Two Distinctions in Goodness in the Lysis

Do classical authors employ Korgaard's two distinctions? Or do they conflate intrinsic with final, and extrinsic with instrumental?

A passage which seems to give a mixed answer to this question is Plato's Lysis, 218d-220d. There it looks at first as if Plato is clear about the two distinctions; but then he seems to jumble them together.

At first, the distinctions appear to be kept separate:

"Whoever is a friend, is he a friend to someone or not?"
"He has to be a friend to someone," he said.
"For the sake of nothing and on account of nothing, or for the sake of something and on account of something?"
"For the sake of something and on account of something." (218d, Lombardo)

Here, to say that something is loved 'for the sake of' (heneka) something seems to mean its being loved as an instrumental good; and to say that it is loved 'on account of' (dia) something seems to mean its being loved as a good the goodness of which is conditional upon something else, viz. as an extrinsic good. E.g. A sick person loves medicine for the sake of health and because of sickness.

But then, famously, Plato seems to blur the two together. Socrates goes on to argue that, if the 'for the sake of' relation were to terminate in a primary object of love, then, since we would not love that thing if we were free from any deficiency or badness, our love for it would be 'for the sake of' badness:

Suppose ... bad were eliminated and could affect no one in body or soul or anything else that we say is neither good nor bad in and of itself. Would the good then be of any use to us, or would it have become useless? For if nothing could still harm us, we would have no need of any assistance, and it would be perfectly clear to us that it was on account of the bad that we prized and loved the good-- ...(220c)

... Then that friend of ours, the one which was the terminal point for all the other things that we called 'friends for the sake of another friend', does not resemble them at all. For they are all called friends for the sake of a friend, but the real friend appears to have a nature completely the opposite of this. It has become clear to us that it was a friend for the sake of an enemy. Take away the enemy and it seems it is no longer a friend. (220e--Lombardo)

Don't the last two sentences of the passage show a conflation? "Take away the enemy and it seems it is no longer a friend" (ei0 de\ to_ e0xqro_n a)pe/lqoi, ou)ke/ti, w(j e1oik', e1sq' h(mi=n fi/lon) suggest as condition. "It was a friend for the sake of an enemy" (fi/lon ga_r h(mi=n a)nefa&nh o2n e0xqrou~ e3neka) suggests an instrument.

Distinguished Distinctions

In light of Eric Brown's comment perhaps it would be fruitful to start a thread on the "two distinctions in goodness": What are those distinctions? Are they employed by classical authors, such as Plato and Aristotle? Should the two distinctions be more widely used in interpretations today, i.e. is this a valuable distinction that scholars today ignore to their own detriment?

First, the two distinctions themselves. For this, one cannot improve upon Chris Korsgaard's lucid explanation:

It is rather standard fare in philosophy to distinguish two kinds of this value of goodness, often called "instrinsic" and "instrumental". Objects, activities, or whatever, have an instrumental value if they are valued for the sake of something else--tools, money, and chores would be standard examples. A common explanation of the supposedly contrasting kind, intrinsic goodness, is to say that a thing is intrinsically good if it is valued for its own sake, that being the obvious alternative to a thing's being valued for the sake of something else. This is not, however, what the words "intrinsic value" mean. To say that something is intrinsically good is not by definition to say that it is valued for its own sake: it is to say that it has its goodness in itself. It refers, one might say, to the location or source of the goodness rather than the way we value the thing. The contrast between instrumental and intrinsic value is therefore misleading, a false contrast. The natural contrast to intrinsic goodness--the value a thing has "in itself"--is extrinsic goodness--the value a thing gets from some other source. The natural contrast to a thing that is valued instrumentally or as a means is a thing that is valued for its own sake or as an end. There are, therefore, two distinctions in goodness. One is the distinction between things valued for their own sakes and things valued for the sake of something else--between ends and means, or final and instrumental. The other is the distinction between things which have their value in themselves and things which derive their value from some other source: intrinsically good things versus extrinsically good things. Intrinsic and instrumental good should not be treated as correlatives, because they belong to two different distinctions.

