two kinds of naming in the "sophist"

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Two Kinds of Naming in the "Sophist"Author(s): Charlotte StoughSource: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), pp. 355-381Published by: Canadian Journal of PhilosophyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40231702 .

Accessed: 30/10/2013 21:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Canadian Journal of Philosophy is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toCanadian Journal of Philosophy.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 150.108.161.71 on Wed, 30 Oct 2013 21:29:48 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cjp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40231702?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY 355 Volume 20, Number 3, September 1990, pp. 355-382

Two Kinds of Naming in the Sophist CHARLOTTE STOUGH University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 U.S.A.

I

A familiar tradition in Plato scholarship has it that self-predication is one of the most important issues to be settled in an attempt to understand Plato's metaphysical views. Perhaps only latent in the initial for- mulations of the theory of Forms, the problem becomes manifest in the Parmenides, especially in the Third Man Argument where the assumption that a Form can have the property that it is helps to generate a vicious regress destructive of the notion of a single Form over many particulars.1

Those who hold the view that Plato is committed to self-predication by his theory of Forms are forced to consider whether he ever came to terms with the problem and, if he did not, why he did not, in view of the apparently damaging effects of the Third Man Argument. Their opponents in the tradition, on the other hand, insist that Plato would not have agreed that a Form can be predicated of itself and that his theory does not imply it. But they in turn have been hard put to explain the import of the Third Man Argument, which appears to trade so heavily on that assumption, as well as the unmistakably self- predicative language of the dialogues.

I believe that this line of thinking focuses too narrowly on what we have come to understand as the 'problem of self-predication/ To be- gin with, no winner in the debate is anywhere in view. Plato's language, overtly self-predicative though it is, gives no purchase to either

1 In this paper I use 'self-predication' in the conventional sense to refer to the proposition that a Form has the property that it is. According to this usage not just any sentence of the form "The F itself is F' is a self-predication.



356 Charlotte Stough

party in the dispute, and the textual evidence on both sides is notori- ously inconclusive. Much of the debate has centered on several controversial passages in the Sophist. In this paper I shall argue that the Sophist offers no unambiguous interpretation of grammatically self- predicative statements because it does not, either by design or in effect, distinguish between predication and identity. Instead of attack- ing certain troublesome puzzles connected with Being by directly analyzing that concept (est i), Plato offers a solution to those problems by distinguishing between two kinds of names.

II

No matter what account one gives of Being, one's account will be fraught with puzzles intrinsic to Being itself. That seems to be the thrust of the long passage from Sophist 242c to 250e, where the Eleatic Stran- ger (ES) explicitly rehearses difficulties involved in the views of pluralists and monists, of materialists and idealists, and finally even in the view proposed jointly by himself and Theaetetus:

(51) Being is all that is in motion and at rest together (249d4-5).

Serious puzzles about Being are uncovered in the theories of all those who give 'exact accounts' (245e6), both pluralists and monists alike, when they attempt to answer the question 'what do you intend to signify (semainein) whenever you utter the word "being"?' (244a5-6; 243d3, el, 244b6-7) The problems culminate in difficulties exposed in the ES's own view when he puts it to the same test. (SI) founders along with the rest of the accounts as the ES is forced by his own reasoning to a conclusion that is plainly understood to entail the contradictory of (SI):

(52) Being is not motion and rest together (250c3-4).2

The argument which incorporates that reasoning is compressed in the text (250a8-c7), but a version that treats motion and rest jointly can be set forth, with one unstated premiss bracketed, as follows:

2 It is clear that (S2) does not contradict (SI) without some additional assumptions, which can be captured by emending 'motion and rest' to 'what is in motion and at rest/ The significance of this will become apparent in III, below. For now, it is enough to note the ES's indifference to the distinction between nominative and

predicative forms.



Two Kinds of Naming in the Sophist 357

(1) Motion and Rest are opposites.

(2) Motion and Rest are (being).

(3) 'Motion and Rest are (being)' does not mean (semainein) 'Mo- tion and Rest are in motion (or at rest).'

[(4) 'Being' does not mean 'Motion' (or 'Rest').]

(5) Being is something over and above Motion and Rest.

(6) Being is not Motion and Rest together (S2).

To make matters worse, the ES caps the argument with the following paradox (P) (250c6-7, cl2-d2):

(PI) In virtue of its own nature Being is neither at rest nor in motion;

(P2) If a thing is not in motion, it must be at rest; and if not at rest, it must be in motion.

It is clear that (PI) (with ara as stated in the text) is intended to follow from the same argument. Its position and significance are apparent when the argument is stated with motion and rest taken individually.

(la) Motion and Rest are opposites.

(2a) Motion (Rest) is (being).

(3a) 'Motion (Rest) is (being)' does not mean 'Motion (Rest) is in motion (at rest).'

[(4a) 'Being' does not mean 'Motion' ('Rest').]

(5a) Being is something over and above Motion (Rest).

(6a) In virtue of its own nature Being is neither at rest nor in motion (PI).3

The type of difficulty embedded in paradox (P) is characteristic of problems the ES has already uncovered in other accounts of Being. In what follows, therefore, I shall treat (P) as a paradigm example of those puzzles. The passage immediately following the paradox and the reasoning leading up to (PI) deserve careful scrutiny. Recall that the puzzles connected with Being emerge in various attempts to answer

3 (PI) evidently does not follow from what precedes without erasing the distinction (as in n.2 above) between nominative and predicative forms of 'Motion' and 'Rest.' See III, below.




the question 'what do you intend to signify whenever you utter the word "being"?'

Following the argument just set forth, the ES poses one of the most serious challenges of the central section of the Sophist. He quickly proceeds (at 251a5) to identify the question that will have to be answered to resolve (P). He and Theaetetus must explain how it is that we can call the same thing by more than one name.4

It is important to note that the question posed is not, on its face at least, a question about Being as such. To solve the puzzles the ES does not propose a straightforward investigation of Being. Instead, he asks a general question about names, apparently in the belief that an answer to that question will remove the paradoxes about Being. One might have expected him to ask how it is that a thing can be something other than itself. For that is the problem laid bare in the preceding argument, and that is the problem that has to be solved. Although we say that Motion is real, how can Motion actually be real (a real being) without ceasing to be what it is? An important implication of the argument is that, in virtue of its own nature at least (a caveat not yet explained), a thing cannot be other than what it is. The ES must show how something can be other than itself without ceasing to be itself. But the accounts of Being have all ended in paradox. After confessing to as much puzzlement about Being as Not-Being (250e), the ES pro- poses a different line of attack. He will continue the inquiry by explor- ing different ways in which all Forms can be named. He does not continue the direct investigation of Being itself, and even after returning to the material mode, he introduces the question of combination among Forms rather than focusing his attention on a single Form of Being. His strategy tells us that the problems about Being are semantic problems and, even more importantly, that these problems will not be solved by analysis and disambiguation of the concept esti.

In moving the investigation of Being to the semantic level, the ES alludes to the views of certain 'late learners' who deny that a single thing can be called by more than one name. He pokes fun at these enthusiasts; but he does not dismiss them altogether and even includes them among the audience to whom his inquiry is directed.5 He would

4 I take the solution of this problem to be as central to Plato's objectives in the Sophist as the analysis of false statements, which has enjoyed greater attention in the

scholarly literature.

5 Even though he intends the question at hand to be generalized, the ES appears to be discounting the question of naming as it applies to sensory particulars. For of course the question of how a particular can have more than one name had

already been answered by the early theory of Forms.




have good reason to do so if the troublesome (PI), along with the late learners' claim that 'it is impossible for many things to be one and one thing many' (251b7-8), appeared to him a consequence of a single, more general position about names. It is plausible that it would have appeared so, if we can construct a model of naming incorporating the view of these late learners from which (PI) can be generated. This will be suffi- cient to create paradox (P), since we can assume that the truth of (P2) is not in question.

