AN INTERPRETATION OF
PHYSICAL THINGS
Outline
I.
The Explicand:
Separation of Forms
Forms and Their Reality
The Separation of Forms
Participation and Imitation
II.
The Peras and Apeiron
Ambiguity in the Term
“Participation”
Particulars in Terms of the
Four Classes
Division of Species and the
Indivisible Forms
III.
Explanations that do not Explain
Two passages in the Philebus are relevant to the subject herein considered: 16c-17a, and 23c-31b. Prof. Crombie eloquently refers to these passages as “The Heavenly Tradition,” and “The Anatomy of Entities,” respectively. The first passage introduces the methodology—a gift of the gods—by which all things are examined as a conjunction of limit and unlimitedness. The latter passage develops the divine gift by proceeding to interpret “all that now exists in the universe” in terms of four constituents: (1) the unlimited, (2) the limit, (3) the resultant mixture of limit and the unlimited, and (4) the cause of the mixture. The questions I would like to explore are: (1) to what extent can these passages be said to offer an explanation of physical things? and (2) to what extent does the explanation alleviate the problem of the separation of forms from things? As an illustration of the sort of interpretive problem that is under consideration, I call your attention to two viewpoints. In the article, “Platonism,” in Runes’ Dictionary of Philosophy, Vernon J. Burke confidently asserts, in response to the problem of the separation:
Three solutions, which are not mutually exclusive, are suggested in the dialogues: (1) that the many participate imperfectly in the perfect nature of their idea; (2) that the many are made in imitation of the One; and (3) that the many are composed of a mixture of the Limit (Idea) with the Unlimited (matter).[1]
However, in more serious expositions of the Philebus one finds a great deal more reservation with respect to particulars. Indeed, Crombie states as his main conclusion that “the crucial error which can be made in interpreting the Philebus is to suppose that it is Plato’s purpose to tell us that the peras and apeiron are elements in individual things such as this penny.”[2] I suspect that between these lies a third alternative, and it is toward that golden mean that we shall press in this investigation.
The problem for which “participation” (mevqexi") and “imitation” (mivmhsi") are offered as an explanation is the problem of the separation of Forms from particulars. It is important to remember that the theory of Forms was developed not only as a theory of real universals or transcendent meanings as an explanation of rational discourse and true knowledge, but that it is also offered as an explanation of the physical world. For example, in the Phaedo, Socrates says, “I cannot help thinking if there be anything beautiful other than absolute beauty, should there be such, that it can be beautiful only in so far as it partakes of absolute beauty—and I should say the same of everything” (100). It is for this reason that the problem of separation is a problem. The notion of participation emerges in the following way.
“Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea of form” (Republic, 596). That is to say, the objects which we apprehend in universal concepts and ascribe to subjects as universal terms of predication have an objective reality, independent from that of the subjects to which they are predicated. The forms constitute the highest level in the Platonic ontology. They are the objects of knowledge at the level of ejpisthmh and the sole objects of knowledge at the highest cognitive level—novhsi".
As the doctrine of Forms is developed through the Dialogues, it becomes increasingly evident that there is an un-bridged separation (cwrismov") between the Forms and sensible particulars. In the Phaedo and Phaedrus where the Forms are employed in support of the immortality of the soul, one easily gains the impression that the Forms are spatially separate from the sensible world and exist “up there” or “out there” in a heaven of their own. Copleston refers to this notion as a part of the “vulgar” understanding of the theory of Forms.[3] Indeed, per contra, Socrates warns that “a man of sense ought not to say, nor will I be very confident, that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true” (Phaedo, 114); and the material in the Phaedrus is clearly mythological. Nevertheless, although Plato ought not to be taken as affirming more than the independent subsistence of universal concepts and their exclusive claim to ultimate reality, the connection between the Forms and sensibles is unexplained precisely at those points where we would expect a straight-forward, non-metaphorical explanation.
