zwei aristotelische Friihschriften, 41-4, each of whom knew
only Robin's discussion; and Suzanne Mansion, 'La
rity with AM see Wilpert, n. 38, Cherniss, n. I37-
critique de la th6orie des Idles dans le i7ept i&deiv d'Aris- 3 Cf. p. I07, n. 26 infra.
4 'We': not of course the Platonists, who make no such
tote', Revue Philosophique de Louvain, xlvii (I949), i81-3, esp.
n. 42. I shall refer to these writings by the author's name.
error, but generally the unwary or unconverted to whom
2 The A of Bonitz and later edd. The version of the argument is addressed. The objector envisaged at
the commentary in L and F excerpted in Hayduck's Phaedo 74b6-7, and Hippias (Hipp. Maj. 288a and 289d),
apparatus is later in origin (Hayduck, Alexandri insee
Met.
no objection to using aw3r6 -r6 ~aov and a?i6d td KaAdv
Commentaria, pref. viii-ix and ix, n. 2). It modifies
of the
sensible things.
The difficulty in I(c) seems both logical and historical. We may say 'That is a man' without
ambiguity when pointing to each of two flesh-and-blood men. Or (in a very different case) we may
say it when pointing to each of two pictures, and what we say has the same sense of both pictures:
in that respect we are still speaking unambiguously. But we are inclined to add that now we are
not using the predicate in the same sense as in the first case: otherwise we should be mistaking
paint and canvas for flesh and blood. Moreover this is Aristotle's view, and his examples suggest
that he has our argument in mind.6 Yet, as it stands, I(c) says just the opposite. The analysis
seems to have distinguished cases (a) and (b) in order to assert with all emphasis that a combination
of them in (c) imports no ambiguity at all.
The later version of the scholium (supra, n. 2) takes a short way with the difficulty, reclassifying
I(c) as a case of homonymy. Robin (n. I) tried to wrest this sense from the original text; Wilpert
(l.c.) rejected the attempt but regretted the anomaly. Yet the problem is fictitious. The logical
issue can only be touched on here. The fact is that, although the difference between I(a) and
I(b) predication does show an ambiguity of an important type, this is not the sort of ambiguity
that can be exhibited by the methods of Aristotle and the Academy.7 It no more proves that the
predicate-word has two paraphrasable meanings than the fact that I can point to a portrait and
say 'That is Socrates' proves that Socrates had an ambiguous name. This is true, but it is doubtful
whether it is the point that our author is making. For the wording of I(b) suggests that in its
derivative use the predicate is to be paraphrased otherwise than in its primary use (i.e. in terms
of 'likeness'), though this difference of paraphrase does not constitute an ambiguity. Similarly
we shall find (infra, I o9-I o) that the argument of II can be construed as allowing, with one proviso,
that a predicate can be used unambiguously of several things even when the Aoyor of that predicate
differs in the different cases; the proviso is that the different Ao'yo shall have a common factor.
(In the cases distinguished in I this factor is the primary definition of 'man', and in II it is the
definition of ~' 't'aov a~dr.) If this interpretation is correct our specimen of Academic argument
containsare
which anin
obvious
a senseparallel to Aristotle's
synonymous admission of a class
(Met. ioo3a33-Ioo3bI5, cf. of rrp01
Eth. Eud.Ev1236ai5-20,
Ka ~ ltav va'
andYan.7 37
tlV AEydOlEva
infra) .
But Aristotelian parallels are irrelevant to showing the reliability of P. What matters is that
the analysis in I would misrepresent its Platonic sources if I(c) were not a type of unequivocal pre-
dication. This is implied by the reference in Republic 596-7 to a bed in a picture, a wooden bed
and the Paradigm Bed as 7-p-i-al KAZvaL (even when, as in P.I, only one of these is 'really' what
the predicate signifies); and more generally it is implied by such dicta as that nothing can be just
pls 6ut d y)upwy in the Aristotelian sense but not, as we Phys. H. 248bi2-21: H. neglects such passages in detect-
shall see, using Aristotelian criteria. Some will detect ing a book of Speusippus behind Topics A 15). More-
the influence of Speusippus in P.I, noticing that in
it the vehicles of homonymy and its opposite seem to be over
that in
weP.can
III say
the is6djwbvvtia are things,
that P reflects not words.
a general All
academic
not things but words, and that this is held to be charac- usage.
