plato's phaedo and plato's ‘essentialism’
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Plato's phaedo and Plato's‘essentialism’Thomas Wheaton Bestor aa Massey UniversityPublished online: 28 Jul 2006.
To cite this article: Thomas Wheaton Bestor (1988) Plato's phaedo andPlato's ‘essentialism’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 66:1, 26-51, DOI:10.1080/00048408812350221
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Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 66, No. 1; March 1988
PLATO'S PHAEDO AND PLATO'S 'ESSENTIALISM'*
Thomas Wheaton Bestor
There is a New Story going about that once upon a time Plato had a theory of particulars which made quite redundant his theory of Forms. Moreover, the story goes, this explains much about the two major directions ancient Greek philosophy took concerning the hoary problem of universals. I believe the story is wrong. I know it is important.
I. The Crux o f Essentialism A story that makes Forms redundant is not of course a story in which Forms are needed but yet to be discovered. So the New Story is not really a story about what is going on with Socrates' curious handling of his 'What is F?' questions in the 'Early Period' dialogues such as, say, the Laches, Hippias Major and Euthyphro. A story that makes Forms redundant has to be a story in which Forms are clearly recognised but in which another device as well happens to do the work they do. And so it is. The New Story is a story which takes bite mainly in the Phaedo, that dialogue in which Plato finally gets his 'Two Worlds' act together, with sensibles Down Here surmounted by Forms Up There. It argues that, as actually described in the Phaedo, such Forms turn out to be but one of two quite different pieces of philosophical apparatus answering a major question for which we have always thought Forms were invented: enunciating the ontological status of whatever can really be known behind the fleeting phenomena of the senses such that those sensibles can be usefully explained by appeal to those knowables. The Forms do do that, to be sure. But another piece of apparatus discussed and used in the Phaedo also does that. Strictly speaking, however, we need just one of these philosophical tools. Indeed, any extra is not really overkill but countermand.
The New Story usually then goes on to draw certain ol~vious but striking conclusions about how later investigations of the problem of knowledge and universals were guided by this crucial redundancy. Plato himself in fact reacted one way; his canniest pupil, Aristotle, reacted quite another way. Plato reacted by simply recanting the redundant Phaedo apparatus: Not immediately perhaps, but soon enough, he realised for himself that he had two bits both doing the same job. Mainly because it had turned out so economical for doing other jobs as well, he wanted to hang on to the Formist apparatus at all costs, so he simply dumped the other. Hence in book V of
* My special thanks to the generous criticism given me by Jim Battye, Max Cresswell, John Patterson, Frank White and Alexander Zacharapoulos. This is not to say, of course, that I have listened.
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Thomas Wheaton Bestor 27
the Republic, especially 479a-d, Plato argues that Forms are everywhere necessary to be the stable and unchanging objects of knowledge, denying that any other apparatus can legitimately explain its possibility. This is the argument Frank White makes so persuasively. 1
Aristotle, as was his wont, took the opposite tack, and thence got started being Aristotle rather than merely a student clone of Plato. He too realised that the Phaedo contained a doctrine of knowledge of the stables and unchangings which made redundant a Form-ist account of what lies 'behind' or 'above' sensible phenomena. Not wanting to place any of this explanatory apparatus 'behind' or 'above' anyway, Aristotle simply dumped all the Forms. Instead, in his Categories, he proceeded to develop the alternative Phaedo insight into a full-blown anti-Formist t h e o r y - a universal comes to be something predicated directly of a multiplicity of things (17a38-42), provided it names the things it names as the same in species and genera (2al 1-18), i.e. ' synonymously ' (la6-11); in this way what matters are not any vertical relations which sensibles might be supposed to have to Upper World Forms, but only the lateral relations which they do have to each other exclusively at the Lower World level. This is the argument Max Cresswell makes so persuasively. 2
There be the hopes and fears for the New Story. But what story exactly is that story? The answer may be a bit of anti-climax. The New Story is basically the story that in the Phaedo Plato entertained and used a distinction between what we today might be tempted to call 'essential properties ' and 'accidential properties' . Because the equivalent of our term 'property ' was invented by Plato 0nly much later in the Theaetetus (182a8) -he invented the construction of 'a-kind-of-ness' or 'a-sort-of-ness' , poiotds, the abstract noun f rom the indefinite adjective pois, ' o f a certain k i n d ' - what is offered in the Phaedo would probably be more accurately called a distinction between being essentially so and so and being so and so merely accidentally. Now just by itself that distinction doesn't provide much new excitement. After all, something like this had been emphasised in the Euthyphro long before: Socrates had asked his usual 'What is f? ' question of Euthyphro 's claim to know about all matters of piety, and by elaborate argument then showed that being:loved-by-the-gods turns out to be a Bad Answer because it is one of the things which happen to (pathos) all pious doers and deeds, and so not at all that essence (ousia) by which all those pious things are made to be what they are (1 la-b). What is so important about the Phaedo treatment is not this long-familiar distinction itself but the new range of its application: Plato here insists, so it is said, that it can also be o f the very essence o f ordinary Lower World particulars that they be so and so.
1 See: Frank White, Plato's Theory of Particulars, chs. 1-4. 'The Scope of Knowledge in Republic V" Australasian Journal of Philosophy, LXII (1984), pp. 339-354.
2 See: M. J. CressweU, 'Plato's Essentialism', unpub, ms. pp. 7-10. 'Is There One or Are There Many One and Many Problems in Plato?', Philosophical Quarterly, XXII (1972), pp. 50-51. 'Review of F. C. White's Plato's Theory of Particulars', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, LXI (1983), pp. 323-326. 'Aristotle's Phaeclo', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, LXV (1987), pp. 131-155.
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28 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's 'Essentialism'
The critical redundancy comes directly with this insistence. If Essentialism is r i g h t - t ha t is, if some ordinary particulars are such that they are essentially the way they are, it being impossible for them to exist without being that w a y - t h e n everything we wanted the Forms for is already accomplished and we don't need to drag in Forms at all. If some ordinary particular thing X has to be f, cannot not be f under pain of ceasing to exist as that particular thing, then it will be very odd indeed to ask the question, 'Why is thing X f rather than not-f?'. If some ordinary particular is essentially f, that is, that is already a perfectly good explanation of why it is f and why it can never be not-f. We don't need to look at Forms; appeal to the character of the thing X just within itself is quite enough• By the same token, if some thing X has to be f and is f essentially, then at least that particular will do perfectly well as an infallible object in our quest for genuine knowledge of f things. We don't need to look to the world of Forms for something that is unerringly, eternally, unceasingly f. Since any particular X which is essentially f can never change from being f to being not-f without ceasing to be that thing X, being essentially f after all, it itself fills this bill perfectly well too, just on its lonesome. As Frank White starts it:
Plato not only considers particulars at length [in the Phaedo] but attributes essential properties to them . . . where he says of them that there are properties which they possess necessarily (anagkd); which they have by nature (phuset); which they will possess as long as ever they exist (hotanper hei); which they have on pain of ceasing to be what they are (oudepote • . . eti esesthai hoper.tin); which they possess to the exclusion of their opposites (ta enantia ouch hupomeneO (103c ff). And so on. In the Phaedo, in other words, in respect of certain properties even sensible particulars a r e - l i k e the F o r m s - F and not n o t - F . . . They possess their properties necessarily, essentially. ('The Scope of Knowledge in Republic V', Australasian Journal o f Philosophy, LXII (1984), pp. 347, 348)
As Max Cresswell finishes it:
Briefly [Aristotle's reading of 103c ff] is that where predication can be synonymous, then there is no need for eponymy. Put in another way, if things have essential natures of their own, there is no need for Forms to be those n a t u r e s . . . Simmias is eponymously named tall,after the tallness which is in him. [But] Plato does not say that the tallness in him is eponymously named after the tallness in nature, and this is presumably because the tallness in him is worthy of the name because of its own nature • . . the name 'tallness' would apply synonymously to all ta l lnesses . . • [T]his argument of Aristotle's shows that you don't need a Form of Tallness if you can find something which can synonymously be said to be tall; and this is just what the Phaedo provides with the tallness which is in Simmias. ('Aristotle's Phaedo', Australasian Journal o f Philosophy, LXV (1987), pp. 147, 148).
The two historical redirections can now be restated very economically. White's direction: Plato realises that in the Phaedo he has m~tde Forms
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Thomas Wheaton Bestor 29
redundant explanatory devices at least for those Lower World particulars which are f essentially; he wants to hang on to Upper World Forms as the sole explanatory devices in his metaphysics, so he comes to insist in the Republic that no ordinary.particulars are f essentially; only the extraordinary Forms have the distinction of being essentially whatever they are. Cresswell's direction: Regardless of whatever sensitivity Plato may or may not have had, at least Aristotle saw that the Phaedo doctrine allowed some Lower World particulars to be f essentially; so for them at least the Forms are redundant explanatory devices; Aristotle doesn't like Upper World Forms as explanatory devices anyway; accordingly, he dumps them and, in the Categories, devises a metaphysics carried out entirely on the level of the Lower World. These ordinary particulars, or 'individual substances', as Aristotle now calls them, may only accidentally belong to various of the categories they belong to, but they are essentially co-specious-with whatever other things they are co- specious-with; and that is what finally guarantees that whenever f is some metaphysically dramatic character, we can indeed have knowledge of some ordinary particular's being f with exactly the degree of infallibility and eternity as Plato ever hoped to have of his transcendent Forms.
