Uncorrected rst draft of chapter forthcoming in R. Chiaradonna and G. Galluzzo (eds.),

Universals in Ancient Philosophy (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2013)

Universals, Education, and Philosophical Methodology in Later Neoplatonism

The most influential part of the Introduction, as Jonathan Barnes points out, is the part which

Porphyry declined to write.1 In the preface to the itself a sort of proem to Aristotles Categories, and thereby to philosophy at large2 Porphyry introduces a puzzle concerning the

ontological status of genera and species: he then postpones it as too deep (), or

technically sophisticated, for beginners.

It being necessary, Chrysaorius, even for a schooling in Aristotles predications

(), to know what is a genus and what a difference and what a species and

what a property and what an accident and also for the presentation of definitions,

and generally for matters concerning division () and proof (), the study of which is useful, I shall attempt, in making you a concise exposition, to

rehearse, briefly and as in the manner of an introduction, what the older masters say,

avoiding deeper inquiries and aiming more suitably at the more simple. For

example, about genera and species whether they subsist, whether they actually

depend on bare thoughts alone, whether if they actually subsist they are bodies

or incorporeal and whether they are separable or are in perceptible items and

subsist about them these matters I shall decline to discuss, such a subject being

very deep and demanding another and a larger investigation. Here I shall attempt

to show you how the old masters and especially the Peripatetics among them

treated, from a logical point of view (), genera and species and the items

before us. (Porphyry Introduction 1,3-17, tr. BARNES 2003, lightly adapted)

As chance (mediated by Boethius) would have it, these brief remarks became the locus classicus

for later medieval discussion of the problem of universals.3 Here, I would like to draw on

Simplicius and other late Neoplatonist sources to explore, not so much the problem itself, but a

related methodological and exegetical puzzle:4 why did Porphyry and his Neoplatonic successors

regard this particular question as especially deep for beginners ( ; cf. Porph. in Cat., 75,29 and Ammonius in Isag. 38,14 ff.), and why should beginners be given this particular

example of the kind of deep problem that exceeds their capacity (, Porph. in Cat. 75,26)? The existence of kinds is certainly a thorny problem, but it is not intuitively clear how it is

Grifn 1

1 BARNES (2003), 38, see n. 66.

2 BARNES (2003), XV notes that the Isagoge need not be read as an introduction to the treatise Categories but as an introduction to logic more broadly conceived, but also grants that the schooling in Aristotles predications presaged in 1,3-17 would no doubt take the form of a reading of Aristotles Predications or Categories (26). On this point see also Chiaradonnas review of Barnes (CHIARADONNA 2008, 1-2).

3 See for example GERSON (2004), DE LIBERA (1996, 34-37; 1999, XXXIII-XCII), 38, for the roots of the problem in Alexander, see recently discussion by SIRKEL (2011).

4 The reasons for Porphyrys demurral have also attracted a body of interesting interpretations; see CHIARADONNAs (2008) discussion of BARNESS (2003) commentary on the passage, with references.

deeper or more sophisticated than various other topics that are tackled in the Introduction.5

Simplicius describes various problems as (e.g. in Cat. 238,33), but it takes him just a few

crisp sentences to expound the canonical threefold consensus offered by later Neoplatonists on

the nature of genera and species.6

I will suggest that the postponement of the question a decision that Porphyry seems to adopt

from the second-century Peripatetic Herminus (cf. Porph. in Cat. 59,20) and earlier Peripatetics7

is grounded in a group of pedagogical and psychological doctrines that tell their own story

about the later Neoplatonist position on the role of universals in knowledge acquisition, and

Neoplatonist philosophical education more generally. Here I aim to develop on the outstanding

treatment of Philippe HOFFMANN (1987), who argues persuasively that, on the later Neoplatonist

view, the analysis of language plays a fundamental role in the pedagogical conversion of the soul

to Intellect and the One. The relevant psychology is captured in this important passage preserved

by Simplicius, and brimming with later Neoplatonist metaphysics:8

[The soul] needs someone who has already beheld the truth, who by means of verbal

expression () uttered forth from the also moves the concept within [the soul of the student] which had until then grown cold. This, then, is how the need for

came about... join the learners concepts to those of the teacher...

When are set in motion in the appropriate way, they adjust themselves to

realities, and thus there comes about the knowledge of beings, and the souls

spontaneous is fulfilled. (in Cat. 12,26-13,4, tr. adapted from CHASE 2003)

This stirring of the students will prove to be, in fact, the task for which the Categories (building on the likes of the Introduction) becomes a tool. But how? The view that I will

tentatively develop from the later Neoplatonists runs along the following lines: genera and

species are natures that cannot be described at the outset of the philosophical curriculum because

Grifn 2

5 For instance, whether differentiae are separable or inseparable (Isag. 9,7-13), or substantial or non-substantial. From a certain (admittedly superficial) point of view, Porphyrys questions in the proem even seem easy (BARNES 2003, 48), although taking them too superficially, as Barnes points out, would be to miss their point.

6 Common terms, like man and animal, signify () three things (1) separate and eternal natures which (2) may be instantiated in many particulars, from which we deduce (3) our posterior concepts about them: in other words, common terms designate natures ambiguously ante rem, in re and post rem. Simplicius puts this as follows: Perhaps one should take common feature () in three ways, [1] The first, the one that transcends the individuals, being the cause of the common nature () in them [2] [83,6] second... the one that the different species are endowed with by their common cause and which resides in them [3] [83,8] third is the common feature established in our thoughts by means of abstraction, which is later-generated. (in Cat. 82,35-83,20).

7 On the earlier Peripatetics on universals, see CHIARADONNA (this volume).

8 On which see HOFFMANN (1987, 83-90). For concept acquisition in Neoplatonism, beginning with

Plotinus, and its Stoic and Epicurean roots, see VAN DEN BERG (2009). The preliminary nature of

Porphyrys discussion does not imply philosophical neutrality with regard to Neoplatonist metaphysics, especially once the discussion is inherited and developed by Iamblichus (cp. CHIARADONNA 2008, 30).

our ordinary language the language which we all speak as beginners to philosophy (the

of the : cf. Simplicius in Cat. 74,4, Porph. in Cat. 55,3) lacks names that can refer to those natures. More precisely, ordinary language has names just for what is

perceptible the things that are public enough to be talked of publicly, as W.V.O. Quine put a

similar point;9 thus

[Aristotle in the Categories] is talking about perceptible things (), which are also what is investigated by the ordinary person ( )... he seeks the difference in accordance with those meaningful words which were first and most

properly assigned to sensible things, and which are familiar to the ordinary person...

(Simplicius in Cat. 74,4 ff.)

