vlastos on pauline predication

Vlastos on Pauline PredicationAuthor(s): John MalcolmSource: Phronesis, Vol. 30, No. 1 (1985), pp. 79-91Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182218 .

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DISCUSSION NOTE

Vlastos on Pauline Predication

JOHN MALCOLM

In the period following his epoch-making attention to the Third Man Argument' Gregory Viastos was converted to the cause of what he has termed Pauline Predication.2 Sentences such as "Justice is pious" or "Fire is hot" seem, on the surface, to be attributing a characteristic to a Form - a situation labelled by Vlastos "ordinary predication" (A S,3 p. 273). But, Viastos suggests, such cases are really to be read as assigning this property to instances of the Form. As applied to putative cases of self-predication,4 "F-ness is F" becomes, from the Pauline perspective, equivalent to "Necessarily, for all x, if x partakes of F-ness, x is F" (AS, p. 273; U VP, p. 235).

In UVP (pp. 257-8) Vlastos urges that two notorious candidates for self-predication, "Justice is just" and "Piety is pious," at Prot. 330c and d respectively, must be read in the Pauline fashion. We may or may not agree with him here,5 but Vlastos proceeds to reject his former thesis that, for Plato, all Forms are self-predicative. He will grant (pp. 259-63)

I It hardly needs mentioning that the seminal paper was "The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides," Phil. Rev., 63 (1954), 319-49 (hereafter, TMAP). This article is reproduced in R.E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato's Metaphysics (London, 1965), pp. 231-263. References in this paper are to the Allen volume. 2 This label is attributed to Sandra Peterson. Her version of Pauline Predication, which appeared in "A Reasonable Self-Predication Premise for the Third Man Argument," Phil. Rev., 82 (1973), 451-470, is different from that of Vlastos. In this paper I shall be concerned only with the Vlastos formulation. 3 All references in this article, unless otherwise specified, are to Platonic Studies (Princeton, 1973; 1981). They are abbreviated as follows: "UVP" for "The Unity of the Virtues in the Protagoras"; "AS" for "An Ambiguity in the Sophist"; "TLPA" for "The 'Two-Level Paradoxes' in Aristotle." 4 I follow Vlastos, UVP, p. 258, note 97, in using the term "self-predication" to apply only to cases of "ordinary' predication, i.e., where F-ness is represented as an F thing. Whether F-ness can then be grouped together with the many Fs as the Third Man argument requires is, of course, quite another matter. One may, indeed, hold that unless the Form be grouped with the particulars there is not really a case of self-predication, but that is an issue beyond the scope of this paper. 5 Contra, see C. C. W. Taylor, Plato Protagoras (Oxford, 1976), pp. 118-120, and T. Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory, (Oxford, 1977), p. 306. But see A. Code and J. Dybikowski's review of Taylor in Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 10 (1980), 321-23, and Vlastos, Platonic Studies, 2nd. edition (1981), p. 441.

Phronesis 1985. Vol XXXI/ (Accepted Dec. 1984) 79



that Unity is one, Beauty is beautiful (Symp. 21cd) and Rest is at rest, but will exorcise almost all others on the grounds (p. 261) that they "yield blatant absurdity" and (p. 259) "shatter irreparably the coherence of Plato's theory."

Such a radical treatment, however, cannot be justified from a reinterpretation of passages such as Prot. 330cd alone, for the general attribution of self-predication to Plato not only rests on certain grammatically explicit appearances in the corpus, but, as Vlastos earlier saw,6 purports to follow from two key aspects of his Theory of Forms: Model/ Copy and Degrees of Reality. So a mere reconstruction of the Protagoras excerpt, for example, has no bearing on this issue. Plato would remain committed toself-predication whether or not he is expressing this committment in the Protagoras. What is needed, therefore, is not an ad hoc attack on particular passages, but a general criterion for challenging all-pervasive self-predication in Plato - and Vlastos (p. 259) has such a criterion. Every Platonic Form has to be unitary and immobile. So any attribution which characterizes Forms as multiple or mobile must be rejected.7 Not only are Plurality and Change disbarred from self-predication (for Plurality cannot be plural, nor can Change change), even Forms tor living things do not qualify, for their very nature involves change. Vlastos writes (p. 262), "For Plato thinks of all living things as moving, and if the Form of Animal were (an) animal the result would be a contradiction - that which by hypothesis cannot move moves. And the contradiction would be such an obvious one that he could hardly miss it."

The first thing to note is that this inference which Vlastos reconstructs for Plato is a non-sequitur and it would not be to Plato's credit if he were, even occasionally, convinced by it. To see that the argument fails, one need only appreciate the distinction between (1) those characteristics a Form has because of its own particular nature as, for example, rationality and animality are contained in the nature of man (let us call these first-level characteristics) and (2) those characteristics which belong to the Form insofar as it is a Form - as, for example, unity and invariability. Let us call these second-level characteristics.8 The former are part of the nature of man qua man, the latter characteristics of man qua Form. These are certainly distinguishable in that plurality and change can obtain as first-level characteristics without in any way compromising their inapplicability at the second level.