The success of this New Story depends entirely, of course, upon the actual existence of an Essentialist doctrine of particulars in the Phaedo, The arguments which White and Cresswell, and others, 3 give for finding such a doctrine there are ingenious. But they are not ultimately convincing, I believe. It isn't to the point to decide whether, at the time of writing the Phaedo, Plato himself was particularly self-conscious that he was really telling two stories rather than one story. Self-consciousness in philosophy is always a sometime thing. What is to the point is rather whether any Essentialist view at all is to be found t h e r e - s o m e views perhaps only in embryo but still a view determinate enough that it can legitimately be taken later by Plato (White) or later by Aristotle (Cresswell) to be a doctrine that makes full- fledged Forms undesirably redundant (White) or desirably redundant (Cresswell). I believe no doctrine of this sort exists at all in the Phaedo, even in embryo.
What is there, and what is uncontroversially there, is a philosophical doctrine, curious enough in its own right, that in addition to the ordinary particulars which are both f and not-f, there are indeed at least some ordinary particulars which are indeed f and never not-f. However, the bare doctrine
3 Finding such Essentialist doctrines in the Phaedo has a long but checkered history: C. M. Gillespie, 'On the Megarians', Archivf~r Geschichte tier Philosophie, XXIV (1911), pp. 223, 227. John Burnet, Plato'sPhaedo, pp. 115-118. R. S. Bluck, Plato'sPhaedo, pp. 118, 122, 122 fn. 1,124 fn.3, 172. Robert Turnbull, 'Aristotle's Debt to the "Natural Philosophy" of the Phaedo', Philosophical Quarterly, VIII (1958), pp. 131-143. David Scarrow, 'Phaedo 106a-106e', Philosophical Review, LXXX (1961), p. 245. Gregory Vlastos, 'Degrees of Reality in Plato', in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle, ed. by Renford Bambrough, pp. 11-17. Daniel O'Brien, 'Plato's Last Argument in the Phaedo', Classical Quarterly, XVII (1967), pp. 199-200. Gareth Matthews and Marc Cohen, 'The One and the Many', Review of Metaphysics, XXI (1968), pp. 642-655. Mario Fujisawa, 'Echein, Metechein and Idioms of Paradeigmatism in Plato's Theory of Forms', Phronesis, XIX (1974), pp. 31-32, 35-45. David Gallop, Plato: Phaedo, pp. 192-193.
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30 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's "Essentialism"
that such cases exist is not itself any doctrine properly to be called "Essentialism"; and when we seek accounts of why there are such cases, several explanations are available other tharr that proposed by Essentialism. This should occasion no surprise. After all, it is not an antiquarian worry that some of what we say about a thing X seems tied somehow to the very conditions for X being at all, while the rest of what we say of X doesn't seem so tied. Morever, in our present practice we worry at many possibilities here. Are we to explain the difference in terms of some distinctive placement of truths about X within the whole range of t r u th s? - some are true in all possible worlds while others are true in only some of those worlds. Are we to explain the difference in terms of some distinctive type of property asc r ip t ion?- some properties that thing X possesses it possesses by its own nature while others only because of the nature o f the world it finds itself in. Are we to explain the difference in terms of some distinctive type of relation to whatever relata give thing X its right to some t e r m ? - like contracts, some relations to universals or some relations amongst co-specious particulars or things of the same natural kind are especially binding while others aren't. Are we t o explain the difference in terms of some distinctive type of universal or whatever itself? - some of the things which X is crucially related to in their turn have special features and further connections while others don't. Are w e . . . and so on. Modern practice can only sketch an abiding setting for Plato's worry, of course, and ancient exegesis must decide on Plato's f-and- never-not-f moves on their own turf. But the second and fourth modern practices do illuminate I think. The New Story requires an explanation of the special cases in the Phaedo which is wholly independent of any Form-ist apparatus; in its stead it proposes something like a special sort of property ascription, what is essential versus what is accidental. And so the New Story does make Forms strictly redundant, with all those exciting consequences for the Republic and the Categories. The explanation of the special cases that it actually pursued in the Phaedo, I want to argue however, is carried out wholly within an apparatus of Forms, indeed almost as deep inside as it is possible to get, what does the work is percolating constraints down to ordinary particulars f rom the special relations those particulars have to their Forms and-- this is the crucial b i t - f r o m the special relations which those specific Forms have to other Forms. Thereby, of course, it makes Forms quite obligatory, with equally exciting consequences for, say, the Parmenides and so on. I shall call this the 'Extended Story'.
II. The Alleged "New Story" o f Essences in the Phaedo If there genuinely do exist some cases of things not obviously inhabitants of Plato's Upper World, which cases are essentially whatever they are, then they by themselves can give us the knowledge and explanations we seek. This is what gives the importance of deciding whether Essentialism is to be found in the Phaedo. More accurately, this is what gives the importance of deciding whether the acknowledged f-and-never-not-f-ness of the special cases is in the Phaedo to be accounted for by appealing to what is essential to some
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Thomas Wheaton Bestor 31
ordinary particular in itself rather than by appeal to the relations that that particular has to various Forms.
The relevant f and never not-f texts in the Phaedo are six. They are to be found in that part of the dialogue where Socrates is trying to develop an answer 'beyond the safe but simplistic answer' to questions of causality which was the main result of his earlier autobiography (96a-102a); some such 'more refined answer' is required in order finally to lay Cebes' objections to rest and prove the soul's immortality (105d-106e). FIRST CASE: 'It is not from Simmias' being Simmias (tdi Simmian einaO that he is taller than Socrates but because of the tallness which he happens to possess (tOi megethei ho tugchanei echOn)'.(102c) Such a passage suggests, it is said, that Simmias does indeed have the essential property of being Simmias, or at least that Simmias is what he is, Simmias, essentially rather than accidentally. Certainly being Simmias is not a character which he happens to have but which he might well lack and still be Simmias. SECOND CASE: 'It seems to be not only that the Form of Tallness itself absolutely declines to be short, but also that the tallness which is in us never admits smallness and declines to be surpassed; it either gives way and withdraws as i ts opposite shortness approaches or it has already ceased to exist by the time that the other arrives. It [the tallness in me] cannot stand its ground and receive the quality of shortness in the same way as I myself can, for if it did, it would become different from what it was before, whereas I have not lost my identity by acquiring the quality of shortness. In sum, the tallness which is in me could not possibly endure (ou tetolmdken) to be short instead of talr.(102d-e) All this suggests that the tallness which is in Simmias relative to Socrates can never be anything save tallness or else it would lose its identity, i.e. that that specific tallness, the tallness-in-Simmias-relative-to-Socrates, does not merely happen to be tall but is essentially tall. THIRD CASE: 'Snow is cold and can never admit (ousan dexamenen) heat and still remain what it was, snow, exactly as it was before only now with the mere addition of heat. Rather, it must either withdraw at the approach of heat or else cease to exist'.(103d) This suggests that snow (it may be snow drifts such as those on the front porch or it may be the very stuff snow) is cold of its very essence; snow drifts, say, are always cold and could never be anything but cold; directly they tried to be warm fhey would cease to be what they were, snow, and maybe even cease to be entirely. FOURTH CASE: 'It is the very nature of three and five and all the alternate integers that every one of them is invariably o d d . . . The name of 'odd' is applicable to them for all time (eis ton aei chronon) • . . and three will sooner cease to exist than submit to becoming even while it is still three'. (103e-104b) This suggests that groups of things three in number (or maybe it is the mathematical number three itself) are essentially odd and certainly not merely accidentally odd. FIFTH CASE: 'If you ask what must be present in a body to make it diseased, I shall say not disease [the safe but simplistic answer] but fever [the more refined answer]'.(105c) This suggests that a fever (or maybe even feverishness) is essentially something which causes disease; if it didn't have that causal activity, it wouldn't be fever at all (but,
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32 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's "Essentialism"
say, merely a flush f rom too much exercise or wine). S IXTH CASE: 'Whenever soul takes possession of a body, it always brings life with i t . . . and f rom our earlier agreement it follows that soul will never admit the opposite of that which invariably accompanies it, viz. death; accordingly, the soul does not admit d e a t h . . . It is impossible (adunaton) that at the approach of death soul should cease to be, or be dead'.(105c-106b) This reasoning is more complex; but at the least it suggests, so it is said, that the soul is alive as part of its essence; the soul's essential property is being alive; the soul would sooner go away to some other place than perish.