Thus the true referents of intelligible natures like human and animal will not be discovered

during the study of the and Categories, which lie in the forecourt of the philosophical curriculum. There is a simple Aristotelian principle beneath this pedagogical idea:

I call prior and more familiar in relation to us what is nearer to perception, prior and

more familiar simpliciter what is further away. What is most universal is furthest

away, and the particulars are nearest; and these are opposite to each other. (Post. An. 70b34-72a5)

But Simplicius expands the applicability of this point to the Categories and the philosophical

curriculum, stressing the importance of the imposition of names the semantic relation of

words to things in the structure of our worldview as philosophical beginners:

[Aristotle in this treatise] is not concerned with discussing the intelligible

substances... this he made clear by the called (, Cat. 2a12). For in

ordinary language () intelligible substance is not spoken of, nor is it known

to the multitude ( ), but sensible substance is... (82,3-6) [Why does Aristotle here class the individuals as prior to universals?] Because prior and secondary are

said in two ways, either by nature or in relation to us; in relation to us the particulars

( ) are prior, for we encounter them first. But by nature the universals ( ) are prior... since the order is here [sc. in the study of the Categories] derived from the semantic relation ( ), the first will be chosen in

relation to us (Simplic. 82,15-20, tr. DE HAAS and FLEET)

It is in this sense of a that the Introduction would discuss the nature of genera

and species (Isag. 1,15; cf. CHIARADONNA 2008, 4-5)10 just insofar as they are

signified by the names that we use, insofar as they are (Simplic. in Cat. 104,10-14).

Another way of looking at the curricular progression would be through the lens of Posterior

Grifn 3

9 QUINE (1960), 1.

10 cf. BARNES (2003), 36-37 with CHIARADONNAs comments (2008, 4) on the force of in Simplicius and the Isagoge.

Analytics B 10 (93b30-33): we have to begin from a recognition of what some term signifies, and

over time progress toward a grasp of its essence or real nature.11

How, then, are we supposed to make our way from what is more familiar to us to what is more

familiar by nature? I will try to sketch the later Neoplatonist answer in four parts (here focusing

on common threads between Porphyry and commentators who follow Iamblichus, rather than

their differences on more particular points):12 (I) to study the Categories with understanding is to

pass from an ordinary language to a language that is correctly carved at the joints of being, joints

which the Categories just begins to trace by teasing out our innate preconceptions (, Simplic. in Cat. 75,28; , Porph. in Cat. 59,27) with the help of a teacher who can

awaken our about kinds (Simplic. 12,26-13,4); this is also to pass from a language whose terms refer to perceptible (particular) beings, to a language whose terms refer to

intelligible natures (that may or may not be predicated of many particulars). (II) This is also to

pass from the indeterminate () and unknowable to the determinate and knowable (a familiar Aristotelian point, which is also treated by the Neoplatonists as Platonic and Neo-

Pythagorean metaphysics). (III) We are able to accomplish this transition by learning how to

divide (a technique on which the Neoplatonists, following an earlier Peripatetic and Platonist

tradition, arguably place a much greater value than Aristotle: see below); in particular, we must

learn to divide between essential and the accidental modes of predication,13 which is the highest

division of the Categories (Porphyry in Cat. 71,28; Alexander in Met. 242,15-16 and 243,3): learning to distinguish the linguistic phenomena of synonymous predication (on the one hand)

from homonymous and paronymous predication (on the other hand) is a useful heuristic for

achieving this expertise in division. (IV) A useful way to proceed on this course in practice (see,

for example, Plotinus 3.7.1, 3.7.7) is to test our preconceptions or through dialectic on , including the history of philosophy.

The process aims to draw the student away from an ordinary language that is ambiguous between

accidental predication and essential predication, toward a language that rigorously distinguishes

essence from accident (reflecting the guiding essentialism of the Peripatetic tradition that

Porphyry inherits from Alexander);14 this process also, I think, can be seen as tracking the

general course of the early philosophical curriculum adapted in later Neoplatonism after

Iamblichus. A point I hope to stress is that the view that philosophers need to introduce new or

coined terms for students ( , for which cf. Porphyry in Cat. 55,12) a central

function of the Introduction itself is not merely a trivial or pre-theoretical intuition, but reflects

a good deal of theoretical infrastructure.

Grifn 4

11 CHARLES (2002), 23-56.

12 cf. CHIARADONNA (2007). Prof. Chiaradonna has also helpfully pointed out to me the importance of distinguishing the positions of Porphyry and Iamblichus; where Porphyry is careful to distinguish the relation between what is prior to us and intelligible substances, on the one hand, from the relation between what is prior to us and universal species, on the other (in Cat. 90-91), Iamblichus may be regarded as more willing to conflating the two relationships.

13 On essential and accidental predication see CHIARADONNA (2007).

14 cf. RASHED (2007), CHIARADONNA (2007), CASTELLI (this volume), and SIRKEL (2011).

Grifn 5

(I) The utility of the Categories: From ordinary language to intelligibles

(a) Building-blocks of

Simplicius, writing in the sixth century CE, explains the utility ( ) of the study of Aristotles Categories along the following lines.15 Human flourishing relies on the capacity to

make good choices; but we are not born with that capacity in place. We ought to cultivate it

consciously, first by establishing good habits (in Cat. 6,1-3), and later by perfecting the art of

reasoning: for good choices are rational choices, choices that arrive at good ends by design

(5,9-6,3; cf. 14,5-20). An early step on the road to the good life, then, is the discovery of an

instrument or tool () for reasoning well, through the application of which we can distinguish consistently between beneficial and harmful actions, and between true and false

beliefs (14,19-20).

And this [instrument] is proof (), the criterion of each thing, which does not permit deception... it lays all things bare and puts them to the test. (Simplicius in Cat.

14,20-25, tr. Chase)

To master this craft of entails, on the later Neoplatonist view, that we read Aristotles Posterior Analytics with understanding. But the Posterior Analytics completes a curriculum that

began from the Categories:

What comes first is the study of simple terms (): in fact anyone who intends to

construct a proof must start from there. We are thus right to begin16 [logic and

philosophy] from the Categories, since through them we are introduced both to

meaningful speech () and to the realities () which it signifies... [then]

in On Interpretation, [we learn] about affirmations and denials... In Prior Analytics

[we learn about] definitions (), premises, and syllogisms... Thus we come to the study of proof (), to which Aristotle gave the title Posterior Analytics. (Simplicius in Cat. 15,12-21, tr. Chase, lightly adapted).

This pedagogical view that the study of presupposes understanding of Aristotles Categories qualified as a general consensus among the later Neoplatonist commentators.

Proofs are built up from syllogisms, which are made from sentences, and those in turn are

composed of simple terms (in the parlance of the Categories, uncombined words or ). Such simple terms comprise the basic subject-matter of the Categories

Grifn 6

15 For the general structure of Simpliciuss approach to the utility of the treatise, see MANSFELD (1994), 10-11.

16 Referring back to an earlier point in the commentary: Many authors have set forth many speculations on Aristotles book of Categories. This is so not only because it is the prologue to the whole of philosophy (since it is the beginning of the study of logic, and logic, in turn, is rightly taken up prior to the whole of philosophy), but also because the Categories is, in a sense, about the first principles (), as we shall see in our discussion of the goal () (Simplicius in Cat. 1,3-8).... it is about simple, primary words which signify the primary and most generic of beings by means of simple, primary notions.... Instruction about these things is useful for the introduction both to the whole of philosophy, and to the study of logic (13,18-27, tr. Chase).

according to the traditional view transmitted by Andronicus of Rhodes and accepted in the

Neoplatonic consensus of late antiquity.17 As one analogy has it, the house of aims for the shelter of the good life (in Cat. 14,4-26): and the Categories sketches the elements of

apodeixis like the foundations of a securely founded home.