In the Metaphysics, Aristotle takes the problem of the separation as the great weakness of Plato’s theory of Forms. I think it fair to say that all of Aristotle’s criticisms of the Platonic forms rest on this fundamental objection. But Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato are not especially original. Indeed, they seem to be borrowed rather directly from the Parmenides!
As indicated by the criticisms which he puts into the mouth of Parmenides, Plato is not only aware of the problem of the separation but also that in speaking of “participation” and “imitation” he was using, as Aristotle later said, “empty words and poetical metaphors” (Metaphysics, 991a). Nevertheless, these are the metaphors he does in fact employ, and our task now is to decide whether, in the later dialogues, the poetry is in any sense demythologized.
First, I would like to take note of a certain ambiguity in the term “participation” and indicate precisely the sphere of meaning with which I am here concerned. Ordinarily, the relationship described as “participation” is understood to hold between the Forms and particulars which partake of them. This is supported in the Dialogues from the Phaedo onward. However, there is a relationship which holds among the Forms and this relationship, regularly called “blending” or “combining” in the Sophist, is also called participation, for he says, “that Difference [the Form], by partaking of Existence, is by virtue of that participation” (259a). Plato’s lack of precision (perhaps we dare say equivocation) with respect to key terms such as this one indicates that the various ideas expressed thereby are not clearly distinguished. Furthermore, it suggests, I think, the possibility that Plato intended that the relationships be identified.
At any rate, the relationship to be considered here is that between Forms and particulars and it is perfectly clear that Plato regarded this as the subordinate one. Indeed, in both the Sophist and the Philebus our question is ostensibly written off as trivial and childish. At the same time there is reason to believe that the childish question has not been put entirely out of consideration.
In the Parmenides, Socrates assures Zeno that there is no difficulty with contrary qualities in particulars since a particular can participate in contrary forms. The important relationship to understand is that which maintains among the forms (1283-130a), and this problem becomes prominent in the later dialogues. However, the criticism of participation by Parmenides which follows this explanation is directed to the relationship between the forms and particulars, and it is not especially helpful to point out that another problem can be solved. If the “childish question” is not dealt with more satisfactorily, the Parmenidean objection remains—that the forms thus separated are unknowable and thus worthless as explanations of anything. Plato is obviously aware of the difficulty; he clearly does not attempt to settle it by an unconditional denial of the reality of the many, and he repeatedly assures us that the problem has been (or easily can be) resolved. These assurances (1) can be taken as instances of whistling in the dark, (2) they can be explained by reference to unwritten doctrines and proposed dialogues, or (3) they can be taken as an indication that we are to understand the unexplained relationship by reference to the one that is explained. I shall try to support the latter alternative and show how it can be applied to the Philebus, but we do well to keep in mind, as Cornford notes, that the two relationships cannot be fully identified since participation among the forms is a symmetrical relationship, participation between forms and particulars is a one-way street.[4]
There are several prima facie considerations that suggest the application of the Four Classes to particular objects. The first of these must certainly be the language of the text itself. I refer especially to the opening of the passage where the four-fold division is said to apply to “all that now exists in the universe” —pavnta taV nu~n a!n to ejn tw/~ pantiv (23c). If the emphatic pavnta is to be limited, the burden of proof is certainly on those who would limit it, especially in light of the admission of the images to the realm of the real in the Sophist. To be sure, the illustrations of pavnta in the Philebus do not include material objects, but, of course, the illustrations are relevant to the main subject of the dialogue which is not material things. “There is no mention of living beings or of concrete objects, but their omission is natural enough for the reason we have mentioned; and the same is true of the omission of anything evil or imperfect; their mention would be irrelevant, and indeed inimical, to the purposes of the dialogues.”[5] Furthermore, our general understanding of the nature of forms and particulars from earlier dialogues easily leads to an identification of the forms with the limit, particulars with aspects of the unlimited. This consideration is reinforced by the specific references to the limit and unlimited in the Parmenides. In the third hypothesis the Parmenidean one is compared with “the things other than the one” (157b). The main point here is that the “One” is not uniquely one just because it is a unity. That is, there can be more than one unity. And anything that is at all intelligible is so because of its participation in unity—a non-unified diversity is a non-intelligible chaos. The passage that is crucial to the interpretation of the Philebus is 158b-d:
Moreover, since both things that have the unity of a part and things that have the unity of a whole are more than one, it follows that those things which come to acquire unity, must, just in themselves, be without limit of multitude. We may see that in this way. Evidently, at the time when they come to acquire unity they are not one and do not possess unity. So they are multitudes which do not contain unity. Now if we choose to take in thought from such multitudes the least portion we can conceive, that portion also, if it does not possess unity, must be not one but a multitude. And if we go on in that way considering, just by itself, the nature other than the form, any portion of it that comes into view will be without limit of multitude.
