Aristotle Reads The Sophist : Metaphysics N 2, 1088b35-1090a2 1

M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 1 Aristotle Reads The Sophist : Metaphysics N 2, 1088b35-1090a21 Michel Crubellier université Lille 3 UMR ‘Savoirs, Textes, Langage’ michel.crubellier@univ-lille.fr Metaphysics N, 1088b35-1090a2 (the core of chapter N2) is an interesting case within Books M and N. Whereas most of the long and often obscure arguments that we read in those books appear to refer to an ‘unknown’ Platonism, suddenly we come across a clear reference to one of the Dialogues we know. Well, that's good, the reader thinks; here at least we come into a chartered territory… Alas, he will soon be disillusioned, since what we read seems to be so different from what is commonly considered to be the meaning of the Sophist. (We would probably feel more comfortable with what we read in Met. E 2: accident is like a mere word, that's why Plato was right in saying that the sophists are concerned with Not-being: for they build their sophisms by playing on accidental predications. – But on further reflection we will find that the examples by which Aristotle illustrates that remark have little to do with the Sophist, they look rather like Aristotle's own conception of ‘sophisms’.) Thus Arstotle's presentation of the Sophist in N 2 has been commonly blamed. Even Annas, whose general attitude is generally sympathetic to Aristotle, writes that this is the only one passage in which Aristotle distorts Plato's doctrines, and the reason is, she says, that he did not understand it. For sure, to say that Aristotle did not understand a philosophical text is by no means a weak claim. The aim of the present communication is to defend our chapter against this charge and to show, first, that it expounds a plausible interpretation – and an interesting one, indeed – of the ontological section of the dialogue; second, that Aristotle's own answers to the difficulties he points out follow in the wake of some of Plato's main insights and intents in the Sophist. 1. The passage in its context It is sometimes difficult to make convenient divisions in Book N (the traditional division into chapters fits only partially and approximately with the stages of the argument – which itself is sometimes blurred, not to say obscure). Nevertheless, we have a clear cut at 1090a2, which marks the end of our passage, since it introduces a distinct question (namely, for what reasons are we inclined to think that numbers exist?). The beginning of the passage, on the contrary, shows continuity with what precedes, since it asks about the causes of a ‘deviation’ that has been mentioned before (τῆς ἐπὶ ταύτας τὰς αἰτίας ἐκτροπῆς, 1089a1). 1 This is a revised version of a paper given at the Workshop Aristotle’s Ontology in the Framework of Plato’s Academy (Università degli Studi di Torino, May 29th, 2019). I warmly thank Beatrice Michetti and Federico Maria Petrucci for having invited me to this interesting and fruitful meeting. A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to discuss once again the same text in a different perspective on the occasion of another workshop: The Argument of Metaphysics M-N (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, July 3rd, 2019). I thank the organizers, Gonzalo Gamarra Jordan and Stephen Menn, as well as my audiences in both meetings for their observations and suggestions.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 2 Thus we have to go back to Chapter N 1. It expounds a part of a doctrine of first principles ascribed to ‘them’, i.e. the philosophers of the Academy in general: πάντες δὲ ποιοῦσι τὰς ἀρχὰς ἐναντίας, ὥσπερ ἐν All of them posit contraries as their principles, for the τοῖς φυσικοῖς καὶ περὶ τὰς ἀκινήτους ουσίας unchanging substances as well as in physics. ὡσαύτως. (1087a29-31) These ‘unchanging substances’, as the context shows, are numbers (conceived as existing per se) and Ideas (notice that Aristotle will thus embark upon a discussion about the best way to settle the first principles for objects which in his opinion do not exist). The chapter gives a long list of different names and phrases that were used to designate what Aristotle calls ‘the material principle’ (most probably, this characterization as ‘material’ belongs to Aristotle's own philosophical idiom): This principle is sometimes described as a pair: Great and Small, Much and Few, Exceeding and Exceeded (1087b12-18), and sometimes by means of a single term: Other, Many, Unequal (1087b26-33, 1088a15-17); plus (1088b28-35) the ‘Indefinite Two’, which is a kind of intermediate form between these two modes of description. There follows a series of criticisms: such terms mean in fact properties of numbers or magnitudes; they are relatives ; they are predicated of the objects of which they are supposed to be the constituents (1088a17-b28). Little or nothing is said here of the corresponding ‘formal’ principle, but I will have something to say about it later. Now, this way of setting the stage for a discussion about first principles presents important similar features with some well-known other Aristotelian texts, first and foremost with Physics Book I, which starts also from the fact that ‘everybody’ (which in that context means the natural philosophers, including Plato and the Platonists) posited contraries as (or among) the first principles; and in Physics I, just like in N1 and 2, Aristotle uses a Parmenidean paradox as a leading thread in his quest for first principles. We find the same features in the list of fourteen aporiai that closes Met. Λ: πάντες γὰρ ἐξ ἐναντίων ποιοῦσιν πάντα. οὔτε δὲ All < these thinkers > make all things come to be out of τὸ πάντα οὔτε τὸ ἐξ ἐναντίων ὀρθῶς, οὔτε ἐν contraries; but neither ‘everything’ nor ‘out of contraries’ is ὅσοις τὰ ἐναντία ὐπάρχει, πῶς ἐξ ἐναντίων correct. Moreover, they do not say how the things in which we ἔσται, οὐ λέγουσιν· ἀπαθῆ γὰρ τὰ ἐναντία ὑπ’ find the contraries come to be out of the contraries; for the ἀλλήλων. ἡµῖν δὲ λύεται τοῦτο εὐλόγως τῷ contraries cannot act upon each other – whereas we have a τρίτον τι εἶναι. plausible solution, namely by saying that there is a third term. οἱ δὲ τὸ ἕτερον τῶν ἐναντίων ὕλην ποιοῦσιν, Some of them posited one of the contraries as matter, like ὥσπερ οἱ τὸ ἄνισον τῷ ἴσῳ ἢ τῷ ἑνὶ τὰ πολλά. those who < opposed > the Unequal to the Equal, or the Many λύεται δὲ καὶ τοῦτο τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον· ἡ γὰρ to the One. This claim is solved in the same way, i.e. by the ὕλη ἡµῖν οὐδενὶ ἐναντίον. (1075a28-34) fact that, in our view, matter is contrary to nothing. (…) ἔτι οἱ [15] µὲν ἐκ τοῦ µὴ ὄντος ποιοῦσι τὰ (…) Again, some [5] produce the things that are out of Not- ὄντα· οἱ δὲ ἵνα µὴ τοῦτο ἀναγκασθῶσιν, ἓν being; others, to avoid this consequence, make all things one. πάντα ποιοῦσιν. (1075b14-15) There is an important difference between those two texts: whereas in the Physics the use of aporiai is prospective (as it is in Met. B) and constructive (according to the principle that the correct resolution of an aporia will result in euporia for the study of further difficulties), the list of Λ10 is retrospective: it aims at showing the superiority of Aristotle's account of the principles and – to some extent – at explaining the errors of his predecessors. We will find the same attitude in our section of Book N: the discussion is clearly retrospective, since Aristotle declares at the outset that the way in which the Acdemic philosophers stated their problem is ‘archaic’ or ‘outdated’, and by this he also means to detect the source of their error: πολλὰ µὲν οὖν τὰ αἴτια [1089a] τῆς ἐπὶ ταύτας τὰς For sure, there are many causes [1089a] that led them astray in αἰτίας ἐκτροπῆς, µάλιστα δὲ τὸ ἀπορῆσαι the direction of these causes, but the main fact is that they ἀρχαϊκῶς. ἔδοξε γὰρ αὐτοῖς πάντ’ ἔσεσθαι ἓν τὰ started from an obsolete problem. For they thought that all ὄντα, αὐτὸ τὸ ὄν, εἰ µή τις λύσει καὶ ὁµόσε things would be just one, ‘Being-itself’, unless one could solve βαδιεῖται τῷ Παρµενίδου λόγῳ, οὐ γὰρ µήποτε and infringe Parmenides' argument: for you will never succeed τοῦτο δαµῇ, εἶναι µή ἐόντα, [5] ἀλλ’ ἀνάγκη εἶναι in imposing this : that Not-being could be; [5] and that it was τὸ µὴ ὄν δεῖξαι ὅτι ἔστιν· οὕτω γάρ, ἐκ τοῦ necessary to show that Not-being is; and that the things that ὄντος καὶ ἄλλου τινός, τὰ ὄντα ἔσεσθαι, εἰ are, if they have to be multiple, will be in that way, i.e. out of πολλά ἐστιν. (N2, 1088b35-1089a6) Being plus something else.