The restrictive conception of naming espoused by the late learners appears to be governed, in part, by certain assumptions about meaning, including the supposition that the meaning of a linguistic term is the item that is named by it and, as a consequence, that two terms have the same meaning just in case they name the same thing. The following schema is dictated by these assumptions:6

(A) F is called by the name 'F.'

(B) G is called by the name 'G.'

(C) If F is called by the name 'G,' then 'F and 'G' name the same thing.

(D) 'F' and 'G' name the same thing, just in case F is the same as G (F and G are one) ('F' and 'G' have the same meaning).7

Premisses (A) and (B) issue in statements that would be acceptable to the late learners. It is permissible to say that a man is a man and a good is good (251b8-c2), thereby assigning man and good their own names. On the other hand, in saying 'a man is good,' as in (C), we are giving the subject another name. The trouble begins at this point, because the model allows but a single component of meaning (a single kind of 'naming'). Every meaningful term functions as a proper name to pick out its matching object in the world. 'Man' and 'good,' then, will be names for the same thing. But since these terms are the names of man and good respectively, the latter are identical (D).

Notice that we end by identifying the nominata of subject and predicate terms without using 'is' in any way which requires the identity

6 The arguments at 243d8-244a2 and 244b6-dl3, for example, are governed by the model that follows.

7 Conforming to Plato's usage, I treat the following propositions as equivalent: (a) F and G are one (244al-2), (b) F is the same as G (245b8), (c) F is (not other than) G (254e3, 255a4-5). All three are equivalent to (d) T and 'G' have the same meaning (255b8-c2).




interpretation. In making statements of the form 'F is F' and 'F is G' a proponent of the theory is simply assigning different names to F. In both occurrences the 'is' is undif f erentiated between predication and identity. Strictly speaking, it does not identify the entities named by subject and predicate terms, nor does it serve to characterize the subject by the predicate expression. The identity is effected solely through the naming function of the terms linked by an undif f erentiated 'is.'

The same assumptions are at work in the ES's argument set forth above. To say that Motion or Rest is, as we do, is not to say that it is in motion or at rest. Hence Being must be a third thing over and above Motion and Rest. The model of naming I am attributing to the late learners forces the conclusion that a Form cannot be called by the name of anything other than itself. In the face of such a rigid conception of naming, it is understandable that the ES has no ready answer to the question how a single thing can be called by more than one name. His response to the challenge posed at 251a must await the disclosure that some Forms blend among themsleves.8 The combining of Forms makes it possible for a Form to have the name of something different from itself. This is anticipated by the ES's caveat in (PI): in virtue of its own nature Being is neither in motion nor at rest. After determining that Being blends with Motion and Rest (254dlO), the ES is in a position to conclude that in virtue of combining with Forms whose natures are Motion and Rest respectively, Being can be called by their names.9

The ES's answer to the challenge implies an important semantic distinction. There are two ways in which a Form can have the name 'F':

(Nj) A Form has the name-t 'F' in virtue of its own nature when it is (numerically) the same as the F itself.10

8 J.L. Ackrill, Tlato and the Copula: Sophist 251-259/ Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957) 31-55, has shown that Plato's usage in the Sophist distinguishes between symmetrical and non-symmetrical relations between Forms. Participation is a non-

symmetrical relation such that if F participates in G, it does not follow that G

participates in F. 'Blend' and 'combine' capture the more generic concept of being connected, which itself is symmetrical but includes both symmetrical and non-

symmetrical relations among Forms.

9 True as far as it goes, but not the whole story. The self -identity of a Form could be threatened by koinOnia, so the ES will later invoke the vowel Forms, Being, Sameness, and Difference to secure the natures of Forms that blend among themselves. See IV, below.

10 This is not the notion of natural names in the Cratylus. To say that a Form has a name in virtue of its nature is not to say that there is something about the name, e.g. etymology, that makes it appropriate. The Form's nature determines what




(N2) A Form (numerically other than the F itself) has the name2 'F by participating in the Form that has the namea in virtue of its own nature.

If one says 'the F itself is F or 'the G itself is F/ in either case one is assigning the name 'F' to the subject term; but in the one instance this is explained by the nature of the Form to which the name is applied, in the other by its relation to a different Form whose naure it is to have that name.11 If, as I am proposing, that is the correct reading of these statements in the Sophist, they are notably less ambitious than they are commonly thought to be. 'The F(G) is F attempts nothing more controversial than to give a name to the subject Form, its own name or that of a compatible relative. In adopting 'The F(G) has the name "F"' as a translation of 'The F(G) is F' we are still within the framework of meaning endorsed by the late learners, with the difference that a Form may now be called by the name of another Form with which it blends. But assigning a predicate to a subject still does no more than tell by what name the subject is called, and so the 'is' in 'The F(G) itself is F remains undifferentiated between predication and identity.

It might be objected that what we have in effect is a distinction between identity and attribution, even though it is not effected by explicitly marking out two senses of esti. But to leave the matter at that would be to lose sight of an important point. Although it is true that there are now two ways in which a Form can be something, which might be thought to correspond to being identical with something and being characterized by it, the semantic distinction is between two kinds of names rather than two senses, or uses, of esti . In the context of the Sophist, that is a difference of some consequence. In the first place, the distinction between predication and identity implies a distinction between two functions of the predicate in a sentence of the form 'The G is F/ The predicate expression will either describe, as in attribution, the entity referred to by the subject term or, in the case of identity, it will refer to that same item. Thus far we have no reason to think the ES intends that secondary names should function any differently from the names Forms bear in virtue of their natures. On the contrary, it appears that both kinds of names refer to the subjects that bear them,

its name is, but only on the assumption that there is already an established practice governing use of the name. Given such a practice, the nature of Motion, what Motion is, makes 'Motion' the name1 of the Form.

11 For the textual evidence that general terms are proper names of Forms see T.W. Bestor, 'Plato's Semantics and Plato's Parmenides/ Phronesis 35 (1980) 43-5 and n.5, 73.




but not for the same reasons, not in virtue of the same thing. Second, although the problem for which the ES seeks a solution is a puzzle about Being, the solution to that problem does not require that distinctions be drawn between different senses of 'is/ No less puzzled about Being than Not-Being, the ES chooses to deal with the intractable problems of Being by considering questions of naming and Form combinations. If he had had in mind the distinctions in Being (esti) necessary to attack those problems directly, he would not have been compelled to pro- ceed by another avenue. The model of naming endorsed by the late learners does not distinguish between different senses of 'is,' and the paradox of Being (P), which we are attempting to generate from that model, will be resolved without recourse to those distinctions.