Korsgaard goes on to examine Moore, Ross and Kant: "These philosophers," she writes, "all separated the two distinctions..."

One might wonder whether ancient philosophers did as well--since I believe their interpreters rarely do so and rely, rather, on the conflation that Korsgaard says is "standard fare in philosophy".

Author's Resolution of the Apology Difficulty

In this post I give Scott Senn's resolution of the seeming contradiction in the Apology. In a subsequent post I'll give the resolution I favor and discuss readers' comments.

Senn attributes the following view to Plato's Socrates. The only "intrinsic good" (read simply: good) is virtue. All other things are instrumentally good at best; and they are instrumental for one thing only, namely, one's growth in virtue. If the jury takes away such instrumental goods, then, it merely prevents Socrates from further growth in virtue (and in that sense it can harm him); but it cannot take away or diminish the virtue that Socrates already has (and in that sense he is invulnerable to being harmed).

The resolution seems new only in its use of a distinction between, as Senn calls it, "damaging" versus "obstructing". Senn gives these definitions:

X damages P =df. X causes P to lose some intrinsic good that P already possessed, or X causes P to gain some intrinsic bad that P did not already have.

X obstructs P =df. X decreases P's ability to gain intrinsic good (or decreases P's ability to be rid of intrinsic bad).

And then Senn explains:

... Socrates thinks he cannot be damaged. On the other hand, when he does allow that he may suffer injury (Ap. 25 D 1) or something bad (25 E, 37 B-38 B), he must (if he is not contradicting himself) be thinking only of the obstructive kind of injury. This fits very well 37B-38B; for clearly being silenced is bad only obstructively: it takes away his ability to discuss and examine (37 E-38 A), the value of which (it is natural to suppose) is instrumental. It is plausible that Socrates would similarly explain the badness of imprisonment and exile: they would take away his freedom to philosophize with whomever he wants, especially those reputed to be wise. Likewise, being fed in the Prytaneion is 'good' because it will help him continue to examine people (36 D). In the whole passage (surrounding and including 37 B-38 B), therefore, it seems that he is discussing things that are bad only obstructively and good only instrumentally. Only these do the Athenians have the power to bring about. We need not think that Socrates has in mind any other kind of injury at 25D-E.

Your views on the successfulness of this resolution?

Thwarted In a Summit Attempt Once More

Mt. Washington in New Hampshire claims "the world's worst weather". We had proof of that yesterday morning, when we had to call off our attempt at a climb because of 120 mile per hour winds on the summit (wind chill of -50 degrees F). We opted instead for a pleasant (and safe) hike with snow shoes below tree line, where it was calm and mild.


That's me with the Huntington Ravine headwall showing in the background.

Mount Adams and Mount Madison.

Mount Jefferson seen from across the Great Gulf Wilderness.
(Believe it or not, this is a color photo. The contrast between the snowfields and the dark ravines seems to have suppressed all the colors.)
One more photo, this one taken on the Mt. Washington Auto Road.

Have You Had Problems Posting a Comment?

I've never had any. But then again, I'm the author of this blog. A couple of friends have written to say that they've had difficulties. Would you mind letting me know if you've had trouble as well, so that I can determine the best way to correct it? Thanks. MP

Rachana Kamtekar's Lecture in BACAP

Rachana Kamtekar's lecture in the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy

The Powers of Plato’s Tripartite Psychology

with commentary by Martha Nussbaum

to be held at Brown University

is postponed until

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Slogging, not Blogging

Where I hope to be early Monday afternoon, when with two days left I attempt a winter ascent.


Or see the web cam here.

An Apparent Contadiction in Plato's Apology

Once again I am reviewing a volume of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: and once more I look for it to provide a rich source of discussions and posts. This is volume XXVIII, Summer 2005 (only two years behind!).

The first paper, by Scott J. Senn ("Virtue as the Sole Intrinsic Good in Early Plato"), poses a difficulty that's perfect for a blog. I'll state the difficulty today. How do you think it should be resolved? I'll eventually give Senn's resolution, and then my own.