For example, the Form of Decadity, when viewed as subject to self-predication. and

6 See TMAP, p. 248. 7 THe earlier Vlastos of the TMAP was also convinced by this reasoning (p. 251): "ffad Plato recognized that all of his Forms are self-predicational, what would he have done with Forms like Change, Becoming and Perishing, which he did recognize as bonafide Forms? Clearly none of these could be self-predicational, for it they were, they would not be changeless, and would thus forfeit being." Vlastos then believed that Plato was committed to an assumption of which he was unaware. 8 Such a distinction is found in G. E. L. Owen, "Dialectic and Eristic in the Treatment of the Forms," in Aristotle on Dialectic (Oxford, 1970), p. 108. He has the levels in reverse. What I have called "first-level characteristics" he calls "B-predicates" and what I have called "second-level characteristics" he calls "A-predicates." Perhaps I am unduly in- fluenced by the range of answers to the "What is X?" question and the order in which they come in Aristotle's formulation of the P-distincion, but this seems to me counter-

intuitive. Otherwise, I would have followed Owen's terminology.

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hence a paradigm-case of itself, may well be a collection of ten units, arranged as a Pythagorean tetraktys, and in general the Form of N-adity a collection of n units, but it is still one such Form, or figure, or number, in contrast to many empirical instantiations (to say nothing of the mathematicals!). This second-level unity is in no way affected by a first-level plurality. So Vlastos' observation that Plurality would be plural is no problem for a Platonist. It is plural as a paradigm at the first level, but unitary in that it is one Form and not many. Likewise for Animal and even Change. The first-level characteristics of Animal may include the capacity for self-motion, but these characteristics, whatever they may be, do not change in that the nature of animal is always the same, both in itself and in its paradigmatic exemplification. Also, the nature of Change does not change (cf. a light constantly flicking on and ofl), though the first-level characteristics will involve change, either as contained in a definition or as exemplified by a paradigm-case. Any nature or paradigm whatever, being expressed or illustrated by the Form, always (invariability) is that (unity) nature or paradigm.9

All that is needed for the ontological and epistemological requirements of the Theory of Forms is unity and immobility at the second level, not at the first. A Form of change of quality, if such there be, must always be a change of quality and not sometimes this and sometimes not this. I grant that there might be some paradoxical cases. What would a Form of Total Flux be, or a Form of Incomprehensibility? But, even granting these extremely far-fetched examples, we have a vast multitude of self-predicative entities with a few peripheral puzzlers rather than, with Vlastos, a few self-predicative entities, but the vast multitude lacking this distinction.

I submit, therefore, that Vlastos' refutation of unrestricted self-predication is not cogent. But Vlastos does not claim it is cogent, just that Plato would have found it obviously compelling. We are faced then with the question as to whether Plato could have seen the difference between first and second-level characteristics of his Forms. The relevant distinction is evident to Aristotle who at Topics 137b6-7 remarks that "being at rest does not belong to Man-himself qua man, but qua Form." Hence, being at rest cannot be a "permanent and essential" (I 29a35) property of man.10 Let us follow Vlastos (TLPA, p. 323) in calling the distinction between asserting a predicate of the Form F qua F on the one hand and qua Form on the other the "P-distinction."

Vlastos (p. 324ff.) takes Aristotle as consistently maintaining that the Platonists cannot

9 My prime concern is with the unity (and invariability) of the Form as paradigm-case in contrast to the many empirical imitations. I also mention that of the Form as universal as opposed to the many empirical instantiations. The illicit union of the Form as paradigm-case with the Form as universal which lands Plato in the Third Man is not an issue here since Vlastos is maintaining that the Form as paradigm-case cannot have unity or invariability. 10 Vlastos (TLPA, pp. 324-4) accuses Aristotle of not having stopped to comment on the "deep ontological implications which call for a reasoned defense of the implied claim that the same metaphysical entity can be P qua one thing, not-P qua another." But this is to get things the wrong way around. The common presumption is that any entity, metaphysical or otherwise, can satisfy such a condition. For example, a concept may be general in one respect particular in another. We understand the term "a particular species" though we contrast a species with the particulars which are included in it. One would have to turn to deep ontology only if one saw fit to deny such a patently obvious fact.

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make use of the P-distinction to defuse the paradoxes supposed lethal to the Theory of Forms where, for example, the Form Man is both mortal and immortal and the Form Change is both changing and unchanging.'" Vlastos, moreover, seems convinced that Aristotle would be right in so thinking in that the P-distinction would be "familiar and unacceptable" (p. 329) to the Platonist. He refers (p. 331) to Symposium 211 a where we find it is not the case that the Form of Beauty is beautiful in one respect, ugly in another. Vlastos claims that the P-distinction violates this principle, for it would make the Form to be F in one respect and not-F in another. He concludes (p. 331), "So the Aristotelian formula would repel a Platonist from the start: its very language would warn him that to resolve the two-level paradoxes on its terms he would have to compromise the absolute- ness of his Idea."