These six f and never not-f cases are of very different sorts. The FIRST CASE is about a Lower World named individual, Simmias. The SECOND CASE is about an apparently Lower World relation, the being tall which characterises Simmias when he is measured relative to Socrates. The T H I R D and FOURTH CASES seem to be about groups of Lower World things, snow drifts and things three in n u m b e r - o r failing that, they seem to be about stuffs or mathematical objects: on the one side, more pre-Socratic a i r /ea r th / f i re /wate r than particular entities made up of such elements; on the other side, more those things which are sums of units and to be added or divided to get other numbers than, say, classes. The F IFTH CASE is about a state of an ordinary physical body, the Lower World state of being diseased. The SIXTH CASE is about an apparently unique beast in Plato's metaphysics, the soul, which straddles the Lower and Upper Worlds by being imprisoned in the physical body but able nonetheless to have immediate acquaintance, albeit dimly, with the Forms.
Vastly different as their subjects are, nevertheless each of the six cases is meant to suggest exactly the same pair of morals, according to the New Story. (a) For a start, we are to draw the moral that Plato held such 'things' as these themselves to be essentially rather than accidentally what they are, at least in certain respects. (b) In addition to that, we are to draw the moral that the notion of being essentially so and so does not require to be cashed out in terms o f Upper World Forms. We need both morals, o f course, in order for the New Story to have any bite. Without the first, there is no contrast to be made between these six special cases and any other cases of things which are f. Without the second, there is no alternative to make redundant a specifically Form-ist account of such f and never not-f cases.
I do not believe either of these two morals can really be justified f rom Plato's actual text, however. While there can be no doubt that Plato does employ f and no t - f / f and never not-f considerations in the Phaebo, the ones he does employ derive entirely f rom his basic story of Forms and participants and not at all f rom some apparatus of what is essential versus what is accidental. To see this aright, we need to place the six special cases of Lower World particulars which are f and never not- f in their proper relation to all the other Lower World particulars, the ones which are not that but f and not-f both. For this we have to go back to where the Upper World Forms first are given some work to do.
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Thomas Wheaton Bestor 33
III. The "Extended Story" o f Forms and Participation in the Phaedo In the Phaedo, Forms are most explicitly invoked as much to provide for explanation as to provide for infal l ibi l i ty- that is, to explain in general why the ordinary particulars of this Lower World are the way that they are. Specifically, they are invoked to develop two incremental answers to such 'Why?' questions. The first answer is what was earlier called Socrates' 'safe answer' (asphale, 100d8, el, 101d2, 105b7, cl); it is an apparatus designed to explain, of those indefinitely many ordinary particulars which are f and not-f both, why they have the character they do: i.e. what accounts for them being f when they are f and what accounts for them being not-f when they are not-f. The second answer is what was earlier called Socrates 'refined answer' (kompsoteran, 105c2); it is an apparatus designed to explain, of those few ordinary particulars which are f and never not f , why they have the character they do: i.e. what accounts for them being f and what accounts for them never being not-f. In order to appreciate what sort of apparatus will be even plausible for doing the second j o b - w h e t h e r it is to be done in terms of being somehow essentially f or in terms of being somehow related to the Form F - w e need to appreciate what sort of apparatus is declared mandatory for doing the first job. So consider each of these developments in turn.
(i) THE SAFE ANSWER. Forms and participation in Forms are first introduced when Cebes asks for an argument which will show not merely that the soul is longer-lasting than the body, but that the soul is positively immortal (so that Cebes may be reassured that this can't be his soul's last body). A full answer to this problem, Socrates says, requires 'a full investigation of nature'. What does 'a full investigation of nature' investigate? Well, first of all, Socrates says, it is the sort of study that he himself had once pursued: detailing 'the causes of everything (tas aitias hekastou), why each thing comes into being (dia ti gignetai hekaston) and why it perishes (kai dia ti apollutal) and why it exists (kai dia ti estl)'.(96a9-10-cf. 95e, 97b) Socrates illustrates as the proper range of his youthful causal investigation: how the organisation of animals is brought about (96b); what it is by which we think (96b); what causes a man to grow and specifically by the action of what does a tall man become taller than another (96c-d); by the action of what is a two-cubit ruler longer than a one-cubit ruler (96d); whether it is the juxtaposition of one and one (i.e. the operation of addition) or something else which is the cause of them becoming two (97a-b). But a 'full investigation of nature' is also the sort of study, Socrates says, which he once understood Anaxagoras to be attempting: Anaxagoras claimed that in arranging things it is the mind which actually 'causes everything' (pantOn aitios) and 'establishes each thing as it is best for it to be' (hekaston tithenai tautdi hopdi an beltista ex~i), so that if anyone wants to find 'the cause for the generation (hopdi gignetat) or the dissolution (d apollutat) or existence (d estO of any particular thing, he need just find out what sort of existence or suffering or activity is best for i t ' . (97c2-8-cf. 97d, 98b) Socrates illustrates
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34 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's 'Essentialism"
as the proper range of such Anaxagorean causal investigation: what it is that causes the earth to be as it is, flat if it is really flat or round if it is round (97d); why it is best, when it is, for the earth to be at the centre of things, below the heavens (97e); why in general the relative speeds and revolutions and positions of the sun and moon and stars are whatever they are (98a); what the real cause is o f the particular action of sitting in prison with legs bent rather than running of f to Boeotia, or of talking with each other (98c- e); what the power is which causes all things to be placed as it is best for them to be placed and which embraces and holds together all things (99c). A 'full investigation of nature' , Socrates thus makes clear, certainly does not just worry at the 'why's ' of morals or politics or even relative terms or mathematicals; nor does it just worry to explain what is responsible for the generation and decay of those things that generate and decay; quite self- consciously its subject is to give the reason for each and every existent being whatever it is and possessing whatever character it possesses. In short, to explain, of all things that can be both f and not-f, why they are f when they are f and not-f when they are not-f.
According to the autobiographical section, the answer which Socrates eventually came to give to these 'Why'-questions, the answer with which he supplanted his and Anaxagoras ' earlier answers, is just Plato's Middle Period 'Two Worlds' s tory--with Forms and participation opened up a bit, naturally, to embrace Socrates' now wider range of interests. There do indeed exist such things as the Form of Beauty and Good and Tallness and Duality and Magnitude and the like, Socrates affirms. And these are indeed the really proper causal agents which he has been seeking, in the sense that if anything other than the Form of Beauty is beautiful, say, 'it is beautiful for no other reason than because it partakes of or associates with the Form of Beauty (auto to kalon)'(lOOc). In like manner, the cause of tall things being what they are, tall, and of taller things being what they are, taller, is 'because of Tallness (to megethos)'(lOOe)--and not because of a head or anything else like that solely inhabiting the Lower World (and itself open to f and not-f considerations).(101a) Ten is more than eight not by two but 'by Number and by reason of Number (to plethos)' .(lOlb) A two-cubit ruler is longer than a one-cubit ruler 'not by half its own length but by Magnitude (to megethos)'.(lOlb) When one is added to one the cause of two is not the human operat ion of adding them; 'there is no other cause of the existence of two than participation in Duality (tds duados)' .(lOlb,c) In sum, Socrates urges, there is 'no other way by which anything can come to be what it is than by the participating which it does in the proper form of each of the Forms in which it part icipates (metaschon tds idias ousias hekastou hou an metaschet)'. 4(101 c3 -4)
4 The vocabulary which Socrates uses for the participation relation ranges rather widely throughout his SAFE ANSWER: 'the presence of the Form', parousia 100d6; 'association with the Form', koinOnia 100d6; 'partake in the Form', metalambanein 102bl; 'the Form is in it', en einai 102b5, 'have the Form', echein 100dl, 101c4, 'share in the Form', metechein 100c5, 101c3, 4, 5, 6, 6; 'have the Form added to it', prosgignesthai 100d6.
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This is Socrates' 'safe but amalthd answer'.(105cl) It is safe for the obvious reason: no matter what else we come up with, it will never be an incorrect thing to say. And it is amalthds for closely related reasons; amalthds not in the sense of 'stupid' but in the sense of 'simplistic' or 'uncomplicated' (i.e. devoid of sophistication): it leaves all subtleties up to others to explain by concentrating solely on those fundamentals which not even the most subtle explanation will ever have to take back.
