Brad Inwood - Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume XLVI

OXFORD STUDIES IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
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OXFORD STUDIES
IN ANCIENT
PHILOSOPHY
EDITOR: BRAD INWOOD
VOLUME XLVI
S U M M E R 2014
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXPORD
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ADVISORY BOARD
Professor Julia Annas, University of Arizona
Professor Susanne Bobzien, Yale University and All Souls College,

University of Oxford
Professor Dorothea Frede, University of Hamburg
Professor A. A. Long, University of California, Berkeley
Professor Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago
Professor David Sedley, University of Cambridge
Professor Richard Sorabji, King's College, University of London, and

Wolf son College, Oxford
Professor Gisela Striker, Harvard University
Professor Christopher Taylor, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Contributions and books for review should be sent to the Editor,

Professor Brad Inwood, Department of Classics, University of
Toronto, 125 Queen's Park, Toronto M5S 207, Canada (e-mail
brad. inwood@utoronto. ca).
Contributors are asked to observe the 'Notes for Contributors to

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy', printed at the end of this
volume.
Up-to-date contact details, the latest version of Notes for Con-

tributors, and publication schedules can be checked on the Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy website:
www.oup.co.uk/philosophy/series/osap
CONTENTS
What are 'True' doxai Worth to Parmenides? Essaying a

Fresh Look at his Cosmology i
MATTHEW R. COSGROVE
Desire, Memory, and the Authority of Soul: Plato, Philebus

35C-D 33
V E R I T Y HARTE
Essence and End in Aristotle 73

JACOB ROSEN
Ho pote on esti and Coupled Entities: A Form of

Explanation in Aristotle's Natural Philosophy 109
HARVEY L E D E R M A N
Aristotle and the Cognitive Component of Emotions 165

GILES PEARSON
Feeling Fantastic Again: Passions, Appearances, and Beliefs

in Aristotle 213
J A M I E DOW
The Structure of Stoic Metaphysics 253

D. T. J. B A I L E Y
On Aristotle's World 311

TANELI KUKKONEN
Apparent Goods: A Discussion of Jessica Moss, Aristotle

on the Apparent Good 353
IAKOVOS VASILIOU
Index Locorum 383

W H A T ARE ' T R U E ' DOXAI W O R T H
TO P A R M E N I D E S ? E S S A Y I N G A
FRESH LOOK AT HIS COSMOLOGY
M A T T H E W R. C O S G R O V E
IN recent years the preserved portions of Parmenides' poem tra-

ditionally labelled 'Doxa' 1 have received more nuanced attention,
focusing on their content and not just on their presumed role as
some kind of foil or supplement to 'Aletheia', 'Truth'. 2 While the
age-old question of the relation between these two parts of the poem
has been neither settled nor abandoned, some scholars have put this
and related issues to one side and concentrated instead on assess-
ing the sometimes startling scientific innovations introduced in the
context of the Doxa. Thus, Mourelatos comments on 'the astro-
nomical breakthroughs intimated by the fragments of "Doxa" and
by related testimonia' which 'either represent Parmenides' own sci-
entific discoveries or reflect his engaged grappling with quite recent
discoveries made by others'. 3 Indeed, as many of the papers pre-
© Matthew R. Cosgrove 2014
I am most grateful to Herbert Granger for helpful comments on an initial draft of
this paper, to Alex Mourelatos for suggested improvements to the penultimate draft,
and to Brad Inwood for comments and suggestions on the final version.
1
28 B 8. 51—61 and B 9—19 DK. For testimonia I rely on the more thorough se-
lection of A. H. Coxon, The Fragments of Parmenides (Phronesis, suppl. 3; Assen,
1986), rev. by R. McKirahan (Las Vegas, 2009). See H. Granger, 'The Cosmology
of Mortals' ['Cosmology'], in V. Caston and D. W. Graham (eds.), Presocratic Phi-
losophy: Essays in Honor of Alexander Mourelatos (Aldershot, 2002), 101-16 at 101
n. 2, for a review of the make-up of the Doxa section of the poem.
2
28 B 2-8. 50 DK. See e.g. A. P. D. Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides: A
Study of Word, Image and Argument in the Fragments (New Haven, 1970); repr.
with revisions and addenda {Route, rev. edn.] (Las Vegas, 2008), pp. xxxvii-xlviii;
D. W. Graham, Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy
(Princeton, 2006) [Cosmos], 179-82.
3
Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., p. xxxviii. See also A. P. D. Mourelatos, 'Par-
menides, Early Greek Astronomy, and Modern Scientific Realism', in N.-L.
Cordero (ed.), Parmenides., Venerable and Awesome: Proceedings of the International
Symposium (Buenos Aires, October 2g-November 2, 2007) (Las Vegas, 2011), 167-89
at 170. The latter paper elaborates on the remarks made in the Preface and After-
word to the revised and expanded edition of Route. I quote from Route, rev. edn.,
2 Matthew R. Cosgrove
sented at the 2007 International Symposium of Parmenides spe-