But Vlastos' account is conclusive only if one assumes the very point his reasoning is designed to establish - to wit, that the Platonist cannot apply the P-distinction. For the most natural way to take the contrast in the Symposium between the Form being F and the particulars F and not-F is to read F as a first-level property only. This is not only dictated by the examples given there and in similar contexts (Phaedo 74aff.; Rep. 476aff.) but by the fact that the relevant contrast between the Form as F and the particulars as F and not-F can range only over predicates that can apply to both Forms and particulars. It would, in principle, be inappropriate to assert and deny of particulars the properties which fit only Forms. The particulars are and are not beautiful, equal, just, etc., - all first-level properties. It is not the case that they are and are not absolute, independent. uniform, etc., - the second-level properties of Forms (Symp 21 lb). In general, therefore, when Plato states, or implies, that F-ness is F, he means qua F-ness and qua Form. So, to the degree to which we can extrapolate to entities such as animal (which Vlastos does), the Form of Animal is mortal and not (qua animal) immortal. The Form qua Form is, of course, immortal. Now how something can be immortally mortal may require elucidation, and such I have attempted to provide; for, given the proper care, such a primafacie absurdity can be rendered plausible. For example, the paradigm case of a mortal thing would be, for ever, just that. In sum, the prohibition of the Symposium to the effect that no Form can be F and not-F is at the first level, unless we presuppose that the Platonist cannot distinguish levels, but this is precisely what Vlastos would have the Symposium passage show.

Vlastos' misapplication of Symp. 21 la leads him (pp. 331-332) to some extraordinary maneouvering. In assumed bemusement as to how the Platonist could possibly account for both components of the P-distinction formula, i.e., the Form Animal qua animal and qua Form, he proceeds to present the tripartite division between (I) the transcendent

11 Vlastos (pp. 325ff.) disputes Owen's claim (p. 120) that Aristotle is granting the P-distinction at Topics 137b 6-7 to the Platonists. For the purposes of this paper, at the very least, let us agree with Vlastos that it is not at all clear that he is doing so. Owen (p. 123) (discussed by Vlastos, pp. 330-1) takes Aristotle as holding that the P-distinction does not help the Platonist because the same sample man is both mortal and immortal, like the King of Balustan who is, qua human, mortal but, ex officio, immortal. He concludes, "For the Idea, like the King, the requirements remain an incurable contradiction." But, on Owen's reading, Aristotle does not really grant the P-distinction to the Platonists. They may be aware of it, but they cannot apply it (cf. Owen, pp. 117-118).

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Form, (2) the individuals participating in the Form and (3) the immanent characters of (2). He correctly identifies the Form of Animal qua Form as (1). But he has a terrible time finding a place for the Form of Animal qua aniamal since he believes he has shown, due to the non-applicability of the P-distinction, that it cannot be the same thing as the Form of Animal qua Form. In fact, he has to entertain the preposterous possibility that it might be (2) or (3). Not surprisingly, he is able to make short work of (2), indignantly observing (p. 332), "No Platonist would be tempted to identify the tra rcendent Idea with its spatio-temporal participants, no matter how qualified or whittled down the identification might be. From his point of view it would be grotesque to refer to these as the Idea of F qua F." (3), as we would expect, fares no better and Vlastos feels entitled to infer, "There is no such thing as 'the Idea of Animal qua Animal": the only Idea of Animal there is, is what Aristotle is now calling "the Idea of Animal qua Idea."' But there is no problem with the Form of Animal qua animal. It is (1) seen from the perspective of the first-level properties of the Form.

In addition, there is a decided wrinkle, if not a decisive flaw, in Vlastos' use of Aristotle. On the one hand, Aristotle, according to Vlastos (p. 329), held that the Platonists knew of the P-distinction, but could not use it to defend their theory against the two-level paradoxes. The reason they could not use it was that they realized that in so doing they would violate the principle of Symposium 211 a which forbids them to regard the Form as F in one respect and not-F in another. But, on the other hand, Vlastos' Aristotle does hold (p. 324) that the two-level paradoxes are fatal to the Platonists' paradigmatic theory. If this is so, however, they must regard the Forms as both F in one respect and not-F in another.

So someone is confused. For it to be the Platonists, they must be placed in the pathetic position of holding the Form to be F and not-F when it gets them into trouble, but not being able to do so when it gets them out of it. If it is Aristotle, then this very reason for supposing that the Platonists cannot use the P-distinction as a defence (i.e., they would not make the Form F and not-F) removes the rationale for his attack (which is that they do make the Form F and not-F). On such a reading, one is left to wonder just how useful an ally Aristotle would be.

My view is that Aristotle is right, in accepting, and Vlastos is wrong, in rejecting, an ordinary-predication interpretation of prima facie paradoxical predicates, including those of self-predication. Both Vlastos and Aristotle are wrong in their denial of the P- distinction defence to Plato and the Platonists.