There is one further observation to make about the problem of naming as the ES construes it at 251a-c. No mention is made of a need to explain how a Form bears its own name. This would be surprising if the ES intended to solve the problem of Being by disambiguation of esti. For then we should expect him to have recognized the need for clarifying sentences of the form The F itself is F in light of the distinction or distinctions he was about to propose. Instead we find the explanation of how a Form has its own name disclosed indirectly and altogether without comment at 250c. The ES's denial that Being can have the name of Motion or Rest in virtue of its own nature invites the inference that it is called Being in virtue of its own nature.12 The answer to our question about how a Form bears its own name is given simply in the course of denying that that is the way in which it gets the name of something different from itself. There is no indication that the ES considered the matter of assigning the name of a Form to its owner to be problematic in the slightest. This conveys the impression that Plato did not believe that sentences of the form The F itself is F constituted a serious threat to his metaphysics. Nowhere in the Soph- ist does he unquestionably acknowledge, much less recognize as an issue, the possibility that a Form might have itself as a property, even though he reveals, in passing and without explanation, how the F itself can be called by the name 'F.'13

12 The relevant phrase is kata ten hautou physin (250c6). It is clear that kata has ex-

planatory force in this passage from the similar lines at 255e4-6, where kata is

replaced by dia with the accusative: 'for each one is different from the others, not in virtue of its own nature but in virtue of partaking of the form of the Different/

13 This is not to say that the Sophist does not contain the conceptual apparatus for

disambiguating esti and for clarifying the sentence form 'The F itself is F/ The work of Ackrill, Tlato and the Copula: Sophist 251-259/ M. Frede, Pradikation und




Although the ES registers no hesitation in tacitly allowing that Being can be called by its own name simply in virtue of its nature, that item of information, if generalized, constitutes a very potent claim. To say that the F itself is F (has the name 'F') in virtue of its own nature con- tradicts one of the major assumptions underlying the Third Man Ar- gument.14 In so doing it blocks the damaging regress of an otherwise formidable weapon against the theory of separately existing Forms.15

Existenzaussage (Gottingen: Hypomnemata Heft 18 1967), J. Malcolm, Tlato's Anal-

ysis of to on and to me on in the Sophist/ Phronesis 12 (1967) 130-46, and G.E.L.

Owen, Tlato on Notbeing' in G. Vlastos, ed., Plato I (Garden City, NY: Anchor

1971), 223-67, has shown that it does, indeed that it provides more than one avenue to accomplish it. The point is rather that the text of the Sophist makes it doubtful whether Plato himself thought that 'The F itself is F' stood in need of clarification.

14 Termed the 'Non Identity Assumption' by Gregory Vlastos in his influential paper, 'The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides/ Philosophical Review 63 (1954), 319-49. Benson Mates, 'Identity and Predication in Plato/ Phronesis 24 (1979) 225, writes that 'allowing the large to be large by virtue of itself, would seem to be [Plato's] only real alternative' in combatting the Third Man Argument. I concur in that

judgment, but without specifically endorsing Mates' schema for interpreting the Platonic 'is.'

15 Bestor, 'Plato's Semantics,' 57-8, and n.12, 73-4, plausibly construes the 'One Over

Many Principle' as inclusive of 'non-identity,' but he goes on to claim that the former cannot apply to Forms because it is a 'deliberately restricted principle.' I find the latter claim unconvincing. Bestor argues that 'to say that the Form F could be a participant in some further Form F is really to say that the Form F could be a thing whose proper name is "F" and at the same time take that name after a named thing,' and that, he thinks, is 'absurd.' But Bestor's argument merely shows that the 'One Over Many' principle is incompatible with the claim that

general terms are logically proper names of Forms. It does not show that Plato

initially put forth a restricted version of the 'One Over Many' principle. The Third Man Argument derives its force precisely from the fact that Plato had previously never had to take seriously the question in virtue of what the F itself is F. So another Form F in virtue of which the F itself and the other F-things are F (Parm. 132a6-8) was not yet explicitly ruled out. There seems little doubt that Plato al-

ways believed that general terms name Forms, even name them 'naturally' (cf .

nn.10, 30), but the implications of 'natural' naming were not clearly articulated at the outset.

It should be noted, however, that compromising the scope of the 'One Over

Many' principle has the effect of depriving the early theory of Forms of a good deal of its semantic and metaphysical power. If something can be what it is in virtue of itself, a sensory particular too might, on those grounds at least, be what it is, have an identity, in virtue of its own nature. One might think that Plato would still have to invoke his theory of Forms for attribution, but the role of the

early theory even in attribution becomes less clear in the Sophist. It is surely weakened by the introduction of the vowel Forms, which make it possible for




III

At 255a4-b6 the ES argues that if Motion or Rest were not distinct from Sameness or Difference, or anything said of both of them in common, Motion would be at rest and Rest in motion, having changed to something incompatible with their respective natures. The argument (sup- pressed premiss bracketed) can be set forth beginning with the supposition that Motion is no different from Sameness.

(i) Suppose that Motion is (not other than) Sameness.16

(ii) Rest participates in Sameness (Rest has the name2 'Sameness'),

(iii) Rest also participates in Motion (Rest has the name2 'Motion'),

[(iv) Motion and Rest are opposites].

(v) By participating in its opposite Rest changes to something incompatible with its nature.17

(iv) Therefore Rest will be (in) motion (Rest will have the name2 'Motion').18

a thing to be called by the name of something different from itself without loss of self-identity. And that should leave significantly less of the original motivation for the early theory. All this is not to say, however, that Plato would not have wanted to deny on entirely metaphysical grounds that particulars have their own identities, or that (perhaps in retrospect) he might not have restricted the 'One Over Many' principle to particulars from the start, but merely that the early theory of Forms does not embody the refinements necessary to draw these conclusions.

16 The sense of 'is' at 255a5 is given at 254e2-3.

17 255all-bl makes participation in its enantion the reason why Rest changes to the enantion of its nature. But the point cannot be generalized. Sameness and Differ- ence, which participate in each other, do not thereby change into the enantia of their natures. Or are Sameness and Difference not really enantia? The latter is not

plausible. At 259d2-5 Plato treats them on a par with the Large and the Small

(called enantia at Phaedo 102d-103c) and the Like and the Unlike, and he ridicules those who enjoy producing such enantia in arguments. Parmenides 159e-160a calls Likeness and Unlikeness enantia, and the argument is extended to include Same- ness and Difference. It is preferable to suppose that some enantia do blend without changing to something enantia to their natures. That seems to be the point of the entire passage at 259b8-d7. I flag the distinction by translating 'opposite' or 'incompatible' as the context requires.

18 The occurrence of gar at 255all shows that (v) is a reason for (vi), hence a premiss on which the conclusion is based.




Premiss (v) mentions the nature of Rest and what is incompatible with that nature. The ES makes frequent reference to a Form's physis to explain its logical behavior.19 The nature of a Form accounts for its ability or inability to blend with other Forms (255a-b, e, 256c, 257a), its being parceled out over a range of Being (257c-d, 258d), its being called by its own namea (250c, 255e), its capacity to give others its name2 (256dl2-el). In saying that a Form 'has' (258blO) a nature, the ES is not suggesting that it has a very special attribute, or that it is related to some other entity. He is not referring to its status as an exis- tent or to its role in ontology at all. He is alluding to the Form's role in structuring discourse. The nature of a Form explains its behavior in relation to other Forms in the manner in which the meaning of a concept accounts for the way it functions in discourse.

Every Form has a nature in virtue of which it is what it is, an identity which marks it off from the others. The nature of a Form determines, among other things, its capacity for blending. Two Forms will not blend if one cannot participate in the other without changing to something incompatible with its nature, thus ceasing to be what it is in virtue of its nature. The mark of incompatibility is not just that one Form is the 'opposite' (enantiori) of another. The matter is more complex, as the ES is well aware. He states the criterion at 256b6-7:

So too, if Motion itself somehow were to participate in Rest, there would be nothing absurd in calling it at rest.20

This amounts to the claim that if 'The G is F' is absurd (atopon), G cannot participate in F. This is a semantic principle and its final appeal is to what can and cannot be said.21 Not just to one's common sense intuitions, of course, which might lead one to declare atopon the sentence 'Sameness is different,' but to the meanings of the concepts

19 Note the frequent occurrence of the explanatory dia with the accusative and poiein in the passage articulating the relationships between the 'most important' Forms at 255e-256e, 259a.