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 3 ἐκτροπή here echoes the verb ἐξετράπησαν that we find at the beginning and at the end of Physics I 8, each time with a reference to Parmenides' paradox. 2. Aristotle's exposition of the Sophist So, the specific target of Aristotle's discussion in our passage from N2 is a problem-statement that refers to the well-known Eleatic paradox: assuming that to be must always mean one and the same thing, there cannot exist anything else than this one reality, ‘Being-itself’. Nevertheless, it will be useful to distinguish between three variants of the resulting dilemma: #1 the physical one: either nothing can change or there must exist some kind of ‘Not-being’ #2 the logical or dialectical one: either falsity is impossible or there must exist some kind of ‘Not-being’ #3 the ‘arithmetical’ one: either there will be no multiplicity or diversity or there must exist some kind of ‘Not-being’. Version #2 comes from the Sophist. We find version #1 in Physics I; in N2, we are first faced with version #3. We will have to ask why does Aristotle, in his interpretation of the Sophist, seem to substitute the arithmetical version (and, as we will see, the physical version as well) for the logical one. First, we may ask why does he – or Plato or the Academic philosophers he is discussing – prefer the arithmetical to the physical one (which otherwise seems to be his own preferred version). The answer is probably that the Academic doctrines had to account not only for the existence of natural beings, subject to generation, corruption and change, but also for Ideas and ideal numbers, which, although they are not subject to change, show a certain degree of multiplicity that has to be accounted for. This is a first puzzle, or a criticism, that one can raise about the presentation of the Sophist in this section of Met. N. There are two other objections bearing on more specific points: - as Ross (ad loc., p. 476) remarks, Plato does not say anywhere that ‘the false’ must be identical with Not- being, as the following lines of N2 seem to imply: βούλεται µὲν δὴ τὸ ψεῦδος καὶ ταύτην τὴν [20] [20] Then, the ‘False’ and that sort of nature is supposed to φύσιν λέγειν τὸ οὐκ ὄν, ἐξ οὖ καὶ τοῦ ὄντος mean the Not-being, from which, and from Being, the things πολλὰ τὰ ὄντα, διὸ καὶ ἐλέγετο ὅτι δεῖ ψεῦδός τι that are come to be many. And that is why some used to say ὑπόθεσθαι, ὧσπερ καὶ οἱ γεωµέτραι τὸ ποδιαίαν that it is necessary to posit originally something false, just as εἶναι τὴν µὴ ποδιαίαν· (1089a20-23) geometers posit that a line is a foot long whereas it is not a foot long. - third, whereas Aristotle repeatedly says that the Academics (and Plato himself) were looking for some contrary or opposite of Being, there are explicit declarations of the Stranger of Elea to the effect that he (and Plato) did not mean a contrary of Being: ‘For our part, we have said farewell to such a contrary < of Being > a while ago, be it existing or not, expressible or completely inexpressible’ (258e-259a, see the text in full below). In what follows I will try to address these three criticisms. First criticism : Why does Aristotle refer to the Eleatic paradox through its version #3? More generally, shall we say that he deviates from Plato's original dialectical perspective by introducing ontological (and even physical) concerns in his account of the Sophist? – No. The possibility of falsity is an ontological problem, and the Stranger himself makes an explicit incursion into ontological questions. This section of the Sophist (236d-260a), although it exactly suits the needs of the dialogue, can also be read independently as a short treatise establishing important ontological claims and many philosophers and scholars did so after Aristotle. Seen that way, this section shares important features with Physics I and Metaphysics A: it refers – of course – to an Eleatic paradox,2 and it starts with a doxographical review of the opinions of the natural philosophers 2 Admittedly, Parmenides does not play the first role in Metaphysics A; on the contrary, he is expressly pushed aside because his position ‘definitely does not fit in’ (οὐδαµῶς συναρµόττει) with the inquiry about causes (A 5, 986b10- 14).  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 4 about first principles, and this material is used as a set of data in order to discuss and solve an ontological problem. This is not the same problem in each case: Physics I deals with the possibility of change, while Met. A has a broader scope, namely the explanation of all the aspects of natural phenomena. In the Sophist the main question seems to be : what can count as being really real – and by which criteria can we decide about that? Nevertheless, the doxographical review is introduced by means of this general remark: εὐκόλως µοι δοκεῖ Παρµενίδης ἡµῖν διειλέχθαι It seems to me that Parmenides – and all those who tried to καὶ πᾶς ὅστις πώποτε ἐπὶ κρίσιν ὥρµησε τοῦ τὰ ascertain how many beings there are, and of which kind – ὄντα διορίσασθαι πόσα τε καὶ ποῖά ἐστιν. (242c) expressed their views in a loose manner. – and what follows is an exposition of the difficulties that one encounters when claiming that the onta are many as well as when claiming that they are one. In the end, the model of the so-called ‘five kinds’, in which Otherness figures as a substitute of Not-being, is obtained on the basis of a comprehensive definition of being, which includes change and rest as two different modes of being. That gives plausibility to Aristotle's reference to the arithmetical version (#3) of the dilemma. Admittedly, Plato does not use that dilemma – methodically, so to speak – as a leading-thread in order to build a solution to his problem. But neither does he use his own dialectical version (#2) in that way. This is due to the non-methodical character of the dialogue, in which – as in so many other dialogues – the Stranger seems to guide Theaetetus through leaps and swerves and to bring him suddenly and unexpectedly in front of the desired result. Before coming to the second objection, let me add a few words about the outcome of the ontological section. The Stranger expresses it as follows: Ξ – σκοπεῖ τοίνυν ὡς ἐν καιρῷ νυνδὴ τοῖς τοιούτοις διεµαχόµεθα καὶ προσηναγκάζοµεν El. – See how we did well to struggle against those people and ἐᾶν ἕτερον ἑτέρῳ µείγνυσθαι. compel them to admit that some different terms could mix. Θ – πρὸς δὴ τί ; Th. – ‘Did well’ for what? Ξ – πρὸς τὸ τὸν λόγον ἡµῖν τῶν ὄντων ἕν τι El. – For our3 opinion that logos is one of the really existing γενῶν εἶναι. Τούτου γὰρ στερηθέντες, τὸ µὲν kinds. Had we not secured that, we would – and this is the µέγιστον, φιλοσοφίας ἂν στερηθεῖµεν (…) most important issue < of our debate > – we would lose (260a) philosophy (…). Logos here does not refer to language or discourse, but to some formal, universal structures (such as the ‘five kinds’: motion, rest, being, same and other). The claim is that these are at least as real as the first-order objects to which not only ordinary language, but also the language of the special arts and sciences as well, refer: Ξ – οὐκοῦν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἡ τῆς θατέρου µορίου El. – Thus, as it seems, the opposition between a part of the φύσεως [b] καὶ τῆς τοῦ ὄντος πρὸς ἄλληλα nature of Other [b] and a part of the nature of Being, when they ἀντικειµένων ἀντίθεσις οὐδὲν ἧττον, εἰ θέµις are placed opposite each other, is no less – if it be lawful to εἰπεῖν, αὐτοῦ τοῦ ὄντος οὐσία ἐστίν, οὐκ say that – than the reality of Being itself, and it does not mean ἐναντίον ἐκείνῳ σηµαίνουσα ἀλλὰ τοσοῦτον a contrary of Being but nothing more than that: something µόνον, ἕτερον ἐκείνου. (258a11-b4) else. In other words: the sophist's initial defence rested on a semantics limited to reference, in which it would be impossible to say something that does not exist. The ontological section introduces to a more refined semantics, based on syntax. 