cialists in Buenos Aires exemplify,4 it is fair to say that such a focus
on the content of Doxa has become a new trend in Parmenidean
studies, particularly with regard to his astronomy 5
Nevertheless, as Mourelatos himself readily concedes, the god-
dess of Parmenides' poem characterizes her own words regarding
the tenets of Doxa as ' "deceptive" (B 8. 52 apatelon) and as not
worthy of "genuine credence" (B i. 30 rats OVK zvi TTLOTIS dA^-
6r}$y .6 But he considers that Parmenides 'had philosophical reasons'
to so characterize them, while still finding their inferential nexus
'enthralling'. 7
Kahn, too, notes that Tarmenides is engaged in first-order
astronomical research', and that certain assertions of the Doxa
'show that Parmenides was abreast of (and perhaps in part per-
sonally responsible for) the most advanced scientific knowledge
of his time'.8 Graham refers to Parmenides as 'the premier figure
in early Greek astronomy' 9 and 'un formidable cosmologiste'.10
But Kahn also concedes that what 'we count as science, is for
Parmenides no more than "opinion," part and parcel of an account
of appearance that human beings erroneously take as true'. 11 For
Kahn, explaining this 'epistemic demotion' of astronomy and the
philosophy of nature vis-d-vis the 'epistemic priority' of Being is a
principal condition on any acceptable Parmenides interpretation. 12
Such an expectation is not new, but the greater attention and
the praise bestowed upon the content of portions of the Doxa by
Cordero, Graham, Kahn, Mourelatos, and Sedley,13 for example,
except where expanded relevant material is found in Tarmenides, Early Greek
Astronomy, and Modern Scientific Realism'.
4
See Cordero (ed.), Parmenides., Venerable and Awesome.
5
This aspect of the poem is thoroughly surveyed by G. Cerri in the symposium
mentioned above: see G. Cerri, 'The Astronomical Section in Parmenides' Poem',
in Cordero (ed.), Parmenides., Venerable and Awesome, 81—94.
6
Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., p. xxxviii.
7
Ibid. See also Mourelatos, Tarmenides, Early Greek Astronomy, and Modern
Scientific Realism', 170: 'enthralling and even congenial'.
8
C. H. Kahn, Tarmenides and Being', in G. Rechenauer (ed.), Fruhgriechisches
Denken (Gottingen, 2005), 217-26 at 219.
9
Graham, Cosmos, 182.
10
D. W. Graham, 'La lumiere de la lune dans la pensee grecque archaique' ['Lu-
miere'], in A. Laks and C. Louguet (eds.), Qu'est-ce que la philosophic presocratique?
(Villeneuve d'Ascq, 2002), 351-80 at 370.
11 I2
Kahn, Tarmenides and Being', 219. Ibid.
13
See D. Sedley, Tarmenides and Melissus', in A. A. Long (ed.), The Cambridge
What are 'True' doxai Worth to Parmenides? 3
surpass what was seen in previous treatments. Earlier scholars were
often content to see the Doxa as collecting a body of cosmological
doctrines that, to Parmenides, were supposedly nothing more
than the shopworn opinions of his predecessors or superannuated
contemporaries.14 The contemporary consensus is a far cry from
the assessment fifty years earlier in the first edition of Kirk and
Raven: 'It is fortunate that, since he neither believed in it himself
nor, apparently, succeeded in influencing others by it, Parmenides'
astronomical system is of little importance.' 15
On this new basis, at least one scholar, however, is prepared to
go much further than the others. Thus, Cordero proposes to sepa-
rate out the 'true' astronomical and physiological tenets of the Doxa
from the 'deceptive' ones and even to reorder the fragments of the
poem entirely so as to remove fragments propounding the former
tenets (i.e. B 10-11 and B 13-18) from the traditional Doxa sec-
tion, placing them within the section labelled Truth. 16 And Pop-
per, desperate to salvage the Doxa, went so far as to 'correct' the
text, arguing that Parmenides never said that the doxai were decep-
tive and replacing the adjective apatelon ('deceptive') with apateton
('unusual'). 17
Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, 1999), 113—33 at 123: the Doxa is
'a successful competitor for the cosmological theories currently on offer . . . it even
contained two major astronomical discoveries—that the Morning Star and Evening
Star are identical, and that the moon is illuminated by the sun'.
14
e.g. J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 4th edn. (London, 1930), 185-96.
15
G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1957),
284.
16
N.-L. Cordero, Tarmenidean "Physics" is Not Part of What Parmenides Calls
"Soâ"' ['Parmenidean Physics'], in Cordero (ed.), Parmenides, Venerable and Awe-
some, 95-113. Despite my disagreement with Cordero's project, I am grateful to the
views expressed in his paper, and elsewhere, for providing the initial impetus for this
essay. In any case, Cordero is not the first to propose that at least some of the frag-
ments traditionally assigned to the Doxa should be reordered among the fragments
of Truth: see e.g. J. P. Hershbell, 'Parmenides' Way of Truth and B 16', Apeiron, 4
(1970), 1-23, on B 16. For comments on Hershbell's proposal see Mourelatos, Route,
rev. edn., 256-9; D. Gallop, Parmenides of Elea: Fragments. A Text and Translation
with an Introduction (Phoenix, Pre-Socratics, i; Toronto, 1984), 22; and P. Curd,
'Thought and Body in Parmenides', in Cordero (ed.), Parmenides, Venerable and
Awesome, 115-34.
17
K. Popper, The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment,
ed. A. F. Petersen and J. Mejer (London and New York, 1998), 93-5. This procedure
is justly dismissed by Cordero in 'Parmenidean Physics', 100, and I have nothing to
add to his discussion, other than to point out that Popper's emendation does not do
the work he hopes, since it leaves intact the goddess's adverse comments on mortal
opinions in B i. 30, B 6, and B 8. 54.
These approaches pose various problems, which this paper in-
tends to explore. There are, however, several issues that I do not
intend to address. These include: (a) What are the scientific dis-
coveries of the Doxa? (b) Were they, historically, as innovative as
these scholars believe? and (c) Are these Parmenides' own break-
throughs? I shall take the answer to (a) from these scholars' own
treatments and I shall ignore questions (b) and (c). Instead, I shall
focus on the question 'What did Parmenides himself make of these
innovative scientific doctrines?' This, I take it, involves the follow-
ing subquestions: (i) Do they belong in the section 'Truth'? (2) Are
they in some sense as 'deceptive' as the rest of the Doxa, and if so,
in what sense? and (3) What is their status? How did Parmenides
regard them? Did he view them differently from the goddess?
As posed explicitly by Cordero, but bearing implicitly on Gra-
ham's, Kahn's, Mourelatos's, and Sedley's views, is the question in
what sense, if any, these innovations in physical matters might be
'true', in Parmenidean terms. If they are 'true' for brotoi, possibly
including us latter-day mortals, are they also 'true' for the goddess,
but only in some 'lesser' sense, which she does not define? And what
could that be? Or do they just simply and finally fail to follow her
semata for what-is, as much as do any of the merest falsehoods of
mortals' world? And if so, what are they then worth to her? And,
perhaps more tantalizingly, what are they then worth to Parmeni-
des? Could he really have been 'enthralled' by such fatally flawed
'truths'? And if so, to what end?
With this last query we are firmly back in the midst of the di-
lemma that has bedevilled commentators on Parmenides since an-
tiquity, concerning not just Parmenides' own attitude towards the
possibly revolutionary and astronomically accurate, or 'true', por-
tions of the Doxa but the overall question of the philosophical re-
lation between Truth and Doxa. These are questions not just of
historical/biographical psychology but, at least as posed here, they
have another import, one related to and calling for explication of
Parmenides' proper philosophical concerns. In effect, as I hope to
show, asking 'What are true doxai worth to Parmenides?' is an espe-
cially useful and revealing way of posing anew the timeworn prob-
lem of the relation between the two parts of Parmenides' poem, and
in particular that of the philosophical status of the cosmology pro-
pounded by the goddess.
II
First, let me name the candidates for 'true doxaiy that have been
proposed by three of the scholars mentioned (Kahn's and Sedley's
are included in theirs). Cordero's list would include such assertions
as the following:
(Ci) Necessity governs the whole of the kosmos and its growth
(B 10);
(Cz) [you shall learn] how the heavenly bodies came to be (B 11);
(03) Eros is the first of the gods (B 13);
(04) the moon turns around the earth (B 14);
(C5) the moon does not have any light of its own (B 15);
(C6) in humans, noos depends on bodily phusis (B i6). l S
For Mourelatos, such a list would include at least the following:
(Mi) the diurnal disappearance of the stars is due to the sun's