(b) Bridge between language and reality

There is a subtler sense in which the Categories (so interpreted) grounds the effectiveness of

reasoning and the use of logic. It is said to offer a kind of preliminary sketch of the relationship

between language and reality, by jogging our pre-theoretical preconception (, cf.

Porph. in Cat. 59,17-33 below)18 about the true genera of being: that is, this treatise, especially in

the central praedicamenta, is read as presenting simple terms just insofar as they signify

realities ( ... ... , Simplicius in Cat. 11,32; cf. Porphyry in Cat. 59,17, Ammonius in Cat. 9,17, etc.) In other words, it is in some way about

referring terms, insofar as they refer. It is not about non-referring terms, such as conjunctions,

articles, and nonsense words (like blityri), and therefore it is not merely about linguistic items

in general. Thus,

[Boethus of Sidon, endorsed by Porphyry, held that] the division [of the Categories]

takes place in so far as expressions () have a relation () to beings, since

they are significant of the latter. This, he says, is the reason why conjunctions

(), although they are to be found within our vocabulary (), fall outside

of the Categories. For they do not pick out () any being. (Simplicius in Cat. 11,25-29; a longer exposition is found in Dexippus in Cat. 11,4-26, perhaps drawing,

via Iamblichus, on Porphyrys lost commentary Ad Gedalium)

Hence the (Simplic. 82,21) which motivates the Neoplatonic curriculum to

begin with the Categories, as a glimpse of the real world through the windows of ordinary

language.

This characterization of the Categories as sketching a kind of isomorphism between language

and reality19 is a legacy of the widely respected Peripatetic commentator Boethus of Sidon (cf.

Porphyry in Cat. 59,17, Simplic. in Cat. 13,16, 1,18), who developed an idea already articulated

by Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century BCE, if not earlier.20 Valid reasoning, which is built

around referring terms, will get us nowhere in practice if our terms fail to refer; the capacity of

sentences and proofs to be about anything at all depends on the capacity of verbal expressions

Grifn 7

17 So the interpretation of Andronicus in MORAUX (1973), 101, based on Simplicius in Cat. 21,22-24, 26,17-20, 30,3-5.

18 On the term see, e.g., SANDBACH (1971).

19 For that concept, see HIRSCH (1997).

20 I think the influence of Andronicus, who probably encountered the treatise under the title Before the Topics (cf. Simplic. in Cat. 379,9-11) and titled it Categories instead, can be detected in the defense of that latter title in the early pages of Porphyrys surviving commentary. I argue for this in more detail in GRIFFIN (2012a, 2012b).

(, ) to be about real things or referents (). The cultivation of proof-

making presupposes the solution to a semantical puzzle, namely, how we can know that we are

imposing names on things correctly. In order for our combined sentences to correspond to real

states of affairs, our uncombined terms need to correspond to real beings. Reading the

Categories with understanding somehow helps us to cultivate that basic correspondence,

particularly where kinds (genera and species) are concerned (cf. Porphyry in Cat. 58,5-35).

(Later we will explore some general suggestions as to how the text of the Categories attracted

this sort of a reading, but for the moment let us simply note that, among the later ancient

Neoplatonist commentators, it did).

The later Neoplatonists such as Simplicius, Ammonius, and Olympiodorus (here preserving and

commenting on Porphyry and Iamblichus) all agree that human beings can use language in this

way, that our terms can and do refer;21 but in our default condition as we use ordinary

language in an ordinaryor public context (in , Porph. in Cat. 55,3) we have this

partly right already. That is, we (as pre-theoretical beginners in philosophy) already use language

in a way that makes some sense and provides a starting-point for the correct application of

names, but is not yet perfectly reliable.

(c) Language as it should be; language as it is

What really makes the Categories special, on this view, is two qualities: (A) at some deep level,

the treatise has carved (divided, ) reality at its true natural joints, in the language made famous by Platos Phaedrus 265E-266B (on the most obvious reading, this commendation

applies to the ten praedicamenta at the core of the Categories); but (B) the Categories also

manages to sketch this correspondence in a way that leverages our pre-theoretical use of

language, making it more or less accessible to the ordinary beginner, requiring just a few

coined or technical terms ( , for which cf. Porphyry in Cat. 55,12 and the five

words of Isag. 1,4-5).

It may be useful to illustrate both features here.

(A) The normative function of the Categories. The tenfold division of the praedicamenta

namely, , quantity, quality, relative, where, when, being in a position, having, acting, and being acted upon accurately carves being at its (generic) joints: as there is a class of realities

() that include humans and horses, so there is a class of predicates that name those realities; as there is a class of relatives (the ), so there is a class of predicates that name

those relatives; and so on. (For the moment, we will set aside the proper names of particulars).22

Two examples of this isomorphism, one deriving from Porphyry and the other from (perhaps)

Iamblichus preserved in Simplicius, might serve to illustrate the idea here:

Grifn 8

21 On the development of this idea in later antiquity, see VAN DEN BERG (2007).

22 In another sense, particular vocal expressions carve up the infinity of particular beings, but, as we will see, that sort of carving is unknowable and indeterminate; so we focus here on the carving according to species and genera, which is knowable and useful to us.

Since beings are comprehended by ten generic differentiae, the words that indicate

them have also come to be ten in genus, and are themselves also so classified. Thus

predications () are said to be ten in genus, just as beings themselves are

ten in genus. (Porphyry in Cat. 58,12-15)

The division [into ten] is the same everywhere... [in] significant expressions... [and]

the nature of beings... For neither are significant expressions wholly separate from

the nature of beings, nor are beings detached from the names which are naturally

suited to signify them. (Simplicium in Cat. 12,10-16, perhaps reporting Iamblichus

or Damascius)23

[Aristotle] takes in hand each of the genera, and gives a more detailed account as best

he can, by pointing out their by means of a description (), and by clarifying their attributes () and distinguishing characteristics () (Simplic. in Cat. 75,28-31)

The Neoplatonists believe that the division () of the Categories captures the generic

divisions in reality, although it is not yet clear why they think this. The Categories offers a

normative account in the sense that it correctly describes the division of predicates according to

the highest genera of being, although in our ordinary use of language we do not necessarily have

any more than a vague preconception of that division. The passage continues with a rich, mythic

Grifn 9

23 On the original source of this section, see HOFFMANN (1987, 83-90) and CHASE (2003) ad loc. I also suggest in GRIFFIN (2013) that the core thought of the passage might derive from Iamblichus.

depiction of the way in which our ordinary, current language depicts the current state of the soul,

which has the potential to turn to the correct use of names.24

(B) The descriptive function of the Categories. The subject-matter of the Categories also begins

descriptively from, so to speak, the world that is most familiar to us, sketching the contours of

the perceptible environment picked out by our ordinary public languages. This is the case

because the Categories assumes that we are beginning with the names of everyday, perceptible

entities.