Further, when each single part becomes a part, they now have a limit in relation both to one another and to the whole; and so has the whole in relation to the parts. Thus the consequence for the things other than the One appears to be that from the combination of unity and themselves there comes to be in them something fresh, which gives them a limit with reference to one another; whereas their own nature gives them, in themselves, unlimitedness.
Thus the things other than the One, both as wholes and part by part, are unlimited and also have a limit.
Now it may well be that “the things other than the One” are subordinate forms and that sensibles are not in view at all. However, the description of these others as “things which come to acquire unity” seems to fit sensibles far better than forms. Hence, Cornford is justified in asserting that:
The passage about the Unlimited throws new light on the manner in which individual things partake of unity. The unity they have is not the whole or a part of the Form, Unity itself, but an element of Limit imposed upon an unlimited nature, which, conceived in abstraction, would be bare multitude without any sort of unity. Plato, in this revised form, restores the primitive Pythagorean conception of the Limit and the Unlimited as the two chief opposites which combine to constitute Forms, numbers, geometrical magnitudes, and sensible things.[6]
On the other hand, there are reasons for hesitating in identifying the limit of the Philebus with the forms, and the unlimited with unformed matter or space. These difficulties are noted by all serious commentators on the text and have led to identifications of the Forms with all the classes in the Philebus save only the unlimited. Among these difficulties are the following two kinds:
With these cautions in mind, I offer as two final arguments in favor of the interpretation herein suggested (1) a comparison of the four classes with related material in the Timaeus, and (2) the testimony of Aristotle in the Metaphysics.
For the comparison of the Philebus with the Timaeus I am indebted to David Ross in his work Plato’s Theory of Ideas. Ross argues that:
The four classes which the Philebus refers to are best interpreted in the light of the Timaeus. The Philebus is concerned in the main not with metaphysics but with ethics, and we must not expect in it so clear a statement of metaphysical principles as we find in the Timaeus; but there are enough indications that Plato is expressing what is, at bottom, the same view.[7]
This is established by three connections. (1) The Unlimited of the Philebus is suggestive of the chaos described in Timaeus 52d ff. There the material constituents—earth, air, fire, and water—are pictured in a primordial chaos “without proportion or measure.” (2) The limit of the Philebus, which is illustrated by numerical scales, is suggestive of the proportioning of the primordial elements in Timaeus 31b-32c, for “from such constituents, four in number, the body of the universe was brought into being, coming into concord by means of proportion, and from these it acquired Amity, so that coming into unity with itself it became indissoluble by any other save him who bound it together.” (3) “Finally we may note that in both dialogues the world made by the addition of limit to the unlimited is described as a living creature composed of soul and body [Philebus 30a3-7/Timeaus 30b4-31a1] and the cause of the mixture is in the Philebus called toV pavnta tau~ta dhmiourgou~n ‘that which fashions all these things,’ and in the Timaeus oJ dhmiourgov" ‘the fashioner,” and is in both dialogues thought of as a responsible being.”[8]
Aristotle, presumably supplementing the discussions in the Philebus and Timaeus with material from Plato’s “Lecture on the Good,” interprets Plato as making both Forms and particulars a mixture of limit and unlimitedness. In the case of particulars, the Forms are the limit; the great-and-small, the material cause of sensibles. In the conclusion to this discussion he says:
Plato, then, declared himself thus on the points in question; it is evident from what has been said that he had used only two causes, that of the essence and the material cause (for the Forms are the causes of the essence of all other things, and the One is the cause of the essence of the Forms); and it is evident what the underlying matter is, of which the Forms are predicated in the case of sensible things, and the One in the case of the Forms, viz., that this is a dyad, the great and small (998a).