3. ‘The false’ as not-being Second criticism: In the Sophist, Plato does not say that ‘the false’ is identical with ‘Not-being’. – True. But Aristotle says something like that in a very well-known text, the first lines of Met. Θ104: 3 I opt for this strong translation of the dative ἡµῖν because of the two occurrences of the verb στερήθεσθαι in the next sentence. That suggests that the thesis ‘logos is a distinctly existing part of reality’ is a thesis that Plato and his disciples already had (for instance in the Phaedo), which the discussion of the Sophist both improves and keeps against the perilous objection contained in the logical-dialectical dilemma. 4 For the text of this passage I moved away from Ross's and Jaeger's text and adopted the best-attested readings. That produces a small but interesting change at line b5, by giving ἔστιν and οὺκ ἔστι the strong meaning of to be. The  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 5 ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ ὂν λέγεται καὶ τὸ µὴ ὂν τὸ µὲν κατὰ Since ‘being” and ‘not-being’ are said according to the types τὰ σχήµατα τῶν κατηγοριῶν, τὸ δὲ κατὰ of predication or according to the potency or actuality [1051b] of δύναµιν ἢ ένέργειαν [1051b] τούτων ἢ τὰναντία, τὸ these (and < according to > their contraries) and in the strictest δὲ κυριώτατα εἰ* ἀληθὲς ἢ ψεῦδος, τοῦτο δ’ ἐπὶ sense mean whether < something is > true or false; since the τῶν πραγµάτων ἐστὶ τὸ συγκεῖσθαι ἢ διῃρῆσθαι, latter meaning consists, with reference to the objects, in the ὥστε ἀληθεύει µὲν ὁ τὸ διῃρηµένον οἱόµενος fact that they are joined or separated (in such a way that he is διῃρῆσθαι καὶ τὸ συγκείµενον συγκεῖσθαι, right who thinks that what is separated is separated and what is ἔψευσθαι δὲ ὁ ἐναντίως [5] ἔχων ἢ τὰ πράγµατα, joined is joined, whereas he who is in the opposite [5] state of πότ’ ἔστιν ἢ οὺκ ἔστι ὡς τὸ+ ἀληθὲς λεγόµενον ἢ mind is wrong); when, then, is it < so > or is it not < so >, in ψεῦδος ; (1051a34-b6) the sense of ‘true’ or ‘false’? * εἰ EJ : ὂν AbΜ edd. ἢ C + ὡς τὸ ECMpc : ὥστε τὸ J τὸ AbMac (Ross) τὸ ὠς Christ (Jaeger) Here, in Met. N2, he intends to assess the claim that either there exists some kind of Not-being or all things will be just one reality, ‘Being-itself’ by asking how we should conceive ‘Not-being’ and ‘Being-itself’ in that hypothesis. In order to do so, he considers successively the three meanings of ‘being’ which he enumerates at lines 1089a26-31 when he sums up this part of the argument (these three meanings are the same that we found at the beginning of Θ10) : ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ τὸ µὲν κατὰ τὰς πτώσεις µὴ ὂν Now, since ‘not-being’ is said according to the < different > ἰσαχῶς ταῖς κατηγορίαις λέγεται, παρὰ τοῦτο δὲ cases, in as many senses as there are types of predicates, and τὸ ὡς ψεῦδος λέγεται τὸ µὴ ὂν καὶ τὸ κατὰ in addition to that, ‘not-being’ is said in the sense of ‘false’ and δύναµιν, ἐκ τούτου ἡ γένεσίς ἐστιν, ἐκ τοῦ µὴ also according to potentiality, generation comes about from the ἀνθρώπου δυνάµει δὲ ἀνθρώπου [30] ἄνθρωπος, latter: human comes to be from what is not a human but καὶ ἐκ τοῦ µὴ λευκοῦ δυνάµει δὲ λευκοῦ potentially [30] a human, white from what is not white but λευκόν, ὁµοίως ἐάν τε ἕν τι γίγνεται ἐάν τε potentially white; and it makes no difference whether just one πολλά. (1089a26-31) thing or many are generated. - he considers first the categorial types: καίτοι πρῶτον µέν, εἰ τὸ ὂν πολλαχῶς (τὸ µὲν But, first, since ‘being’ is said in many ways (it means γὰρ ὅτι οὐσίαν σηµαίνει, τὸ δ’ ὅτι ποιόν, τὸ δ’ sometimes that something is a substance, sometimes that it has ὅτι ποσόν, καὶ τὰς ἄλλας δὴ κατηγορίας), ποῖον a certain quality, or that it has a quantity, and the other types of οὖν τὰ ὄντα πάντα ἕν, εἰ µὴ [10] τὸ µὴ ὂν ἔσται ; predication), then, which is the sort of unique ‘being’ that all πότερον αἱ οὐσίαι, ἢ τὰ πάθη καὶ τὰ ἄλλα δὴ things will be unless [10] Not-being exists? Will that be the ὁµοίως, ἢ πάντα καὶ ἔσται ἓν τὸ τόδε καὶ τὸ substances, or their properties and the rest in the same way; or τοιόνδε καὶ τὸ τοσόνδε καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ὅσα ἕν τι < shall we admit > that it will be all things and that ’this’, ‘of σηµαίνει ; ἀλλ’ ἄτοπον, µᾶλλον δὲ ἀδύνατον, τὸ this sort’, ‘of this magnitude’ and all the terms that mean one µίαν φύσιν τινὰ γενοµένην αἰτίαν εἶναι τοῦ τοῦ < of the categories > will be one? But it would be strange, or ὄντος τὸ µὲν τόδε εἶναι τὸ δὲ τοιόνδε τὸ δὲ rather impossible, that once such a one nature had been τοσόνδε [15] τὸ δὲ πού. ἔπειτα ἐκ ποίου µὴ ὅντος produced, it would be the cause that some part of being be καὶ ὄντος τὰ ὄντα ; πολλαχῶς γὰρ καὶ τὸ µὴ ὄν, ‘this’, some other ‘of this sort’, ‘of this magnitude’ [15] or ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὸ ὄν· καὶ τὸ µὲν µὴ ἄνθρωπον ‘somewhere’. Moreover, out of what kind of ‘Not-being’, σηµαίνει τὸ µὴ εἶναι τοδί, τὸ δὲ µὴ εὑθὺ τὸ µὴ together with Being, would beings come to be? For ‘not-being’ εἶναι τοιονδί, τὸ δὲ µὴ τρίπηχυ τὸ µὴ εἶναι too is said in several senses, since ‘being’ is. ‘Not a human’ τοσονδί. ἐκ ποίου οὖν ὄντος καὶ µὴ ὄντος πολλὰ means that this is not that, ‘not straight’ that it is not such, ‘not τὰ ὄντα ; (N 2, 1089a6-19) three cubits long’ that it has not that magnitude. Out of which being and not-being, then, will beings come to be many? This long period means that it would be arbitrary to select one of the categorial types, and that to gather and melt all of them into one would be meaningless. - He considers then the case of Not-being as ‘false’: βούλεται µὲν δὴ τὸ ψεῦδος καὶ ταύτην τὴν [20] [20] Then, the ‘False’ and that sort of nature is supposed to φύσιν λέγειν τὸ οὐκ ὄν, ἐξ οὖ καὶ τοῦ ὄντος mean the Not-being, from which, and from Being, the things πολλὰ τὰ ὄντα, διὸ καὶ ἐλέγετο ὅτι δεῖ ψεῦδός τι that are come to be many. And that is why some used to say recent Italian translation by Enrico Berti interprets the sentence in that way (compare with Ross's translation: ‘when is what is called truth or falsity present, and when is it not?’). – Nevertheless, my interpretation is compatible with Ross's text as well.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 6 ὑπόθεσθαι, ὧσπερ καὶ οἱ γεωµέτραι τὸ ποδιαίαν that it is necessary to posit originally something false, just as εἶναι τὴν µὴ ποδιαίαν· ἀδύνατον δὲ ταῦθ’ οὔτως geometers posit that a line is a foot long whereas it is not a ἔχειν, οὔτε γὰρ οἱ γεωµέτραι ψεῦδος οὐθὲν foot long. But it is impossible that these things be thus, for ὑποτίθενται (οὐ γὰρ [25] ἐν τῷ συλλογισµῷ ἡ geometers do not suppose anything false (for the [25] < alleged > πρότασις), οὔτε ἐκ τοῦ οὕτω µὴ ὄντος τὰ ὄντα premiss is not a part of their deduction ; it is not true that the γίγνεται οὺδὲ φθείρεται. (1089a20-26) beings come to be or pass away from ‘Not-being’ in that sense. Here, main the objection is that this kind of ‘not-being’ could not account for coming-to-be – an objection which puts us on the right track towards Aristotle's own solution: the alleged form of ‘not-being’ should be potential being, as he immediately adds (1089a26-31, quoted above). This is the doctrine of Physics I: ἡµεῖς δὲ καὶ αὐτοί φαµεν γίγνεσθαι µὲν µηθὲν But we too say that nothing comes to be from what is ἁπλῶς ἐκ µὴ ὄντος, πὼς µέντοι γίγνεσθαι ἐκ µὴ absolutely not, but that there is nevertheless a way in which it ὄντος, οἷον [15] κατὰ συµβεβηκός· ἐκ γὰρ τῆς comes from Not-being, namely [15] accidentally: for something στερήσεως, ὅ ἐστι καθ’ αὑτὸ µὴ ὄν, οὐκ that was not there comes to be out of privation, which, taken in ἐνυπάρχοντος γίγνεταί τι (θαυµάζεται δὲ τοῦτο itself, is Not-being (but people are astonished by this fact, and καὶ ἀδύνατον οὕτω δοκεῖ γίγνεσθαί τι ἐκ µὴ they deem it impossible that anything could thus come to be ὄντος). (…) out of Not-being). (…) [25] τὸ γὰρ ἐκ µὴ ὄντος εἴρηται ἡµῖν τί σηµαίνει, [25] For we have already said what ‘Not-being’ means in our ὅτι ᾗ µὴ ὄν. ἔτι δὲ καὶ τὸ εἶναι ἅπαν ἢ µὴ εἶναι view, namely ‘insofar as it is not’. Moreover, we do not reject οὐκ αναιροῦµεν. εἷς µὲν δὴ τρόπος οὗτος, ἄλλος the < principle > that everything must be or not be. – This is δ’ ὅτι ἐνδέχεται ταὐτά λέγειν κατὰ δύναµιν καὶ one way < of solving the problem >; another is that something τὴν ἐνέργειαν. (Phys. I 8, 191b13-17, 25-29) may be said to be the same thing in potentiality or in actuality. 