teristic of Speusippus by contrast with Aristotle (Ham- 6 De Part. An. 64ob35-641a3, De An. 412b2o-22, and
bruch, Logische Regeln der plat. Schule, 27-9, followed by on the traditional interpretation Cat. IaI-6 (cf. Porphyry,
other scholars including Lang, Speusippus, 25-6. Ham- Cat. 66.23-28, followed by later commentators, and see
bruch contrasts Aristotle, Cat. IaI-i2, with Boethus's earlier Chrysippus fr. 143 (von Arnim). But Ccoov, the
account of Speusippus in Simplicius, Cat. 38.19). Quite predicate cited, is ambiguous in a more ordinary sense:
apart from doubts about the tradition represented by LS8 s.v. II).
Boethus, it is clear that Aristotle's usage is far from being 7 For a connected discussion I can refer now to P. T.
as rigid as Hambruch supposes (see e.g. An. Post. 99a7, 12, Geach in Philosophical Review, LXV (1956), 74-
Man, fire and water seem to have remained stock Academic instances
by contrast with -r irp g'ETEpov or -ra 7rp6s -L,36 and there is small d
sketched above between complete and incomplete predicates in Pl
Academic dichotomy as well as of some major arguments for Ide
Aristoteleae preserved by Diogenes Laertius define Ta Ka Eawra dv AEy
JLUG7EVo, 7TpooraSETL and r 7Tpd? s hEyd0LEva accordingly as o a lr
Mutschmann). Now it seems plain that the same distinction unde
this explanation of ra rrpod TL recalls the argument of II(c) that the d
apply without further specification, JdKptfl9g,37 to anything in t
thing is called equal (and here again we have to note that equality is
individual thing) is to specify another with whose dimensions tho
seems only the other face of this coin, for different cases of equality
completed in different ways.38 (II(b) seems to add the rider that, since
things are constantly fluctuating, even to say 'having the same siz
without fixed meaning.) But even in Alexander's possibly condense
and II(c) are not duplicates and that their sequence is important.
the specification of various correlates can be no part of the meanin
ambiguous, and the point of II(c) is that when the common core
accretions it no longer characterises anything in this world.
Such arguments apply only to predicates which in their everyda
sense, relative. They follow Plato in deducing the existence of Ideas fr
of 'equal' (or mutatis mutandis of 'beautiful' or 'good') when this is
plexing expressions as 'man'. To this II(b) alone might seem an ex
imply (what it certainly does not say) that phenomenal things ar
35 Parmenides I3oc-d. Parmenides' explanation of neglect a parallel of thought and language in the Eudemian
Socrates' choice, that he rejects Ideas of yeAoTa, is applied
Ethics. In the discussion of three types of friendship in
only to mud, hair and dirt (I30c5). In any case it is a E.E. VII. 2 it is said that one Adyo'o does not fit all the
diagnosis of motive and not a characterisation of the cases (I236a26), but the Aodyog of friendship in the primary
reasons that Socrates could have offered. sense (Kvpio?g) is an element in the Ad'ot of the rest
36 Hermodorus apud Simpl., Phys. 247-30 ff., Diogenes(1236a 20-22: 'the rest' are here of course species and
Laertius III. io8, Sextus Empiricus adv. Math. X. 263. not, as in P, individuals). For whereas friendship in the
37 = dTA6,, opposed to KGTc a rpdrOeatv: cf. An. strict
Post. sense is to choose and love a thing because it is good
87a34-7, Met. 982a25-8 and Io78a9-13, E.N. I148a1I1.
38 Or the sense may be that different cases involve and pleasant d7TA5g, friendship in its derivative senses is
to do this because it is good po'pd -rt or pleasant rtvt.
specifying different measurements; but this would leave
In other words a definition that fits primary friendship
the senses of Ao'yog in II(a) and II(c) unconnected. And
II(c) may mean just that nothing is equal withoutneeds without
beingto bequalification
completed to (d67A,-
give the = -dKptflo
AOdo' of the in P. II(c))
derivative
unequal too. But, besides robbing Aristotle's reply of So in P: the similarity of language is very striking.
cases.