The difficulty is an apparent contradiction in the Apology. Socrates says at one point that the jury is not capable of harming him; at another point he seems to concede that certain punishments the jury might assign to him would be bad for him. How should we reconcile these statements?

It's a nice difficulty, definite and well-circumscribed. Again: I have my own view, different from Senn's, but how would you deal with it?

You are familiar with the texts which present the difficulty, but here they are, fyi. (They're long, so I'll highlight the most important bits.)

First, that the jury cannot harm Socrates:

eu} ga_r i1ste, e0a&n me a)poktei/nhte toiou~ton o1nta oi[on e0gw_ le/gw, ou)k e0me\ mei/zw bla&yete h2 u(ma~j au)tou&j: e0me\ me\n ga_r ou)de\n a2n bla&yeien ou1te Me/lhtoj ou1te 1Anutoj—ou)de\ ga_r a2n du&naito. ou) ga_r oi1omai qemito_n (d.) ei]nai a)mei/noni a)ndri\ u(po_ xei/ronoj bla&ptesqai. a)poktei/neie ment' a2n i1swj h2 e0cela&seien h2 a)timw&seien: a)lla_ tau~ta ou{toj me\n i1swj oi1etai kai\ a1lloj ti/j pou mega&la kaka&, e0gw_ d' ou)k oi1omai, a)lla_ polu_ ma~llon poiei=n a4 ou(tosi\ nu~n poiei=, a1ndra a)di/kwj e0pixeirei=n a)pokteinu&nai (30c-d).

I would have you know that, if you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Meletus and Anytus will not injure me: they cannot; for it is not in the nature of things that a bad man should injure a better than himself. I do not deny that he may, perhaps, kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights; and he may imagine, and others may imagine, that he is doing him a great injury: but in that I do not agree with him; for the evil of doing as Anytus is doing - of unjustly taking away another man's life - is greater far (Jowett).

Senn also cites 41d: "nothing bad can come to a good man either when he is alive or after he is dead" (ou)k e1stin a)ndri\ a)gaqw|~ kako_n ou)de\n ou1te zw~nti ou1te teleuth&santi).

Second, that the jury could harm Socrates by assigning certain punishments, including exile, which was specifically mentioned above:

pepeisme/noj dh_ e0gw_ mhde/na a)dikei=n pollou~ de/w e0mauto&n ge a)dikh&sein kai\ kat' e0mautou~ e0rei=n au)to_j w(j a1cio&j ei0mi/ tou kakou~ kai\ timh&sesqai toiou&tou tino_j e0mautw|~. ti/ dei/saj; h} mh_ pa&qw tou~to ou{ Me/lhto&j moi tima~tai, o3 fhmi ou)k ei0de/nai ou1t' ei0 a)gaqo_n ou1t' ei0 kako&n e0stin; a)nti\ tou&tou dh_ e3lwmai w{n eu} oi]da& ti kakw~n o1ntwn tou&tou timhsa&menoj; po&teron desmou~; po&teron desmou~;