4. At the core of Aristotle's discussion: the notion of antikeimenon Third objection: Why does Aristotle say that Plato meant to posit a contrary to Being when Plato expressly said in the Sophist that he did not? Indeed, the Stranger's declarations are unequivocal: Ξ – οὐκ ἄρ’, ἐναντίον ὅταν ἀπόφασις λέγηται El. – Therefore, if someone says that negation means a σηµαίνειν, συγχωρησόµεθα, τοσοῦτον δε µόνον, contrary, we will not grant that, but only this: [c] that not–, ὅτι τῶν ἄλλων τι [c] µηνύει τὸ µή καὶ τὸ οὔ when it is prefixed to some words that follow (rather: to the προτιθέµενα τῶν ἐπιόντων ὀνοµάτων – µᾶλλον objects to which the words that follow it refer), means δε τῶν πραγµάτων περὶ ἅττ’ ἂν κέηται τὰ something else < than these objects >. ἐπιφθεγγόµενα ὕστερον τῆς ἀποφάσεως ὀνόµατα. (257b9-c3) And once again, in the summing-up at the end of the ontological section: Ξ – µὴ τοίνυν ἡµᾶς εἴπῃ τις ὅτι τοὐναντίον τοῦ El. – Now, let no one maintain that we have the audacity to ὄντος τὸ µὴ ὄν ἀποφαινοµένοι τολµῶµεν λέγειν say that Not-being is while asserting that it is the contrary of ὡς ἔστιν. ἡµεῖς γὰρ περὶ ἐναντίου τινὸς αὐτῷ Being. For our part, we have said farewell to such a contrary a χαίρειν πάλαι λέγοµεν, [259a] εἴτε ἔστιν εἴτε µή, while ago – [259a] be it existing or not, expressible or λόγον ἔχον ἢ καὶ παντάπασιν ἄλογον. (258e6- completely inexpressible. 259a1) – However, some caution is needed here. First, Plato's main concern, as it appears from the second excerpt, is to avoid being charged with self- contradiction. This is what the phrase ‘a contrary of being’ is meant to express when he uses it in these declarations. In contradistinction to this phrase, he introduces a different and distinct phraseology, that of ‘opposition’ (antikeisthai, antikeimenon, antitheinai). ‘Opposite’ is well known as a tool-concept of Peripatetic philosophy, defined as such in chapter 10 of the Categories and in Metaphysics Δ 12. It is interesting to notice that in both places the notion of ‘opposites’ is defined extensionnally, by listing different types of opposition. The standard list is: [1] relatives; [2] contraries; [3] privation and possession; [4] contradictories.5 There is an obvious difference between the first one and the other three: contraries, 5 In the Metaphysics, this list is completed by two more items, the status of which is not clear: ‘…and [5] the extreme termes from which and to which generations and destructions occur; and [6] all the < couples of > terms that cannot be present together in a subject able to receive both, these – or the realities from which they derive – are said to be  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 7 ‘deprived of x’ vs. ‘possessing x’, and contradictories refer to pairs of terms that cannot be described as such without denying of one term something which is asserted of the other – which is not the case with pairs of relatives. That means that the notion of opposition is a larger one, which includes that of contrariety and more generally of negation, and it is very likely that Plato used just because he needed a relation which did not entail contradiction because it would be prior to negation. Negation, so to say, could be generated out of opposition, as a specific case of opposition: this is exactly what the Stranger suggests in a passage quoted above, when he speaks of ‘the opposition (ἀντίθεσις) between a part of the nature of Other and a part of the nature of Being, when they are placed opposite each other (πρὸς ἄλληλα ἀντικειµένων)’ (258a-b). That allows him to claim that the false is as well as the true: this opposition, he says, ‘is no less – if it be lawful to say that – than the reality of Being itself, and it does not mean a contrary of Being but nothing more than that: something else’ (258b). Plato seems to have initiated that specific abstract use of antikeisthai. Admittedly, a claim such as this would prove difficult to assess, since we have so little philosophical prose prior to Plato, but it is interesting to notice that in the Platonic corpus itself these uses of antikeisthai and antikeimenon are concentrated in the Sophist and particularly in the section we are considering. What is more, we know that Plato coined the definitional criterium for relatives that Aristotle uses in the Categories: a relative is what it is – for instance, a brother is ‘brother’ – of sommething else: relatives ‘are what they are, of something else’ (ὅσα αὐτὰ ἅπερ ἐστὶν ἑτέρων εἶναι λέγεται: Categories 7, 6a36-37).6 This phrase plays a crucial rôle in the Sophist when the Stranger (255c-e) introduces the Other as a distinct ‘kind of Being’: Ξ – ἀλλ' οἶµαί σε συγχωρεῖν τῶν ὄντων τὰ µὲν El. – But I suppose that you agree that among beings, some αὐτὰ καθ' αὑτά, τὰ δὲ πρὸς ἄλλα ἀεὶ λέγεσθαι. are said < to be what they are > in themselves, while others are said < what they are > in relation to others. Θ – τί δ’ οὔ ; Th. – Of course. Ξ – τὸ δέ γ' ἕτερον ἀεὶ πρὸς ἕτερον· ἦ γάρ; El. – Now, ‘other’ is always said in relation to something else, isn't it? Θ – οὕτως. Th. – Yes. Ξ – οὐκ ἄν, εἴ γε τὸ ὂν καὶ τὸ θάτερον µὴ El. – But it would not be the case if Being and Other were not πάµπολυ διεφερέτην· ἀλλ' εἴπερ θάτερον ἀµφοῖν totally different from one another ; since Other would partake µετεῖχε τοῖν εἰδοῖν ὥσπερ τὸ ὄν, ἦν ἄν ποτέ τι of both types, there could be among the others some ‘other’ καὶ τῶν ἑτέρων ἕτερον οὐ πρὸς ἕτερον· νῦν δὲ which would not be < such > in relation to something else. But ἀτεχνῶς ἡµῖν ὅτιπερ ἂν ἕτερον ᾖ, συµβέβηκεν for us, whatever is essentially other must necessarily be what ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἑτέρου τοῦτο ὅπερ ἐστὶν εἶναι. it is, of something else. Thus it seems that Aristotle, when he introduces the concept of antikeimena as a general pattern of relations between concepts in the Postpraedicamenta, and includes into it the category of relatives beside – but dinsinct from – the different forms of negation, is mainly7 systematizing insights that he has found in the Sophist. Second : in chapter N 2, he appears to be careful to use antikeimenon and avoid enantion (‘contrary’), although he has introduced the discussion, in the preceding chapter, by speaking of contrary principles: πάντες δὲ ποιοῦσι τὰς ἀρχὰς ἐναντίας, ὥσπερ ἐν All of them posit contraries as their principles, for the τοῖς φυσικοῖς, καὶ περὶ τὰς ὰκινήτους οὐσίας unchanging substances as well as in physics. ὁµοίως. (N 1, 1087a30-31) The specification: ‘for the unchanging substances as well as in physics’ shows that he means Plato and the philosophers of the Academy.8 In chapter N 1, the word enantion is used constantly as a leading thread in order to specify the nature of their alleged ‘material’ principles; but it disappears in chapter 2, except at one place, where it is expressly opposed to antikeimenon : [1089b4] αὔτη γὰρ ἡ παρέκβασις αἰτία καὶ τοῦ τὸ [5] Because of this misdirection, while they [5] were looking for an opposites (… καὶ ἐξ ὧν καὶ εἰς ἃ ἔσχατα αἱ γένεσεις καὶ φθοραί· καὶ ὅσα µὴ ἐνδέχεται ἅµα παρεῖναι τῷ ἀµφοῖν δεκτικῷ, ταῦτα ἀντικεῖσθαι λέγεται ἢ αὐτὰ ἢ ἐξ ὧν ἐστίν, 1018a21-24). [5] could be another type of opposition, although the situation it describes is generally called by Aristotle ‘contrariety’. [6] may be seen as a kind of intensional definition; but it seems to me that it states only a necessary condition for being an antikeimenon, not a sufficient one. 6 Occurrences of similar phrases in Plato: Symp. 199c-e, Theaet. 204c, Resp. IV, 439a. 7 The distinction between the different forms of negation [2-4] is probably Aristotle's own contribution. 8 That could refer to the Pythagoreans as well, but in fact there is not even an allusion to them in this chapter.