Vlastos finds four places for Pauline predication in the Sophist. I shal try to show that not only is he mistaken in each instance, but the context of two of his examples disclose the very thing he cannot acknowledge - that Plato is working within the framework of the P-distinction - and what I mean by this is that the various interrelations between the Forms given therein are to be read as at the first level, not that Plato explicitly dif- ferentiates the two levels.

Vlastos takes "Motion and Rest are" at 250al 1-12 as Pauline. It is clear, however, that we are not dealing with Pauline predication in 250a-d. The argument rests on the exhaustive opposition of Motion and Rest and produces the alleged puzzle that we get a third thing, Being, which, per impossibile, is neither in motion nor at rest. It goes from "Motion and Rest are not identical with Being" (for "to be" is neither "to be in motion" nor "to be at rest") to "Motion and Rest are not to be predicated of Being." Neither the argument of this passage, nor the identity/predication confusion it illustrates, presup- poses there being, even hypothetically, any instance of these Forms other than the three

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Forms themselves, i.e., Motion and Rest considered as instances of Being and Being invalidly denied instantiation of either Motion or Rest.12

Furthermore, how would one interpret "Being is not Motion" Paulinely? If we take the negation of "Being is Motion," we must Paulinize this. One might try to follow the model of"Justice is (m)wisdom" (UVP, pp. 235-6), but this analysis isofferend by Vlastos because justice and wisdom cannot be identical (pp. 227, 430-33). Since this biconditional rendition is consistent with a denial of identity, it cannot be taken as an assertion of the same. I submit that one cannot Paulinize a denial of identity and hence a crucial step in the argument, the move from a denial of identity to a denial of predication, is beyond the resources of Pauline predication.13

So much for no Paulinity. But consider Sophist 250c, where Socrates has distinguished Motion, Rest and Being and then states, "Therefore, according to its own nature, Being is neither at rest nor in motion." He must be thinking of Being qua being, so to speak, and not qua Form, for, qua Form, Being would be at rest. We must take issue most cate- gorically with Vlastos when he asserts (p. 276), "... the invariance ... of the Platonic Form is built into its very essence." This is what is expressly denied at 250c. Far from giving us a Pauline reading, this first passage supports the P-distinction - a distinction most pernicious to Paulinity.

A second case of Pauline predication, suggested by Vlastos (pp. 299ff.), is 255a where it is said that Motion cannot partake of Rest. Vlastos holds that, if read as an ordinary predication, it must be true, for rest can be predicated of the Form Motion (albeit as a property at what I have termed the second level). But the statement is taken to be false. Hence one must choose the Pauline alternative.

But take note of the context. At 254c Plato raises the possibility of the intermingling of the five greatest kinds, not of the intermingling of the individuals that fall under these kinds. The possibility of the intermingling of the kinds will depend on their specific natures (poia hekasta estin). When we come to 255ab we find that, e.g., Rest cannot be identical with Sameness, for Motion can partake of Sameness but, because of its nature (255a), it cannot partake of Rest. That is, the defining characteristics of motion (Motion qua motion) are incompatible with rest. The whole argument is at the first level. That motion qua Form may be said to be unchanging is totally irrelevant and there is no need to resort to Pauline predication as the only viable reading.

12 Viastos bases his case on 249d3-4 where it is admitted that "what is" includes resting and moving things. But 250a-d is said, at 249e, to be parallel to 243de (granted by Viastos, p. 296 note 57). At 243de we read that the Hot and the Cold are all there is (tapanta). This passage is concerned with the perplexities that arise in saying that only two things are or "have being." How, then, do we account for the being? Any conceivable extension of Hot and Cold has no relevance to the argument. Viastos (p. 297) has a second argument based on the use of periechein at 250b8. I consider this, along with a related contention, below on pp. 86ff. 13 If we assume the later development of the Sophist (256a), we could read "A is not identical with B" as "A partakes of Otherness with respect to B" or "A is other than B." Letting "other than Motion" be a predicate not further analyzed and be represented as "Om", we may Paulinize "Being is not Motion" as "N(x) (Bx-+OMx)", i.e., "Necessarily, for all x, if x partakes of Being, x is other than Motion." But this is false, for Motion partakes of Being and is not other than Motion.

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We can now see the inconclusiveness of Vlastos' reasoning (AS, pp. 278-9; pp. 272-4) with respect to the other two passages, 252d and 256b. In each of these "Motion is at rest" is held to be false.14 Viastos urges that, if they were read as ordinary predications, they would be true. Therefore, they must be given a Pauline analysis.

I reply that Plato is considering what follows from the nature of motion qua motion and not Motion qua Form. It is not part of the nature of motion to be at rest, nor would a paradigm exemplifying this nature be the paradigm of something at rest. That motion qua Form would not change its character has, I submit, absolutely no bearing on the point at issue and only confuses matters.15 Vlastos, of course, would insist that Plato cannot be expounded in this manner, for he cannot make the P-distinction; he cannot, even implicitly, consider first-level properties in abstraction from those of the second-level. But, if my earlier remarks are telling, he can. What I am now saying is that he, implicitly, does.