(c.) kai\ ti/ me dei= zh~n e0n desmwthri/w|, douleu&onta th|~ a)ei\ kaqistame/nh| a)rxh|~, toi=j e3ndeka; a)lla_ xrhma&twn kai\ dede/sqai e3wj a2n e0ktei/sw; a)lla_ tau)to&n moi/ e0stin o3per nundh_ e1legon: ou) ga_r e1sti moi xrh&mata o(po&qen e0ktei/sw. a)lla_ dh_ fugh~j timh&swmai; i1swj ga_r a1n moi tou&tou timh&saite. pollh_ menta1n me filoyuxi/a e1xoi, w} a1ndrej 0Aqhnai=oi, ei0 ou3twj a)lo&gisto&j ei0mi w3ste mh_ du&nasqai logi/zesqai o3ti u(mei=j me\n o1ntej poli=tai/ mou ou)x oi[oi/ te e0ge/nesqe e0negkei=n ta_j e0ma_j diatriba_j kai\ tou_j lo&gouj, a)ll' u(mi=n baru&terai gego&nasin kai\ e0pifqonw&terai, w3ste zhtei=te au)tw~n nuni\ a)pallagh~nai:a1lloi de\ a1ra au)ta_j oi1sousi r(a|di/wj; pollou~ ge dei=, w} a1ndrej 0Aqhnai=oi. kalo_j ou}n a1n moi o( bi/oj ei1h e0celqo&nti thlikw|~de a)nqrw&pw| a1llhn e0c a1llhj po&lewj a)meibome/nw| kai\ e0celaunome/nw| zh~n. eu} ga_r oi]d' o3ti o3poi a2n e1lqw, le/gontoj e0mou~ a)kroa&sontai oi9 ne/oi w3sper e0nqa&de: ka2n me\n tou&touj a)pelau&nw, ou{toi/ me au)toi\ e0celw~si pei/qontej tou_j presbute/rouj: e0a_n de\ mh_ a)pelau&nw, oi9 tou&twn pate/rej de\ kai\ oi0kei=oi di' au)tou_j tou&touj.(37b-38b)

As I am convinced that I never wronged another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I? Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose instead a penalty which would certainly be an evil? Shall I say imprisonment? And why should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year - of the Eleven? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and I cannot pay. And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life if I were to consider that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you would fain have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, living in ever-changing exile, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that into whatever place I go, as here so also there, the young men will come to me; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their desire: and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes (Jowett).

Senn puts the difficulty in this way (p. 8):

Based on 30C-D, therefore, Socrates would appear willing to assent to

(SN1) Socrates does not risk being injured in any way by his inferiors.

Based on 41D, he would appear similarly willing to assent to

(SNB) Socrates does not risk receiving anything bad from his inferiors.

But given 37B-38B (and 25D-E), Socrates appears not to be prepared to assent to SNI or SNB.

Goodbye to Heraclitus?

Mindful of the law of diminishing marginal returns, I think that after today I'll move away from Heraclitus. But first a brief word about that passage on "Ontology" from the SEP article, which I had thought I would give fuller attention.

Its main argument is that Heraclitus, in using images of birth and death, is affirming that generation and perishing truly occur, since "[t]he language of birth and death in the world of living things is precisely the language used in Greek metaphysics for coming to be and perishing".

But there is no discipline of "Greek metaphysics" when Heraclitus writes, nor any norms of usage of the sort that this argument requires, nor even--I would say--no clear understanding of what could count, strictly, as generation and perishing, until Aristotle works this out.

Thus, it seems best to interpret Heraclitus' images of birth and death, in terms of what he says about birth and death, and he apparently denies that these are entirely distinct ("as the same thing there exists in us living and dead", "mortal immortals, immortal mortals").

Graham would retort, I suppose, that one must then hold that the change that everything is supposedly undergoing, on the flux interpretation, is "at most a limited kind of change".

But why is that a difficulty? "Limited change" (i.e. not generation or perishing) is still change.

Yet of course addtionally on the flux interpretation fire underlies this "limited" change, and fire, as Graham says is "a better symbol of change than of permanance". --Well, indeed. And, again, what is the problem here for the flux interpretation?

"But fire needs fuel!"-- Does it? Always? But even so: take its fuel to be something that is (in some "limited" way) not-fire, and hold that fire always coexists with not-fire. Call the view that results "paradoxical" if you wish, or say, rather, that it is entirely in the spirit of the flux interpretation.

And I leave with the thought with which I entered upon this topic. Is an encyclopedia article on Heraclitus possible? Or must such a thing be one doubtful interpretation among others?

"As Old as Heraclitus"--Mystery Passage no. 2

The first Mystery Passage was perhaps a bit difficult. This, I fear, is too easy. But I have independent reasons for posting it. It comes from an author who declares that:

I shall take as chief stalking-horse in the discussion Professor A. J. Ayer's The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge; but I shall mention also Professor H. H. Price's Perception, and, later on, G. J. Warnock's book on Berkeley. I find in these texts a good deal to criticize, but I choose them for their merits and not for their deficiencies; they seem to me to provide the best available expositions of the approved reasons for holding theories which are at least as old as Heraclitus--more full, coherent, and terminologically exact than you find, for example, in Descartes or Berkeley.