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 8 αντικείµενον ζητοῦντας τῷ ὄντι καὶ τῷ ἑνί, ἐξ οὖ opposite to Being and One from which – and from Being and καὶ τούτων τὰ ὄντα, τὸ πρός τι καὶ τὸ ἄνισον One – would come the things that are, they posited the ὑποθεῖναι, ὃ οὐτ’ ἐναντίον οὔτε ἀπόφασις relative, i.e. the Unequal, which is neither a contrary nor a ἐκείνων, µία δὲ φύσις τῶν ὄντων ὥσπερ καὶ τὸ negation of those, but one of the sorts of beings, just like ‘this’ τί καὶ τὸ ποῖον. (1089b4-8) or ‘of that sort’. These lines, which echo Plato's own precautions and caveats in the Sophist, make it clear that the shift from contrary to opposite in chapter N 2 was conscious and deliberate on Aristotle's part. Third, it does not seem that Aristotle intended to charge Plato with self-contradiction on that issue. Rather, as we have seen, he says on several occasions that in his opinion the fear of self-contradiction was a characteristic feature, and the unfortunate triggering factor, of the Platonists' wrong way of stating the problem. Now, if Aristotle does not criticize Plato for introducing a contrary of Being, what is the point of his criticism in Metaphysics N 2? His way of introducing the discussion of Academic theories by the mention of contrary principles – as he does in other contexts, as we have seen earlier – is in keeping with an important claim made in the first book of the Physics, namely that contraries (more precisely: first contraries, τὰ ἐναντία τὰ πρῶτα) could provide a plausible model for first principles; in other words: he claims that first contraries – if there are such first contraries and whatever they could be in addition – would meet the basic requirements for being first principles9: ὅτι µὲν οὖν τἀναντία πως πάντες ποιοῦσι [188a26] It is clear, then, that all < philosophers > posit contraries as τὰς ἀρχάς, δῆλον. καὶ τοῦτο εὐλόγως· δεῖ γὰρ their first principles ; and that makes sense. For the principles τὰς ἀρχὰς µήτε ἐξ ἀλλήλων εἶναι µήτε ἐξ must < be such as > not to come to be out of each other, nor ἄλλων, καὶ ἐκ τούτων πάντα· τοῖς δὲ ἐναντίοις out of something else, and all things must come to be out of τοῖς πρώτοις ὑπάρχει ταῦτα, διὰ µὲν τὸ πρῶτα them. And this is the case with the first contraries : because εἶναι [30] µὴ ἐξ ἄλλων, διὰ δὲ τὸ ἐναντία µὴ ἐξ they are first < principles > they [30] do not come to be out of ἀλλήλων. (Physics I 5, 188a26-30) something else, and because they are contraries, they do not come to be out of each other. Then he applies, or tries to apply that model to the different answers that were proposed in the Early Academy as to the nature of the ‘material’ principle; he notices (in chapter N 1) that all those answers fail to fit the basic requirements, and in chapter N 2 he inquires into the original cause of their failure. Let us have a closer look on the sentence of just quoted above: Because of this misdirection, while they [5] were looking for an opposite to Being and One from which – and from Being and One – would come the things that are, they posited the relative, i.e. the Unequal, which is neither a contrary nor a negation of those, but one of the sorts of beings, just like ‘this’ or ‘of that sort’. The italicized words can be interpreted in two ways. In the weaker interpretation, they are just a reminder of what the Stranger does in the Sophist (he avoids speaking of a contrary or a negation, and posits instead a relative, i.e. an antikeimenon). In the stronger interpretation, Aristotle would blame Plato and the Platonists for positing a relative, because a relative does not meet the criteria for being a first principle. The section of N 2 in which Aristotle exposes his objections is not fully clear, mainly because it combines ‘immanent’ and ‘transcendant’ criticisms. I call ‘transcendant’ criticisms that are made on the basis of a state of the art that the authors of the theory under scrutiny had not yet reached (this is clearly expressed by the phrase τὸ ἀπορῆσαι ἀρχαϊκῶς at 1089a1-2), and ‘immanent’ criticisms that point to inconsistencies or flaws of the theory considered in its own original context. A typically transcendant criticism is the appeal to the distinction between between potentiality and actuality, which Aristotle constantly claims as his own achievement.10 It appears twice in our passage: ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ τὸ µὲν κατὰ τὰς πτώσεις µὴ [1089a26] [26] But since in different occurrences ‘not being’ is said in as ὂν ἰσαχῶς ταῖς κατηγορίαις λέγεται, παρὰ τοῦτο many senses as there are types of predication; since, besides, δὲ τὸ ὡς ψεῦδος λέγεται τὸ µὴ ὂν καὶ τὸ κατὰ ‘not-being’ means the false and also what is in potentiality, the 9 That does not mean that, conversely, the first principles have to be first contraries. In fact, Aristotelian first principles are not, as we will see. 10 A typical example of this claim is Physics I, 5-9.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 9 δύναµιν, ἐκ τούτου ἡ γένεσίς ἐστιν, ἐκ τοῦ µὴ latter is the origin of coming-to-be: a human being comes to be ἀνθρώπου δυνάµει δὲ ἀνθρώπου [30] ἄνθρωπος, from what is not a human [30] but potentially a human, and καὶ ἐκ τοῦ µη λευκοῦ δυνάµει δὲ λευκοῦ something comes to be white from what is not white but λευκόν, ὁµοίως ἐάν τε ἕν τι γίγνηται ἐάν τε potentially white – in the same way, be it just one object or πολλά. (1089a26-31) many. ἀνάγκη µὲν οὖν, ὥσπερ λέγοµεν, ὑποθεῖναι [15] [15] It is necessary, as we say11, to posit what is potentially as a τὸ δυνάµει ὂν ἑκάστῳ· τοῦτὸ δὲ προσαπεφήνατο substratum to any < being >. But the author of this doctrine ὁ ταῦτα λέγων, τί τὸ δυνάµει τόδε καὶ οὐσία, µὴ added this, as to the nature of what is potentially something ὂν δὲ καθ’ αὑτό, ὅτι τὸ πρός τι, ὥσπερ εἰ εἶπε τὸ and a substance: that it is the [‘a’?] relative (he might as well ποιόν, ὃ οὔτε δυνάµει ἐστὶ τὸ ἓν ἢ τὸ ὂν οὔτε have said the ‘Of-this-sort’) – which is neither potentially the ἀπόφασις τοῦ ἑνὸς οὔτε [20] τοῦ ὄντος, ἀλλ’ ἕν τι One nor Bein; neither is it the negation of ‘one’ or [20] of τῶν ὄντων. (1089b15-20) ‘being’, but one of the < forms of > being. Nevertheless, Aristotle tries to spot the point at which the Platonists could have found their way to the correct solution of their problem: φαίνεται δὲ ἡ ζήτησις πῶς πολλὰ τὸ ὂν τὸ [1089a31] [31] It appears clearly, then, that their inquiry was about the κατὰ τὰς οὐσίας λεγόµενον· ἀριθµοὶ γὰρ καὶ explanation of the multiplicity of ‘being’ in the sense in which µήκη καὶ σώµατα τὰ γεννώµενά ἐστιν. ἅτοπον it is said of substances : for they inquire about the generation δὴ τὸ ὅπως µὲν πολλὰ τὸ ὂν τὸ τί ἐστι ζητῆσαι, of numbers, lengths and solids. Of course, it is quite strange to [35] πῶς δὲ ποιὰ ἢ ποσὰ, µή. οὐ γὰρ δὴ ἡ δυὰς ἡ ask how being ‘what’ is many, {35] and not to ask that about ἀόριστος αἰτία οὐδὲ τὸ µεγὰ καὶ τὸ µικρὸν τοῦ being ‘of what sort’ or ‘how much’. For sure, the indefinite δύο λευκὰ ἢ πολλὰ [1089b] εἶναι χρώµατα ἢ Two or the Great and the Small is not the cause of there being χυµοὺς ἢ σχήµατα· ἀριθµοὶ γὰρ ἂν καὶ ταῦτα two whites, or several [1089b] colours or tastes or figures; for < if ἦσαν καὶ µονάδες. ἀλλὰ µὴν εἴ γε ταῦτ’ it were >, these objects too would be numbers and units. But if ἐπῆλθον, εἶδον ἂν τὸ αἴτιον καὶ τὸ ἐν ἐκείνοις· they had come to consider these latter cases, they would have τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ καὶ τὸ ἀνάλογον αἴτιον. (1089a31- found the cause in the case of substances too: for it is the same b 4) cause, or an analogous one. At that point the two types of argument (transcendent and immanent) come into contact. I will not dwell much upon the transcendant element, since it does not concern directly the Sophist (but I will have to come back to it in my conclusion). Nevertheless I think I have to make a few remarks on some obscure points of the text: - why does Aristotle claim that it would have been easier and safer to inquire first on the principles of generation in other categories (εἴ γε ταῦτ’ ἐπῆλθον) instead of starting from the case of substances (ἐν ἐκείνοις)? – Because in the case of other types of predication (i.e. when something comes to be this or that), the existence of a permanent substratum (precisely the substance) helps to see that privation and matter, athough they may be described as ‘not being’ this, exist nevertheless as real facts; this is more difficult in the case of substance itself and that requires a broader (or ‘analogous’, b4) notion