Category Archives: Platonism

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Arguments against Forms: “Former and Latter”

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In the process of setting forth the project that will consume the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sketches a description for what is the ultimate good, that which all our actions aim to achieve.  He describes the possibility of finding such an action (or whatever it will turn out to be), in these terms:

Indeed, if there is some end of practical affairs which we wish in itself, but all the rest because of this one thing, and we do not wish for everything because of some other thing (for then everything proceeds to infinity, and so desire would be empty and vain), it is obvious that this would be the good and the best.  As archers possessing a target, should we attain what is needed, since the knowledge of this has great importance in life?  If this is so, one must attempt to grasp it in outline at least, what it is and of what kind of knowledge and capacity it belongs (NE 1094a18-26). 1

As Aristotle vividly sets forth, we need some “target,” that ultimate good, at which we can aim our arrows, our lives.  One possibility is the “good” so envisaged by Plato.  Aristotle will then embark on an investigation of this candidate for the “good.”  Before the first of many criticism of Forms, however, Aristotle offers a peace offering of good will to Platonists.

It is fitting to perhaps to investigate and deal with the difficulties of how the universal [good] (to katholou) is said, even though such an investigation courts controversy because the men who introduced Forms (ta eide) are friends.  It would seem that it is fitting, in fact necessary for the preservation of truth even to destroy one’s own work, both generally and because we are philosophers.  For, although both [Platonists and truth] are dear, it is sacred to preferentially honor the truth (NE 1096a11-17). 2

After this shrewdly irenical, even poetical, preface, Aristotle gets into the meat of his first objection by informing us that Platonists do not have forms of those things which have a “former” and “latter.”

Indeed those who introduced this opinion did not place the Forms among those things in which they said there was a former (to proteron) and latter (hysteron); therefore they did not make a Form of numbers.  And the good is said in the categories of “what is” (ti esti) and in quantity (to poion) and in relation (pros ti), but that which is by itself (to kath’ hauto), that is, being or substance (ousia), is prior (proteron) by nature to relation. (For relation seems like an offshoot and incident of being (tou ontos).  So that there would not be some Form in addition to these (NE 1096a17-23). 3

After the mention of numbers, Aristotle brings in talk of his own Categories, noting that the “good” can be predicated in many different ways.  This presents a problem for believers in the Forms.  If “good” is in one of the three categories of “what is,” or quantity, or relation, then in virtue of being in both the category of “what is” and relation it is involved in the “former and latter.”  However remember that the “former and latter” is prohibited as things there are Forms of, as Aristotle just mentioned at NE 1096a17.  The reason that the good is involved in the former and the latter is because “what is” precedes, i.e. is  ontologically prior to, the category of relation, although both “what is” and relation are said of the good.  Therefore logically either there are Forms for things that are involved in “former and latter,” or, as Aristotle prefers, there are no forms since even the paradigmatic Form of them all, the Form of the good, necessarily must (illlogically) involve the “former and latter.”

Questions:

  1. Why does Aristotle bring up two categories in this objection to forms?  That is, he doesn’t seem to need the category of “what is.”  Isn’t the category of relation, in itself, sufficient to show that the good, if it is involved in that category (and it is) concerns the “former and latter.”  Because it seems that at least some forms of relation concern the former and latter.
  2. What is the motivation in Platonists avoiding Forms in the case of the former and latter?  Is it because this is a form of relation, in which one is before the other, and thus would undermine the atemporality and transcendence of Forms?
  3. In light of NE 1094a18-26 (quoted above), is it fair of Aristotle to ask Platonists for an explanation of good in the different ways Aristotle enumerates?  After all, if per Aristotle’s argument in NE 1094a18-26, there is one single “good” at which everything aims, then insofar as there is more than one “good,” they are only derivatively so, and it is plausible that there must be some one single good over and above all these.