[Aristotle in the Categories] is talking about perceptible things (), which are also what is investigated by the ordinary person ( )... he seeks the difference in accordance with those meaningful words which were first and most

properly assigned to sensible things, and which are familiar to the ordinary person...

(Simplicius in Cat. 74,3-5, 15-17)

In ordinary language intelligible substance is not spoken of, nor is it known to the

multitude, but sensible substance is (Simplicius in Cat. 82,4-6)

Ordinary language () is for communicating about everyday things, and

employs the expressions that are commonly used to indicate such things.... [T]his

stone I am pointing at, which we can touch and see, is a thing, and when we say

about it, This is a stone, the expression stone is a predicate (), for it

signifies that sort of thing, and is uttered about the thing we are pointing at, the stone.

Grifn 10

24 The full passage (Simplic. 12,13-13,26, tr. lightly adapted from Chase 2003) runs as follows: As for the soul, when it is converted towards , it possesses the same things in a secondary way... Once, however, the soul has departed from there, it also separates the formulae () in itself from beings, thereby converting them into images instead of prototypes, and it introduces a distance between intellection and realities... When, however, the soul has fallen into the realm of becoming, it is filled with forgetfulness, and requires sight and hearing in order to be able to recollect. For the soul needs someone who has already beheld the truth, who by means of verbal expression () uttered forth from the intellectual concept () also moves the concept within [the soul of the student] which had until then grown cold. This, then, is how the need for came about... join the learners concepts to those of the teacher... When are set in motion in the appropriate way, they adjust themselves to realities, and thus there comes about the knowledge of beings, and the souls spontaneous is fulfilled. is, moreover, the limit of psychic activity, and it pertains to limits to convert things toward their principles. Therefore, language takes those souls which have departed from the Nous and from beings, and have become distinguished from one another, and gathers them together into the unanimity of thought (); it makes them adjust to realities, sends them back up to the Nous, and prepares them not only to wish to be without but to which no longer even to have which differ from realities... It is thus clear from the preceding considerations that the of the Categories is about simple, primary, and generic insofar as they are significant of beings... and about ... Now the Pythagoreans gathered together the simple entities into the decad, as was taught by Archytas... the only point at which Aristotle deviated [from Archytas] is that he did not take into consideration the One, which contains the ten, and that he rejects the natural character of names.

(Porphyry in Cat. 55,8-10; 56,10-13; this will subsequently be described as the

primary imposition or of names)25

[The second-century Peripatetic Herminus, reported by Porphyry with approval] says

that the subject of the [Categories] is not the primary and highest genera in nature,

for instruction in these is not suitable for young persons, nor the issue of what the

primary and fundamental differentiae of things said are, since in that case the

discussion would seem to be about the parts of speech. Rather it is about the sort of

predication that will properly belong to what is said in each of the genera of being.

Hence it also became necessary to touch in some way upon the genera to which the

predications in question correspond, for it is impossible to recognise the kind of

signification that is proper to each genus without some preconception () of

it. This also accounts for the title Predication (), which means the proper

mode of signification connected with each genus. (Herminus ap. Porphyrium in Cat.

59,17-33, tr. STRANGE 1990, lightly modified)

The Categories is read as if it bridges a gap between the ordinary (and fallible) use of language

the ordinary, non-technical use of referring terms with which any student would approach

philosophy to a less familiar, but accurate and precise, use of language which is carved at the

joints of reality. Ordinary language applies to the phenomena of perception, ordinary sense-

objects (), because these are the referents that are picked out first by our everyday public speech (see below on the primary imposition of names); but what is truly accurate in language

is the deeper organization of kinds. Names for kinds are precise; names for sense-objects are

imprecise and vague, because there is no knowledge of those things.

(d) Explanations of language acquisition

We human beings are said to possess a preconception or of the true joints of reality,

which is expressed with some imperfection in ordinary language, and better by the specialized

and technical language of the Categories. Porphyry and Iamblichus offer us two different lines of

explanation, grounded in their related but distinct interpretations of the Categories as,

respectively, dealing strictly with the objects disclosed to us by perception (Porphyry) or dealing

both with perceptible and intelligible objects (Iamblichus). Each of their accounts offers a story

about language acquisition and specifically why the language that we acquire works, why it

carves reality at the joints.

Porphyry, first, offers a bottom-up account based on Epicurean and Stoic philosophy of

language, and indirectly on the Cratylus, which explains the primary imposition of names on

things.26

Grifn 11

25 On the first imposition and Porphyrian semantics see LLOYD (1990), 36-39.

26 The theory of two impositions of language built on the discussion in Cratylus (e.g., 421C-426C) about whether names were imposed by nature () or by in the sense of convention: see Sextus, Adv. Math. 1.143-4, cf. 37; Adv. Math. 11.241-42; P.H. 3.267-68; Aulus Gellius 10.4; Simplicius in Cat. 40,6 and 187,7; and Origen, Exh. Mart. 46. The relevant Neoplatonic passages for the theory itself are usefully summarised and translated in SORABJI (2005), Vol. 3; see also VAN DEN BERG (2007).

I claim that once man himself had come to be able to indicate and to signify the

things around him, he also came to name and to indicate each thing by means of

words. Thus his first use () of linguistic expressions came to be to communicate each thing by means of certain words and expressions. In accordance

with this relation between words and things, this thing here is called a chair, that a

man, this a dog, that the sun, and again, this colour is called white, that

black, and this is called number, that size, this two cubits, and that three

cubits. In this way words and expressions have been assigned to each thing which

serve to signify and reveal that thing by employing particular sounds of the voice

(). (in Cat. 57,20-29)27

Iamblichus, on the other hand, develops a top-down account based on the generation of the

soul and language from above (, in Neoplatonic terms), in what may be read as a classic example of the that Simplicius famously attributes to him:28

The division [into ten] is the same everywhere... [in] significant expressions... [and]

the nature of beings... For neither are significant expressions wholly separate from

the nature of beings, nor are beings detached from the names which are naturally

suited to signify them. Nor, finally, are intellectual concepts extraneous to the nature

of the other two; for these three things were previously one, and became

differentiated later. For Intellect (), being identical with realities and with intellection (), possesses as one both beings and the intellectual concepts of

them, by virtue of its undifferentiated unity ( ), and there [sc. in the intelligible world] there is no need for language. (Simplic. in Cat. 12,10-19)

Both accounts, despite their differences, assume that names are imposed on things by nature

() rather than convention.29 In one way or another whether through natural vocalizations

about perceptible things or because we naturally express the structures that are baked, so to

speak, into we gain a sort of imperfect but functional access to this correspondence. We can tell the access is not perfect, however, because there are cases where real things do not have

names, and where names are ambiguous. Natural language is an efficient heuristic guide to the

organization of reality, but not an infallible one.30 It is always or for the most part the case that

certain ontological facts coincide with certain phenomena in natural language. For example, in

the language of the Catgories, the inherence of a non-substantial predicate in a subject usually

coincides with a particular linguistic phenomenon, namely paronymy: if courage inheres in

Socrates, Socrates is then called courageous () from courage (). But the linguistic correspondence, like any natural phenomenon, sometimes fails: in Greek, a virtuous

Grifn 12

27 Augustine, Confessions 1.8.13, quoted by Wittgenstein at the outset of his Philosophical Investigations. See BURNYEAT (1987).