Given, then, that not only the extension of the Forms but also what I have termed their second-level properties are irrelevant to the concerns of the Sophist, I conclude that we have purged Pauline predication from that dialogue.

In a later article, "A Note on 'Pauline Predications' in Plato," Phronesis, 19 (1974), pp. 95-101 (hereafter NPP)16, Vlastos attempts to dispel the misunderstanding that his doctrine of Pauline predication is merely that certain statements purporting to be about Forms are really not about Forms at all, but only about their instances. He insists (pp. 100-1), "For example, 'Fire is hot', when asserted by Plato, would indeed by meant as an assertion about the Forms, Fire, Heat, not just about their mundane instances: it is meant to tell us that the Form, Fire, has eternally a definite relation to the Form, Heat, though the nature of that relation can only be specified via the relation of their instance classes." He continues with the startling statement: "For all its transcendentalism, Plato's metaphysics can only fix the interrelations of a multitude of celestial Forms by charting those of their earthly shadows."

As it stands, Vlastos' claim could be taken either ontologically (i.e., that the relations in question between Forms depend on there being certain relations between sense particulars) or epistemologically (i.e., that these relations between Forms can only be known by

14 256d reads, "Therefore, even if Motion itself were to participate in some way in rest, it would not be absurd to say it was at rest." I agree with Vlastos (pp. 284ff.) that this is counterfactual. Plato is not recognizing a sense in which "Motion is at rest" is true. 15 Robert Heinaman, "Self-Predication in the Sophist," Phronesis 26 (1981), 57-60, supports an "ordinary-predication" denial of "Motion is at rest" at 252d by reference to Parmenides 128e5-130a2. In this passage Socrates suggests that particulars can be F and its opposite by participating in opposite Forms, but denies (1) that the Form of Plurality can be one (1 29bc) and (2) that the Forms of Motion and Rest, inter alia, can intermingle and hence partake of opposite natures (129de). I follow Heinaman in taking this passage as conclusive evidence that when Plato speaks of the interrelations of Forms he is concerned with what I have termed first-level predicates of Forms. He must not be thought of as befuddledly introducing second-level attributes and so permitting "Motion is at rest" to be true as an ordinary predication. Although all Forms are in a sense "at rest," second-level attributes are not presented by Plato in terms of an intermingling of Forms. If these considerations are compelling, any rationale for a Pauline interpretation is removed. 16 This article also appears in Platonic Studies (2nd. edition only), pp. 404-409.

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means of the apprehension of certain relations between particulars). But however we read it, I find it very questionable, for it plays havoc with two central doctrines of Plato which we would expect Vlastos, of all people, to wish to preserve from the reductionists' desecration. These are Recollection in the Phaedo and the (literally interpreted) creation of the world by the Demiurge in the Timaeus.17 When the soul saw the Forms in its previous existence, it must have perceived all the eternal interrelations ot the Forms with no help from the earthly shadows. When the Demiurge gazed at the eternal models and prepared to create the visible cosmos by means of the derivative reflections in the Receptacle, are we to suppose either that essential relations between the Forms were lacking or that the Demiurge could not know them? Of course not! Neither their being nor their being known depended in any way. on their as yet non-existent shadows."8

But Vlastos would rightly point out that none of this gives us license to say, for example, that Fire is hot in the sense that the Form Fire is a hot thing - a prime case of what he terms "ordinary predication" (though not an example of self-predication, as in the related items "Fire is fiery" and "Heat is hot"). Here, he would urge, we need the linguistic resources of Pauline predication and the attendant ontological apparatus of terrestrial copies to make sense of such utterances. He lays great stress on the following consider- ation.

In the Timaeus Plato uses the terms periechein (to surround) at 30c, 31a, and eneinai (to be in), at 39e, to describe the situation where the Ideal Living Creature contains (periechei) the four main subordinate kinds of animal (the fiery, airy, watery and earthy - 39e-40a) which, in turn, are in it. Vlastos suggests (AS, pp. 303-4) that the use of these terms periechein and eneinai is evidence that we must interpret the statement "The Land-Animal is (a) Living Creature" Paulinely.

With respect to periechein, i.e., "including" or "containing", he declares (p. 297), "Since Platonic Forms are rigorously incorporeal entities, the 'containment' of Form B by Form A is plainly metaphorical; and the only clearly cashable part of the metaphor is the implied reference to the relation of the logical extension of B to that of A, i.e., that all objects instantiating B are necessarily included among those instantiating A."