its immediate point (infra, Ilo), these interpretations
The author of our proof is substantially faithful to the class of Platonic arguments he represents,
but here again he is anxious to sharpen a logical issue. What the dialogues describe as an appeal
to an intelligible Paradigm is seen, in practice, to be the application of a correct definition (e.g
Euthyphro 6e). It is in terms of definitions that P is framed. To say that nothing on earth affords
an unexceptionable Paradigm of equality is re-phrased as saying that to nothing on earth can th
definition of 'equal' be applied, pared of irrelevant accretions. Now this re-phrasing brings out
more clearly than Plato's words, the crucial point at which Aristotle directs his objection-and an
success in explaining his reply must stand in favour of our interpretation of the argument. Where
a Paradigm is required for a predicate that is incomplete in its ordinary use it must indeed be (a
the argument of P faithfully shows) a Standard Case, exhibiting rather than being the characte
it represents. But more: it seems that the Form, and the Form alone, must carry its predicate
Kac' at6rod in the sense given by the dichotomy. a3rd -rd ;'ov is indeed equal, but how can we without
absurdity ask to what it is equal? It cannot be equal to everything or to nothing (both would
engender paradoxes), and it cannot be equal to some things but not others (which would re-import
just the compresence of opposites that the Form was invented to avoid: Parm. I29b-I30oa). Th
incompleteness which so embarrassingly characterises 'equal' in its ordinary applications cannot
it seems, characterise it when it designates the Form. This is the natural sense of Socrates' warning
that the 'equal' he is to discuss is not 'stick equal to stick or stone equal to stone but just equal'
(Phdo. 74a), and it is the main point of the argument in P that unless 'equal' is merely ambiguou
the core of meaning common to all its uses must apply to something JKpitflc or, as Aristotle puts
it in the Metaphysics,
absurdities in a similar KaO' a-7o. One
treatment aim of
of 'one'. the
It is second
the partcase
extreme of of
theGreek
Parmenides, I take it,
mistreatment of is to find
'relative'
terms in the attempt to assimilate them to simple adjectives.4o
This is the point on which Aristotle fastens, and his rejoinder is not the simple deception that
Cherniss reads into it.41 It is developed in more than one place. In the Metaphysics he is conten
to observe that such arguments construct a 'non-relative class of relatives', i.e. a class of non-relative
instances of relatives. They require that any essentially incomplete predicate shall in one applic
tion behave as though it were complete-yet the Academy's use of the familiar dichotomy recognises
no such exceptions (see the Sophist 255c-d). Alexander reports what is in effect the same objection:
nothing can be equal that is not equal to something; but this entails that 7~ a'vror'ov is equal t
another at-do'Lov, and thus the Form is duplicated (Met. 83. 26-8). But even without thi
corroboration we could be sure of Aristotle's sense. In chapter 31 of the de sophisticis elenchis h
says: 'We must not allow that predications of relative terms (rcwv rpds -r AEyo1z'vwv) mean anything
when taken out of relation (KaO' ara-ds), e.g. that "double" means something apart from "doubl
of half" merely because it is a distinguishable element in that phrase. . . . We may say that by
itself "double" means nothing at all; or, if anything, certainly not what it means in context'-an
this rebuts the treatment of 'equal' in P and its sources as applying synonymously to earthly things
and to the Form. If 'equal' does not behave as tractably as 'man' in this world, that does not
entail that there is another world in which it does: the use of 'equal' is irreducibly different from
that of 'man'.
The consequence attacked by Aristotle is, I think, implied by the Platonic arguments on which
the proof in P relies. But did Plato clearly contemplate the consequence in framing the arguments?
That is surely doubtful. It would be easy to overlook it in the case of an asymmetrical relatio
such as double-of-half, where the absurdity of having to give the Form a twin in order to supply it
with its appropriate correlate does not arise. And Plato's very use of Kad' a-d-, by contrast wit
the Academic usage that grew out of it, shows the weakness; for in characterising a case of X
KaO' av-7
which he entry
gives evidently means
to an rather
opposite to exclude
(Parm. thei29d,
I28e and opposite
Rep. of X than
524d: to exclude
notice that thethe relativit
solution of
39 Met. 99obiI-I 7. The proofs Kadr -d r6v 817 i7tO7AAI v40 Cf. Cornford, Plato and Parmenides, 78, n. I, and for a
and Ka T d ovoev t qSO 0apg'vro do so because they later
are parallel R. M. Martin, Phil. and Phen. Research. XIV,
logically unrestricted in scope. For the 1Ayo't K 65 v
211.