glare;
(Mz) the annual westward advance of the fixed stars is an illu-
sion caused by the annual eastward progression of the sun
through the zodiac;
(M3) the Morning Star and the Evening Star are the same celes-
tial body;
(M4) the moon gets its light from the sun.19
'This complex of astronomical doctrines', Mourelatos observes, 'is

no potpourri of views held by predecessors; the doctrines constitute
a well-woven inferential fabric.' 20
18
Cordero, Tarmenidean Physics', 106-13. I omit the embryological fragments
B 17 and B 18; they are discussed below in the context of the critique of Cordero's
list.
19
And, as inferential corollaries of M/j.:
(M4.i) the moon is spherical in shape;
(M4.ii) the moon is a solid opaque body;
(M4.iii) the moon passes under the earth;
(M4.iv) the sun passes under the earth;
(M4.v) the orbits of both sun and moon are not arcs but circles;
(M4.vi) the orbit of the sun is higher than that of the moon;
(M4.vii) the earth is a sphere;
(M4.viii) the universe is spherical.
(Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., pp. xxxix-xli, with credit to Popper, The World of
Parmenides, 68-145 passim, and Graham, Cosmos, 180-1.)
20
Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., p. xli.
Graham also focuses on the astronomy. He has devoted a paper
as well as a discussion in his book to a defence of the view that Par-
menides originated a scientific observation with far-reaching astro-
nomical implications:
(Gi) the moon's light is a reflection of the sun's.21
As indicated previously, I leave aside completely, for purposes