(ii) THE REFINED ANSWER. This 'safe but simplistic' story, notice, is the one told immediately before the discussion of the six special cases. So it is this story which Socrates takes to need refining in order to account for the special-ness of these cases. Why won't the SAFE ANSWER do as it stands for them? Well, take Socrates' example. Simmias is both taller than Socrates and shorter than Phaedo. On the SAFE ANSWER this means that there is in Simmias both tallness and shortness (that he participates in both Forms). Now this is true, to be sure. But it needs to be expressed rather carefully: 'this is not true as stated in just so many words' (ouch hos tois rhdmasi legetai outO kai to aldthes echein, 102b9). The reason is obvious. Most of the time, when some thing X participates in the Form F and then'in the Form Not-F or Opposite-of-F, our intuition is to say that the thing or its character has changed: it is no longer exactly the same thing it was before, its character is no longer the same character it was before. The earth that is flat is very different from the earth that is round; the Socrates who is sitting and talking in jail is very different from the Socrates who is running of f to Boeotia; the number which is two because it participates in Duality is very different f rom the number which is one because it participates in Unity; the vase which is beautiful is very different f rom the vase which is not-beautiful; and so on. However, all this is precisely what we do not want to say about Simmias and his height. Simmias doesn't change at all, even when he participates in the Form F (Tallness relative to Socrates) and then goes on to participate in the Form Not-F or Opposite-of-F (Shortness relative to Phaedo): it is Simmias all right, the very same Simmias; Simmias himself changes not one whit as he is first measured against one man and then measured against some other man. Likewise, his height doesn't change either: he remains taller than Socrates, he really does have tallness in him, for all that he is also shorter than Phaedo (has shortness in him); neither of these characterisations itself changes as the other comes also to characterise Simmias. So we are not going totell the full story of why Simmias is what he is, f when he is f (tall because he participates in the Form Tallness relative to Socrates) and not-f when he is not-f (not-tall because he participates in the Form Opposite-of-Tallness relative to Phaedo), unless we can tell a story which also explains these two exceptional facts: (a) Why it is that Simmias' being Simmias is not an f and not-f matter but an f and never not-f matter (why Simmias' tallness is never tall and also not-tall). (b) Why it is that Simmias' tallness too is not an f and not-f matter but an f and never not-f matter (why Simmias' tallness is never tall and also not-tall).
In sum, what Socrates has made to give in the SAFE ANSWER of the
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36 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's "Essentialism"
autobiographical section explains of things-which-are-f-and-also-not-f why they are f when they are and why they are not-f when they are not-f. But this goes no ways towards explaining of those things-which-are-f-but-never- not-f why they are f and why they are never not- f . And even the most hardened skeptic must grant that there are some of these latter sort of things. Plato enumerates just six of them. The New Story proposes to interpret the REFINED ANSWER which Socrates is made to give in explanation of things in this category by way of what is 'essential' versus 'accidental' to them. Now of course there is nothing primafacie to stop Plato from explaining his special cases with that special apparatus. But in point of fact, the special apparatus Plato does use is much more along the lines of the apparatus already in place for the SAFE ANSWER. What he proposes is simply to stretch Forms and participation a bit, and in no way to replace the SAFE ANSWER in toto with something new (and redundant). This is what I've called the l~xtended Story.
Such is the story told, albeit darkly, in passages like the following. First, when Socrates is made to enumerate the general constraints on opposites as a sort of preface to where they can and can't be admitted:
It would seem [i] not only that the opposite things themselves do not admit each other, but [ii] also that those things which are not themselves the opposites always have opposites, and [iii] that these things [viz. the things which are not themselves the opposites] similarly do not admit the opposite form to the one in themselves but upon the opposite form's approach either perish or retire (estin de rode, hoti phainetai ou monon ekeina ta enantia all~la ou dechomena, alia kai hosa ouk ont" all,lois enantia echei aei tanantia, oude tauta eoike dechomenois ekeindn tdn idean he an tdi en autois ousei enantia di, all" epiouses autes dtoi apollumena ~ hupek- chOrounta. (Phd. 104b-c, my translation with careful help from Chris Parkin; it makes the tauta at b9 refer back to hosa ouk onta alldlois enantia at b8 rather than to tanantia at b9; this follows Hackforth's emphasis on hosa too)
It is the story also told, again darkly, in the summary of these f and never not-f constraints which Socrates gives just before he takes of f on the final immortality argument:
Well, see whether you accept this definition. Not only does an opposite not admit its opposite, but if anything is accompanied by a form which has an opposite, and meets that opposite, then the thing which is accompanied never admits the opposite of the form by which it is accompanied either (rod monon to enantion to enantion md dechesthai, alia kai ekeino, ho an epipherdi ti enantion ekeinOi, eph" ho ti an auto idi, auto to ep ipheron tdn tou e p i p h e r o m e n o u enant iotdta mddepote dexasthai). (Phd. 105a, Tredennick translation)
These texts are obviously tricky and exegesis is very controversial. One preliminary seems perfectly clear, though. In Plato's REFINED
ANSWER here we certainly do not find any explicit consideration of that
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which is 'essential' versus that which is 'accidental' to things f and never not- f. As a matter of fact, the vocabulary o f "accidental" (pathos) and "essential" (ousias) is never employed to give an account o f any f and never not-f cases in the Phaedo. It is used only to make entirely standard points about the theory of Forms in the SAFE ANSWER's account of those things which are f and also not-f. On the one side, a pathos is everywhere what 'happens to' some thing (83dl), a feature that comes about as 'it is acted upon by something else' (7265), 'something it naturally suffers'.(78b5) On the other side, an ousia is everywhere the 'underlying nature' or the 'true nature' of some thing (65d13), 'its essence which is both a real thing' (77a2, 92d9) and 'absolutely unchanging' (78dl), something like 'the one absolute Beautiful' as opposed to the many beauties around us (76d9), 'by which those beauties are made so'(101c3). Were the New Story the one to tell, I think we would expect some such talk as ousia/pathos somewhere or other in the development of the REFINED A N S W E R - s i n c e it is precisely that which the New Story wants to insist is being added on top of the earlier Form-ist account. Yet, as the citations make plain, there simply is no such talk. The final appearances of any vocabulary of what is 'essential' and what is 'accidental' to some thing belong firmly to that section giving solely the SAFE ANSWER: pathos at 96cl and ousia at 101c3.
The apparatus which we do get with which to handle the special worries about f-es that are f and never not-f in the REFINED ANSWER, I shall be arguing, are simply two extensions of the standard Two Worlds story elaborated in the SAFE ANSWER. (a) The first extension works on our usual understanding of Forms: that one way or another the Form F positively excludes its opposite. Whatever the Form F is and however it gets its right to the term 'f', it certainly does not warrant, nor allow for, being called by the opposite term 'not-f'. By extension, the same is to go for any other Forms which are especially intimately linked to that Form:
Form F > is invariably > Form G > does not 1 Form Not-G. accompanied by admit
This extension insists that two Forms can be so inextricably linked that the Form F will not allow being called by the Form G's opposite term 'not-g' any more than will the Form G i t s e l f - for if it could, the especially intimate link between the two Forms would have had to be broken. In this way, the constraint which is quite pedestrian and unobjectionable on the Form G, 'g and never not-g', gets passed back over the link as a new and exciting constraint binding equally on the Form F as well: it too is thereby 'f and never not-g'. (b) The second extension extends our usual understanding of participants in the Form F: that one way or another an f particular gets whatever right it has to the term 'f' only because of and so long as it participates in the Form F. By extension, this especially intimate relation which some f particular has to its Form is not only to link it there; it is to link it as well to whatever other Forms there may be, G say, which that Form F is itself intimately linked to:
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F o r m F - - - - ~ is invariably accompanied
• by participates
~n
T f part icular
Plato's Phaedo and Plato's "Essentialism"
> F o r m G > does not I F o r m Not-G. admit
5 It is worth noting that the 'Back-Passing Principle' here is in fact incorrect (which doesn't affect its ascription to Plato of course). Some of Plato's own examples make this especially clear: 'If the Form of Odd were somehow compelled to be imperishable, would not anything of number three be thereby imperishable? Of course.' (105e) Here 'not admitting perishing', if it was a predicate applicable at the upper right of the diagram, would become applicable at the lower left as well-were the proper chain of links to be set up for Back-passing. However, there are any number of things true of Forms at the upper right: Forms are not only imperishable but, for instance, intelligible, incorporeal, changeless, quintessentially real, unitary, uncompounded, unqualified, autonomous, good, divine. Few, if any, of these are to be passed back down to participants in the lower left, no matter how strong the links. Things of number three, for instance, are not especially real/unitary/uncompounded/ autonomous/good. And even if they were, certainly they would not be these things because of Back-passing.
Indeed, the various part icipants and Forms involved h~ereby become so inextricably linked all together that the f participant will not allow being called by the F o r m G's opposi te term 'no t -g ' any more than will that very F o r m G i t s e l f - for if it could, again the links somewhere along the line would have had to be broken. It is in this way that the unobject ionable constraint on the Form G, 'g and never not-g ' , gets passed back over the link to the F o r m F and then down the link to whatever ord inary fparticular is in the course o f part icipating in the F o r m F: such a part icular is thereby also ' f and never no t -g ' ? This Extended Story can be put in mnemonics :
(1) Standard Story about Forms: The F o r m F never admits the presence o f its own opposi te Fo rm, the F o r m Not-F , and hence never admits the predicat ion o f its opposi te 's term, the term 'not-f, . (Upon any approach o f that opposi te [not-f] the F simply retreats [presumably it cannot cease to be].) (2) Extended Story about Forms: I f the Form F is invariably accompanied by the F o r m G, then the F o r m F never admits the presence o f the F o r m opposi te to its invariable accompaniment , the F o r m Not -G, nor the predicat ion o f the term opposi te to tha t o f its invariable accompaniment , the term 'not-g ' . (Again, u p o n the approach o f tha t opposi te [no-g] the F retreats.) (3) Standard Story about Participants: Anything which participates in the F o r m F never admits the presence o f that Form ' s own opposite, the F o r m Not-F, nor the predication o f its opposite 's term, the term ' n o t - f , - a t least not while and insofar as it is part icipating in specifically that Fo rm F. (Upon the approach o f that opposi te [not-f] f-es either retreat or cease to be.) (4) Extended Story about Participants: Anything which participates in the
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F o r m F where tha t F o r m F is invar iab ly accompan ied by some other F o r m G never admi t s the presence o f the F o r m oppos i t e to its F o r m ' s invar iab le accompaniment , the F o r m Not -G, nor the predica t ion o f the te rm opposi te to tha t o f its F o r m ' s invar iab le a c c o m p a n i m e n t , the t e rm 'no t -g ' - - at least not while it is pa r t i c ipa t ing in tha t F o r m F. (Aga in , u p o n the a p p r o a c h o f tha t oppos i t e [not-g] f-es e i ther re t rea t or cease to be.)