The second passage in the Philebus which bears on the present study actually occurs first at 16c-17a. It serves as an introduction to the four-fold classification and is so identified by Socrates (23c). It suggests a direction for the solution to the second question raised at the beginning of this paper, viz., to what extent does the explanation of particulars in the Philebus alleviate the problem of the separation.
The gift of the Gods consists of viewing everything that is ever said to be as “a conjunction of Limit and Unlimitedness.”
This then being the ordering of things we ought, they say, whatever it be that we are dealing with, to assume a single form and search for it, for we shall find it there contained; then, if we have laid hold of that, we must go on from one form to look for two, if the case admits of there being two, otherwise for three or some other number of forms: and we must do the same again with each of the “ones” thus reached, until we come to see not merely that the one that that we started with is a one and an unlimited many, but also just how many it is. But we are not to apply the character of unlimitedness to our plurality until we have discerned the total number of forms the thing in question has intermediate between its One and its unlimited number: it is only then, when we have done that, that we may let each one of all these intermediate forms pass away into the unlimited and cease bothering about them.
This is the method of division, introduced in the Phaedrus and elaborately illustrated in the search for the sophist, the statesman, and pleasure. A review of the method summarized here in light of the connection we have made between the four-fold classification and particulars will reveal how Plato, at this point, understands particulars and how he may be regarded as having answered the separation problem from the viewpoint of the theory of Forms itself.
The division begins with a generic unit and proceeds to examine it species and sub-species and sub-sub-species, etc. The dialectician will recognize an indivisible species (the a!tomon ei^do") when it is reached and will stop the division at that point, letting all the individual instances below the a!!tomon ei^do" “pass away into the unlimited and cease bothering about them.”
This suggests that particulars are intelligible insofar as they are brought under one or more of the indivisible forms. Beyond that, there is nothing more to be explained. Apart from the limiting forms a given particular is simply an undifferentiated, unintelligible, unknowable infinite. “This means that the sense-particulars in so far as they are not brought within the a!tomon ei^do" and cannot be brought with it, are not true objects at all: they are not fully real. In pursuing the diai~resi" as far as the a!tomon ei^do" Plato was, in his eyes, comprehending all Reality.”[9] When the division has been completed, as, e.g., with the sophist, the variety of particular instantiations of the indivisible form must be dismissed “into the infinite.”
Explanations sometimes offer description as explanation, but description is not explanation. Explanations sometimes restate the problem in such a sophisticated manner that a restatement of the problem is mistaken for an explanation. Explanations sometimes offer a bona fide explanation of something, but what they explain turns out to be different from the original problem. Such possibilities as these come to mind as one reflects on the explanation of physical things suggested by the Philebus. Copleston concedes that “from Plato’s own point of view, the problem of the cwrismov" may have been solved; but from the point of view of anyone who will not accept his doctrine of sense-particulars, it is very far from being solved.”[10] However, even this may be too generous. Instead, I would suggest the following appraisal.
[1] Vernon J. Burke, “Platonism,” Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. D. D. Runes (Ames, Iowa: Littlefield, Adams, and Co., 1956), p. 237.
[2] I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), Vol. 2, p. 424.
[3] F. C. Copleson, A History of Philosophy, Vol. I, Greece and Rome (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1962), Pt. 1, p. 191.
[4] F. M. Cornford, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1945), p. 297.
[5] R. Hackforth, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge (N. Y.: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1957), p. 297.
[6] F. M. Cornford, Plato and Parmenides (N. Y.: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., n.d.), pp. 212-213.
[7] David Ross, Plato’s Theory of Ideas, (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1953), p. 136.
[8] Ibid., p. 137.
[9] Copleston, op. cit., p. 214.
[10] Ibid.