of this paper, the historical question of whether these propositions
would, for Parmenides and/or his contemporaries, have been per-
ceived, within a context of natural philosophy, as accurate scientific
innovations, viz. as 'true' within a traditional cosmological frame-
work, i.e. apart from the goddess's elenchus. For present purposes,
let us assume that at least some brotoi, beginning even with their
author, might indeed have accepted them enthusiastically. But the
application of the goddess's elenchus should give us pause. Would
any of them survive her scrutiny?
Not according to Mourelatos, who is the first to admit that his
own list fails to satisfy the criteria laid down by the goddess for
statements of what-is: 'the two constitutive forms of "Doxa," Light
and Night, are the warp and woof that run through that [well-
woven inferential] fabric'. 22 Clearly, Parmenides' astronomical dis-
coveries, if that is what they are, principally depend on insights into
the effects of glaring light and the shadows of opaque bodies. Re-
cognition of their 'truth' reveals nothing so much as the very web of
mortal belief that the goddess derides. Graham's exposition of Par-
menides' scientific discovery and its six implications is susceptible
to the same critique.
Cordero's list fares no better. (04) (moon's orbit) and (C$)
(moon's light) also obviously rely on Light and Night. (Cz) (the
origin of the heavenly bodies), (03) (Eros is first of the gods),
and (C6) (human noos depends on phusis) both invoke coming-
21
Graham, 'Lumiere'; Cosmos, 179-80. There flows from this, Graham argues,
these six implications:
(Gi.i) the heavenly bodies are spherical;
(Gi .ii) the orbit of the sun is above that of the moon;
(Gi .iii) the heavenly bodies continue in existence;
(Gi .iv) the paths of the heavenly bodies pass under the earth;
(Gi.v) the heavenly bodies interact causally;
(Gi .vi) eclipses result from the blocking of the sun's light by the moon (solar ec-
lipse) or the earth (lunar eclipse).
(Graham, Cosmos, 180-1.)
22
Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., p. xli.
into-being and thus what-is-not. (Ci) (Necessity governs the
kosmos) posits a guiding principle for what is, as a kosmos, precisely
a putative collection of parts that are inevitably constituted by
objectionable reference to paired contrarieties. And the unlisted
embryological fragments (B 17 and B 18) present a paradigm of
Doxa: each 'posits pairwise dependent incomplete things each of
which has a character that can only be denned by negative reference
to its paired "other".'23
It follows that Cordero's proposed project of reordering these
Doxa fragments, and incorporating them into the section of the
poem labelled Truth, must be rejected. These fragments do not
follow the goddess's signposts for 'what is', because they depend
on 'is and is not'. Thus they cannot belong in Truth. Reordering
in order to have them fall on the other side of the goddess's warn-
ing about her deceptive words, and in her presentation to precede
rather than follow this warning, cannot solve the problem but only
causes confusion.
It will by now perhaps be obvious that I also view with disfavour
Curd's project of, in a certain sense, breathing philosophical life
back into Parmenides' cosmology in the Doxa.24 To be sure, Curd
rightly acknowledges that as it stands the Doxa is deceptive and
exemplary in its untrustworthiness, although she is opposed to let-
ting the matter rest there, since she nevertheless believes the Doxa
is designed to play a positive philosophical role.25 She proposes 'to
see the Doxa as an outline of a rational cosmology, albeit one with
a sting'.26 On her view, 'Parmenides is engaged in a metaphysical
analysis of the possibility of the sort of physical inquiry that had
engaged his predecessors . . . there is a positive lesson to be learned
from the Doxa; although it is deceptive, it serves as a model of a
successful account of the world reported by the senses'.27 In this
attempt to have it both ways regarding the Doxa, what Curd fails
to recognize is that its sting is a fatal one; a cosmology founded on
23
Ibid. 347 (= 'Determinacy and Indeterminacy, Being and Non-Being in the
Fragments of Parmenides', in R. A. Shiner and J. King-Farlow (eds.), New Essays on
Plato and the Presocratics (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, suppl. 2; Guelph, Ont.,
1976), 45-60; repr. in Route, rev. edn., 333-49).
24
See P. Curd, 'Deception and Belief in Parmenides' Doxa' ['Deception'],
Apeiron, 25 (1992), 109-33, and ead., The Legacy of Parmenides: Eleatic Monism and
Later Presocratic Thought {Legacy} (Princeton, 1998); repr. with a new introduction
[Legacy, rev. edn.] (Las Vegas, 2004).
25
See Curd, Legacy, rev. edn., 15, 103, and passim.
26 2?
Ibid., pp. xxiv-xxv. Ibid. 15.
what she calls 'enantiomorphic opposites [which] are by nature each
precisely what the other is not'28 is based not merely on shaky foun-
dations but on thoroughly destructive ones. Nothing survives to be
a model for future cosmology, in the face of Truth's elenchus.
I think Curd is right to emphasize that 'the story told in the Doxa
must itself be put to the test', and that this injunction from the god-
dess does not apply to Truth alone.29 But it does not follow that
such a test is intended to provide guidance for a future cosmology,
nor that Parmenides himself envisioned the possibility of a cosmo-
logy that might succeed in standing up to the goddess's critique,
e.g. a pluralistic cosmology in place of a dualistic one such as the
Doxa represents as it stands.30 Had Parmenides thought, or even
suspected, that such a non-deceptive cosmology were conceivable,
I cannot doubt that he would have exerted all his efforts to be the
first to devise one. More about this issue in my concluding section.
In any event, Curd's brief for an Eleatic-friendly pluralistic cosmo-
logy does not impact on this discussion of the 'true' doxai at hand,
in so far as they are dualistic in foundation, which I take to be in-
disputable, and so remain firmly within the structure of the Doxa.
It is worth noting that the foregoing objection to the Doxa as du-
alistic does not rely upon any particular interpretation of that no-
toriously contentious line, B 8. 54. Whether one translates rcov piav
ov XP€<*>V ecrrtv as 'one of which should not be named', or 'neither
of which should be named', or 'of which it is not right to name
only one', or 'of which a unity should not be named', the objec-
tion holds.31 For in any case the described phenomena require an
interplay of the presence and absence of the two contraries, which
reduces to a combination of being and non-being.
Here I am taking the two forms posited by mortals to be Light
and Night, not Being and Non-Being themselves, as many modern
scholars, trying to follow Aristotle, have thought. 32 As Furley ex-
plains, mortals' error is to 'name their two [contrary] forms [Light
and Night] as if they both are in the full sense', refusing to recognize
that contrary forms intrinsically import non-being into cosmologi-
cal theory.33
28
Ibid., p. xxv.
29 3
Curd, 'Deception', 116. ° See ibid. 118.
31
See Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., 80-5, and Granger, 'Cosmology', 103 n. 15,
for discussions of these translations and their proponents.
32
See Granger, 'Cosmology', 103-14, for an extensive review of this controversy.
33
D. Furley, 'Notes on Parmenides', in E. N. Lee, A. P. D. Mourelatos, and
Given that the preceding astronomical and physiological tenets
are thus not merely a bad description but are fatally flawed, wan-
dering unavoidably as they do between 'is' and 'is not', they are, on
the goddess's terms, no better than nonsense. If enthralled by the
scientific breakthroughs these tenets seem to constitute, are Parme-
nides and his Doxa's latter-day admirers doing no more than pre-
tending that the tenets are nevertheless 'important nonsense'? 34
Ill
On the accounts under critical examination here, we must picture,