I t would be d is ingenuous to p re tend we might unde r s t and P la to as ' s imply ' mak ing these two extensions. F o r there is no sensible way to unders tand P la to mak ing them, unless we u n d e r s t o o d h im as m a n i p u l a t i n g cer ta in o ther features o f his t heo ry o f F o r m s at the same t ime. In pa r t i cu la r , P l a t o m u s t
be u n d e r s t o o d as a l lowing genu ine F o r m - t o - F o r m r e l a t i o n s - s i n c e o f course it is by them tha t the cons t ra in ts a re passed back d o w n the line. Fo r tuna t e ly , this at least is no t at all ha rd to al low; in ear l ier d ia logues and cer ta in ly in the P h a e d o i tself , all m a n n e r o f F o r m - t o - F o r m re la t ions make thei r appea rance . (i) Wel l e n t r e n c h e d by the t ime o f the P h a e d o is ta lk o f hierarchical organisa t ion amongst the virtues, for instance, and amongs t other things which tu rn out to be F o r m s - - a l l requir ing , i f not a fu l l -b lown ' the F o r m F part ic ipates in the F o r m G ' relat ion, at least that the F o r m F somehow be p laced in some s u b o r d i n a t e re la t ion to the F o r m G. 6 (ii) As well, there is ta lk , i f not qui te o f h ierarchica l o rgan i sa t i on amongs t F o r m s , at least o f re la t ions o f co-presence between d i f fe ren t Fo rms ; where one is to be f o u n d so is ano the r to be found . 7 (iii) S t ronger t han mere co-presence is the re la t ion which some F o r m s have to o thers o f invar iably a c c o m p a n y i n g them; not mere ly is some F o r m genera l ly f o u n d to be assoc ia ted with ano the r , but it is ou t r igh t ob l iga to ry for t hem to be so associa ted , s (iv) A t the oppos i t e ext reme, there a re re la t ions be tween some F o r m s o f str ict i ncompat ib i l i t y ;
where one exists it is somehow cosmica l ly fo rb idden tha t the o ther exists too. 9 (v) Final ly , even as ear ly as the P h a e d o and before , that curious F o r m -
6 Thus is one Form (or form) spoken of as 'part' (meros, moira) of another: Hip. Maj. 299b3, Laches 190c9, d3, 198a2, 5, Euth. 12d5, 6, 8, el, 5, 8, Prot. 329c8, d4, el, 3, 3,330a3, 9, b5, 9, e7, 331a3, 349c2, 5, d2, 359a6; or one Form 'submits to' (hupomenein) another: Phd. 104c7; or is 'taken possession of' (kataschein) by another: Phd. 104d2, 6; thus too does one Form 'have some resemblance to' (proseiokein, echein to homeion, paraplesia einat) another: Prot. 331d2, e7,359a9; or 'is of such a kind as (oion) some other: Prot. 330dl, 331a9, 10, b7, 7, d8.
7 Thus one can Form (or form) 'approach' (epienaO another: Phd. 104b10 (by implication), c7, 106b8, c4, e5(?); thus does one Form 'admit the presence' (dexesthaO of another; Phd. 106a3, 6, 8 (all by implication), 10; or 'bring forward with it' (epipherein) a certain other Form: Phd. 105d10(?).
8 Thus does one Form (or form) 'always bring with' it (aei herein) another: Phd. 105d3(?), d5(?); thus is one 'compelled to take some other's form' (me monon anagkazei ten hautou idean auto ischein . . . enantiou aei tines): Phd. 104d3.
9 Thus some Forms (or forms) are such as to 'withdraw' (hupekchorein, apienat) at the approach of certain others: Gorg. 504e3(?), Phd. 102d9, 103al, 106a10 (by implication), c5; thus some Forms 'never admit the presence of' (ou- or me- or ouden- or mgpote- or medepote- or ou mentoi pote- or aei ou me pote- dexesthat) certain others: Phd. 102e2, 104b8, 105a5, dl 1(?), 13, 13, e2, 4, i06b4(?), d3, 4; or 'will never endure' (ouk or oude hupomenein) the other; Phd. 102e2, 104c7; or 'shun' (pheugein) another: Phd. 102d9; or 'never at any time come to have the character' (oukpote gignesthai oude einal) which another Form is the Form for: Phd. 102e8, 103b5.
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40 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's "Essentialism"
ist apparatus required to understand the nature of two-term relations is broached; in certain cases one Form is related to another as its proper correlative (this is made much of much later, in Parm. 134b). 1° I daresay other kinds of Form-to-Form relations are allowed by the time of the Phaedo. But just these are certainly enough to ensure that it is no Big Shakes to extend both the Standard Story about Forms and the Standard ~Story about Participants by interposing Form- to-Form relations down which the various constraints on Forms can be passed to become constraints on particiPants.
It is when the uncontroversially proper f and never not- f constraints on Forms are passed back along the line like this, that we finally arrive at the proper, albeit controversial, explanation for the f and never not-f character o f the six non-Forms that the R EF INED ANSWER is concerned to explain. The crucial contrast that is presented in the two quoted texts of Phaedo 104b-c and 105a, when they are read as an 'Extended Story', is not at all between two ways o f being f that are open to certain Lower World things-being essentially f and being only accidentally f. The crucial contrast is simply and solely between two sorts o f truths about Upper World Forms - that some constraints are passed back via invariable accompaniments and that other constraints are passed back via participants. Once this can be granted, it becomes easy to see that Plato's point in the allegedly 'Essentialist' passages involving those six cases never does nor ever could make Forms redundant or alternative to some account in non-Formist terms.
IV. The Major Texts Is such an Extended S to rya t all a plausible one to tell, however? Ultimately only the texts can decide. We shall need to look at the texts rather closely, for each case presents individual difficulties. 1~
With regard to the T H I R D CASE (the case of snow and cold), for instance, what we find at Phaedo 103d is not anything at all like what the New Story would lead us to expect, that snow is said to be (i) 'essentially cold' and for that reason (ii) can never be hot. The argument we actually find is much more roundabout and also much more interesting.
(i) First Plato has Socrates ask of Cebes: 'Is there something that you call hot and something that you call cold?' (thermon ti kaleis kai psuchron, 103c10). Plato uses here his standard way of making a conversation turn towards Forms: 'Is there something you call ' f '? ' or 'Do you acknowledgg a thing which is called ' f '? ' ( '"0 ' 'kaleis ti?', 'phamen ti einai' ' ~ "? ' ) 12
10 Thus some Forms (or forms) are 'relative to ~ (pros) others: Prot. 330e7, Phd. 102c4, 7. ll A preliminary note on the vocabulary which Plato will use throughout all these texts. As
usual, his basic terms have many uses: eidos for the human bodily form, 73a2, 76c12, 87a2, 92b5; ditto idea for the physical form of the earth and its hollows, 108d9, 10965. But whenever they occur in any vaguely 'form-ist' context, eidos, idea and morphg are completely interchangeable, merely stylistic variations for expressing the same point. Thus eidos at 102b 1, 103e3, 104c7, 106d6; idea at 104b9, d2, 6, 9, el, 105d13; morphg at 103e5, 104d10. This is Standard Operating Procedure.
12 For the construction out of kaleO see: Alc I. 128b, Hip. Min. 373c, Prot. 332a, 358d, Gorg. 454c, 463e-464a, 495c, Meno 75e-76a, 76c-d, Euthyd. 276a. For the construction out of ph~mi see: Prot. 330d, Phd. 65d, 74a-c).
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Presumably, then, we are being asked to bring the Form of Cold and the Form of Hot into the conversation.
(ii) Next Socrates asks of these things, the Forms of Cold and Hot, whether 'they are the same as snow and fire', to which the answer is clearly no: 'heat is a different thing from fire and cold is a different thing from snow'.(103dl). Since there are no signals (here) that we are to think of 'fire' and 'snow' as dragging in their Forms, the Forms of Fire and Snow, those Forms had better not be dragged in (yet). The point so far is just to emphasise that the ordinary Lower World thing, a drift o f snow, say, is not at all the same ontological entity as the extra-ordinary Upper World Form of Cold.