28 cf. DILLON (1997).

29 See VAN DEN BERG (2007).

30 For a somewhat similar interpretation of the Categories see MANN (2000), 203, with discussion below.

person is called from , and not (cf. Categ. 10b7-9). We might take Porphyrys remark in a similar vein:

Philosophers are interpreters of things that are unknown to most people, and need

new words to communicate the things they have discovered. Hence either they have

invented new and unfamiliar expressions or they have used established ones in

extended senses in order to indicate the things they have discovered. (in Cat.

55,8-14)

The Categories, despite taking everyday familiar objects of primary imposition as its subject-

matter, is also full of neologisms like this, which re-tailor natural Greek into a better fit for the

divisions of reality; the title is itself treated as an example.31 But the real headline

examples of non-ordinary or extended technical terms, in Porphyrys view, are the five

words explained in his Introduction genus, difference, species, property, and accident

(1,3-17).

The later Neoplatonic picture, then, will look something like this. The elementary course in logic

picks us up at the point of our everyday imposition of simple terms on simple perceptible

things, that is, the act of imposition dubbed by Porphyry, following earlier

Peripatetics. The idea that Porphyry has in mind is much like Wittgensteins (who drew on

Augustine, who drew in turn on Porphyry), or for that matter like Quines in 1960:

Each of us learns his language from other people, through the observable mouth of

words under conspicuously intersubjective circumstances. Linguistically, and hence

conceptually, the things in sharpest focus are the things that are public enough to be

talked of publicly, common and conspicuous enough to be talked of often, and near

enough to sense to be quickly identified and learned by name; it is to these that words

apply first and foremost.32

Setting off from this common starting-point of our language community, where our ontology is

based on an ordinary language that clusters being around the particular objects that ordinarily

receive names in our language community, the study of the Categories somehow helps us to

develop a truer account by focusing on the ways in which our predications () actually

work. We are meant to notice, in particular, that our meaningful predications fall into a range of

generic silos. We begin to focus on sameness in difference. All of this tends roughly in the

following direction: from initially assuming that words refer primarily to perceptible entities ( ), because those are the phenomena that first acquire names (Simplic. in Cat. 73,33; cf. Porph. in Cat. 57.20), it looks as if we begin to develop a new understanding of words as

referring primarily to certain other entities which the Neoplatonists call intelligible ( ). But it is worth stressing that at this stage of the curriculum we have no names for the so-called

intelligibles and no obvious way of communicating to one another what they are supposed to

be, as they cannot be pointed out like this stone and that dog. The most salient transition here

Grifn 13

31 Homonymy, synonymy, paronymy, and are all examples mentioned by Porphyry.

32 QUINE (1960), 1.

is from a descriptive account of ordinary language language as it turns out to be by default

to a normative language as it should be.

(e) Learning language as it should be: from perceptibles to intelligibles

What is deep about the nature of intelligibles? The reason that it would be a deep problem to

get into the nature of intelligibles at the beginning of the curriculum is simply this: we have no

means of expressing these in the natural language at our disposal as beginners; when we start

this process we have no names at all for things like genera and species, and only a vague

preconception to work with. They are nothing at all to us. But philosophers can coin new terms:

Those who have studied this (), having taken their starting-point from

perceptible things, have grasped that there are no words for those other things [e.g.

intelligible species] ( ); therefore, making a slight alteration, they spoke of humanness () or of Human-in-itself () or of the primary human ( ). Thus, someone who enjoys studying reality () could easily pass from these [perceptible] things over to the

intelligibles, by making use of analogy. (Simplicius in Cat. 73,32-74,3)

Why, then, should we endeavour to get from here that is, the world apparently disclosed by

our default use of language, to there, that is, to a world disclosed by a correct use of

language that incorporates genera and species? And how should we do so? The essence of the

Neoplatonic answer is suggested by Porphyry:

[T]he individuals that is to say, the items after the most special items are infinite

(). That is why Plato advised those who descend from the most general items to the most special to stop there, and to descend through the intermediates, dividing

them by the specific differences; and he tells us to leave the infinites alone, for there

will be no knowledge of them. [...] Species and still more, genera gather the

many items into a single nature (). (Porphyry, Isagoge 6,12-19, tr. Barnes)

II. Limit and the unlimited: Facilitating knowledge

(a) Uncountability of particulars: Aristotelian sources

Why is a language that focuses our attention on particulars unsatisfactory? As Porphyry notes in

Isagoge 6,12-19, particular beings are numerically infinite. Moreover, each verbal expression

signifies one particular being ( , Porph. in Cat. 58,5-35), and each particular being is signified by a particular verbal expression; thus both verbal expressions are numerically infinite too (compare Soph. El.

165a6-12).33 But can be no knowledge of the apeiros, says Porphyry (Isag. 6,12-19 and in Cat.

Grifn 14

33 This is a somewhat different point than Ars own Soph. El. 165a6-12 ( , ). But I think Porphyry has in mind (in context) particular beings picked out by a speech-act or act of naming numerically: this rock, this tree, this person, as many thises as there are will have a name.

58,5-35), building on a view attributed to Plato and Aristotle alike:34 thus it looks like particular

verbal expressions and particular beings will be unknowable, at least as a totality. This point

builds on the Peripatetic tradition, and on Aristotle himself: one cannot list off infinitely many

things in thought (Post. An. 1.22), and unlimited things cant be known (1.24). Thus Alexander

had remarked that

[Aristotle] carries out a division of being, not into individuals for these are

uncircumscribable and unknowable, owing to their multiplicity and the fact that they

undergo all kinds of changes. Instead, he divided it into these ten highest genera,

which he called ... (Alexander ap. Simplicium in Cat. 10,13-15)

This point was a commonplace of Platonist, Neopythagorean and Peripatetic thought well before

Alexander. Some brief examples might illustrate the tradition on which Porphyry and Alexander

draw:

Learning cannot arise in any other way than by remembering what was formerly

known. If we had in fact to start from particulars ( ) in forming our conception () of common qualities, how could we ever traverse the infinite series of particulars ( ), or alternatively how could we form such a conception on the basis of a small number? (tr. Dillon) (Alcinous,

Didasc. 25, 3.6).