Since this citation is mainly of rhetorical interest19 and depends heavily on being the

17 See Vlastos, "Creation in the Timaeus: is it a fiction?" in R. E. Allen, Studies in Plato's Metaphysics, pp. 401-419. 18 We can hardly invoke Vlastos' disclaimer (AS, p. 273, note 9) to the effect that "the truth of a Pauline predication would not depend for Plato on the historical accident of the instantiation of its terms," for to predicate A Paulinely of B is to state that "if B were instantiated, its instances would of necessity co-instantiate A." Dare we picture the soul, be it Demiurge or merely disembodied, as viewing the Forms only in terms of their possible instantiations? Is the fulfilling communion of the soul with the divine and eternal objects akin to its true nature (Phaedo 79a-8 Ia) reducible to the perception of necessary connections between empirical particulars? Must one understand the model in terms of the copy and not vice versa? 19 The reason this is of rhetorical interest only is that we can easily think of non- metaphorical containment between incorporeals as, for example, the containment of the odd positive integers in the positive integers. Consider also Timaeus 31 a where Plato gives a reductio against there being two Forms because, if this were so, one would need a third Form to contain (periechein) them. That argument makes no claim about the extension of

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converse of his claim with respect to eneinai ("being in" or "being included by"), I shall concentrate on his interpretation of Plato's use of that expression.

Vlastos adduces (p. 298) examples of class-membership, where a given individual has a property, noting, for instance, that to express the proposition "Socrates is wise" one uses the Greek equivalent of "Wisdom is in Socrates," not that of "Socrates is in wisdom." On this basis he declares (p. 304), "Plato says that F 'is in' x, not the converse, to express the notion that x is characterized by F. So if he had wanted to assert so perverse a propostion as that the Form, Land-Animal, is characterizable as a living creature, he would have said that Living Creature is 'in' Land-Animal, not vice-versa."20

Class-membership having been excluded, Vlastos takes the only remaining alternative to be extensionally formulated class-inclusion and this gives us Pauline predication. He has, therefore, two theses to sustain with respect to "Land-Animal is in Living Creature": (1) it is not class-membership and (2) it is extensionally formulated class-inclusion. However, his philological considerations are unnecessary for the first and insufficient for the second. We may grant him that the statement in question is not to be read as class-membership. What is beingsaid in the relevant passages of the Timaeus, and Vlastos agrees (p. 304), is that the subordinate kinds are in, or contained by, the super- ordinate kind. This relationship, by itself, has no implications for or against paradigmatism and its logical correlate class-membership. When the Demiurge designs the cosmos as a living creature so that it may resemble the Form (Tim. 30c), then we have the evidence, if such it be, that the Form Living Creature is also a member of the class of living creatures. But this need not be seen as necessitating a class-membership reading of "Land-Animal is (a) Living Creature" per se.

But, having rejected class-membership, there is no need to interpret such a statement, which expresses the relation of species to genus, as a case of Pauline predication. It may be seen as kind-containment, perhaps as intensional class-inclusion, but does not have to be read as extensionally formulated class-inclusion. It makes no explicit assertion about the extension of the terms, though it may well imply a statement making such an assertion. Vlastos errs, I believe, in taking (p. 273) class-membership and extensionally formulated class-inclusion as the two exhaustive alternatives for classifying statements attributing predicates to Platonic Forms. He should not assume that "Man is animal"

the two hypothetical Forms. It does not say that there must be another Form for everything which partakes of either of the first two to partake in. Indeed, an argument from the extension of the Forms would, presumably, have urged that, since the extensions of the two Forms would be identical, the two Forms would collapse into one (not expand into three). Plato's version, in contrast, depends on the existence of a common nature in the two Forms themselves, a nature neither of these two Forms can be (cf. the Non- Identity Assumption of the Third Man - "What is common to a group of things cannot be identical with any of these"). What is crucial is the intensionality, not the exten- sionality, of the two Forms. 20 It is not so clear that Plato would have said the same thing with respect to the predication of species and genera as he did with respect to the predication of accidents (and all Vlastos' examples are of the latter type). As is well known, Aristotle (Cat. Ia2Off.) made this very distinction the basis of his contrast between "'things in a subject" and "things said of a subject." Now it is, of course, possible that Aristotle is out to correct Plato in this regard, but Vlastos has given us no reason to think so.

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must either, on the one hand, mean that the Form Man is an individual animal or, on the other, be reducible without remainder to "For all x, if x is a man, then x is an animal." In Plato, if anywhere in the history of philosophy, and in the precreation Timaeus, if anywhere in Plato, talk about the relations of sub- and super-ordination between Forms ought not to be portrayed as shorthand for talk about particulars, even possible particulars.21 It may, of course, be an improvement to regard "Man is animal" as extensional class-inclusion. But, for those who so see it, Plato must remain a signal member of the class of those improved upon.

Quite apart from urging the inconclusiveness of his philological evidence, one may still ask why Vlastos is so eager to exclude the traditional celestial paradigms, the models which perfectly and without variation instantiate the relevant characteristics? The answer must be that he finds them metaphysically impossible and is loath to inflict such absurdity on Plato. To hold that the Form of Fire is a hot thing is, he maintains (NPP, p. 96), "a piece of egregious nonsense: Heat is a property only corporeal things could have." We may compare his righteous outrage (p. 99) with the possibility that the Form of Gold might be thought of as yellow. A Platonist cannot contemplate such a prospect and "keep his sanity."