(iii) The key observation immediately follows: 'Yet snow, if it admits heat, will no longer be what it was, but will either withdraw or cease to exist' (103d8-9); and similarly ' f i re , when cold approaches, will never succeed in admitting cold and being still-fire'(103dl0-12). This passage has the uncontroversial point of simply pointing OUt that ordinary Lower World snow (drifts or stuff) is something which genuinely-i s f and never not-f, in respect of being cold; and that ordinary Lower World fire (fires or flames or stuff again) is something genuinely f and never not-f too, inrespect o f being hot. No philosophical interpretation or explanation of this fact is offered in this passage (that is for the next step). And in particular the text does n o t h e r e say, what the New Story needs, that drifts or snow are cases of f and never not-f because they are essentially as opposed to accidentally f (that is, that they are essentially cold); nor does it say that fires are essentially as opposed to accidentally f either (essentially hot). None of Plato's well-worn vocabulary of ousia and pathos occurs in any of the six special cases, and it occurs nowhere in ghis case either. Of course, it might be urged that equally the text does not say anything (here) which would provide the apparatus the Extended Story will need, that these are cases of f and never not-f because they are cases where their Forms are especially interconnected with other Forms. After all, the vocabulary of 'Form of Fire' and 'Form of Snow' is just as conspicuous by its absence. This is a far less disturbing omission, however, since it is the specific thing already identified as a drift of snow (and not mud or two or a beauty, say) which is the thing that is never to admit of being hot, and that identification is handled perfectly we l l - indeed is handled ob l iga to r i ly -by the apparatus of the SAFE ANSWER already thrashed out and assumed still to be in place: a drift of snow is to be identified as a dr i f t o f snow rather than anything else because and only because it participates in the Form of Snow. A Form of Snow therefore has to be posited in order for there to be drifts of snow to be worried about at all, exactly as much as a Form of Duality has to be posited in order for there to be two- es and a Form of Beauty in order for there to be beauties and so on. Since that goes without saying in all cases, special or no, it goes without saying in this case t o o - a n d so is simply not said.
(iv) Hard on the heels of the bare observation that snow and fire are indeed cases of f and never not-f, comes the proper philosophical redescription to be given it according to Socrates' REFINED ANSWER: 'Not only is the
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abstract Form (auto to eidos) [of Cold] entitled to its own name throughout all time, but there is also something else (tO too [viz. a drift of snow], which is not the same thing as the Form but which, whenever it exists at all, always has that Form's form (echei ton ekeinon morph~n aei hotanper ~/)'.(103e5) Simple Observation Anyone Can Make: Things which are drifts of snow are cold and never not-cold. Perspicuous Philosophical Redescription Only A Platonist Can Make: The ordinary things of this Lower World which come to exist and be identifiable as drifts of snow because they participate in the Form of Snow, thereby always 'have' the form of the Form of Cold as w e l l - for the reason that the Form which gives them their identifying character and term (the Form of Snow) is itself always accompanied by another Form (the Form of Cold), whose character and term it invariably passes back along any metaphysically important lines of connection. As it stands, this Perspicuous Philosophical Redescription is, textually and actually, only a first stab. It redescribes the fact that drifts of snow are always to be called 'cold' (by some sort of connection to the Form of Cold). It does not quite redescribe the fact that drifts of snow are never to be called 'not-cold' (by some sort of prohibition against the Form of Hot).
(v) This further (and final) philosophical redescription is the job of the principles enunciated in the prefatory and summary texts quoted in the last section, Phaedo 104b-c and 105a. Those texts explain in general why it is that some ordinary Lower World t h i n g s - drifts of snow inc luded -a re like the Upper World Forms in that, if they are ever f at all, they are indeed forbidden to be not-f. The reason is the special connection which the Form of Snow has to the further Form of Cold. 'Invariable accompaniment' is that special connection and it is special in that it justifies passing back not only possession relations, as in the previous step, but exclusion relations as well. It goes like this. Such ordinary particulars as drifts of snow 'have' the character and term cold by way of, first, their participation in the Form of Snow, and second, the Form of Snow's invariable accompaniment by the Form of Cold. But the Form of Cold for its part has an opposite in the Form of Hot and 'excludes' that opposite. Putting these strands together, drifts of snow properly come to 'exclude' the character and term hot t o o - - b y way of, first, their participation in Snow and, second, Snow's invariable accompaniment by Cold and, third, Cold's exclusion o f Hot. As Plato says of the analogy (three and odd) he immediately proposes: drifts of snow in this way 'do not admit the opposite Form to the one in themselves but upon the opposite Form's approach either perish or retire'.(104b9-10) This prefatory text, and the summary text earlier as well, are both of them decidedly opaque, and have occasioned many alternative readings. But if we see clearly Plato's problem, I think the rest snaps into focus: Plato is trying to account for the "must" hess o f snow's being cold. And for this job there just aren't that many possibilities. (a) One possibility would be to say (with the New Story): 'A drift o f snow must be cold because it is in and by itself essentially cold.' But why then such luxuriant talk of Forms and of what Forms will and will not 'admit' throughout Phaedo 103c-e? (b) Another possibility would be to say
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(a minimalist Forms story): 'A drift of snow must be cold because it participates in the Form of Cold and Cold never allows Hot . ' But this is too minimalist. There is an exact parallel to everything here in 'A drift of snow must be beautiful because it participates in the Form of Beauty and Beauty never allows Ugly'; yet no one believes that this parallel shows that snow 'must' be beautiful. Indeed, the whole point of a special treatment of the special cases is to provide extra materials to capture precisely the difference buried here. (c) A patch job on this would to say (re-introducing Essentialism at the Forms level): 'A drift of snow must be cold because it participates in an especially tight way in the Form of Cold, which Form of Cold never allows its opposite.' 'Tight' here would have the sense that once some thing X comes to participate tight in some Form F, that participation relation is one which X can never opt out of. This does solve the problem, of course, but at a cost. Instead of 'participates i n ' - w h i c h is already a wild and woolly affair (see footnote 4 ) - we now have two radically distinct kinds of participation: things that are f and not-f participate ordinary in their Forms, and things that are f and never not-f participate tight in theirs; this merely redescribes the f and no t - f / f and never not-f dichotomy rather than explains it, though, for what more can be told of the radically distinct characters of the two types of participation relation than just the above? (d) Whence the final possibility of saying (with the Extended Story): 'A drift o f snow must be cold because that Form, the Form of Snow, which gives any drift of snow the identity it has, is a Form which is itself invariably related to another Form, the Form of Cold, and that further Form, Cold, never allows Hot . ' The extra quality o f "must'-ness, that is, is ultimately to be explained by an extra relation o f invariance between Forms:
(a) Innocently, as for everything, drifts of snow can never be not-snow, because they participate in the Form of Snow and the Form of Snow can never have not-snow or opposite-of-snow predicated of it [by the Standard Story About Participants (3) earlier]. (b) As is reserved for only a few special cases, snow can never fail to be some other character, not-cold, because the Form of Cold invariably accompanies the Form of Snow and the Form of Cold can't have not- cold or opposite-of-cold predicated of it [by the Standard Story About Forms (1)]; nor can that Form of Snow which it invariably accompanies [by the Extended Story about Forms (2)]; nor can those drifts presently in the act of participating in the Form which Cold invariably accompanies [by the Extended Story about Participants (4)].
Enough about snow and cold. The real argument in the FOURTH CASE (the case of three and oddness)
is of much the same pattern, indeed even more obviously so. Plato does not argue in Phaedo 103e-104b that groups of things three in number, like trios and triplets (or even the mathematical number three), are odd and never not- odd because they are essentially odd, full stop. He argues rather that they are odd and never not-odd because anything three in number is especially intimately linked to (is 'possessed by') some Form (the Form of Three) which
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44 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's "Essentialism"
is itself especially intimately linked to (is 'invariably accompanied by') another Form (the Form of Odd) for which the constraint does hold (the constraint never to admit the Form of Even). Reference to the intermediary of Forms is especially constant and detailed for this case. In addition to the prefatory text already quoted and used, consider these two texts. (a) Take a good deep breath before the first: 'Things are compelled by whatever Form takes possession of them to have not only that Form's form (t¢n autou idean), but also invariably to have the form of some other Form which is a Form with opposites [the Form of Three doesn't itself have opposites but the Form of Odd does] (tade ei~ an, ha ho ti an katasch~, m~ monon anagkazei t~n hautou idean auto ischein, alia kai enantiou aei tinos). In this way, a thing in which the Form of Three is present (h~ ton trion idea katascheO must be not only three but also odd, because any thing or group of things three in number can never admit the Form which is the opposite of that Form responsible for the end result, viz. the result produced by the Form of Odd. The opposite of this Form is the Form of Even, so the Form of Even will never be admitted by anything three in number (ta trias)'.(lO4d-e) What is the ultimate causal agent in this complicated story of causation is the Form of Odd, this text says. And the manner of its work is to pass back along the line its own constraint never to admit its opposite, the Form of Even, so that that constraint ends up a constraint even on Forms which don't have opposites, like the Form of Three, and ultimately on any participant in such a Form too, anything three in number. To pass back such constraints about opposites requires Forms that definitely do have opposites, of course, and also genuine links to those Forms. In this text, the links seem plainly to drag in the entire panoply of the diagram in section III: not only particulars three in number, not only the Form (of Three) they uncontroversially participate in, not only the forbidden opposite (the Form of Even), but at least one specifically in-between and constraint-passing Form as well (the Form of Odd):
Form of Three > Form of Odd I Form of Even.