20 The pe in the protasis of the conditional cannot justify construing it as categori- cal, thereby allowing that Motion 'somehow' participates in Rest. The conditional is counterf actual. G. Vlastos, 'An Ambiguity in the Sophist/ reprinted in Platonic Studies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1973) 293-4 is surely right that 'we are not being told that there is a sense in which Motion partakes of Rest, but that // there were, then "Motion is resting" would not be absurd.'

21 It is hardly an argument. The principle begs the question against the late learners, as Ackrill, 'Plato and the Copula/ and others have noted. But the ES's strategy is to draw a distinction, which justly undermines an assumption about naming embedded in the late learners' position.




clarified and sharpened by the dialectical process (259c-d). The ES il- lustrates the method of mapping out semantic relationships among Forms in the long passage at 254c-258a. The principle stated at 256b6-7 is operative in the argument (at 255a4-b6) demonstrating that Motion and Rest cannot be identical with Sameness or Difference. The consequence (vi) is impossible because it is absurd. What is atopon about calling Motion by the name of Rest is that the meaning of the predicate, i.e. what Rest is, negates the subject term.22 If Motion were to take the name2 'Rest' it would no longer be Motion, since 'Rest' entails the contradictory of 'Motion.'

If, as seems likely, the principle is intended to establish possibilities for combination, the ES would probably also accept that if 'The G is F' is not absurd, then G can participate in F.23 He alludes to the criterion in its positive form in remarking that the natures of some Forms allow them to blend (256b8-c3, 257a8-9). This semantic treatment of the vowel Forms, apparent as far back as 250a8, is especially obvious

22 It is sometimes maintained that Plato thought the sentence absurd because it ascribes the property of being at rest to Motion, but that would be no more absurd than asserting that Motion has the property of being in motion. Since Motion itself is a property, it makes no sense to say that Motion has the property of being at rest or in motion. On the other hand, if Plato did not know that Motion is a

property, he might just have thought of the Form as an entity to which the property of being in motion could be ascribed. But if this implies that he thought Mo- tion had the property of being in motion, it would undercut his motivation for

positing the Form of Motion in the first place. If he had fully understood what it is to ascribe a property to something, he would have had no reason to adduce the Form to explain how it is that some individual thing can be in motion. Could not Plato then have thought that 'Motion is at rest' was absurd because it does in fact ascribe a property to Motion, even though he did not actually think of it in that way? It is not altogether clear what this would mean other than: (1) Plato

might have thought of Motion as an entity at rest without thinking of its immo-

bility as a property of it. This is surely possible, but there is nothing absurd about it, since being at rest is one of the definitive features of Forms; (2) Plato might have thought of Rest in 'Motion is at rest' as analogous to fast, slow, and circular, which are properties of Motion even though, strictly speaking, he did not

yet think of them in this way. If so, the sentence would surely be thought to be absurd, because being at rest (for Motion qua Motion) is not analogous to being fast, slow, or circular. However, if he had been thinking along these lines, he would also have thought of 'Motion is in motion' as absurd, since being in motion (for Motion qua Motion) is no more analogous to being fast, slow, or circular than

being at rest. Instead, Plato appears to have thought that 'Motion is (in) motion' was obviously true.

23 Once it has been determined that Forms can blend, whether or not those which can actually do combine can be established from the truth or falsity of the result-

ing statement, as in 'Man understands,' to be contrasted with, e.g., 'Man is

winged,' 'Man flies.'




in the argument (255b8-c3) immediately following the one we are examining, where the question of the identity of Being and Sameness is taken to be equivalent to the question of whether 'Being' and 'Same- ness' have the same meaning. A Form's nature is akin to the meaning of a concept in that it sets limits on the combinations that are possible between it and other Forms.

The conclusion (vi) of the argument, as I have formulated it, con- spicuously equates 'Motion' with the property of being 'in motion.' It is the same equation as that operating in (SI) and (S2) and the one required for (PI) to follow from the argument at 250a8-c7. That is no accident. The late learners' model of naming makes no distinction between 'Motion' and 'is moving (in motion).' Each is a name for the same candidate for reality. If we assume that the same model forms the conceptual backdrop for the ES's solution to the puzzles about Being, we shall conclude that for him, too, the term 'Motion' is semantically no different from 'in motion' since both alike name the Form Motion in virtue of itself and other things in virtue of their relation to it.24 So (vi) moves freely between 'Rest is in motion' and 'Rest is Motion' simply because Rest has the name2 'Motion.' In that respect the ES finds no fault with it.25 On that assumption we can see more readily why (PI)

24 Plato does not know the Aristotelian notion of 'paronymy' in the Sophist. Contra R.E. Allen, Plato's 'Euthyphro' and the Earlier Theory of Forms (London: Routledge 1970) 126, and J. Malcolm, 'Semantics and Self-Predication in Plato/ Phronesis 26

(1981) 287, Plato's use of 'eponymy' is not equivalent to 'paronymy.' Aristotle draws a distinction between grammatically different forms of terms distinguished by a difference of ending, one of which is derivative from the other (Categories Ial2). 'Paronymous' is a term he applies to things whose names are thus derivative. For Aristotle the grammatical distinction is reflected semantically in different functions of predicates that are 'in7 and 'said of a subject. The importance of Aris- totle's contribution is to locate the different ways in which something can be named in the different functions of the predicate. Neither the Phaedo doctrine that particulars are named after Forms, nor the Sophist's two ways of naming Forms, takes that important step. Aristotle's discovery emerges naturally as a result of Plato's

protracted considerations of how something is named, and it rests finally in the distinction between predicative and nominative functions of the predicate.

25 At Theaetetus 182a3-b8 Plato makes what looks like the distinction we are looking for in the course of expounding a 'secret doctrine' attributed to Protagoras: 'The

agent comes to be qualified in a certain way (poion ti) not a quality (poiotes)... not hotness or whiteness but hot or white and similarly with all the rest'; cf . 156e2-8. But there is no indication in the text that this important distinction is yet associated with any semantic content. It is introduced in a metaphysical context to explain the subtleties of a theory of perception held by certain more refined advocates of the flux theory. In Plato the distinction between being a quality and having a quality, corresponding to the original distinction between Forms and their participants, just adds one more crucial piece to a puzzle about meaning and predication that was not to be completed and precisely articulated until Aristotle.




would be treated as a consequence of the argument preceding it (and why [S2] was assumed to contradict [SI]). Granted that 'Being' is a third thing distinct from Motion and Rest (as had been demonstrated), Being cannot have the name 'Rest' or 'Motion' (by premiss [D] of the late learners' theory). But if that is so, and given the absence of any distinction between nominative and predicative functions of names, it follows that (in virtue of its nature) Being is neither at rest nor in motion.26

My argument thus far has aimed to show that (PI) can be generated from the late learners' model of naming. We have seen that this requires an additional premiss erasing the semantic distinction between nominative and predicative forms of names. That assumption is an in- tegral part of the reasoning that leads to (PI). The late learners' model of naming preserves the truth of (PI) and (P2), both of which cannot be true, however, without the prospect of another kind of naming. Before introducing the notion of Form combinations, the ES was faced with two seemingly incompatible propositions. But the blending of Being with both Motion and Rest makes it possible for both (PI) and (P2) to be true without paradox.

Up to this point the ES may appear to be going along with the late learners. But that is not quite the case. 'Motion' and 'in motion' have the same meaning, but for him this is not just because they name the same thing. Both name the Form Motion in virtue of its own nature. That, in the context of the Sophist, is what accounts for their sameness of meaning.27 The qualification ushers in an important distinction, which

26 This interpretation is at variance with the standard view summed up by Owen, 'Plato on Notbeing' (261), as follows: 'It is commonly agreed that (B) [my (PI)] is proved by an illicit move from "X is not identical with either Y or Z" to "X is not characterized by either Y or Z"; and that subsequently the ES blocks this move

by distinguishing identity-statements from predications....' I am contending that the disambiguation of esti was not a concern of Plato in the dialogue, and that it is not necessary in order to resolve the paradoxes of Being. This is not to say, of course, nor does it follow, that Plato 'confused' attribution and identity.