 

1 Εἰ δή τι τέλος ἐστὶ τῶν
πρακτῶν ὃ δι’ αὑτὸ βουλόμεθα, τἆλλα δὲ διὰ τοῦτο, καὶ μὴ
πάντα δι’ ἕτερον αἱρούμεθα (πρόεισι γὰρ οὕτω γ’ εἰς ἄπειρον,    (20)
ὥστ’ εἶναι κενὴν καὶ ματαίαν τὴν ὄρεξιν), δῆλον ὡς τοῦτ’ ἂν
εἴη τἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ ἄριστον. ἆρ’ οὖν καὶ πρὸς τὸν βίον ἡ
γνῶσις αὐτοῦ μεγάλην ἔχει ῥοπήν, καὶ καθάπερ τοξόται
σκοπὸν ἔχοντες μᾶλλον ἂν τυγχάνοιμεν τοῦ δέοντος; εἰ δ’
οὕτω, πειρατέον τύπῳ γε περιλαβεῖν αὐτὸ τί ποτ’ ἐστὶ καὶ   (25)
τίνος τῶν ἐπιστημῶν ἢ δυνάμεων

2  Τὸ δὲ καθόλου βέλτιον ἴσως ἐπισκέψασθαι καὶ διαπο-
ρῆσαι πῶς λέγεται, καίπερ προσάντους τῆς τοιαύτης ζητή-
σεως γινομένης διὰ τὸ φίλους ἄνδρας εἰσαγαγεῖν τὰ εἴδη.
δόξειε δ’ ἂν ἴσως βέλτιον εἶναι καὶ δεῖν ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ γε τῆς
ἀληθείας καὶ τὰ οἰκεῖα ἀναιρεῖν, ἄλλως τε καὶ φιλοσόφους   (15)
ὄντας· ἀμφοῖν γὰρ ὄντοιν φίλοιν ὅσιον προτιμᾶν τὴν ἀλή-
θειαν.

3 οἱ δὴ κομίσαντες τὴν δόξαν ταύτην οὐκ ἐποίουν ἰδέας
ἐν οἷς τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον ἔλεγον, διόπερ οὐδὲ τῶν
ἀριθμῶν ἰδέαν κατεσκεύαζον· τὸ δ’ ἀγαθὸν λέγεται καὶ ἐν
τῷ τί ἐστι καὶ ἐν τῷ ποιῷ καὶ ἐν τῷ πρός τι, τὸ δὲ καθ’   (20)
αὑτὸ καὶ ἡ οὐσία πρότερον τῇ φύσει τοῦ πρός τι (παρα-
φυάδι γὰρ τοῦτ’ ἔοικε καὶ συμβεβηκότι τοῦ ὄντος)· ὥστ’ οὐκ
ἂν εἴη κοινή τις ἐπὶ τούτοις ἰδέα.

Problems with Plato: Animal Diversity and Robust Division

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Yesterday, I brought up some difficulties that occur in the first method of division presented in Aristotle’s Parts of Animals.

“Some construe the individual species by dividing the group into two differentiae.  In one way this is not easy, in another impossible.  For of some there will be only one differentia, but the other terms will be superfluous, such as in the case of footed, two-footed, footed with parted toes.  For this last differentia alone is proper” (Parts of Animals, 642b5-9)?

Before discussing the difficulties again, it must be taken into consideration, of course, that since he is embarking on a criticism of Academic methodology, any philosophical difficulties arising from this process of division might in fact owe to chinks in the armor which Aristotle himself was trying to illuminate.  He might very well be bringing some of these difficulties to light without proceeding to explain them.

A couple of the difficulties I brought up yesterday were:

“It is not true that the concept of “footed with parted toes” includes “two footed” and “footed.” viz. lizards

It is also clear from his use of the term elsewhere, that “footed with parted toes (σχιζόπους)” is not meant to designate any particular species alone, such as humans (cf. HA 593a28, concerning birds).”