We cannot get something through induction by going over all the particular cases

(kata meros), since the particular cases are impossible to go through () (Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Top. 86,25-27).

Because things (res) are infinite, significant expressions must also be infinite. But

there is no cognition of infinites, for they cannot be comprehended by the mind. And

that which cannot be circumscribed by a mental account (ratione mentis) cannot be

bound by the limit of any knowledge (scientia): therefore there is no knowledge of

infinites. Here, however, Aristotle is not addressing the infinite significations of

things (rerum), but by compiling ten predications, he settled to which of them should

be referred the infinite number of significant expressions... (Boethius in Cat 160B,

perhaps reflecting Porphyrys lost commentary Ad Gedalium)

Uncountability, then, is one chief obstacle to knowledge of particulars. The problem is

Aristotelian: if singular items are infinite, then how can one gain knowledge of items which are

infinite? For we recognize each item insofar as it is some one and the same thing, and insofar as

something universal holds of it (Ar. Metaph. B3, 999a24-b3).

Porphyry also points out, however, that what is many in number is one is species or in

genus (in Cat. 58,5-35; so Aristotle, Topics 1.7, 103a6-14). This allows the infinity of particular

beings to be listed off after all, specifically but not numerically:

[Aristotles] intention is not to list expressions one by one for each one signifies

one particular being but since things that are many in number are one in species or

Grifn 15

34 BARNES (2003), 130 ff..

in genus, the infinity () of beings and of the expressions that signify them is found to be included under a list of ten genera. Since beings are comprehended by

ten generic differentiae, the words that indicate them have also come to be ten in

genus, and are themselves also so classified. Thus predications () are said

to be ten in genus, just as beings themselves are ten in genus. (Porphyry in Cat.

58,5-35)

Aristotle and Plato would agree, on Porphyrys view, that the collection of infinite individuals

into species () facilitates knowledge; the deeper puzzles arizing from Platos separation of species (Porph. ap. Simplicium in Phys. 10,32-35)35 are not at issue here, because they do not

come into the question of how species facilitate knowledge.36

This basic notion, applied to Aristotles Categories as a kind of motive for its value, may go back

at least to the first century, as this passage from Archytas suggests, including strong Platonic

and Neopythagorean undertones:

Beings are spoken of in two ways: for some are subjects, others inherent in subjects

or incidental to them [...] And it is clear that and and , and the other thoughts and signifiers [mentioned previously in the list of ten at

22,14] will have been spoken of in just the same number of ways [...] All knowledge,

then, takes its starting-points () from the limited () and gets to know the unlimited (); and this is even more true of the knowledge of beings [...] Every craft and every form of knowledge has a certain rank and

definition, and anything like this is in a numerical sequence (): and the entirety of number is ten... (Pseudo-Archytas 31,6-32,23 Thesleff)

The language of this passage also points toward a way of interpreting the basic point that would

appeal to a Platonist: as a reference to the two kinds, limit and unlimited, of Platos Philebus

and other texts.37 An influential Platonic text for the interpretation of the Categories was the

Sophist (especially 253B-255D), as we will notice below, where the indefiniteness () of the names that we give to a human being necessitates the correct division of kinds, starting

from the absolute ( ) and the relative ( ).

Grifn 16

35 cf. BARNES (2003), 46.

36 We have the capacity to apply such a limit on the unlimited in that we can enumerate (construct an or reckoning) the highest kinds of predication (a point attributed to the Peripatetic Herminus (by Simplicius, in Cat. 62,7-23).

37 Plato, Philebus. Whatever seems to us to become more and less, or susceptible to strong and mild or to too much and all of that kind, all that we ought to subsume under the genus of the indeterminate () as its unity.... [now] all that is related as number to number or measure or measure: If we subsume all these together under the heading of determiners ( ), we would seem to do a fair job. Or what do you say? A very fair job, Socrates. Very well, then. But what nature shall we ascribe to the third kind, the one that contains the mixture () of the two? (Phlb. 24E725B6; tr. Frede)

III. The process of division: essential and accidental predication

How are we to arrive at the list of ten? Porphyry offers a proposal to use the method of

division (and collection) to arrive at the highest genera, articulated as a solution to the

problem of the impossibility of knowledge of particulars. This has an Aristotelian pedigree going

back to the Posterior Analytics (see e.g. 2.13 and above).38 But the consensus of the Peripatetic

and Middle Platonist tradition39 also seems to have placed a much greater value on division

than did Aristotle (cf. An. Pr. 1.31, 46a31-32).40

The book On Division [ ] published by Andronicus, a most diligent scholar of old, treats of the considerable advantages the science of division brings to

scholars and of the high esteem in which this branch of knowledge was always held

within the Peripatetic discipline. Plotinus, a most profound philosopher, thought

highly of Andronicuss book and Porphyry adapted it in his commentary on Platos

dialogue entitled The Sophist. It was also Porphyry who acknowledged the utility of

his Introduction to the Categories with reference to this science. For he says that a

knowledge of genus, species, difference, property, and accident is a necessary

prerequisite to, among other things, partitioning, which is of the greatest utility.

(Andronicus of Rhodes ap. Boethium De Divisione 875D-76D)

The later sect of Peripatetic wisdom [sc. Andronicus]41 discerned in the most diligent

manner the differences between divisions: it separated division per se and division

secundum accidens from one another and distributed them both. Its predecessors, on

the other hand, indiscriminately employed both an accident in place of the genus and

accidents in place of species, or differentiae.

Andronicus (here widely followed by both Platonist and Peripatetic thinkers) promotes a

basically Platonic division (drawing from Sophist 255D) over the ten categories:

Grifn 17

38 2.13, 96b14. When you are dealing with some whole, you should divide the kind into what is atomic in sort the primitives ... then in this way attempt to get definitions of these (e.g. of straight line and circle and right angle); and after that, getting what the genus is (e.g. whether it is a quantity or a quality), consider the proper affections through the first common items.... what holds belongs in themselves to the simples alone, and to the other things in virtue of them. The divisions made according to the differences are useful for this sort of pursuit... 99b15. something partless and universal makes a stand e.g. such and such an animal, until animal does, and in this [a stand is made] in the same way. Thus it is clear that it is necessary for us to become familiar with the primitives by induction; for perception too instils the universal in this way. (Tr. Barnes)

39 cf. KARAMANOLIS (2006).

40 For Aristotle, famously, division does not prove anything (Pr. An. 46a31-39, Post. An. 91b12-15, 96b25-97a6). DESLAURIERS notes that Aristotle does have value for division and he wants to demonstrate the coherence of the logical and ontological functions of form (1990, 216); cf. DESLAURIERS 2007:15 ff. See also RYLE (1939), 302-25. J. L. ACKRILL (1997), by contrast, offers a careful Defence of Platonic Division.