on the one hand, a Parmenides determinedly expounding the
semata of what-is as markers of the sole 'route of enquiry', and at
the same time, on the other hand, a Parmenides in a sorcerer's cap,
as it were, emblazoned with images of the sun, moon, and zodiac,
enthusiastically propounding revolutionary celestial discoveries
that his other persona, devout pupil of the goddess, would be duty-
bound to denounce. Is this image credible? Does it not suggest a
sort of philosophical schizophrenia?
Mourelatos has ventured an explanation of Parmenides' world-
view that tries to account for the reasoned presence of both Truth
and Doxa within one and the same mind. It draws on the scientific
realism of Wilfrid Sellars, and the latter's distinction between 'the
manifest image' of the world as it appears to reflected human per-
ception, and 'the scientific image' of the world constructed by the-
oretical physics.35 As Mourelatos notes, Sellars attempted over time
increasingly to integrate the two images, or at least to blunt their
rivalry.36 One might see Sellars as engaged in an effort to amelior-
ate the modern quasi-Eleatic dilemma articulated by Russell, who
famously wrote that common sense leads to physics, while physics
shows that common sense is false.37 But, as Mourelatos emphasizes,
R. Rorty (eds.), Exegesis and Argument (Phronesis, suppl. i; Assen, 1973), 1—15 at 8.
See also Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., 347 (= Mourelatos, 'Determinacy', 59, as cited
above at n. 23).
34
Cf. F. P. Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics, ed. R. B. Braithwaite (Lon-
don, 1931), 238: 'If philosophy is nonsense we must take seriously that it is nonsense
and not pretend, as Wittgenstein does, that it is important nonsense.'
35 36
Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., pp. xliv-xlviii. Ibid., p. xlviii n. 54.
37
B. Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (London, 1940), 13: 'Naive real-
ism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore,
io Matthew R. Cosgrove
ultimately Sellars would not have shrunk from characterizing the
manifest image as false vis-d-vis the scientific one, just as Parme-
nides did not shrink from characterizing the words of the Doxa as
'deceptive' and 'unworthy of genuine credence'. For, as Mourelatos
resignedly avers, 'no entity of the manifest world satisfies all four of
the requirements deduced in B 8'.38
We current brotoi—here I mean all of us—have no choice but to
maintain a seemingly schizophrenic world-view; green boughs wave
in the breeze as I gaze out of my window yet their unfathomable
quantum actuality is not far off, to the reflective mind. But, whether
Parmenides did the same, and how he could have accounted for it
to himself, is an entirely different question. For over millennia of
post-Platonic tradition, we have become used to the notion that be-
hind the real there lies the Really Real. Parmenides, however, stood
at the very edge, but on the other side, of that ontological tradition,
indeed, may have been, if not its initiator, at least its prime mover.
Plato, who probably was its initiator, never tired, in dialogue after
dialogue, of showing, in pragmatic situations, how the seemingly
known (the apparently real) points beyond itself to, and is shown as
false in the light of, the unknown, or rather the Truly Known (the
Really Real). As Burkert summarizes it, 'Through Plato reality [i.e.
"a reality that included corporality, transitoriness and destruction"]
is made unreal 39 in favour of an incorporeal, unchangeable other
world which is to be regarded as primary.' 40 Plato's persistent ped-
agogic literary practice suggests innovation; it does not suggest that
'father Parmenides' (Soph. 241 D) was himself already swimming
easily in such dialectical currents. It is just that through Parmeni-
des, as Burkert continues, 'The ground had been well prepared.' 41
It is assumed here that what we have to explain is a simultaneous
propounding of the goddess's discourse on Truth and a discourse
on Doxa with its scientific innovations. This should be faced head-
on; it poses one of the most difficult interpretative problems we
face, and in any case we have no grounds to assume anything else.
naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.' A significant ancient instance of
the recognition of this paradox, albeit from an opposing perspective, is Democritus
68 B 125 DK.
38
Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., p. xlviii.
39
As Herb Granger pointed out to me in correspondence, it would be more cor-
rect to say 'less real', rather than 'unreal'.
40
W. Burkert, Greek Religion (1977), trans, by J. Raffan (Cambridge, Mass.,
4I
1985), 322. Ibid.
Thus, in my opinion, an explanation such as that the Doxa repre-
sents the achievements of a younger Parmenides, of which the older
was still proud even as he 'got religion' and presented the goddess's
elenchus,42 is both an unsupported biographical fabrication and a
hermeneutic dodge.
Whether the ascription to Parmenides of something similar to a
Sellarsian 'manifest image'/'scientific image' schema is unaccept-
ably anachronistic is a serious question. Mourelatos is, of course,
alive to the potential charge and has some comments to make about
the evils of anachronism while claiming a more modest heuristic
purpose for his analogy with Sellars.43 Before addressing the ques-
tion of whether this comparison is or is not appropriate, and in what
ways, I wish to review very briefly how the dichotomy to which it
refers might appear within archaic Greek terms, which might seem
to blunt the charge of anachronism. For, well in advance of Plato, a
distinction between 'reality' and 'appearance' goes back to the earli-
est Greek poetry, is at the very heart of the beginnings of philosophy
in Miletus, and persists in the poetic view of mortality at the time
of Parmenides and beyond.
Homer employs extensively a doubtless age-old view embedded
in everyday language and common sense when he brands dreams,
ghosts, and gods in disguise as having only the appearance of reality.
Such phenomena are recognized as something other than what they
seem to be. From the plan of Zeus in the Iliad, which is made
to appear different to different mortals, to the disguises and mys-
teriousness of Athena in the Odyssey, the purposes of the gods are
inscrutable and can be taken at face value only at one's peril. 44
Consider also the Hymn to Demeter: 'Mortals are ignorant and fool-
ish, unable to foresee destiny, the good and the bad coming on them.
You [mortals] are incurably misled by your folly' (256—8).
One implication of this, for the philosophers who emerged in
Ionia not long after the Homeric poems took their final form, is
42
A notion espoused by Nietzsche in Die Philosophic im tragischen Zeitalter der
Griechen (1873), in Friedrich Nietzsche: Werke in drei Banden, ed. K. Schlechta (Mu-
nich, 1956), iii. 349-413 at 381-2; trans. M. Cowan, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of
the Greeks (Chicago, 1962), 70. Nietzsche revised but never published this essay; it
appeared in 1903 in volume x of the Grossoktavausgabe, from which Schlechta's text
is drawn. Cf. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 4th edn., 184, who saw the Doxa as a
demonstration of the falsity of Parmenides' earlier Pythagoreanism.
43
See Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., pp. xlvi-xlvii.
44
See J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1980), 169-72.
iz Matthew R. Cosgrove
that sensible things do not always have robust existential integrity.
Their ontological status—whether they are real or only seem to be
real—is not a given but is a matter for enquiry The question of
phusis explored by the Milesians depends on the recognition of a
difference between what a thing is perceived as and what it actually
is, between things that are the result of mixture or composition and
things, or rather, the thing, e.g. aer, that exists in its own right.45
This culminates in the Heraclitean maxim fivais KpvTrreaOai fiiXei
(22 B 123 DK), which we might translate loosely as 'the really real
enjoys its anonymity'.
And finally, Greek poetry from the earliest times exhibits the
notion that the divine realm (what later, philosophically, came to
be the 'Really Real') is one thing, and mortal reality another, a
poor imitation or weak simulacrum of the former. The gods are
the 'eternal beings', aien eontes, while mortals are ephemeroi. Pin-
dar, well before Plato, wrote OKIOLS ovap avOpcoTros, 'man is a dream
of a shadow' (Pyth. 8. 95-6). This implies a highly sophisticated,
if poetic (thus perhaps not systematically reflected) view of a dual
reality. Such duality is explicit in the succeeding lines: 'but when
god-given splendour comes . . .'. As a Presocratic poet, Pindar was
only expressing a long tradition: that mortal life and the world of
mortals is appropriately characterized as ephemeras, 'subject to the
(changing) day, variable', as Hermann Frankel put it in his study
of this theme in Greek literature. 46 Parmenides has radicalized and
made a philosophical point of something already embryonic in the
archaic Greek world-view.