A mistake one could make, at least in Aristotle’s construal of the division, is failing to recognize that at every point of the division a particular animal is being guided through each step of the division.  So, in this example, one has to have in mind a particular animal which one leads through each “gate” of the division.  There is no abstracted “two-footed,” in other words; differentiae always belong to real animals.  (This is one reason why Aristotle says shortly that there cannot be divisions of non-being, for no animals correspond to such a division.)

In fact, Aristotle will return to this division at 643b29 ff.  He says there two interesting things.  He affirms that with this method both (a) that only one differentia will be arrived at (b) it is impossible for one differentia to be adequate for a species.  In light of this he brings up the same “footed, two-footed, footed with parted toes,” tri-partite division.  Only this time he applies it to “man” (ἄνθρωπος).  He points out that man is many other things besides possessing parted toes.

Both of these judgments merge into a single criticism: there is a need for there to be multiple differentia, although the Academic method cannot allow for it, it is not so much wrong, as it is inadequate.  One reason for a need for more lines of division is that there are many homologous features in animals.  Similar body plans, parts, and functions means that there will be many animals with split-toed feet.  Because of this diversity there will be a corresponding need for a robust method of division.

Eliminate Psychological Pain: 2 Obols, Cheap!

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“[Antiphon] is said to have composed a tragedy together with Dionysus the tyrant. Yet while he was engaged in its composition he contrived an art to relieve pain, just as there is medical treatment for the sick. After he procured a small apartment for himself beside the marketplace of Corinth, he advertised that he was able to serve those in pain through words. When he discerned the causes [of pain], he consoled his patients. But he considered his art of painlessness inferior to when he turned to the rhetorical art[1].”  (Plutarch, Vit. X orat. 1 p. 833c)

 Without commenting on the validity of the charge, this anecdote reminds me of one of the most persistent criticisms of psychology/psychotherapy.  Such therapies involve word tennis until the troubles go away, with the implication that the mind clears itself of any particular problem after an elapse proportionate to its distress, by no dint of the therapy involved.  It is unclear, given the brevity of what is reported here, what exactly Antiphon was saying, but given the Platonic leanings of Plutarch, the story comes across as opportunistic hucksterism.  Obviously, as noted here, Antiphon preferred rhetoric (here apparently synonymous with sophistry) as a more lucrative enterprise to the “art of pain relief”, perhaps either due to its financial potential in court or because it was less vexing or both, and since Plutarch notes that this therapeutic enterprise was less valued, the impression given is that Antiphon simply varied the location, but not the content of his sophistry.  You can take the sophist cum therapist out of the agora, but you can’t take the agora out of the sophist.  Once a ware-peddler, always a ware peddler.  The practice, not to mention the recidivism rate, of word mongering, at any rate, is dangerously antithetical to philosophical considerations. 

This very brief story aptly portrarys, at least from a Platonist viewpoint, the contempt that sophists had– or were reputed to have– towards the more important matters of the soul, as Antiphon displays by turning his back on the alleviation of others’ suffering.    

 [1]  [Antiphon] λέγεται δὲ τραγωιδίας συνθεῖναι ἰδίαι καὶ σὺν Διονυσίωι τῶι τυράννωι· ἔτι δ’ ὢν πρὸς τῆι ποιήσει τέχνην ἀλυπίας συνεστήσατο, ὥσπερ τοῖς νοσοῦσιν ἡ παρὰ τῶν ἰατρῶν θεραπεία ὑπάρχει· ἐν Κορίνθωι τε κατεσκευασμένος οἴκημά τι παρὰ τὴν ἀγορὰν προέγραψεν, ὅτι δύναται τοὺς λυπουμένους διὰ λόγων θεραπεύειν, καὶ πυνθανόμενος τὰς αἰτίας παρεμυθεῖτο τοὺς κάμνοντας. νομίζων δὲ τὴν τέχνην ἐλάττω ἢ καθ’ αὑτὸν εἶναι ἐπὶ ῥητορικὴν ἀπετράπη.