41 For the attribution, cf. MAGEE (1998) ad 48,26, MORAUX (1973), 120-32.

Xenocrates and Andronicus and their followers seem to include all [the ten

categories] in [the opposition] by itself ( ) and relative ( )... those just mentioned say that accidents are relative as [being] always of other things, and

that substance is by itself ( ). (Simplicius in Cat. 63,22-28)

The first and highest division [in the Categories] is into two, namely and accident. (Porphyry in Cat. 71,28) (Alexander of Aphrodisias also called this the

highest division in the Categories (in Met. 242,15-16 and 243,3).

The distinction between essential and accidental predication is naturally Aristotelian (e.g. An.

Post. A4, B10). Placing this division above the tenfold division of the Categories could also

have an Aristotelian inspiration:

Being is said (1) accidentally or (2) absolutely... (2) Exactly as many items are said

to be absolutely as the figures of signify (Aristotle, Metaph 5)

But the Neoplatonists followed an established Middle Platonic tradition in treating Plato as the

primary source of this division:

[Plato] gives indications of the ten categories... In general, he was supremely

competent in, and a connoisseur of, the procedures of denition, division , all of which demonstrate particularly well the power of dialectic. [...] The

name is an instrument which teaches about and divides the essence of each reality, as

the shuttle does for the weaving of cloth [cf. Cratylus 388B13-C1, where is omitted]. (Alcinous, Handbook 6.10, tr. van den Berg)

Not only do the souls of mortal beings possess the capacity to know the sensible

( ), but [Plato] adds that the soul of the cosmos whenever she touches the scattered being or the undivided being of anything is

moved throughout her entire being and announces what the object is identical with,

and from what it is different, and in what relation ( ), and where and how, and when, it comes about that each thing exists () and is acted upon by others (), both in the sphere of becoming and in that of the ever-one. In these words

he is also giving an outline of the ten categories; likewise in what follows, he makes

the case more clearly (Plutarch, Generation of the Soul, 1023D-F, tr. Cherniss)

If Andronicus, moreover, was following Xenocrates and this is why Simplicius presents them

together an otherwise puzzling fact42 the syncretism of Aristotelian and Platonic division may

have early roots in the Peripatetic tradition as well.43

Porphyry transmitted and praised Andronicuss essay On division in his Sophist commentary. In

fact, the Sophist can be read as drawing all of these points together: the path from the

indeterminate to the determinate; the emphasis on division and dialectic as the means; the

Grifn 18

42 cf. REINHARDT (2007).

43 cf. KARAMANOLIS (2006), e.g. 22.

attribution to Plato; and, crucially, the notion that a correction to the the way we impose our

names in ordinary speech might be useful:

Plato, Sophist. Let us then say how we call one and the same thing by several

different names (251A)... We say a man is... indefinitely () many things... We take a thing to be one, and at the same time we speak of it as many by using many

names for it... shall we refuse to apply being to change or rest... shall we take these

things to be unblended and incapable of having a share in each other in the things we

say ().. some associate and some dont? (253B) Some kinds run through all of

them and link them together... when there are kinds, certain kinds running through

wholes are always the cause of the division [D] it takes expertise in dialectic to

divide things by kinds... the philosopher always uses reasoning to stay near the form,

Being. He isnt at all easy to see because that area is so bright and the eyes of most

peoples souls cant look at whats divine. Some of those which are are said

absolutely ( ), others in relation to other things ( ) (255D)...

Briefly, we could also tie this highest distinction into the progress from the perceptible to the

intelligible that the Neoplatonists advocated. For Plato, as Wolfgang Mann has suggested, no

perceptible item is (what it is) or absolutely; all perceptibles are (what they are) pros ti.44 Perceptibles come to be but are not (167); they lack natures (171), to which our names

properly refer. But Aristotles Categories seeks to explain how perceptible individuals can be

said to have natures (191) or any kind of structural coherence at all a point that the later

Neoplatonists like Simplicius also draw from it (in Cat. 87,9-12). Moreover, the Categories

points to a certain heuristic value in ordinary language, in that the ordinary linguistic

phenomena of homonymy and synonymy can (not always, but usually) point to what is essential

or accidental about a subject of predication.45 Iamblichus in particular, as CHIARADONNA (2007,

16) points out, is careful to stress that substantial predicates are synonymous, while non-

substantial predicates need to be declined with a change of form. Recognizing such heuristics in

turn would be a crucial first step in getting going on the process of division; for to establish a

definition through divisions... you must take what is predicated in what the thing is (Post. An.

97a24-25), and that requires that we first pick out which differences will be species-

making (Porphyry Isag. 16,13-23, with Barnes ad loc.): this progress requires that we are able

to focus our predications in the first category, and not mix and muddle them up with accidental

predications (as Andronicus warns against in the excerpt from Boethius cited above).

Aristotle carefully distinguishes essential from paronymous predication (Topics 2.2), and the

Neoplatonists focused on this distinction, although Porphyry and Iamblichus differed on it in

important respects.46 Of course, it may not be immediately obvious why one would go to the

Categories specifically to start on the road to getting a better understanding, or at least a more

honed preconception, of this distinction. We could focus on the manner in which the distinction

Grifn 19

44 MANN (2000) 143-46.

45 See MANN (2000), 36, 203, and see below on Cat. 2a19.

46 cf. CHIARADONNA 2007 and n. 12 above.

of linguistic phenomena such as homonymy and synonymy, on the one hand, might reflect

ontological phenomena like the IN and SAID-OF relations, on the other. But one way that this

lesson could be drawn from the Categories is to focus on a passage like 2a19, where

it is clear from what has been said that if something is SAID-OF a subject, it follows

by necessity that both its name and its denition () are predicated-of () the subject [i.e. synonymy occurs]... the individual human is also a human (tr. Ackrill, lightly adapted, my emphasis).

A Neoplatonist could understand that passage as suggesting that wherever the SAID-OF

relationship prevails in reality (as between some secondary substance and primary substance),

we notice that a linguistic phenomenon (synonymy) invariably follows in our ordinary language

about the items that have the relationship. In this sense, noticing that synonymy happens in

ordinary language could be our clue to the fact that a SAID-OF relationship is going on in reality,

and draw our attention to focus on substantial kinds rather than accidents, and hone our ability to

pick out species-making differences.

As we briefly noted above, another way of looking at this development, again through the lens of

the Posterior Analytics, would be to suppose Simplicius to have in mind something like the

three-stage view of a philosophers enquiry for definitions discussed by David Charles:47 first

we try to figure out what a name (or name-like expression) signifies; we reach the second stage

when we know that that referent exists; we reach the third stage when we know its essence (Post.

An. 93b30-33). The Neoplatonist commentators have in mind a similar general progression from

signification with the Categories (the in Simplicius) toward definition and

recognition of essences.