Before turning to the issue of whether the comparison with Sel-
lars is simply anachronistic, a separate difficulty for the 'manifest
image'/'scientific image' proposal regarding Parmenides' attitude
towards Doxa/Aletheia is that it seems to threaten to introduce, or
to strengthen, an ontological dualism, and a view of Doxa as de-
scribing a world of seeming or appearance. Yet this is precisely what
45
See A. P. D. Mourelatos, 'The Real, Appearances and Human Error in Early
Greek Philosophy', Review of Metaphysics, 19 (1965), 346-65, for an exploration of
this stage of thought as it developed out of the previous stage (where things are re-
cognized as not always what they appear to be). See also A. P. D. Mourelatos, '"X
is Really Y": Ionian Origins of a Thought Pattern', in K. J. Boudouris (ed.), Ionian
Philosophy (Athens, 1989), 280-90 at 286-8.
46
H. Frankel, 'Man's Ephemeros Nature according to Pindar and Others',
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 77 (1946),
131-45 at 131.
47
Mourelatos, while urging the Sellarsian analogy, has (followed by
Cordero48) firmly rejected. And rightly so, I believe.
That Parmenides' thought and the goddess's discourse on truth
presuppose what we would call an ontological dualism of some sort,
one pole of which is the world of mortals, can hardly be doubted. 49
After all, there are mortals, as the goddess does not deny; they do
have a world, albeit one fraught with deceptiveness and no genuine
credibility. The kouros is one of them, and the goddess's discourse
alludes (in B 7) to the fact that he will return to their world—he is
cautioned against being deceived by it. All this certainly does pre-
suppose the facticity of that world (to avoid saying that it 'is' or
'exists'—not that I think Parmenides is asserting that the world of
mortals does not exist50), a world whose acceptance by mortals 51 the
Doxa is constrained to explain and expose. But this presupposi-
tion does not mean that the ontological status of the mortal world
is thematized or theorized by the Doxa. Rather, as Mourelatos has
emphasized, the Doxa may be viewed as restricted to explaining
how and why mortals accept their world, without attempting to
provide an ontology of it. For it is just such a theory (an ontology of
the mortal world) that Parmenides maintains cannot be truthfully
furnished. It remains outside of what he regards as philosophically
viable.
Now to the question of anachronism. In assessing this we must
take into account (a) the poetic and proto-philosophical duality
sketched above, and (b) the contrasting obvious fact that an ar-
chaic Greek distinction between truth and opinion, or reality and
appearance, not only does not require but has no part of the im-
mensely subtle and complex philosophical framework of modern
scientific realism. We must also take into account (c) that Mourela-
tos's analogy is not intended to claim either influence or anticipation
for Parmenides. However, to postulate as he does a 'surprising yet
deep and significant affinity between the thought of Sellars and the
47
Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., p. xxi and ch. 8, 'Doxa as Acceptance', 194-221.
48
N.-L. Cordero, By Being, It Is: The Thesis of Parmenides (Las Vegas, 2004),
49
140, 152-4. Cf. Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., 220.
50
To this extent I agree with J. Palmer, Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy
[Parmenides] (Oxford, 2009), 162-3, though I disagree both with his modal inter-
pretation of Truth (or as he calls it, the 'Way of Conviction') and with his view of
the Doxa as a philosophically defensible version of what he supposes Parmenides to
view as an ontologically contingent parallel reality.
51
See Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., 194—221.
thought of Parmenides' 52 does not, in my view, on balance, survive
a careful weighing of its benefits and costs.
To be sure, the analogy between the manifest image and the Doxa
does have some undeniably salutary aspects. It serves to remind
us that, like the manifest image in Sellars, which is nothing primi-
tive or immediate but is a highly developed, reflected philosophical
construct, the Doxa's mortal opinions are not those of unreflected
common sense but represent the adumbration of initial cosmolo-
gical postulates (cf. B 8. 53—9). Further, like the manifest image,
which has had 'correct and incorrect' formulations over the course
of time, the Doxa's framework may be articulated in 'better and
worse' ways, of which the goddess's version strives to be the best
(lest any thought of mortals outstrip her pupil). And finally, while
Sellars's manifest image is destined to 'disappear' in the face of the
scientific image and to be replaced by it, it will remain in place, just
as the Doxa does, for practical purposes. 53 I shall be stressing this
last aspect in the sections that follow.
Nevertheless, Mourelatos's hope through his analogy 'to remove
the paradox' of Parmenides' having given us Truth, on the one
hand, and then having on the other expounded 'in detail and
with earnest engagement the cosmology of "Doxa"', and through
the analogy 'to make the relation between "Truth" and "Doxa"
intelligible',54 fails in the end to find a focus sharp enough to re-
ward an investment in its heuristic purpose. Generally speaking,
the conclusion that 'For all the achievements of historic, of em-
pirical investigation, we must prepare ourselves for the outcome
that the eon, the really and ultimately real, is something that defies
imagination and ordinary modes of thought' 55 does not distinguish
Sellars's relation to Parmenides from the latter's relation to Plato,
or Aristotle, or Plotinus, or Augustine, or Aquinas, or any number
of other philosophers. I fear that at best it leaves 'the relation
between "Truth" and "Doxa"' as blurred as before.
Turning to examine some particulars, the comparison of Truth
vs. Doxa to the Sellarsian 'scientific image' vs. 'manifest image' is
misleading with regard to Parmenides in at least four critical re-
spects. In my view, these combine to vitiate any heuristic usefulness
52
Ibid., p. xlix.
53
Mourelatos, Tarmenides, Early Greek Astronomy, and Modern Scientific
54
Realism', 184-7. Ibid. 188.
55
Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., p. xlvii.
the analogy might otherwise have, because they obscure aspects of
Parmenides' thought that are at least as important as what the pro-
posed analogy purports to illuminate. First, for Sellars the scientific
or theoretical image is in some sense (which for present purposes
we may leave vague and unexplored) responsible for or underlies
the manifest image, whereas Parmenides' goddess nowhere sug-
gests that to eon is responsible for or has somehow produced the
phenomenal world of change that mortals have named. Second, the
goddess calls the Doxa the result of mortals' error•, whereas the ma-
nifest image's categories, 'persons, animals, lower forms of life and
"merely material things" like rivers and stones',56 remain natural to
humans (Sellars's critique of the 'myth of the Given' notwithstand-
ing). Third, neither Sellars, nor virtually any scientist, would claim
for the scientific image the indivisible unity, permanence, and ab-
sence of change that the goddess points to as hallmarks of the real;
rather, the scientific image is the result of posterior enquiry whose
entities are theoretical, always subject to revision. In the light of
these three objections, in fact, the entities posited by scientific the-
ory stand in a relation to 'what is' that is analogous to the entities
posited by Parmenides' brotoi. That is, contrary to what Mourelatos
suggests in his own comparison, both the scientific and the manifest
images posited by Sellars constitute mortal doxai at different levels
of abstraction. And fourth, as I have been arguing, it is no part
of Parmenides' philosophical ambition to delineate precisely how
Truth and Doxa may be connected or reconciled,57 while a prin-
cipal goal of scientific realism as it addresses the scientific/manifest
image distinction is to do 'increasing justice' to the latter.58 On the
contrary, the goddess in effect bans such a project.
IV
The standpoint of the goddess in this respect was aptly summarized
by Owen in his famous article 'Eleatic Questions', more than a half
century ago:
56
Ibid., p. xliv (quoting Sellars).
57
I believe this assertion is warranted even if, as Mourelatos maintains, the juxta-
position of Doxa and Truth is key to understanding the latter: cf. ch. 9 of Mourelatos,
Route, rev. edn., 222-63.
58
Mourelatos, 'Parmenides, Early Greek Astronomy, and Modern Scientific
Realism', 188.
The goddess . . . is not inconsistent in her denunciation of the mortal opi-
nions she surveys . . . Her account of those opinions is not introduced as a
contribution to early science. But to say this is not of course to deny that
it was the most complete and plausible system its author knew how to pro-
duce. If the building of such a system was never his end, it could certainly
be a means to his end; and for my part I take its purpose to be wholly
dialectical.59
The last statement, that the cosmology's purpose was 'wholly

