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Plato on Unity and Sameness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Malcolm Schofield
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Burnet's text (here printed) should be emended or repunctuated at three points. At d I we should follow Moreschini and with BT omit Proclus' γε: the unanimous voice of our best manuscripts must be allowed to drown the unreliable Neoplatonist. At e 2, as I shall argue, should be excised. And at e 2–3 the clause is to be attributed to Aristoteles, as Brumbaugh (tentatively supported by Stokes) advocates. This attribution gives a better and more typical question and answer sequence, although I can find no other example where Aristoteles ventures sua sponte (but he often enough—if less often than when prompted—volunteers e.g. 137 c 9, 138 c 6, 142 c 5, 145 a I).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , May 1974 , pp. 33 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1974

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References

page 33 note 1 Platonis Parmenides Phaedrus (Rome, 1966).Google Scholar

page 33 note 2 Plato on the One (New Haven, 1961), 270.Google Scholar

page 33 note 3 Review of Brumbaugh, Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philos. xlvi (1964), 123.Google Scholar

page 34 note 1 In Parm. 1177, 27–1178, 3 Cousin.

page 34 note 2 I imply here the Russellian notion of quantity explored by Cartwright, Helen in her recent article ‘Quantities’, Phil. Rev. lxxix (1970), 25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 35 note 1 For this interpretation compare Owen, G. E. L. on Phd. 74 a 9–12Google Scholar, in ‘Dialectic and Eristic in the Treatment of Forms’, Aristotle on Dialectic, ed. Owen, (Oxford, 1968), 114–15.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 The Parmenides of Plato (Oxford, 1934).Google Scholar

page 36 note 2 Euripides: The Phoenissae (Cambridge, 1909).Google Scholar

page 37 note 1 References kindly supplied to me by Mr. D. Bostock.

page 37 note 2 Plato and Parmenides (London, 1939), 124.Google Scholar

page 38 note 1 But he never considers what point ‘one with itself’ might have.

page 39 note 1 According to this account of the argument at 139 d I-e 4, it depends solely on quite general assumptions about predication: similar arguments would go through for any pair of subjects identified by single, but distinct, predicates. This distinguishes it from the very next argument of the deduction, which has a similar conclusion, but depends on a feature special to ‘one’, viz. that it is not really a predicate at all, but a quantifier masquerading as a predicate. Parmenides first gets Aristoteles to accept that what is characterized by (or, has as an attribute: πεπovθós—the possibility of alternative renderings is not significant here) the same is like (139 e 8–9). He then continues (139 e 9–140 a 4): ‘That which is the same appeared distinct from the one in its nature. —It did.—But if the one is characterized (πέπovθε) by anything apart from being one, it would have the character of being more than one, and that is impossible.—Yes.—It is not possible, then, for the one to be characterized by the same in any way, neither with another thing nor with itself.—It appears not.’ Cf. also 140 a 4–b 3. In distinguishing between 139 d 1–e 4 and 139 e 7–140 a 4 in this way, I exploit a suggestion made by Owen, G. E. L., ‘Notes on Ryle's Plato’, in Ryle: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Wood, O. P. and Pitcher, G. (New York, 1970), 350, although the terms of my discussion differ from his.Google Scholar

page 40 note 1 See Parm. 128 a 8-b 1, Theaet. 180 e 2–4, Soph. 242 d 4–6, 244 b 6–245 d II.

page 40 note 2 So Parmenides is read by e.g. Owen, G. E. L., ‘Eleatic Questions, CQ N.S. X (1960), esp. 89–99;Google ScholarMourelatos, A. P. D., The Route of Parmenides (New Haven, 1970), esp. 90–3, 134–50.Google Scholar

page 40 note 3 Parm. 137 c 5-d 3; cf. DK 28 B 8.22–5.

page 40 note 4 Parm. 138 b 7–139 a 3; cf. DK 28 B 8. 26–33.

page 40 note 5 Cf. in general DK 28 B 8.4 (with text as in Owen, op. cit. 101–2) and 22–33, 42–9, with Theaet. 180 e 3–4, Soph. 244 e 2–8 (which implies that Plato took Parmenides to be ascribing spherical shape to what is). My thesis here is not, of course, a new one: see Cornford, , Plato and Parmenides, 134, with n. 2.Google Scholar

page 41 note 1 A line of thought suggested by Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘The New Theory of Forms’, The Monist, I (1966), 404–9Google Scholar. Cf. also Prauss, G., Platon and der logische Eleatismus (Berlin, 1966), esp. 99–136, 183–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 41 note 1 Aristotle's Metaphysics: Books T, ▵. and E, translated with notes by Kirwan, Christopher (Oxford, 1971), 83.Google Scholar

page 41 note 2 ‘Aristotle on Sameness and Oneness’, Phil. Rev. lxxx (1971), 184–9.Google Scholar

page 41 note 3 ibid. 178–82.

page 41 note 4 It is reasonably supposed that Diogenes Laertius lists this same work as , On Contraries (5. 22). The fragments which Ross allots to On Contraries (Aristotelis Fragmenta Selecta [Oxford, 1955], 106–10Google Scholar = Fr. 118–24 Rose3), extracted from Simplicius, are convincingly held by Moraux, P., Les Listes Anciennes des Ouvrages d' Aristote (Louvain, 1951), 53Google Scholar, to derive from a different work: not mentioned in the ancient lists of Aristotle's writings. It has much material in common with the later chapters of Metaph. I and Cat. 10 and 11. Rose, followed by Moraux, thinks it spurious: see e.g. Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus (Leipzig, 1863), 130–1.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 It is conceivable that On Contraries B are in fact one and the same work. For brief and inconclusive discussion, see P. Wilpert, ‘Neue Fragmente aus , Hermes, lxxvi (1941), 241; Moraux, op. cit. 52–3.

page 42 note 2 The word is, of course, a favourite of Aristotle's in contexts where àpxai are mentioned: see Bonitz, , Index Aristotelicus (Berlin, 1870), 42a 11 ff.Google Scholar

page 42 note 3 White offers an account of why Aristotle may have thought the treatment of same in terms of one natural, op. cit. 189–97: Aristotle, he claims, was exercised by problems about the identity of objects and movements through time, and such problems naturally present themselves as puzzles about what makes an object or a movement one. But he does not attempt to explain the origin of Aristotle's doctrine, as I have tried to do.