The Neoplatonic study of the Categories, then, would pick us up at the stage of thinking that all

our terms referred to ; it would drop us off in a new understanding, focusing on what is essential and truly substantial in our predications, able to distinguish specific differences from

qualities, quantities, and other accidents, setting us up for a course in division and definition, and

ultimately for a grip on reality, having started from reflection on ordinary language. As a pre-

philosophical tiro, when I see a human being and predicate of her, I think the word is referring to the composite before me, the collection or of features (Porph. Isagoge 7,22-23); after my study of the Categories, I will begin to see (in the ascent by analogy,

Simplicius in Cat. 74,3; cf. 31,33 on analogous homonymy) that no particular is complete

without the species, and this is what Aristotle really means when he remarks that the individual

human is also a human (Simplic. 82,30-32): wherever I see particulars, in a sense, their

intelligible and substantial natures will begin to burn brighter for me than their accidents.

IV. Postscript on methodology: Dialectic

How did the later Neoplatonists think this method of dialectic to achieve the direct, essential reference of names to true, imperceptible natures might play out? These passages

from Simplicius Categories commentary, cited above, help to point toward an explanation:

Grifn 20

47 Charles (2002), ch. 2.

This, then, is how the need for came about... join the learners

concepts to those of the teacher... When are set in motion in the appropriate

way, they adjust themselves to realities, and thus there comes about the knowledge of

beings, and the souls spontaneous is fulfilled. (12,26-13,4)

Those who have studied this (), having taken their starting-point from

perceptible things, have grasped that there are no words for [intelligible species]...

therefore, making a slight alteration, they spoke of humanness () or of Human-in-itself () or of the primary human ( ). Thus, someone who enjoys studying reality () could easily pass from

these [perceptible] things over to the intelligibles, by making use of analogy.

(Simplicius in Cat. 73,32-74,3)

Thus we try in some way by analogy to ascend, with the help of a teacher, to the direct and

correct, essential predication of names of the imperceptibles, having learned to divide

correctly.

Simplicius refers specifically to the Sophist to suggest the value of dialectic for getting past the

ambiguity in ordinary language:

Some people... rightly say that it is from the realities () that homonyms

become clear to us: viz., when the same name is spoken, I project one concept in

conjunction with the name, while you project a different one. For example, if

someone says the name dog, I might conceive of the land-animal, while you might

conceive of a sea-dog. This is why the dialecticians recommend that we become

quiescent when faced with syllogisms based on homonymy, until the questioner

transfers the name to one of the significata.... Moreover, Aristotle himself presents

his teaching on homonyms, because the discussion (logos) of homonymy is also...

immediately consequent upon the goal () of the Categories. For his part, Plato

states that it becomes clear from realities whether the same name is borne by

different things homonymously or synonymously, for he says in the Sophist, for

now, you and I have the name in common with regard to this matter, but perhaps we

each privately keep the fact () that we are naming to ourselves; [however, we ought always in every instance to come to agreement about the thing itself by

argument ( ) rather than about the mere name without argument.] (Soph. 218C). Thus, it is when it becomes known that each individual has his own

particular of a common name that it becomes clear that the name is homonymous... the nature of homonyms and synonyms is in the ... of human beings as they converse and name things. (Simplicius in Cat. 24,6-25,10)

The reference to Sophist 218C here points toward a practical methodology by which the

ambiguity of names could be resolved, namely, dialectical conversation that tugs out our . I think we can actually tie this back to the Neoplatonic practice of commenting extensively on

the history of philosophy, the kind of commentary that Simplicius himself is conducting on the

Categories, and the kind of work that Porphyrys Introduction is properly an introduction to.

We might turn to Plotinus who, we are told (Boethius De Divisione 875D-76D), especially

Grifn 21

approved of Andronicuss work On Division for an example of this use of in philosophical practice, applied to time and eternity (neither of which are, of course,

perceptible):

If the gifted people () of antiquity had said nothing about time, we should

have to take eternity as our starting-point and link up our subsequent account of time

with it, stating what we think about it ( ) and trying to make the opinion we express fit () with our own inner notion () of it; but, as it is, we must first take the most important statements that have been made about it before ( ), and consider whether our own account will agree with any of them (Plotinus 3.7.7, after Armstrong, modified)

Eternity and time, we say, are two different things... as if by a fairly continuous

application of our concept () of them, we think that we have a clear and distinct experience of them in our own , as we are always speaking of them and

using their names on every occasion. Of course, when we try to concentrate on them

and, so to speak, to get close to them, we find again that our thought runs into

difficulties; we consider the statements of the ancient philosophers about them, who

differ one from the other, and perhaps also different interpretations of the same

statements, and we set our minds at rest about them and think it sufficient if we are

able, when we are asked, to state the opinion of the ancients... Now we must consider

that some of the gifted philosophers of ancient times have found out the truth; but it

is proper to investigate which of them have attained it most completely, and how we

too could reach an awareness () about these things.48

Here perhaps we have an example of how, beginning from our ordinary use of names for

imperceptible things, we might practice dialectic on the philosophical ideas of the past or of

others to look for a truer and more correct way of predicating the names of species. Doing

dialectic in this sense might really be to tackle and hone the ordinary usage or , a

familiar Aristotelian idea.49

Conclusion

To summarize: for the later Neoplatonists, the study of the Categories to which the

Introduction leads passes from an ordinary language to a language that is correctly carved at

Grifn 22

48 Trans. after Armstrong; we might contrast Epicurus Ep. Hdt. 72-3 as an argument encouraging us not to perform dialectical analysis on the of time, which is self-evident.

49 Or so it has been argued, for example by Nussbaum 1986, pp. 240-63, with reference especially to NE 7.1, 1145b1-20: Here, as in all other cases, we must lay down the appearances (), and, first working through the puzzles (), in this way go on to show, if possible, the truth of all the beliefs we hold ( ) about these experiences; and, if this is not possible, the truth of the greatest number and the most authoritative. For if the difficulties are resolved and the beliefs () are left in place, we will have done enough showing. But against the presence of such a methodology in Aristotle, see now FREDE 2012.

the joints of being, joints which the Categories just begins to trace by teasing out our innate

preconceptions (, Simplic. in Cat. 75,28; , Porph. in Cat. 59,17-33) with the help of a teacher who can awaken our about kinds (Simplic. 12,10 ff.). When we begin in philosophy, we picture being through the silos of ordinary language, and this is why even genera

and species are studied just , through language.

We aim to pass from a language whose terms refer to perceptible (particular) beings, to a

language whose terms refer to intelligible natures. To do this is also to pass from the

indeterminate () and unknowable to the determinate and knowable. We are able to accomplish this transition by learning how to divide; in particular, we must learn to divide

between essential and the accidental modes of predication, which is the highest division of the

Categories. Arguably, a useful way to proceed on this course in practice is to test our

preconceptions or through dialectic on .

But pending all of this practice (to be gained by reading the Aristotelian curriculum with a

Neoplatonist master), the nature of genera and species or differences or accidents in and of themselves, in their nature, is too deep for us; we must begin from what is familiar to us, namely, the approach through language, (Isag. 1,15). But this approach itself is selected and developed, at least in the later Neoplatonist tradition, through the lens of a

collection of theories about the nature of language itself, and its role in the development of the

philosophical student.

Grifn 23

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