dialectical', has been the focus of much speculation since. For even
if commentators have conceded that this does accurately char-
acterize the goddess's standpoint, they have never been satisfied
that it settles the author's. What did Parmenides himself make of
the Doxa's system and its discoveries? This is a question that has
troubled interpreters from antiquity to the present day. Mourela-
tos's proposed solution to it, criticized in the preceding section, is
merely the latest in a long series of unsatisfactory attempts 'to re-
move the paradox', as he calls it.6° I believe that all those attempts
rest on a common error.
Most interpreters of the Doxa hitherto have strained to find for
Parmenides a consistent standpoint from which the cosmology
might be viewed as having some positive philosophical value of
its own, and have baulked at any admission that its author, the
philosopher-poet, might have shared the standpoint of its pro-
pounder, the goddess. Yet Parmenides' goddess remains a resolute
philosophical absolutist: is or is-not; truthful and persuasive or
deceptive and unworthy of genuine credence. On the interpretation
advanced here, their standpoints are aligned: Parmenides embraces
the absolutism of her argument, and his attitude towards the cos-
mology renounces any philosophical (or scientific) pretensions for
it. It is offered for the reasons stated by the goddess in B i. 30-2
and B 8. 60-1, with no claim to be a truthful account61—or one for
which 'increasing justice' might have to be or ought to be done.
59
G. E. L. Owen, 'Eleatic Questions', Classical Quarterly, NS 10 (1960), 84-102
at 89; repr. with corrections and new appendices in R. E. Allen and D. J. Furley
(eds.), Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, ii. Eleatics and Pluralists [Studies II] (Lon-
don, 1975), 48-81 at 54.
60
Mourelatos, Tarmenides, Early Greek Astronomy, and Modern Scientific
Realism', 188.
61
Note that though it is called 'deceptive', it is not branded as 'false'—although
in what follows I do not make anything of this distinction. That the fragments of
Parmenides as we have them do not contain the word 'false', i/jev8r)s, is noted by
Cordero, By Being, It Is, 147 n. 613.
How its author might then have viewed it, I hope now plausibly
to show
The subjects for which the Doxa provides a reflected elaboration