I confess I lack such a decisive grasp of these issues. Divine fire may have lost its erstwhile power to ignite the human psyche, but that merely makes it irrelevant. It does not reduce it to utter nonsense. To attribute to non-corporeal entities properties (such as color) which we normally, but not invariably, associate with the corporeal may require imagination and analogy, but it need not involve insanity. There are, of course, perplexities in paradigmatism. Note the continuing dialogue between those who take "The F is

21 Viastos attempts to meet this sort of criticism in A S, p. 321. Selecting a sentence of the type "Man is mortal," he urges that each of the terms "man" and "mortal" must be seen as general - and hence ensure that the sentence is an instance of Pauline predication. Ignoring the unlikely alternative that "'man" is general and "mortal" singular, Vlastos rejects the other two possibilities. "Man" singular and "mortal" general goes out on the grounds that that would make the Form of Man a mortal thing. "Man" and "mortal" both singular is excluded, for that, Vlastos claims, would make the sentence an identity. He then extends these findings to the case of "Man is animal" and takes it to be Pauline.

But these two sentences are not of the same type. If we consider "Man is animal" on its own merits, we can exclude the option where "man" is singular and "animal" is general, for we are not assuming that paradigmatism is built into the logical-grammatical struc- ture of the sentence. If, however, we concentrate on the very expression with which Vlastos himself initiated this discussion, i.e., eneinai or "being contained in," we may take "Man is animal" as expressing kind-inclusion or kind-containment. It is equivalent to "(The species) man is contained in (the genus) animal" and here we have two singular terms, but not an identity. This is quite consistent with Plato's usage, for "Land-Animal is Living Creature" actually appears in the text (Tim. 39e) as "Land-Animal is contained in Living Creature." So the preferred non-Pauline analysis of species-genus statements is, at the very least for the Timaeus, "X is in Y" where "X" and "Y" are singular terms. And one might well generalize to the rest of Plato in that the standard species/genus format from the Euthyphro (12d2) to the Philebus (12c7) is that where the species is part of the genus.

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F" to be a statement of identity and those who read it as an ordinary predication.22 And of the latter between those who accept and those who resist synonymy between "F" as the paradigm and "F"as applied to the copies.23 What I wish to maintain is that these were and continue to be the problems which derive from this aspect of Plato. They are considerations which enriched bygone philosophical discussions24 and now fascinate contemporary commentators on ancient and mediaeval metaphysics. If Vlastos is right about paradigmatism, it is most fortunate that the tradition, from Aristotle onwards, has misread Plato.

But I have no doubt that Vlastos cannot be right in his near-pervasive denial of self-predication. How can he so readily ignore the evidence he once so ably expounded under the rubric of "Degrees of Reality?"25 The copies are and are not (F). The Form is really, absolutely (F). What conceivable contrast could Plato have in mind here if he were thought to be understanding "F-ness is F" as a Pauline predication?

Let us take an example based on Phaedo 74aff. and Republic 476aff. Consider two empirical equals, a pair of sticks, s, and S2' which show some lack with respect to Equality itself in that they are and are not equal. In clear differentiation from these, Equality itself is equal and in no way can be said to be unequal. What credible reading can Vlastos give to this?

Let us begin with "Equality is equal." If we adapt his formulation from NPP, p. 98, we get: "Equality is such that, necessarily, anything which has equality is equal." And as applied to the sticks: "It is necessarily the case that, if s, and s2 partake of Equality, they be equal."

But, what are we to make of a most basic contrast between Equality and the two sticks - that they are also unequal while Equality is not? The standard contemporary way to express "Equality is not unequal" is to take the negation of "Equality is unequal". The Pauline rendering of "Equality is unequal" is "Necessarily, for all x, if x is equal, then x is unequal" or "N(x) (Ex-.Ux)".26 When negated as a whole, i.e. "-N (x) (Ex-+Ux)," this is equivalent to "It is possible that there is an x such that this x is equal and not unequal." But this is false for every empirical x and, indeed, for the entire extension of Equality except for Equality itself when taken to be equal under ordinary predication.

It is often said that viewing negation as an operation over the whole statement dates from the Stoics. So, as a gesture to the time of Plato, let us try negating the predicate term. "Equality is not unequal" now becomes "N(x) (Ex-+'-Ux)." This may be read as "Necessarily, for all x, if x is equal, then x is not unequal." But this is false for Plato, for any empirical x is both equal and unequal. The pre-Paulinized statement, however, is

22 And, recently, those like A. Nehamas, "Self-Predication and Plato's Theory of Forms," American Philosophical Quarterly, 16 (1979), 95-96, who try to slip, in a non- Pauline fashion, between these alternatives. 23 See, for example, the issues raised by R. E. Allen, "Participation and Predication in Plato's Middle Dialogues," in Studies in Plato's Metaphysics, ed. Allen (London, 1965). 24 Note, as a paradigm-instance, the uplifting topic as to how what appear to be common names apply to the Deity and to His creatures. 25 See, for example, his "Degrees of Reality in Plato," in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle, ed. R. Bambrough (London, 1965). 26 See ASM p. 273, note 12, where "B is A" in the Pauline version becomes "N(x) (Bx--Ax)." The "Bx" and the "Ax" are, of course, ordinary predications - a most significant point for two of the three alternative negations I examine.