Good and Bad Humour

Q. What's black and white and red all over?
A. A penguin with a sunburn.

(A.) What's most wholesome and most foul?
(B.) Sea water--wholesome to fish and foul to men.

This pair leads to my question. Suppose we take Heraclitus to be inviting us to reason from paradoxes to their resolution (as we saw MM was proposing). Then why isn't he simply making bad jokes?

MM says: because his paradoxes encourage us to work out the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC) and the distinction between substance and accident, on which their resolution depends. Thus:

My theme so far has been to show how Heraclitus offers us two different perspectives on the paradoxes, corresponding to the subject on the one hand and the predicate on the other. The solving of the threatened contradiction in the predicate shows us the workings of the law of non-contradiction; and the dialectical effect of this is to make us see, as a general principle, that LNC is true. At the same time, the subject, which underlies the contradiction, is seen to resist disintegration, since the paradox exploits our intuition that the subject is indeed 'one and the same'. The effect of this is to reassure us that there are individuals underlying the opposite properties of the phenomenal world. So the paradoxes, at the object level, have a double metaphysical effect: firstly, they establish LNC elenctically; secondly, they expose and confirm the assumption that there are individuals in the world which are self-identical at a time, which persist over time, and which can be reidentified--rivers, roads, and possets.

But mightn't we claim that the joke does the same? It causes us to reflect that the black and the white cannot really coincide; moreover, it causes us to reflect that one and the same thing, the penguin (a 'substance'), is white on its belly (an 'accident') and black on its wings and back (another 'accident').

Or, if we want to insist that the joke does neither of these things, because it resolves the paradox with which it begins straightforwardly and unreflectively, why wouldn't we say the same about Heraclitus' aphorism--if indeed its direction is really toward the resolution of any sense of paradox?

Of course the following sequence would be interesting:

Sea water is both most wholesome and most foul.
--The complete apparatus of Aristotle's Categories, including especially its discussion of relatives and opposition--
Sea water is wholesome to fish and foul to human beings.

But we find nothing like that in Heraclitus--nothing at all to suggest a deliberate theory of substance and accidents. MM attributes this to him, of course, but to me her conjectures along these lines seem to be no more than ingenius invention--of the sort that no one could supply who had not already studied Aristotle.

Blogging to Resume Wednesday, March 14

We all like vacations to last as long as possible ...

On What There Is, and Isn't, in Heraclitus' 'Ontology'

I'll be on vacation this coming week. Although I'll try to post, I can give no guarantees.

What I would plan to look at, if you wish to join me, are the two paragraphs below from the article on Heraclitus in SEP. (I also have a follow up remark about the MM article.)

Consider it a game, to see if you can guess what I'm thinking about. I find almost nothing in the paragraph I can agree with, and have marked with numbers those points I would wish to dispute. (The original is of course here.) Do you see difficulties also?

Now, remember the terms of the discussion: this is meant to be an encyclopedia article, and, therefore--one would presume--authoritative and in its way definitive.

3.3 Ontology

The standard view of Heraclitus' ontology since Aristotle is that he is a material monist who holds that fire is the ultimate reality (1); all things are just manifestations of fire (2). According to Aristotle the Milesians in general were material monists who advocated other kinds of ultimate matter: Thales water, Anaximander the boundless, Anaximenes air (Metaphysics 983b6-984a8). So Heraclitus' theory was just another version of a common background theory (3). There are problems already with Aristotle's understanding of the Milesians: Aristotle lacks any textual evidence for Thales’ view and must reconstruct it out of almost nothing; he sometimes treats Anaximander as a pluralist like Anaxagoras who thinks the boundless is a mixture of qualities; at most Anaximenes might exemplify material monism–but Plato reads him as a pluralist (Timaeus 39 with Graham 2003b; Graham 2003a). In the case of Heraclitus, his own statements make material monism problematic as an interpretation. According to material monism (4), some kind of matter is the ultimate reality (5), and any variation in the world consists merely of qualitative or possibly quantitative change in it; for there is only one reality, for instance fire, which can never come into existence or perish, but can only change in its appearances. Heraclitus, however, advocates a radical kind of change:

For souls it is death to become water, for water death to become earth, but from earth water is born, and from water soul. (B36)

(Here soul seems to occupy the place of fire. (6)) The language of birth and death in the world of living things is precisely the language used in Greek metaphysics (7) for coming to be and perishing. (8) It implies a radical transformation that rules out continuing identity (cf. B76, B62 (9)). Indeed, interpreters of Heraclitus cannot have it both ways: Heraclitus cannot be both a believer in radical flux (the change of everything into everything else (10): fire into water, water into earth, and so on) and an advocate of monism. Either he must believe in a merely illusory (11) or at most a limited kind of change, or he must be a pluralist (12).

One further difficulty remains for the monist reading. In his alleged version of monism, fire is the ultimate reality. Yet fire (as the ancients recognized) is the least substantial and the most evanescent of elemental stuffs (13). It makes a better symbol of change than of permanence (14). Other alleged cases of material monism offer a basic kind of matter that could arguably be stable and permanent over long periods of time; but fire manifests “need and satiety” (B65), a kind of ongoing consumption that can live only by devouring fuel (15). Is not Heraclitus' choice of a basic reality itself paradoxical? At best his appeal to fire seems to draw on material monism in a way that points beyond the theory to an account in which the process of change is more real than the material substances that undergo change (16).

Something Lost in Transmission

Some strange remarks in a review this morning of a collection of essays on Augustine's Confessions --"cutting edge research into Augustinian studies", mind you--which it perhaps falls to a blogger to point out.

About Augustine's reflections on his theft of the pears in book II:

[Scott] MacDonald re-examines the theft and ultimately finds two
reasons for the theft and why it was included. The theft made it seem
like Augustine had 'limitless freedom and power' (p. 65), but in fact
he did not because only God has these qualities. The second reason was
Augustine's clear desire 'to love and be loved' (p. 65).

Okay, if you sit down and read the passage, you find that Augustine gives (roughly) these two reasons. Is that all that MacDonald said? I fear that something's been lost in transmission.

Elsewhere we are told:

Wolterstorff then examines the idea of a nonsuffering, apathetic God
(p. 122) and how this relates to Augustine's idea of emotions. He
spends some time examining Aquinas and his ideas that God cannot
experience emotions as humans do and in fact has no emotions (p. 128).
Augustine, therefore, thought it was a sin to grieve over the physical
death of his mother because 'in God there is no sorrow or suffering'
(p. 108 and p.120).

On that line of thought, of course, to feel any emotion would be a sin! --But I suspect the difficulty here isn't with Augustine or Wolterstorff.

Then again:

In another article by MacDonald ("The Divine Nature") the complex issue
of the divine nature is examined. The idea that God was truly
immaterial was a relatively new one in the fourth century.

Huh? Did Aristotle think that God was enmattered? Or is God bodily in Hebrew and Christian scripture? I suppose in the big scheme of things, maybe on the time scale of a Great Sequoia Tree, 700 or 1500 years can seem like only yesterday.

Toward or Away from First Principles?

Are we heading toward, or away from, first principles? Are we drawing a conclusion, or aiming to support one?

MM's interesting article on Heraclitus raises just these questions. Suppose one finds in Heraclitus a paradoxical assertion coupled with some more general claim:

(A) You would not step into the same river twice.
(B) Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow.

Is this meant to be an argument from (A) to (B), thereby perhaps resolving a paradox, or rather from (B) to (A), so as to reinforce the paradox and make it seem inescapable? Clearly, any pair of this sort admits of either interpretation.*

MM recognizes the difficulty and favors the 'resolving' interpretation, on two grounds:

1. Heraclitus would argue from (B) to (A) only if he wished to argue for universal flux. But that's not what he believed.
2. Like any other paradox, (A) invites the listener to respond with a countering 'doxa', which then provides the occasion for (B) to function as a resolution.