T things three in number
(b) The second text, thankfully, is easier: ' If you ask me what causes something three in number to become odd, I will not give you that safe but simplistic answer and say that it is the oddness which is in it; I shall now give a more refined answer and say that it is the threeness which is in it that causes it to become odd'. (105b-c, [slightly changing the summary, which is actually about odd and unityl) Directly something three in number comes to participate in the Form of Three, this text seems to say, directly it comes to be odd. But this again, plainly, is not because things of number three are themselves essentially odd, i.e. as apart from all considerations of Forms. The opposition between 'because of the threeness which is in it' and 'because of the oddness which is in it' does not read at all as any sort of opposition
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in the metaphysical kind of apparatus to be employed-- because of something essential to it as opposed to its relation to some Form, say. Rather, again, something three in number is compelled to be odd because there is really no such things as 'merely' coming to participate in the Form of Three (all that the old SAFE ANSWER concerned itself with); coming to participate in that Form (the new REFINED ANSWER says) is really coming to participate in a Form which itself already reaches further in all manner of ways to other Forms. In particular, it is coming to participate in a Form that is connected to another Form, the Form of Odd~ which Form positively forbids being even itself and which passes on this ban to anything else it is connected t o - i t s own participants, for instance, whatever Forms invariably accompany it, whatever participates in those accompanying Forms,
The F I F T H CASE (about fevers and diseases) at Phaedo 105c makes only slight additions to this pattern of reasoning.
And the case most important to the dramatic development of the dialogue, the S IXTH CASE (the case of the soul and life), alters the pattern only to fit its dramatic purposes better. The contrast between New Story and Extended Story remains as pronounced as ever. In particular, the final immortali ty argument of Phaedo 105c-106b does not in fact revolve around the claim that a special particular, the soul which brings life to the body, is (i) alive as part of its own essence and so (ii) can never die but is (iii) indestructible. The lead-up arguments revolved around intermediaries like the Forms of Cold and Odd and the constraints they have and pass back. As before so here. The immortali ty argument too really revolves around an intermediary Form, the Form of Life, and the constraints which that Form possesses and passes back:
(i') It is the presence of souls and not the presence of anything else but souls which makes bodies alive [Socrates' insight]. (ii') A soul can never be not-a-soul, because it participates in the Form of Soul and the Form of Soul can never have its opposite predicated of it, nor can participants insofar as they participate in it (by (3)]. (iii') As well, we have already in effect proved that the Form of Soul is invariably accompanied by the Form of Life or Aliveness (auto to tds zOOs eidos) [from (i')]. After all, the presence of a soul does not merely makes its body ensouled, it makes it enlivened as well. Hence the presence of souls is not something which ever comes about just on its lonesome; it comes about only together with the presence of its proper accompaniments, particularly Life. (iv') Since the Form of Life can never have its opposite predicated of it, nor can whatever other Form it invariably accompanies, nor can whatever participates in the Form it invariably accompanies, a soul too can never be not-alive [by (4)]. 13
13 The closest reading to this is in Gallop, Plato: Phaedo, p. 214 reporting the view (which he rejects) of Gregory Vlastos, 'Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo', Philosophical Review, LXXVII (1969), pp. 317-320: 'A soul is alive because, being a soul, it must participate in the Form Soul, and since the Form Soul entails the Form Life, a soul must also participate in the Form Life, and hence a soul must be alive'.
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46 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's 'Essentialism"
(v') In most cases, upon the approach of the opposite of some Form's invariable accompaniment, participants in that Form have either the option of retreating or else the option of perishing. But this latter option is not open to the participants in the special Form of Soul, since now it has been shown that the s0ul cannot perish [from (iv')]. (vi') Accordingly, upon the approach of death, the soul must simply retreat, presumably to some other place, and it is only the body which actually does the perishing.
All in all, then, what the New Story takes as a simple assertion of an essential property at the first step (i) of its argument, is actually an explanation of f and never not-f matters reached only after a long way round Plato's barn of Forms and participants ((v') at least).
(It must be admitted at once, however, that the absence of any mention of a 'Form of Soul' in this case is more worrisome that the parallel silence in the case, say, of snow and fire. This for the reason that souls just do not seem to be the sorts of things individuated by way of their Forms--so we can not just assume the corresponding Form has been taken for granted because of some SAFE ANSWER working in the b a c k g r o u n d - as we could with drifts of snow and fires. Souls, if they are a little bit Lower World particulars, are still special in that they hardly seem to derive their existence and identity from some relation to some other inhabitant of the Upper World; somehow they seem already to have a foot in that World in their own right. On these grounds, the Essentialist New Story might look a better bet than the Form-ist Extended Story: an individual soul, such as the specific soul which enlivens Cebes, is essentially whatever it is, and not whatever it is by deriving some character and term from some m6nage of Forms. Yet in truth the argument about souls is weird on both stories, and equally weird. On the Extended Story it is weird because of the strangeness of a Form of Soul. 14 On the New Story it is weird because of the strangeness of the argument itself: If Cebes is so desperately worried that he needs it proved to him that his soul is positively immortal as opposed to being merely longer- lasting than any one of his bodies, certainly he will be j u s t as much worried to have it proved to him that the soul is essentially alive as opposed to being longer-living than a body. Once Socrates has garnered agreement that the soul is essentially rather than accidentally alive, undoubtedly the rest will be clear sailing; but that is so simply because the admission that the soul is essentially alive practically amounts to the conclusion that the soul is immortal. For Socrates to have a non-circular argument, Cebes must be allowed to admit something clearly less than the conclusion. Let him admit, say, the SAFE theory of Forms he applauded earlier (100b-c); then let him be guided to a REFINED theory of Forms, as he is (105b); and only after all that let him be persuaded to see that such a REFINED theory-- together with Socrates' insight (105d)- finally commits him to the immortality of souls.
14 See: R. D. Archer-Hind, The Phaedo of Plato, pp. 115-116. R. Hackforth, Plato's Phaedo, pp. 163-166. David Keyt, 'The Fallacies in Phaedo 102a-107b', Phronesis, VIII (1965), pp. 168-171. Jerome Schiller, 'Phaedo 104-5: Is the Soul a Form?', Phronesis, XII (1967), pp. 50-58.
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Such a proceeding will indeed give Socrates a non-circular argument. But such a proceeding is also, deliberately of course, the Extended Story.)
V. Two Truncated Cases In addition to the fairly elaborate arguments with the cases of snow and odd and fever and soul, there remain two other cases where we are to plug for an 'Essentialist' explanation of f and never not-f matters. The FIRST CASE and the SECOND CASE look like they should be shorter to deal with, and they are certainly simpler in some ways than the others. But philosophically they are still curiously tangled.
For the FIRST CASE, the case of Simmias' being Simmias, the New Story is that we don't need a Form for Simmias because Simmias is essentially rather than accidentally Simmias. I expect the general slogan is beginning to sound a bit tired. But the full reason why it won't fit here has to be different than b e f o r e - s i n c e of course Essentialism must be correct at least to the extent that there can be no question of intermediary Forms and constraints on intermediary Forms doing any of the work (a Form of Simmias?!). Nonetheless, the roots of the right anti-Essentialist response do lie in the earlier considerations. When it was argued in the other cases that some f thing can never be not-f [we can shelve the extra complication of never being not-g], the justification was because the f thing participates in the Form F and the Form F is such that it can never have its opposite, 'not-f ' , predicated of it, nor can anything which is in the course of participating in that Form. Basically this is just the 'Standard Story about Participants (3)', and it explained full well how drifts of snow are never to be not snow, for instance, how things three in number are never to be not three, fevered bodies never to be without fevers, souls never to be un-ensouled. Attend to that explanation a bit closer now, and notice especially that the appeal to Forms and participation in it is really as much an appeal to a semantic apparatus as it is to a metaphysical apparatus. 'The Form F is such that it can never have its opposite 'not-f ' predicated of it. ' Why? Because, simply, the Form F is the only genuinely named nominatum around for the general word proper name 'f ' to name. The moral can be put plainly. With 'Simmias' and Simmias, we are already working with exactly these most basic of semantic tools, with a genuine proper nominatum Simmias and with a genuine proper name 'Simmias'. For this semantic reason alone, we do not need to be worried about anything which might be going on further up or down the semantic line. For instance, we don't need to be worried about extending 'f 's ' rightful application
t o some other Form which is an invariable accompaniment of that named nominatum. We don't even need to be worried about extending 'f 's ' rightful application to some ordinary particular which is a participant in that named nominatum. All we need to be worried about is providing some plausible gloss for the wholly non-extended semantic device at work (in effect the semantic side of the 'Standard Story about Forms (1)') so that it picks up on the important semantic principle at work with the named individual Simmias. And here is that gloss: 'Any thing properly named by the proper
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48 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's "Essentialism"
name "J" can never be not-f because that thing is the proper nominatum o f the name 'J" and the nominatum o f the proper name "3° is always such that it can never have the opposite o f its name, "not-J, predicated o f it.'