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true. To avoid this unacceptable result one might suggest that what is meant is "Necessarily, for all x, if x is equal in a certain respect, then x is not unequal in that respect." We now have a truth, but a mere tribute to the law of non-contradiction.

Thirdly, let us follow Vlastos' own example (AS, p. 275). Starting with "Equality is unequal" we negate it as follows: "N-(x) (Ex--Ux)" which is equivalent to "N(3x) (Ex.-Ux)," i.e., "It is necessary that there is an x such that this x is equal and not unequal." This gets us in the same bind as the first reading. It is false for any empirical x, but supports an ordinary self-predication interpretation of the original statement.

I propose we leave the letter of Paulinity and, searching out the spirit, state its message as best we can. As applied to our sublunary sticks, what "Equality is not unequal" should mean for them is "It is impossible that, through partaking of equality, s, and S2 be unequal." This is, I submit, the extensional rendition that makes the most sense.

So "Equality is equal and not unequal" gives us "it is necessarily the case that, if s, and s2 partake of Equality, they be equal and it is impossible that, though partaking of Equality, they be unequal." But does this disclose why Equality is real and the two sticks less real? Is this what would give us knowledge and not mere opinion and would justify the devoting of our lives to the strenuous practice of dialectic? Is this the ambrosia and the nectar with which the winged horses of the soul are to be sustained? I think not.

Finally, Paulinity may countenance the first and the second man - as we know from First Corinthians (15:47) which reads, "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven" - but it undermines the Third Man argument. If only such items as Unity, Beauty and Rest can have self-predication, this is no longer a general criticism of the Forms. In fact, the very example given at Parmenides 132a, "Largeness is large," does not, on Vlastos' interpretation, put the Form of Largeness in the class of large things. So, unless he is going to maintain that the Third Man argument is not aimed at Plato's own theory, a crucial position (and one on which no one more than he, in our time, has focussed attention) will be lost to the mercenary skirmishers in the war of words.27

It has been critical to my case to insist that, even if we acknowledge the authority of Aristotle (as Vlastos reads him), there is no reason to hold that Plato would have disregarded the P-distinction. My observations are only circumstantial and doubtless do

27 I do not mean to imply that I hold this position at no cost. I give Plato the P-distinction, which preserves paradigmatism, and paradigmatism, interpreted in a certain way, rend- ers Plato liable to the Third Man. This approach has the advantage of making Plato aware of a difficulty in his theory. The question arises, however, as to just what this awareness amounts to. On my reading of the Sophist I have been committed to such claims as "Motion qua motion is not at rest" or "The defining characteristics of Motion are incompatible with being at rest" or "It is not part of the nature of motion to be at rest. There are at least two ways to deal with these:

(1) To take them as implying self-predication - that Motion is a moving thing (so Heinaman, pp. 55, 59). This does leave us wondering what Plato made of the Third Man.

(2) To try to give an account which would not commit us to viewing Motion as a moving thing. To say, for example: (i) Motion is what it is to be in motion. (ii) To be in motion is not to be at rest. Hence (iii) Motion is not at rest. This leaves Plato with a confusion between "what it is to be at rest" and "at rest" and embracing the inference from a denial of identity to a denial of predication. But this is to land him in the very

identity/predication confusion he himself portrayed at Sophist 250a-d and which the

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not put the question beyond all possible doubt. Plato, however, must be held innocent until proven guilty. So one must bear in mind that I do not have to show that Plato did recognize the P-distinction. The burden of proof is on Vlastos to demonstrate that he didn't (or couldn't or wouldn't). This he does not do, but he assumes what has to be shown, either directly or in the course of his only argument to that effect - his appeal to Symp. 21 la, discussed above.28

I share Vlastos' dominant motivation which is to reveal Plato in the most favorable light possible and it may come down to a question as to which flaws one finds least disfiguring. I see his earlier Plato, despite the unacceptable identification of paradigm- case with universal, a more challenging and stimulating thinker than the lacklustre, yet still blemished, creature of his later exegesis.

University of California, Davis

subsequent distinctions in the dialogue are supposed to enable one to avoid. For example, the distinction at 256a between "Motion partakes of Otherness with relation to the Same" and "Motion partakes of the Same" allows for a denial of identity without a denial of predication.

If, in order to avoid this predicament, we say that "Motion qua motion is not at rest" merely means that the essence of motion is not the essence of resting, then participation is no longer predication. So it may be better to be stuck with (1). 28 My interpretation may be seen as having a minor advantage over that of Vlastos. He reads Plato as using "B is A" ambiguously and holds (AS, pp. 307-8) that Plato not only "gives no positive evidence of being aware of the ambiguity, but rather ... gives positive evidence of being unaware of it." My attribution of the P-distinction to Plato may not credit Plato with positive evidence of his being aware of it, but neither does it admit of positive evidence of his being unaware of it.

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vlastos on pauline predication

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