27 In the Phaedo it would be more accurate to say that if a Form has two names by nature, one will entail the other but they will not necessarily be synonymous. At Phaedo 104a the number three is said to have the name 'odd' in addition to its own name 'by nature.' The Sophist makes no explicit mention of how Forms

get the names of necessary attributes. The kind of case in which subject and predicate terms apparently name different things, yet predicate is implied by subject, could be problematic for the Sophist's model of naming. Also in question would be the status of things designated by terms that define a form. How are they related to each other and to the form defined? Is the definition a 'unity? Answers to all these questions would doubtless require some modification of the simple model of naming adumbrated in the Sophist. It must be remembered, however, that the




can be sharpened by considering an example of a secondary name. Take the name 'Circular/ Although perhaps a name of Motion, it does not apply to that Form in virtue of its own nature. Motion can be circular, but it will nevertheless not be what it is to be circular. The Form secondarily named is never the meaning of the term that names2 it. What that name means is the Form nameda in virtue of its own nature. So there is no possibility of equivalence in meaning between 'Mo- tion' and 'Circular' even though both are 'names' of Motion. 'Circular' is the name! of the Form Circular while it names2 Motion only by participation of Motion in that Form. By distinguishing a second way in which a Form can be named Plato allows for the possibility that multiple names of a single Form might have more than one sense. He thus breaks the simple, one-to-one correspondence between name and thing named. But he does this without introducing another function of the predicate beyond its referential one. 'Motion' is the (proper) namea of Motion, but it is also the name2 of any Form that blends with Motion. Naming2 also picks out individuals, but a class of individual forms defined by its members' combination with the Form nameda. Two terms may name the same thing without having the same meaning if one names it naturally and another by participation. Plato parts company with the late learners by rejecting premiss (D) of their argument:

"F" and "G" name the same thing, just in case F is the same as G (F and G are

one) ("F" and "G" have the same meaning).

It might be objected that the second type of name is in fact a 'qualifying predicate or descriptive expression' and that this use of the term onoma had a long history in Greek thought before the time of Plato.28 Although both observations are true, however, we cannot conclude that the two importantly different applications of the term onoma were accompanied from the outset by an understanding of what is in reality a fairly sophisticated distinction between referential and descriptive

enterprise of the Sophist is very different from that of Phaedo, which was not in-

quiring into the matter of how Forms can be called by more than one name. In the Phaedo relationships among Forms were merely assumed as a premiss of the

immortality argument. The Sophist very deliberately calls into question that as-

sumption in order to examine its consequences. We should therefore not expect the Phaedo's use of l>y nature' necessarily to coincide with language in the more

comprehensive and rigorous examination of naming found in the Sophist.

28 Noted by G. Vlastos, 'The Unity of the Virtues/ reprinted in Platonic Studies, 238. Vlastos cites Phaedo 103e2-5 to illustrate the second use of onoma in Plato. Exam-

ples in the Sophist can be found at 251a5, 251b3, 257c. Onomata at 261d2, 4 includes both kinds of names; but eponymia occurs at 257d9, and rhemata at 257b7, instead of onoma.




functions of language. Nor can we conclude without independent evidence that the latter is what Plato had in mind in the Sophist when he pointed out a second way in which forms can be named. For if Plato did not distinguish between descriptive and referential functions of onomata, it does not follow that his use of the term onoma will not be compatible with that distinction and that he will not frequently employ the 'name' in the predicate of a sentence with what we would call the descriptive function.29 And if that is so, his use of language will tell us nothing about his thinking on these matters. The crucial question is whether he actually had that distinction in mind in variously using onoma as he did in the Sophist.30 The evidence indicates that he did not.

The passage that might appear to provide the strongest support for such a distinction is 261d-262e, where a second use of the term onoma is explicitly introduced. There onoma (in the new and narrower sense) is contrasted with rhema in order to specify certain, perhaps minimal, syntactical conditions of meaning in complexes of onomata (in the broad- er sense). The contrast between onoma and rhema corresponds most strictly to the grammatical distinction between noun and verb, but, more broadly, it points to a distinction between subject and predicate, which has important implications for logic as well. So if this distinction between onoma and rhema coincides with what is actually a distinction between referential and descriptive functions of onomata in the broad sense, that would make a strong case for the thesis that Plato, albeit without explicitly saying so, has drawn the distinction we are talking about. Unfortunately, however, it does not. Neither does it correspond to the two ways of naming Forms already proposed by the ES.

The distinction drawn between onoma and rhema in this passage is not, nor is it accompanied by, a distinction between different semantic functions of subject and predicate expressions in a sentence.31 The

29 Thus Vlastos writes: To use a rule of language without the least awareness of the rule is an all too common phenomenon of linguistic behavior' (ibid., 240-1). But Vlastos (239, n.49) nevertheless believes that Plato 'implies' the distinction between predicative and nominative functions of onomata in the Sophist.

30 Plato does assign a descriptive property to terms in the discussion of 'natural' names in the Cratylus, where the etymology of the name 'reveals' (deloi) its proper nominatum. But the 'natural' names of the Cratylus include both proper names and common names or qualifying predicates and thus bear no relation to the distinction between reference and description or to the two kinds of naming in the

Sophist.

31 Contra Vlastos, 'The Unity of the Virtues': 'To take note of the distinction between referring and predicative expressions he resorts to two different words, onoma, rhema, instead of saying that the same word, onoma, can be used in each of these distinct ways' (239).




ES does not contrast the referring function of the subject term with a different, descriptive, function of the predicate. He does not even say that onomata signify what a subject is while rhemata signify what that subject does. What he does say merely is that the terms apply to different things: rhemata signify actions, onomata doers of actions. The important contrast, the one in which the onoma-rhema distinction figures crucially in making an important philosophical point, is not between the semantic functions of subject and predicate terms but between complexes of terms. This becomes most evident when the ES identifies a 'combination' (symploke) of terms that will 'fit together' and 'accomplish' something. He contrasts the 'string' (synecheia) of names lion stag horse' with a different conjunction ('Man understands') in order to introduce the notion of a properly formed combination of terms, which 'reveals' something about things past, present, or future. The latter by weaving together onoma and rhema 'not only names something but says something,' accomplishes a statement (logos) (262d3-6).

The point of all this is that a complex linguistic expression must ful- fil certain syntactic conditions if it is to be successful in stating something. Otherwise it is just a string of words with no larger function beyond that of its naming components. The relevant distinction is not between referring and descriptive functions of subject and predicate terms, but between the naming and stating functions of complex linguistic expressions, as reflected in what are mere strings of names or in properly formed combinations of names. A complex of terms can do more than just name the items that are its components. When it is correctly formed, weaving together onoma and rhema, it succeeds in making a statement. That is a matter of syntax. The passage provides no evidence that Plato thought that, within a complex, rhemata function semantically any differently from onomata, that they have any function other than naminga their proper Forms and naming2 participants in those Forms. It is the function of the complex as a whole that in- terests him. The distinction between actions (signified by rhemata) and agents (signified by onomata) is central to that stating function.

IV

I have claimed that Plato's discussion of naming does not incorporate either the Aristotelian notion of paronymy or the more general distinction between reference and description. A seemingly bizarre consequence of this claim for his theory is that there will be no more than a grammatical difference between such expressions as 'being motion' and 'being in motion' as applied to Forms. Does this mean that there




is no difference for him between what motion is and the property of being in motion, between something's being motion and something's moving? The claim may appear to come dangerously close to denying the significance of participation for his theory.