of potentiality ; - φαίνεται (a31) must not be taken at face value! In fact, Aristotle needs an inference in order to establish that their inquiry is about ‘substances’, since it bears on objects which – in Aristotle's view – are not substances, while they were considered as substances in the Academy. Now, since at lines b1-2 he claims that the objects generated from the Indefinite Two, etc., ‘would be numbers and units’, one might be tempted to think that Aristotle is inconsistent in his criticisms, and perhaps just malicious. I think he is not. The suppositions he is making in both cases rest on the fact that for the Platonists mathematical objects – be they ‘ideal’ or just ‘ordinary’ mathematical objects – are what they are ‘without being anything else’ (οὐχ ἕτερόν τι ὄν), according to a formula which is also a definitional criterium for substances; - an important part of the detailed discussion that follows (especially lines 1089b15-32) can be read without specific reference to numbers. In fact, it looks as if the reference to the Sophist had lead him to broaden the scope of the discussion for a while, before narrowing it again to the question of number-Ideas or ideal numbers in the last lines12 (1089b32-1090a2) and in the next section, which asks ‘from where do we acquire 11 ὥσπερ λέγοµεν (‘as we say’) may be taken as an indication that Aristotle is aware that this criticism is a transcendant one. The phrase ‘as to the nature of what is potentially something and a substance’, in the next sentence, must not be attributed to Plato; this is rather Aristotle describing from his own (up-to-date) point of view the difficulty that Plato had to face. 12 These lines conclude the discussion with a dilemma: if substance (τὸ τόδε) and quantity are – correctly – seen as  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 10 the conviction that numbers exist?’ ; - another difficulty lies in the fact that Aristotle suggest that the Platonists should have started their inquity on the cause of plurality by considering the case of ‘oblique’ predicates such as colours, shapes or tastes, rather than the case of substances, because that cause ‘is the same or an analogous one’. As Mueller puts it: ‘surely this is curious reasoning on Aristotle's part. The Platonists would have recognized the role of matter in explaining substantial plurality by examining plurality where its role is more obscure’13 (he refers to the mention of a matter ‘proper to each genus’14 and ‘inseparable from the substances’ at lines 1089b27-28; I will say a little more on this point in the last section of this paper, p. 12 below). After a short passage (1089b8-15) which lists different cases of plurality that the Platonists did not even try to explain, Aristotle repeats – and rephrases – his basic criticism at lines b15-20 (already quoted above): It is necessary, as we say, to posit what is potentially as a substratum to any < being >. But the author of this doctrine added this, as to the nature of what is potentially something and a substance: that it is the relative (he might as well have said the ‘Of-this-sort’) – which is neither potentially the One nor Being; neither is it the negation of ‘one’ or of ‘being’, but one of the < forms of > being. The crucial change from the previous phrasing is the additional mention of ὃ (…) δυνάµει ἐστὶ τὸ ἓν ἢ τὸ ὂν (b15) as something opposed to ‘< just > one of the beings’ (ἀλλ’ ἕν τι τῶν ὄντων b20, which echoes µία δὲ φύσις τῶν ὄντων b7), beside ἀπόφασις τοῦ ἑνὸς (‘negation of One or Being’, 1089b19-20), which was already mentioned at line b7. That tends to confirm the stronger interpretation of this criticism: a principle described as a relative (be it ‘the Other’ of the Sophist or one of the specific forms listed in chapter N 1, such as Unequal, Great-and-Small or the Indefinite Two) would be unsuitable as a first principle because it could not encompass the whole sphere of being and would be likely to be dependent of something else. 5. Conclusion: Aristotle's own resolution of the problem and his interpretation of the Sophist I hope I have succeeded in showing that Aristotle's presentation of Sophist 236d-260a is not basically distorted. He recognized correctly the general ontological concern of this section of the dialogue and he captured the importance of the distinction between enantia and antikeimena (which he incorporated effectively in his own doctrine of the categories). His main criticism against Plato's solution to the Parmenidean dilemma is precisely directed at the way in which the Stranger uses this distinction. If the Other were considered in its most universal sense, i.e. as otherness or as ‘the false’, then it would not account for the real processes of coming-to-be and for the multiplicity of natural beings; and moreover Plato, in order to avoid the blame of introducing something like a contrary of Being, had to insist on the fact that ‘to be other’ is just something which is predicated of certain beings in certain specific conditions and under a limited aspect. It thus adds together two ontological weaknesses. To put it in Aristotelian terms, (1) it is just a predicate, and (2) it belongs to the type of relative predications, which is among the less real, probably the less real of all forms of being. Then, being described as ‘being other than this or that’, it is just one particular kind or aspect of being (µία φύσις, ἕν τι), and it cannot be considered as a first principle. Now, how does Aristotle himself solve the difficulties raised about the Parmenidean theses? In Physics Book I, he proceeds exactly in the way he recommends in N 2: he starts from the explanation of change in natural objects, and more specifically in cases of becoming this or that (that is, he leaves aside the question of the ‘absolute’ generation of substances). He also uses as a leading thread the difficulties raised on the basis of Pamenidean theses; see for instance his proud claim at the beginning of Physics I 8 two distinct categories, then the doctrine would explain only the existence of many ποσά; if, on the other hand, someone claims that they are one and the same, he will run into contradictions (these are not specified, but Aristotle refers most likely to what he has said in Book M, chapters 6-9). 13 Mueller (1987), p. 251. 14 ἑκάστῳ γένει might refer to each of the categories in which there can be change, namely quality, quantity and place; but more precisely and more probably he means by γένος the variation range defined by two extreme positions between which each kind of change can occur (black and white, cold and hot, ignorance and science); as the examples show, these are especially numerous in the category of quality.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 11 ὅτι δὲ µοναχῶς οὕτω λύεται καὶ ἡ τῶν ἀρχαίων Then, let us show that the aporia of the Ancients is resolved ἀπορία, λέγωµεν µετὰ ταῦτα. (191a23-24) only in that way. At first sight, his own strategy has much the same dialectical structure as Plato's one: he posits as a principle of change something which may be described as ‘Not-being’ in a sense, though it is not absolute Not-being. As he explains in the same chapter: [191b13] ἡµεῖς δὲ καὶ αὐτοί φαµεν γίγνεσθαι µὲν We too say that nothing can come to be out of Not-being in an µηθὲν ἁπλῶς ἐκ µὴ ὄντος, πὼς µέντοι γίγνεσθαι unqualified sense, but that < something > may come to be out ἐκ µὴ ὄντος, οἷον κατὰ συµβεβηκός (ἐκ γὰρ τῆς of Not-being in some sense, such as accidentally: that is, στερήσεως, ὅ ἐστι καθ' αὑτὸ µὴ ὄν, οὐκ something comes to be out of privation, which in itself is Not- ἐνυπάρχοντος γίγνεταί τι· θαυµάζεται δὲ τοῦτο being, but is not a part of the final product; but people are καὶ ἀδύνατον οὕτω δοκεῖ γίγνεσθαί τι, ἐκ µὴ surprised at that and they think that it is impossible that ὄντος)· (Physics I 8, 191b13-17) something could come to be in this way, ‘out of Not-being’. [191b30] ὥσθ' (ὅπερ ἐλέγοµεν) αἱ ἀπορίαι λύονται As a result, as we said, < we > have solved the puzzles that δι' ἃς ἀναγκαζόµενοι ἀναιροῦσι τῶν εἰρηµένων forced them to reject part of the things that we mentioned. And ἔνια· διὰ γὰρ τοῦτο τοσοῦτον καὶ οἱ πρότερον because of those < puzzles > too, the earlier philosophers