In pushing for a full-blooded Essentialist analysis of 'Simmias is Simmias and can never be non-Simmias', what the New Story really wants to do is take this principle one step further and ask, 'Well, why is it that the proper nominatum of some proper name 'f' can never have its opposite 'not-f ' predicated of it?'. Yet look at this question a moment. The common-ground has long since been set that we are dealing with f and never not-f matters, as opposed to f and not-f matters. And the common-ground has also long been set that we are dealing with naming matters, as opposed to naming- after matters. (Thus Phaedo 101c, 102a-b, 103b.) So what we are really invited to ask is, 'Why is it that this namedf is a case of f and never not-f?'. Morever, simply having this question ask-able, we are further invited to become uneasy enough with the classification to try to justify it, 'This named f is a case of f and never not-f because it is a case of a thing which is essentially and not merely accidentally f. ' To be blunt, if we are going to ask for a justification there, how can we seriously avoid asking just as readily and insistently for a justification of the New Story: 'Why is it that this named f thing is a case of an f essentially rather than merely accidentally f?' The alleged explanation ' . . . because it is essentially f' in truth adds nothing to the admitted classification ' f and never not-ft. And in truth we already possess as much justification of that classification as we are ever going to get (or need) in Plato's account of the nature of naming and having a name and being a named thing. I f some thing f genuinely is the proper nominatum picked out by the proper name 'f', then just that is quite enough to cut it out as a thing which could never be referred to by 'not-if: however could the proper nominatum Simmias, say, turn out to be what is also picked out, somehow, by a term like 'not-Simmias' designed expressly to pick out anything except Simmias? I f some thing f genuinely does have the proper name 'f', then just that too is quite enough to rule out the term 'not-f ' for it: whatever could it be like for the genuine proper name 'Simmias' and also its direct opposite 'not- Simmias' both to be equally the proper names of one and the same nominatum, Simmias? Mark that nothing is especially eccentric or esoteric about such Platonic moves. All we need to do is take seriously that Plato's is one of those semantic systems which hives off 'directly picking out some single nominatum' from 'derivately picking out designata sufficiently related to that nominatum'. Given any such system, there is always plenty for any derivatively picked out thing to do in order to cease to merit its designation: it need merely cease to be related to the thing directly picked out by that word and become related to some other nominatum. Yet equally, in any such system, there is nothing at all for the directly named thing to do to cease to merit its proper n a m e - e x c e p t cease to be full stop. So we don't need (and we certainly don't get) any further apl~aratus to explain why Simmias can never be not-Simmias than that. All this makes the FIRST CASE difficult indeed to swallow as a plausible paradigm of a thing in this Lower World
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being 'essentially' rather than 'accidentally' whatever it is. (The apparatus of the New Story continues to appeal so much, I think,
because essential properties happen to be the apparatus which we usually take as our rock-bottom primitive. It is worth reminding ourselves over and again, therefore, that Plato's rock-bottom primitive was just not ours. It was not even property attribution for that m a t t e r - m u c h less attribution of properties essentially. If anything, Plato'~s rock-bottom primitive is the much more semantic gaining a right to some term, because of being or because of participating in some thing.)
Finally, to the remaining case, the SECOND CASE at Phaedo 102d-e, the case of the tallness-in-Simmias-relative-to-Socrates never admitting shortness. This is difficult in a' different way. Yet not, I think, different in a way requiring an Essentialist account to explain. What makes 'the tallness which is in Simmias relative to Socrates' initially tempting for an 'Essentialist' explanation is actually a factor already worrisome for all sorts of reasons quite unrelated to Essentialism. Before we can decide whether to classify Simmias' tallness as something which is tall and never n o t - t a l l - a n d long before we can decide whether to explain all that by claiming that Simmias' tallness is something which this tall thing Simmias has essentially as opposed to acc identa l ly-we had better be awfully clear what this thing, Simmias' tallness, is in the first place. We know the words all right, I suppose: it is 'that-tallness-which-Simmias-has-relatively-to-Socrates'-shortness' (megethos echei ho [Simmian] pros t$n [Sokraten] smikrotdta, 102c7; cf. 102c4). But seriously, what manner of ontological beast is that? Plato himself is surprisingly quick to plaster over the metaphysical cracks here. Almost immediately he re-expresses the especially relativistic nature of that-tallness- which-Simmias-has-relatively-to-Socrates'-shortness in terms of a very differ- ent, but still vaguely relative, pair of predicates: 'the tallness in us' (to en heroin megethos, 102d9, 103b5) as opposed to 'the tallness in nature' (to [megethos] en tdi phusei, 103b5) or 'tallness itself' (auto to megethos, 102d7). To tell the New Story, we must admit this contrast and then claim that the tallness 'in us' as well as tallness Itself is essentially tall. Although it looks a good bet at first, this move turns out quite suicidal, however.
Directly we take such an 'in us'/ 'itself' contrast as a serious metaphysical suggestion, directly we land ourselves with an ontology which runs counter to precisely the ontology that the Phaedo is in the business of expounding. After all, there is nothing so special about the tallness 'in us' as opposed to the tallness 'in na ture ' or tallness 'itself'. So we had better get used to entertaining a broadscale dichotomy here between 'the f in us' (to 0 en hemin) as opposed to 'the f in nature' (to 0 en tdi phuset) and 'the f itself' (auto to t3). And, entertaining a dichotomy there, we had better get used to entertaining as well a broadscale trichotomy in the basic ontology of 'sensibles plus Forms plus Something or Other More'. The New Story is happy to accept the implications of a tri-partite ontology of course. One of its main claims is exactly that it was the slowly developing realisation of how messy such a tri-partite division might get which prompted Plato to throw out the Phaedo's
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50 Plato's Phaedo and Plato's 'Essentialism"
Essentialism later on in the Republic and which prompted Aristotle to throw out the Phaedo's Forms later on in the Categories. But now look at this historical claim a moment. How really could the messiness ever be something to be realised only 'later" w h e n - a n d for especially Platonic r ea sons - i t couldn't help but leap off the pages of the Phaedo then and there? The main trouble with any such tri-partite suggestion is that by this far along they are philosophically idle in any Platonic system and immediately to be seen as such. We may well grant that one of Plato's main projects in the Phaedo is to find something stable and unchanging to provide the object of knowledge. We may grant that another of his main projects is to find the right devices to provide for causal explanation. But we must also grant that in precisely these same passages of the P h a e d o - n o t the earlier passages of Socrates' autobiography and not the later passages of the final answer to Cebes, but exactly the present f and never not-f passages (101c, 102a-b, 103b aga in ) -P l a to is finalising the semantic naming~naming-after solution to his metaphysical-cum-semantic "One-and-Many'problems as well. Briefly, Plato's worry about One-and-Many is the by now familiar conundrum: 'How can it be that many different things may all take the same term without thereby becoming squeezed into a single unitary thing; and how can it be that one single thing may take many different terms without thereby becoming split up into a plurality of separate things?' Plato's solution is the by now familiar one expounded in Socrates' SAFE ANSWER: 'A single particular has a perfect right to borrow different designations insofar as it is related to (participates in) different named Forms; and several different particulars have a right to borrow the same designation insofar as they are each related to (participate in) the same named Form. '15 It goes without saying that Plato can't seriously be proposed as working hard away on his 'What can we know with certainty?' and 'What causes things to be the way they are?' worries all the while ignoring everything he has managed to work out on his 'How do terms connect to things?' worry. Yet if we were seriously to posit a third metaphysical intermediary between such named Ones and such named-after Manys, we would have to presume exactly such compartmentalisation. For the plain fact is that any such intermediary simply dynamites the entire One-and-Many project, and so dynamites the whole of the earlier SAFE ANSWER, and so dynamites the REFINED ANSWER which depends on it. After all, not only is an intermediary between some named One and its named-after Many unnecessary, it positively gets in the way of passing on characters and terms f rom such a One to such a Many. Ultimately, taking the SECOND CASE in any Essentialist way, along with its 'tallness in us'/ 'tallness in nature'
15 To the very extent that the interpretation I have been urging is true, however, things can not be quite such plain sailing. For the very Extended Story itself provides, after all, what is really a second Way for a sensible particular to have a right to some general word 'f'. In addition to borrowing the general word that is the proper name of the named Form which that particular itself participates in, it also has some sort of right, by virtue of its Form's relation to other Forms, to the general words which are those other Forms' names. This affects the now standard 'Eponymy Thesis', but how fundamentally I have not yet explored.
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business, makes just too much mischief for the central epistemological and causal and semantic concerns to be plausible.
This is much the moral I have been arguing generally: it is mischievous altogether to entertain the New Story as opposed to the Extended Story. In the final analysis, what the New Story invites us to do is invent a completely new (Essentialist) apparatus which is simply not there in the Phaedo and to ignore the rather ample (Form-ist) apparatus which patently is there. The Extended Story declines such invitations. As it should.
Massey University Received June 1986
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