It surely does not mean, of course, that Plato did not understand the uses of predicate adjectives, nouns, and verbs, which are correlat- ed with the descriptive function of the predicate. But what it could mean is that the different uses of onomata had not yet been incorporat- ed into his thinking about naming, had not found a way into a theory of meaning; or that they are accommodated in his thought in another manner, that is, without explicitly deploying the semantic distinction between reference and description. Plato's thinking on these matters is most likely a hybrid of these alternatives. How then does his theory allow for the difference between saying that something is moving and that something is motion?

For sensory particulars, of course, the early theory of Forms introduced the notion of participating in (being named after) F, which was contrasted with being what F is. The Sophist contributes a similar distinction between being F and participating in F, corresponding to two ways in which a Form can be named. The second kind of naming allows that the subject can be called by the predicate term without being the same as the thing named1 by that term. Participating in F is importantly different from being just what F is: the one implies a relation between two Forms, the other does not. The difference will frequently be reflected in grammar, but the grammatical distinctions carry no semantic implications for Plato, the way they do for Aristotle. Even though it is tempting to think that when subject and predicate terms denote different Forms ('Motion is circular'), indicating that one participates in the other, the predicate expression may serve a semantically descriptive function suitably reflecting its role as grammatical predicate, that is not what Plato intends or understands by naming2 or participation. There is no reason to think he intends anything more than that a secondary name refers to a Form to which the subject is related and to the subject in virtue of that relation. By the same token, when a Form is given its own name ('Motion is [in] motion'), the predicate term, regardless of ending, just names that Form. Naming! does not involve participation and, again, we have no reason to suppose that the grammatical form of the predicate expression alters its semantic function.

On this account of the two ways in which Forms can be named, it is clear that they could not get their own names by participating in themselves. There is a passage (Sophist 255d9-e6), however, which has been thought to commit Plato to the view that Forms can, and frequently




do, participate in themselves.32 In that context the ES is examining the capacities for combination of some 'very important' Forms. He has already singled out four for examination and, finally, identifies a fifth which, as he argues, is distinct from the others. He concludes by saying:

Then we must say that the nature of the Different is a fifth one among the Forms we are picking out... And we shall say that it (auten) goes through them (auton) all; for each one (hen hekaston) is different from the others not (ou) in virtue of its own nature, but (alia) because it participates in the Form of the Different.

The above lines taken just by themselves are ambiguous regarding the reference of 'them' (auton) at 255e3 and 'each one' (hen hekaston) at e4. Given the context, however, I believe the strongest case can be made for taking both to refer to only four Forms, excluding the Different in each case. The ES has just added a fifth to the group of 'very important' Forms he is selecting. His procedure strongly implies a contrast between the Different and the other four Forms. The strategy all along has been to pick out a Form as unique, establishing its credentials by setting it off against another (or others) to show how they cannot be identical. In the passage immediately preceding the above quotation he contrasts the Different with just one other Form, Being, but we can suppose he thinks that similar arguments can be advanced to show its distinctness from the other three as well.33 He then proceeds (at 255d9-e6 above) to speak of the Different, and we should expect him to continue the same strategy by contrasting it with the four already singled out. The significance of contrasting 'it' with 'them' is to make the point that the Different alone is different from the others in virtue of its own nature. The contrast is then reinforced by the ou...alla at 255e4-5. The force of alia at e5 is lost on readings which makes the refer- ent of auton at e3, as well as the extension of hen hekaston at e4, inclusive of the Different.34 The grammatical antecedent of auton is tois eidesin

32 A. Nehamas, 'Participation and Predication in Plato's Later Thought/ Review of Metaphysics 36 (1982) 343-74

33 He has already demonstrated indirectly at 255a-b that the Different cannot be identical with Motion or Rest. What has not been shown (but is implicit in the same

argument) is its difference from Sameness. 255e3-6 contrasts the Different with the other four Forms, thus affirming its distinctness from them, but it is not an

argument that establishes its uniqueness.

34 Vlastos, 'Self -Predication in Plato's Later Dialogues,' reprinted in Platonic Studies

(340, n.13), has pointed out the 'strong adversative' force of alia. He takes auton to exclude the Different and refrains from endorsing the 'paradox' of self-

participation, even though he allows that the Different 'might' be different in vir-




(el), which includes the Different. But the reference of auton has to be determined by the context.35 Since both auten and auton are en tois eidesin, the reference of auton is most likely limited to the four remaining Forms.36

The distinction between two kinds of naming, facilitated by participation construed in the familiar non-reflexive sense, is the closest Plato comes to distinguishing between what it is to say that a Form just is F and what it is to say that it has F as a property. But the distinction in names is not equivalent to the identity-predication distinction.

Naming2 issues in predications, some of which (involving the vowel Forms) secure the nature (self-identity) of every Form. But naminga results in sentences which resist efforts at disambiguation by the predication-identity distinction. There is one kind of case that cannot be decided by that test. And if that is so, the accounts of participation

tue of its own nature and by participating in itself. Vlastos rightly concludes, however, that if Plato had intended that meaning, 'he would surely have expressed the outcome in some clear and unambiguous way/ Nehamas, 'Participation and Predication' (352ff.), on the other hand, boldly endorses self-participation. Tak-

ing auton to be inclusive of the Different, he claims that the Different is (1) what it is to be different in virtue of its own nature and (2) different from other things by participating in itself. But Nehamas does not explain what it would mean for a Form to participate in itself. To support his interpretation he merely calls attention to 256a7-8 where it is said that Motion is the same 'because everything participates in the Same.' Now it is true that 'participation' (metechein) is at least semi-technical in Plato's metaphysical vocabulary, so he would have been free to alter its meaning as he wished. But without independent evidence that he re- vised the meaning of 'participation' in the Sophist so as to make it reflexive, the latter passage is no more convincing than 255d-e as evidence for self-participation. In the absence of some reason to construe 256a7-8 otherwise, the quantifier will

automatically range over everything except the Same. (Similarly, unless one ex-

plicitly redefines the relation 'taller than,' one will be correctly understood to exclude oneself from the scope of 'everyone' in saying, T am taller than everyone in the room.') As additional evidence for self -participation Nehamas cites Par- menides 162a6-bl, and he offers a reinterpretation of the conflicting passage at 158a3-6. But the second part of the Parmenides is a risky place to look for positive doctrine.

35 Robert Renehan has remarked that use of the feminine gender {auten) to refer to to thateron at e3 (introduced by the periphrasis ten thaterou physin at d9) high- lights the fifth Form, setting it apart from the others and foreshadowing the ou. . .alia at e4-5, where the same distinction in gender is maintained between hen hekaston (e4) and tes ideas tes thaterou (e5-6).