were ἐξετράπησαν τῆς ὁδοῦ τῆς ἐπὶ τὴν γένεσιν καὶ led so far astray from the road to generation and corruption φθορὰν καὶ ὅλως µεταβολήν· αὕτη γὰρ ἂν and change in general. Had they seen this nature, in fact, their ὀφθεῖσα ἡ φύσις ἅπασαν ἔλυσεν αὐτῶν τὴν misinterpretation would have been entirely dissipated. ἄγνοιαν. (Physics I 8, 191b30-34) In fact, he even suggests two different ways of claiming that coming-to-be occurs out of ‘not-being’, by considering two possible ‘starting-points’ of change: first, the initial condition of privation, which in a sense is a kind of absolute not-being (the ‘privation of X’ means that there is just no X) – but it is only accidentally a principle of change, since it is not conserved ‘in the final product’ ; second, the potentiality – rather, what is potentially X – which is really a principle of the change that produces X, but is ‘not-being’ only in a qualified sense: it is not, that is, not actually X, but it can be ‘potentially X’ only because of some definite properties it possesses. Although he recognizes, as we have seen, that the model of two contrary principles has some relevance, Atistotle's own model of first principles is more sophisticated. First, it is more complex. From several well-known passages of the Corpus (especially Phys. I and Met. Λ 4- 5), we may elicit the following standard model: change can be described as the effective tranmission of a form into a subject or substratum whch is initially deprived of it. That implies the following elements: - the substratum - its initial condition of privation - the final stage of possession of the form - a moving cause which imparts the form. These four elements may be reduced to, or interpreted by means of, the two famous pairs form / matter and actuality / potentiality. These two pairs are themselves interrelated, since matter is defined mainly by its capacity to receive the form, while the form typically manifests itself through its actuality. None of these pairs could be described as a pair of contraries, but they satisfy the criteria Aristotle mentions about first contraries: they cannot derive from anything prior to them, nor from each other.15 The second sophistication lies in the fact that Aristotle gives up the goal of finding one set of first principles for everything that there is. His first principles are the same only by analogy, as he says en passant at 1089b3- 4: ‘(…) they would have found the cause in the case of substances too: for it is the same cause, or an analogous one’; the same point is spelled out in Metaphysics Λ 5: πάντων δὴ πρῶται ἀρχαὶ τὸ ἐνεργείᾳ [1071a18] The first principles of all things are the first this in actuality πρῶτον τοδὶ καὶ ἄλλο ὃ δυνάµει. ἐκεῖνα µὲν [20] and something else which is < this > in potentiality. In fact, 15 Phys.I, 188a26-30, quoted p. 8 above. – Notice that in the case of Aristotle's principles, the first requirement must be taken with some qualification: since the principles are only analogically the same, the matter for a given change may have been (previously) generated. Although Aristotle expressly says it is not generated, that must mean only that the process under consideration is not and does not involve the production of the relevant matter. Bronze, a standard Aristotelian example of matter, is typically generated, since it is an alloy.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 12 οὖν τὰ καθόλου οὐκ ἔστιν· ἀρχὴ γὰρ τὸ καθ’ these do not exist as universals, for the principle of particulars ἕκαστον τῶν καθ’ ἕκαστον· ἄνθρωπος µὲν γὰρ object is particular: ‘human being’ is the principle of human ἀνθρώπου καθόλου, αλλ’ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδείς, ἀλλα being universally, but but nobody is < the principle of human Πηλεὺς ’Αχιλλέως σοῦ δὲ ὁ πατήρ, καὶ τοδὶ τὸ β̄ being >; rather Peleus was the principle of Achilles and your τουδὶ του β̄ᾱ, ὅλως δὲ β̄ τοῦ ἄπλῶς β̄ᾱ. principle is your father; and this B is the principle of this BA, while B in general is the principle of what is BA without qualification. ἑπεῖτα ἤδη τὰ τῶν ουσιῶν ἄλλα δὲ ἄλλων [25] Next, the causes and elements are straightaway different for αἴτια καὶ στοιχεῖα, ὥσπερ ἐλέχθη, τῶν µὴ ἐν different substances, as we have said – namely, for substances ταὐτῷ γένει, χρωµάτων ψόφων οὐσιῶν that are not of the same kind (colours and sounds < or > ποσότητος, πλὴν τῷ ἀνάλογον· καὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ substances and quantity) – except by analogy; and even for αὐτῷ εἴδει ἕτερα, οὐκ εἶδει αλλ’ ὅτι τῶν καθ’ those which are in the same species they are distinct – ἕκαστον ἄλλο, ἥ τε σὴ ὕλη καὶ τὸ εἶδος καὶ τὸ different not in kind but because they are another instance of κινησὰν και ἡ ἐµή, τῷ καθόλου δὲ λόγῷ ταὐτά. the particular (your matter and form and producer versus (1071a18-29) mine); but in general account they are the same. In the case of change in an oblique category, the substratum appears clearly: it is an ill person who recovers health, a heap of snow that melts, etc., but it appears in a distorted manner, i.e. in the guise of an ousia. But, strictly speaking, such obvious subjects of change are able to change only insofar as they contain or possess a specific matter for that kind of change: ἐπὶ µὲν οὖν τῶν ἅλλων κατηγοριῶν ἔχει [1089b24] [24] In the case of categories other < than substance >, there is τινὰ καὶ ἄλλην ἐπίστασιν πῶς πολλά· διὰ γὰρ [25] also, [25] at any rate, another16 way of investigating why there τὸ µὴ χωριστὰ εἶναι τῷ τὸ ὑποκείµενον πολλὰ are many < beings in each of them >: since they are not γίγνεσθαι καὶ εἶναι ποιά τε πολλὰ εἶναι καὶ separable < from the substances >, there will be many ‘of this ποσά· καίτοι δεῖ γέ τινα εἶναι ὕλην ἑκάστῳ sort’ or of ‘this much’ because their subjects become or are γένει, πλὴν χωριστὴν ἀδύνατον τῶν οὐσίων. many. Nevertheless, there must be some matter proper to each (1089b24-28) kind, although < this matter > is inseparable from the substances. The proposition I have underlined gives the explanation (and at the same time the solution) of the puzzlement expressed by Mueller in the remark I quoted above: the necessity and the existence of a substratum in change, which is appropriate to this specific change (a change into X) because it is X in potentiality, is obvious in a sense in the case of oblique predicates (because they are attributes of a substance, which can be easily identified and is essentally permanent); nevertheless it is ‘obscure’, as Mueller puts it, because the substratum is not potentially X qua substance, but insofar as it possesses some predicate that is apt to change into X in a determinate and ordered manner: this predicate is the ‘matter proper to each kind’. A famous example of Aristotle's way of specifying ‘matter’ is his description of the matter of celestial bodies as ‘moveable’ matter (ποθὲν ποί, Met. Λ 2, 1069b25-26).17 Here, the discussion of Plato's way out of the Parmenidean trap introduces a reference to the Timaeus. Plato's ‘material’ principle, at least as Aristotle views it,18 is meant to account for the existence of the many Fs that are distinct from the form F and from one another. In the Timaeus (52a-c), the chôra is described as the ‘place’ that receives the images of what is really. The existence of that ‘third kind’ (τρίτον δὲ αὖ γένος τὸ τῆς χώρας) accounts for the fact that the images are different from their intelligible model although they do not 16 I chose to translate this passages in a long, paraphrastic manner in order to avoid inserting into my main text too much comment on the points alluded to by Aristotle in the first lines. I hope that the meaning of the insertions between < > wll be clear enough to my readers. However, I think I have to justify at least my translation of τινὰ καὶ ἄλλην ἐπίστασιν. First, I do not think that ἐπίστασις here means ‘a difficulty’(the corresponding entry IIb in the LSJ refers only to this passage of the Met.). I understand it rather as the standpoint from which a question may be tackled (compare ἐπιστήσειε δ’ ἄν τις a few lines later, at the opening of the following argument, 1090a2). Second, τινὰ καὶ ἄλλην should literally mean something like ‘any other way of investigation’ (which would be awkward in English in this context); I take it to mean: ‘there is also a cause of multiplicity which is independant from the sought-after material principle’, namely the multiplicity resulting from the existence of multiple substances that act as subjects for several instances of a given quality, etc. – However, Aristotle does not think that this explanation is strictly independant, on which see above. 