But we saw that the first reason may be put aside.

And the second reason seems strained to me. My difficulty? Generally, paradoxical statements do not invite us to counter with a 'doxa'; rather, they invite us to search for the argument, or reason, why someone would want to assert the paradox in the first place.

Test this for yourself with a few Heraclitean paradoxes:

The road up and the road down are one and the same.

Are you tempted to say in reply, "No, they are not. They are different roads"?" Or would you rather be inclined to think, "What do you mean by that strange saying?"

The sea consists of water which is both most wholesome and most foul.

You might even think that true. (Try also: "Pigs like mud", or "Donkeys prefer rubbish". --"Yes, and so ... ?") But I think you are not inclined to contradict it, until you know what it means. And then you are looking for something which supports it.

In fact, I wonder if there is another paradoxical claim in the fragments which has the effect that MM attributes to "You would not step into the same river twice."



*That one sometimes finds ga/r ('for') in the second claim, as in Plutarch's version (which Vlastos follows in his reconstruction), would not be decisive--

di\j ej to\n au)to\n potamo\n ou)k a)\n e)mbai/hj,
e(/tera ga\r kai\ e(/tera u(/data e)pirrei=.

--as ga/r could be either introducing the premise of an inference (reinforcing), or clarifying the proper ground on which one wants to say something (dissolving).

(Com)puto, ergo sum.

Lizzie reached a new level of existence today, which raises all kinds of alarming possibilities.

Flux and Opposites

I want to say more about MM's interpretation, but for today, here's a thought about flux and the unity of opposites.

It would seem that no interesting view results if either is asserted of some things only. It's not interesting to say that some things change (nor, pace Graham, that some things remain the same by changing); and it's not interesting to say that some things show (in some way) a unity of opposites.

One gets an interesting, metaphysical view, it seems, only when a claim is extended to everything--to cover being qua being, as it were. Now if we were to entertain thus extending one of these ideas, presumably our first choice should be the flux idea, since that is what the tradition reports.

So then the question becomes: on the supposition that Heraclitus held that "everything gives way, nothing remains the same", what work could the thesis of the unity of opposites be doing?

Now we might want to pause and call into question whether there is simply one thesis of the unity of opposites. That is, Heraclitus might be appealing to opposites for a variety of purposes, and it would be a mistake to assimilate them all together.

For instance, one use: appeal to coexisting opposites as a confirming sign of change. Why? Because whatever changes, changes from F to something non-F, but if it were entirely F, or entirely non-F, it would not be changing. Thus: anything that shows coincident opposites is likely to be changing; change is the best explanation of this.

Another use: appeal to opposites to make it seem more likely that something that appears to be stable is in fact changing. For example: the wholesomeness or foulness of water depends upon the condition of the living thing in water; thus, although the quality of the water seems stable (quantity is admitted to be unstable), it is in fact exceedingly liable to change, as those living things are exceedingly liable to change. Again: the lyre and other structures are stable because they are composites, and composites are liable to change. (Admittedly in view of the tension of the parts they tend to equilibrium, yet precisely because of that they alter easily, through vibration, etc.)

Each of these lines of thought is a recognized topos after Heraclitus. (e.g. to_ de\ xrh&simon ou) diame/nei, a)ll' a1llote a1llo gi/netai. Aristotle, Nic Eth 1156a21-22, supposing that usefulness is a trait that a thing has only in relation to other things; ta_ de\ a1llot' a1llwj kai\ mhde/pote kata_ tau)ta&, tau~ta de\ su&nqeta, Plato, Phaed. 78c, supposing that composite things are more likely to alter and be dispersed.)

And I wonder if all of the appeals to opposites can't be sorted into kinds which correspondingly underwrite flux.

A First Glimpse of 'Truth'

He had the virtue of 'ready wit'. And don't we, to that extent, admire him as good?