36 Consider: 'Jones is fifth among the important novelists we are picking out... and he respects them all.' The group of novelists now includes Jones, but we do not understand the sentence to mean that Jones respects himself along with the rest of the group. Instead we take 'them' to refer only to the other four writers.




and naming together do not amount to a general distinction between being identical with F and having F as a property.37

We have seen that the ES lays out his response to the late learners without noting a difference between referential and descriptive functions of language. The result is that when subject and predicate terms name the same Form ('Motion is [in] motion'), his account of naming does not allow for a distinction between what it is to be something and what it is to have that thing as a property. The distinction between two kinds of names provides no clue as to how to construe 'the F itself is F (in virtue of its own nature)/ since in some cases being F by nature implies having F as a property but in others it does not. If the natures of some Forms require that in being F they are also characterized by F, naminga will not always result in simple statements of identity. The Sophist's account of naming dictates identical analyses of e.g. 'Motion is [in] motion' and 'The Different is different.' Both sentences merely assign the subject Form its natural name1. Hence even if Plato had thought it important to sort out spurious from genuine self- predications, his account of naming would not have put him in a position to do so. This in itself is reason to suspect that he had devised a different strategy for dealing with the puzzles about Being in the Soph- ist, a strategy which did not focus on the concept of esti and the am- biguities surrounding it. This is not in the least surprising unless we

37 This distinguishes my view from any interpretation which claims that Plato, either intentionally or in effect, marked out a distinction between predication and

identity statements in the Sophist. The thesis of M. Frede, Prddikation und Existenzaussage, is more complex and

deserves separate consideration. Frede denies that Plato distinguishes different

meanings of esti. But, on the basis of a detailed analysis of 255c-d, he does attribute to Plato a distinction between two applications of esti as follows: in a sentence of the form 'x is y' (1) 'is' is used in the first application if what is signified by Y is not different from Y-ness; (2) 'is' is used in the second application if what is signified by Y is different from Y-ness. Ordinary identity statements, as well as self-predications in which the predicate states the essence or nature of the subject Form, are special cases of the first application of 'is.' It looks as if Frede's distinc-

tion, when (a) its scope is restricted just to cases where 'x' signifies a Form (and not a particular), and (b) 'y' is a predicate applicable to the subject Form in virtue of the Form that it is, might be parallel to the distinction between the two kinds of names. But insofar as Frede claims that Plato explicitly marks out two applications of esti, and then allows that '...isr..' statements can be called 'identifying statements' and that 'x isa y' and 'x is identical to Y-ness' are interchangeable (69-70), the parallel is not exact even in these cases. In spite of denying that Plato

distinguishes two meanings of esti, Frede's focus on that concept as the key to

unraveling the problems of the Sophist, and his interpretation of 255c-d as affirm-

ing a distinction between two applications of esti, point to a perspective on the

dialogue quite different from my own.




suppose from the start that the aim of introducing the vowel Forms along with the possibility of Form combinations is the disambiguation of esti.

On the other hand, if participation of one Form in another is intended to explain how a Form can have more than one name, it does so at the risk of raising another problem. Granted that Forms can blend among themselves, there is nothing yet to guarantee their integrity as just the Forms that they are.38 A Form must be able to blend with other Forms without being those Forms. The vowel Forms, together with the analysis of negation (Not-Being), are necessary to secure the self- identity of Forms through their multiple combinations. They consti- tute an essential part of the solution to the problem posed by the ES's challenge at 251a. Being, Sameness, and Difference make it possible for a Form to be something other than itself without ceasing to be itself, without losing its nature.39 By participating in Being, a Form is just the nature that it is (the F itself is F). Thus Motion is by participating in Being, which is to say, Motion is just what it is to be Motion (Motion has the nature of Motion). Participation in the remaining two vowel Forms guarantees that each Form is the same as itself and different from others, logical properties that can no longer be taken for granted once it is allowed that Forms can blend among themselves.

V

Returning to the criterion of Form-incompatibility, we are now in a position to deal with a controversial passage which has been widely dis- cussed and variously interpreted. At Sophist 252d2-10 the ES entertains the suggestion that all Forms might be capable of combination with one another. He immediately dismisses the thought in the strongest possible terms. For if Motion and Rest were to blend with each other, Mo- tion itself would be at rest and Rest would move. And that is 'to the last degree impossible.' Construing the statement as an attribution,

38 This is the issue raised at Parmenides 129e over the prospect of someone showing that the separately existing Forms might be 'combined and separated' among themselves. What happens to the identity of the subject when the F itself is both F and not F, or F and also G?

39 To that end, all that is required is a distinction between affirmative predication and negative identity, which effectively neutralizes the contradictions that otherwise would result when a Form is said to be F and not F. For example, Motion is the same and not the same (256a-b), different and not different (256c), being and not-being (256d).




commentators have found this emphatic response puzzling because it appears to deny invariance to the Form Motion, a feature which Plato has insisted on as definitive of all Forms. Moreover, if 'Motion is at rest' is impossible, then 'Motion moves' will be necessarily true, and that looks like an obvious case of self -predication.40 Nevertheless, Pla- to's rejection of 'Motion rests' does not commit him to self-predication.

The assumption behind the ES's procedure throughout the long section at 251d-260a, which deals with the possibilities of combination among Forms, is that to determine these important relationships it is necessary to examine the conceptual connections between relevant Forms. This assumption, together with the view that the possibilities of combination for a Form are governed by its nature, i.e. its identity as the particular Form that it is, provides the key to understanding his uncompromising rejection of the hypothesis that Motion should be at rest. For from these two propositions we know that (a) the hypothesis in question pertains to the natures of Motion and Rest, and (b) their capacities to blend with other Forms will be established by an appeal to logical and semantic considerations rather than to epistemological, metaphysical, or aesthetic ones. While noting the com- plications this creates for interpreting sentences about Motion and Rest, we can nevertheless be certain that 'Motion rests' at 252d does not affirm the invariance of Motion as a Form. It applies the name2 'Rest' to Motion, as a consequence of the supposition that the nature of Mo- tion is such as to allow its participation in Rest. The application is illegiti- mate because, by the criterion of incompatibility pertaining to Form-combinations, 'if Motion itself somehow were to participate in Rest, there would be nothing absurd in calling it at rest.' And it is that very absurdity to which the ES appeals when he calls the hypothesis that Motion should rest 'to the last degree impossible.' Motion and Rest are incompatible predicates, which is to say, if Motion were to take the name2 'Rest,' it would cease to be Motion. To call it by the name of Rest is to affirm something that cannot be affirmed without denying that Motion is what it is 'in virtue of its own nature.' The ES's reasoning will be elaborated in the argument to come at 255a-b and will finally be made explicit at 256b with the criterion stated above.

Now if 'Motion rests' is impossible, 'Motion moves' is necessarily true: not, however, because the sentence ascribes a property to Motion or because it implies that 'for Motion to exist is just for it to move.'41

40 Cf. R. Heinaman, 'Self-Predication in the Sophist/ Phronesis 26 (1981) 55-66; G.

Vlastos, 'An Ambiguity in the Sophist' 270-317.

41 Heinaman, ibid., 55




'Motion moves' makes the same statement as 'Motion is motion.' Each assigns the Form Motion it own (proper) namelr which it takes in virtue of its nature. Both 'motion' and 'moves' are names1 of the Form even though one is a noun and the other a verb (261d-e). Compare a sample sentence: Theaetetus moves.' In remarking that 'moves' signifies an action and 'Theaetetus' what performs the action, Plato would just be noting the grammatical roles of predicate and subject terms in the sentence (262a). He would not be negating the naming function of either term. 'Theaetetus' names the man, 'moves' names the Form Motion, and the sample sentence asserts a relation between them.42 The same can be said of 'Motion moves,' the only difference being that in this case subject and predicate terms name the same thing.

The text at 261d-262e contains another interesting possibility. One might grant the argument thus far, yet still claim that the passage com- mits Plato to self-predication. If Plato believes that in a typical statement the subject term signifies an agent and the predicate expression an action, does not 'Motion moves' then imply that Motion performs the action of moving? If so, Motion will have the property of moving even though Plato does not recognize the descriptive function of the predicate.

The noun kinesis denotes an entity which can be construed as an agent; the verb kineisthai names the Form in the predicate position, hence it signifies the action performed. A single Form wears two hats in the sentence. Motion functions both as subject, which can take the name of several predicates, and predicate, which can lend its name to more than one subject. Typically a statement involves two entities occupying subject and predicate position respectively ('Man understands') and affirming a relation between them. The subject entity is an agent which performs the action signified by the predicate. Clearly 'Motion moves' is not a typical statement of that sort. It implies no relation other than that between the name and its owner; and construed in this way, it involves the oddity that agent and action are one and the same entity, which seems to undermine the point of the distinction being made. Whether Plato would count it among statements in which an agent performs an action is therefore doubtful.