17 See also Met. Z 4, 1029b22-24. 18 See Physics IV 2, 209b11-16.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 13 possess any knowable feature other than the properties of their model. Notice that the question is not altogether absent from the Sophist: on the contrary, the Stranger asks it in a particularly striking way right at the beginning of the ontological section of the dialogue, i.e. when he challenges Theaetetus (on behalf of the sophist) to give a definition of an image that could be clearly understood even by a blind person: Θ – τί δῆτα, ὦ ξένε, εἴδωλον ἂν φαῖµεν εἶναι Th. – What else might we say, Stranger, except that an image πλήν γε τὸ πρὸς τἀληθινὸν ἀφωµοιωµένον is another object of the same kind, shaped after the genuine ἕτερον τοιοῦτον ; thing? Ξ – ἕτερον δὲ λέγεις τοιοῦτον ἀληθινόν, ἢ ἐπὶ El. – By ‘another’, do you mean a genuine object of the same τίνι τὸ τοιοῦτον εἶπες ; kind? or what do you intend by saying ‘of the same kind’? Θ – οὐδαµῶς ἀληθινόν γε, ἀλλ' ἐοικὸς µέν. Th. – Not at all a genuine one, but looking like it. Ξ – ἆρα τὸ ἀληθινὸν ὄντως ὂν λέγων ; El. – You say that the genuine one is really real, is not it? Θ – οὕτως. Th. – Yes. Ξ – τί δέ ; τὸ µὴ ἀληθινὸν ἆρ' ἐναντίον El. – What then? The not genuine is the contrary of the ἀληθοῦς ; genuine? Θ – τί µήν ; Th. – Of course. Ξ – οὐκ ὄντως οὐκ ὂν ἄρα λέγεις τὸ ἐοικός, El. – Then you say that what ‘looks like’ is something unreally εἴπερ αὐτό γε µὴ ἀληθινὸν ἐρεῖς. unreal, since you say that it is not genuine. Θ – ἀλλ' ἔστι γε µήν πως. Th. – Yet, it exists in some way… Ξ – οὔκουν ἀληθῶς γε, φῄς. El. – But not genuinely, you said. Θ – οὐ γὰρ οὖν· πλήν γ' εἰκὼν ὄντως. Th. – No, to be sure – except that it is really an image. Ξ – οὐκ ὂν ἄρα οὐκ ὄντως ἐστὶν ὄντως ἣν El. – Thus, that thing we call an image is really something λέγοµεν εἰκόνα ; (Sophist 240a-c) unreally unreal? Applied to the objects that make up the world of our immediate experience (the sensible substances or the second section of the Platonic line), the difficulty lies in the fact that they must be distinct from their intelligible models, the Forms, whereas what makes them different cannot be articulated. If it were, it would be intelligible and thus it would be part of the Form. This is the last point Aristotle makes in the discussion: ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τῶν τόδε τι ἔχει τινὰ λόγον πῶς [1089b28] (…) but in the case of things that are ‘a certain X’, there is a πολλὰ τὸ τόδε τι, [30] εἰ µή τι ἔσται καὶ τόδε τι way of understanding that and how there are many instances καὶ φύσις τις τοιαύτη· αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἐκεῖθεν of ‘a certain X’, [30] if we avoid positing an object which is at µάλλον ἡ ἀπορία, πῶς πολλαὶ ἐνεργείᾳ οὐσίαι the same time a certain X and a certain nature defined by a ἀλλ’ οὐ µία. (1089b28-32) quality. This is the real root of the difficulty to understand how there can be many substances in actuality and not just one. As Ross (p. 477) points out, the standard meaning of the phrase ἔχει τινὰ λόγον ‘is “is intelligible”, and this suits the context perfectly’.19 Unlike Ross, however, I do not think that πῶς πολλὰ τὸ τόδε τι refers to the fact that one individual ‘is many’ in that it has different properties (e.g. Socrates is old and wise and sitting on a bed), but rather to the existence of several individuals instantiating a given substance-predicate (several horses or several human beings). Plato's answer consists in the doctrine of chôra, which nevertheless – as he admits in the Timaeus – cannot be fully articulated, and in its counterpart, the notion of ‘participation’ which Arisotle rejects as being nothing more than a fiction and a metaphor. At that point, one might ask what is suposed to be, in Aristotle's view, the λόγος πῶς πολλὰ τὸ τόδε τι he appears to claim for himself, without giving any further information, in this passage. I answer that it rests most probably on his rejection of the separateness of intelligible forms. Once it is assumed that the form human being is in Socrates and Callias and nowhere else, there is no specific difficulty in recognizing that – as common experience shows – there are many human beings that are all equally human beings, whereas if you posit something which is Human-Itself you will have difficulty to explain that something can be truly a human being while being different from Human-Itself, as well as to explain how the existence of particular human beings could derive from the existence of Human-Itself. When he mentions in a different context (in Physics I) the fact that the Platonists had got lost because they did not know how to deal with the alleged aporia contained in the Eleatic theses, Aristotle reminds of this crucial difference between Plato's philosophy and his own: ἔνιοι δ’ ἐνέδοσαν τοῖς λόγοις ἀµφωτέροις, [187a] [187a] Some thinkers gave in to both arguments, i.e. they τῷ µὲν ὅτι πάντα ἕν, εἰ τὸ ὂν ἓν σηµαίνει, τὸ δὲ admitted that all things will be one, if ‘being’ means just one 19 I must therefore point out that the translation (‘il y a un sens à se poser la question’) I adopted in my unpublished commentary of Books M and N was mistaken.  M. Crubellier - Aristotle Reads The Sophist - 14 ἐκ τῆς διχοτοµίας, ἄτοµα ποιήσαντες µεγέθη. thing, and they yielded to the argument from dichotomy when φανερὸν δὲ καὶ ὅτι οὐκ ἀληθες ὡς, εἰ ἓν they posited indivisible magnitudes. But it is also clear that it σηµαίνει τὸ ὂν καὶ µὴ οἷόν τε ἅµα [5] τὴν is not true that, if ‘being’ means just one thing and the ἀντίφασιν, οὐκ ἔσται οὐθὲν µὴ ὄν· οὐθὲν γὰρ contradictories cannot [5] hold together, there will be no sort of κωλύει, µὴ ἁπλῶς εἶναι, ἀλλὰ µὴ ὄν τι εἶναι τὸ ‘not-being’: for nothing prevents that ‘not-being’ be < ‘not µὴ ὄν. τὸ δὲ δὴ φάναι, παρ’ αὐτὸ τὸ ὂν εἰ µή τι being’ >, not in an absolute sense, but consist in not being ἔσται ἄλλο, ἓν πάντα ἔσεσθαι, ἄτοπον. τίς γὰρ something definite. Now then, to claim that if there is not µανθάνει αὐτὸ τὸ ὂν εἰ µὴ τὸ ὅπερ ὄν τι εἶναι ; εἰ something else apart from ‘Being itself’, all things will be one, δὲ τοῦτο, οὐδεν ὅµως κωλυει πολλὰ εἶναι τὰ [10] is strange. For who understands ‘being itself’, unless as being ὄντα, ὥσπερ εἴρηται. ὅτι µὲν οὖν οὕτως ἒν εἶναι what is essentially something < definite >? And if so, nothing τὸ ὂν ἀδύνατον, δῆλον. (Phys. I 3, 187a1-11) prevents there being a plurality [10] of beings, as we have said. Now it is clear that, things being so, it is impossible for ‘Being’ to be ‘one’ in that manner. Here, the difference is encapsulated in a terse formula: αὐτὸ τὸ ὂν must not be conceived of as a separate object, but as the way in which things are what they are and can be recogniezd for what they are: one cannot understand ‘being-itself’ otherwise than ‘being essentially something definite’. This move is equivalent to the famous description of first philosophy, at the beginning of Met. Γ, as the science that considers the things that are not as what they happen to be (‘numbers, lines, or fire’, 1004b5-8) but by examining precisely what it is, for any one of them, to be what it is. Being, in that sense, is neither the whole sum of all beings nor a specific object (or class of objects) apart from anything else. Now it would be just fair to notice that even that move had been sketched, in a way, in the Sophist. The ‘five kinds’ have a status which is more or less like that : they extend to whatever exists, although nothing is just ‘being’ or ‘change’ or ‘rest’, and still less ‘same’ or ‘other’. But Plato could not free himself from the notion that these notions, since they were intelligible to the highest degree, had to be eternal and self-contained objects, to which anything else was related in the ill-defined manner of ‘participation’.20 20 Numerous occurrences of µετέχειν, µέθεξις in the Sophist : 255 b1, b3, d4, 256 a1, a7, b1, d9.