'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Pilate was in advance of his time. For 'truth' itself is an abstract noun, a camel, that is, of a logical construction, which cannot get past the eye even of a grammarian. We approach it cap and categories in hand: we ask ourselves whether Truth is a substance (the Truth, the Body of Knowledge), or a quality (something like the colour red, inhering in truths), or a relation ('correspondence'). But philosophers should take something more nearly their own size to strain at. What needs discussing rather is the use, or certain uses, of the word 'true'. In vino, possibly, 'veritas', but in a sober symposium 'verum'.

That's the very clever first paragraph of J.L. Austin's essay, "Truth". I've only read it for the first time today. (Shocking, I know.)

It was something I just had to share, and all that I could post until later ...

A Provocative Interpretation

Justice requires that, before moving on, I say something about Mary Margaret MacKenzie's interpretation of the river fragments in her paper "Heraclitus and the Art of Paradox".

In my improvisations, I had suggested that "You would not step in the same river twice" was proposed dialectically by Heraclitus, and that it looks forward to or invites some kind of reply or resolution. It was on this point that my thought coincided with MM's interpretation. Here is how she puts it:

The outrageous 91 directly challenges common sense; and it requires no philosophical effort to understand it. It appears, of course, immediately absurd to deny us the ability to go on getting our feet wet--so that we immediately respond, 'No, it is possible to step into the same river twice'. Let us call this response to the paradox the doxa.

That is what I had thought also. MM continues:

This is the correlate of the paradox, the truth which the paradox denies; any paradox has a corresponding doxa, just because seeing a paradox to be surprising or paradoxical involves us in the judgement that it appears to be false.

But here I would want to dissent. I don't think that, in fact, every paradox functions in the same way: not all paradoxical claims are intended dialectically, and not all of them invite us to reply with the obvious. (That's why to refute the Dichotomy by walking away from someone who explains it is ingenious, not obvious.)

I had thought that the statement as reported by Plato, "You would not step into the same river twice" invites such a response precisely because it uses the potential optative (relying for the moment, as I was, on Vlastos' judgment that it can stand). Naturally if one thinks that all paradoxical claims are dialectical, then the mood employed must be irrelevant, and MM follows the usual view in dismissing it as archaic.

MM then argues: The initial paradoxical claim invites the listener to articulate (perhaps only to himself) the doxa; but then paradox and doxa together may be combined in a single statement that takes the form of a contradiction (perhaps generalized or formalized slightly, precisely to call attention to the contradiction); but then this contradiction is resolved by Heraclitus, when he supplies the needed (but previously implicit) qualifiers:

It is impossible to step into the same river twice. (paradox)
We do step into the same river. (doxa, implicitly thought)
We both step and do not step, are and are not in the same rivers. (contradiction, formed by a synthesis of paradox and doxa)
To those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow. (a non-paradoxical and non-contradictory resolution)

According to this sort of interpretation, Heraclitus states paradoxes only provocatively, to get a line of argument started. MM concludes:

So all three of the river fragments are in some way true; but for different reasons, and at different stages of discourse. The connection between the three fragments that I have offered shows how the fragments could be retained, and arranged in an argumentative sequence, moving from pre-philosophical assumptions to a formal grasp of the dangers of contradiction. From 91 to 49a we move from common sense to reflection; at 49a we shift from material issues to formal considerations (away from banks and water to the worry about contradiction); and at 12 we can account for and resolve the formal difficulty in a non-paradoxical truth.

A Litany of Philosophers

I don't know whether these photographs of recent philosophers by Steve Pyke are now old hat on the internet. I found them just today.

For those who do know them already, you may find it amusing to guess my choices.

1. Best blurb.
2. Most pathetic (word meant literally).
3. Most approachable.
4. Most interesting.
5. Most petty, alas.
6. Funniest.
7. Most inviting reconsideration.
8. Most admirable.
9. Best intentioned.
10. Le Penseur.

This juxtaposition is crushing: this, and then this.

Oh, and though not a philosopher, largest glasses.