42 It is important to distinguish the analysis of a statement from what follows if the statement is true. Thus (a) 'Motion is the same as itself' is paraphrased as (b) 'Mo- tion participates in Sameness with respect to itself (256b). If true, (a) would

presumably say (263b) 'things that are that they are' about Motion. But it would be a mistake to infer from the discussion of true and false statements that some such statement as 'Sameness is with respect to Motion' is therefore the correct

analysis of (a).




But at 262c3 the ES mentions another kind of statement, one which weaves together nouns and verbs but signifies the ousia of something that is or is not. 'Motion moves' might be a better candidate for this sort of statement, since it would appear to state the essence of Mo- tion. Since the predicate term does not have a descriptive function, 'moves' just picks out the Form by naming} it in the same manner as does the subject term. What is imparted by the sentence is that the Form Motion takes the name1 'moves.' How then can 'Motion moves' be construed as making a statement at all? We might wonder how Plato could have thought the weaving together of noun and verb in this case really does 'achieve something' (perainei ti), 'reveal' something about 'things present, past, or future' (262d2-3).43

It does seem likely, however, that Plato would have thought such sentences as 'Motion moves' satisfied the conditions of the second kind of statement. 'Motion moves' implies that the Form Motion is a certain sort of being, a reality with a specific nature. The sentence explicitly states that nature. It tells us what the subject is, but without necessarily telling us what the subject does. If the two types of statement are contrasted in that way, the second 'achieves' something quite different from the first. Some statements reveal the nature of a thing, others its performances. One can scarecly doubt that Plato thought sentences disclosing what something is make a very important kind of statement.44 Sentences of the form 'the F itself is F' are obviously true, but he would not for that reason have thought them to be vacuous or trivi- ally true.

On the reading suggested, one could not, of course, conclude that statements of essence are necessarily self-predications. But the possibility that they are is still not ruled out. Even if the two kinds of statement are contrasted in the manner mentioned, they do not yield a distinction between attribution and identity. 'Motion moves' states that the being of Motion is to be (in) motion, but we have no better ground for taking that as an identity than we have for construing it as self-

43 The substance of this criticism is made by G. Vlastos, 'On a Proposed Redefini- tion of "Self-Predication" in Plato/ Phronesis 26 (1981) 76-9. Vlastos is responding specifically to A. Nehamas, 'Self-Predication and Plato's Theory of Forms/ American

Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979) 93-103.

44 Cf. the similar distinction at Euthyphro 10e9-llbl between statements that give the ousia of a thing and those that give a pathos, depending on whether the things designated by subject and predicate expressions are 'the same' (tauton) or 'altogether different from each other' (pantapasin heterO onte allelon). In that context it is clear that Socrates considers the first sort of statement to be the more important of the two.




predication. The reason, as I have argued above, is that by the Sophist's model of naming it cannot be distinguished from other grammatically self-predicative statements that are genuine attributions.

My argument has been that participation in the Sophist pertains to the natures of Forms and to their logical behavior rather than their function as items of ontology. If that is granted, the ES's strong rejection of the sentence 'Motion rests' can be explained without supposing that in rejecting it he must endorse self -predication. 'Motion rests,' imply- ing per impossibile that Motion combines with Rest, is ruled out by the natures of Motion and Rest respectively. The nature of a Form governs, and so limits, its possibilities for participation, which means that it limits the predicates that can be true of it as just the Form that it is. Although Plato does not say so explicitly, his concerns in the Soph- ist reveal a growing awareness that these predicates will be determined by the requirements of logic and meaning rather than by those of metaphysics and epistemology. When these two sets of requirements conflict, as they appear to conflict in the case of Motion and Rest, we are brought up against the dual, and often ambiguous, role of the Form.45 Whether Plato was aware of this duality, we do not know. But we do know that in matters of naming and participation in the Sophist he is occupied more with semantic issues than with ontology. We know this from his reason for rejecting the possibility that Motion might participate in Rest, namely, his belief that the proposition 'Motion is [at] rest' is absurd. If he had been thinking in that passage of Motion and Rest as beings, as necessary components of his ontology, he would not have categorically rejected that notion.

Plato no doubt believed that all Forms are immutable, eternal, in- corporeal, intelligible, and divine, but, to judge from his treatment of Motion and Rest, he must not have thought that all can or do participate in forms named by these predicates. The Form Motion is at rest because it is a Form, but its nature is such that it cannot participate in Rest without ceasing to be what it is. A Form can be at rest without participating in Rest if participation pertains only to the semantic

45 Using the criterion of what can and cannot be said to determine possible combinations among Forms, one must conclude that Motion does not participate in Rest, because (1) 'Motion is (at) rest' is absurd. But if (2) 'Every Form is (at) rest' is true

by Plato's definition of 'Form' derived from epistemological considerations, it follows that (1) is true. Employing different criteria to deny (1) and affirm (2) no doubt obscured this puzzle for Plato, but it need not cause a problem for him. The two criteria do not actually conflict. A Form's nature determines its capacities for participation, but being a form as such is not part of any Form's nature. Its nature distinguishes it from other Forms not from particulars. So, on those

grounds, (2) would not imply that Motion participates in Rest.




function of Forms. A different analysis of 'Motion rests/ one which did not imply that the natures of Motion and Rest are compatible, would not be ruled out.46 But Plato's program of naming in the Sophist does not provide for such an alternative. His objective in that context is to show how it is possible for a single Form with a fixed nature to be called by more than one name. Both kinds of naming presuppose that the resulting sentence affirms something about Forms defined strictly by their respective natures, considered as justthe Forms that they are. As a consequence the Form Motion cannot take the name2 of Rest. It follows then that only one of the ways in which 'Motion rests' is commonly construed must be false.47 The other, which does not construe the sentence as claiming anything about the nature of Mo- tion or Rest, remains unaffected by the account of naming in the Sophist.48

Received: June, 1989

46 For example, it would not be necessary for every sentence of the form 'The F itself is G' to imply participation between Forms. This might be so if not all predicate terms denoted Forms or if sentences assigning features to Forms as a category of being did not import participation (cf . Aristotle, Met . 990b27-991al). If the latter, such a sentence might imply no relation at all between nominata of subject and predicate terms or a relation other than a semantic one. In any event, the

question would justly arise as to how such a sentence should be construed, if not as affirming a participation relation between two Forms.

47 What is called for is a distinction between different levels of discourse. G.E.L. Owen, 'Dialectic and Eristic in the Treatment of the Forms' in G.E.L. Owen, ed., Aristotle on Dialectic (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1968) 103-25, pointed to the distinction between different types of predicate drawn by Aristotle in the Topics (cf . 137b3-13, 148al4-22) and argued that in some contexts (Met. 990b27-34, Topics 137b3-13) Aristotle concedes recognition of the distinction to the Platonists. I am less confident of the attribution than Owen was, but nevertheless believe that Plato himself could have drawn the distinction, that nothing in the Sophist rules it out, and that his position requires it. Vlastos, 'The "Two-Level Paradoxes" in Aris- totle/ reprinted in Platonic Studies 331, claims that the distinction is ruled out for Plato by his doctrine of the 'absoluteness of his Idea,' but that appears to over- look the Sophist's solution to the problem of Not-Being, which allows that a Form can be both F and not-F without compromising its privileged status.

48 I owe thanks Richard Bosley for discussing portions of this paper with me, to the Editors of this journal for critical comments, and to Julia Annas for criticism of an earlier draft.



two kinds of naming in the "sophist"

Documents