have the status of everyday mortal life, no more, no less. What status
is this? That is precisely the question that Parmenides' goddess tells
us should not be asked, because it cannot be answered with reliabi-
lity Any attempted answer, she warns, would set us to wandering
hither and yon, between 'is' and 'is not', and would yield no pistis
alethes.62
But why did Parmenides have his goddess, spokesperson of his
poem, adumbrate in the Doxa a complete cosmology, just in order
to arm her pupil the kouros against flawed systems of thought that
might threaten to 'outstrip' him? Could she not, more effectively
and thoroughly, and less misleadingly, have presented a deductive
set of signposts, along the lines of B 8. 1—49, but of a contrary
sort, signposts that would enable their hearer, when analysing
mortal cosmologies, to recognize these cosmologies' fatal flaws?
Why a fully worked-out Doxa, instead of a methodological outline
for detecting the False? Schofield suggested, 'Perhaps Parmenides
simply failed to resist the opportunity for versatility afforded by the
idea of "saying many false things resembling the truth and uttering
true things when we wish" (Hesiod Theog. 27—8).' 63 Should we then
merely put the Doxa down to a philosophically hubristic desire on
the part of the poem's author to show off his creative powers?
To the first question, why the goddess did not present instead
of a cosmology the outline of a method for critiquing one, I suggest
that had she done so, she would not have been understood. After all,
62
Cf. J. Palmer, 'Parmenides', in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Summer 2012 edn.), ed. E. N. Zalta <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2Oi2/
parmenides/), sect. 3.5, 'The Modal Interpretation' [accessed 26 Nov. 2013]: 'This
is not to say that the things on which ordinary humans have exclusively focused
their attention, because of their reliance upon sensation, do not exist. It is merely
to say that they do not enjoy the mode of necessary being required of an object
of unwandering understanding.' I agree, except for the tendentious 'the mode of
necessary being', for which I would substitute some more neutral phrase such as
'the character of "it is"'.
63
G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd
edn. (Cambridge, 1983), 262.
Parmenides' view of cosmologies, that any of them were, by their
nature, deceptive and unworthy of genuine credence, was unique
up to that time. And in this respect his poetic practice exemplifies
the literary maxim 'Better to display than to say'.
To the second question, whether the author was merely revel-
ling in versatility, offering the best and most up-to-date cosmology
while at the same time deriding it, I would first note that the ques-
tion is somewhat unfair to Parmenides. As I have said already, the
goddess warns the kouros not to exalt mortal issues into a route of
enquiry; she does not direct him to abstain from mortal life alto-
gether. But there is also another, somewhat oblique, answer.
Of Parmenides' life, ancient sources tell us that he was wealthy
and of noble birth, that he was taught by Xenophanes but did not
follow him, adopting instead the Pythagorean teachings of Amei-
nias, and—this from Speusippus, Plato's nephew (quoted from his
book On Philosophers in D.L. 9. 23)—that Parmenides was a noted
lawgiver in his home city of Elea. A later report from Plutarch tells
us that the citizens of that city required the magistrates annually to
swear to uphold these laws (Adv. Col. 1126 A). An inscription dis-
covered in the twentieth century indicates that he may have been
a physician.64 What is noteworthy is what the ancient reports do
not tell us. Although it is always dangerous to argue ex silentio,
particularly when considering the fragmentary remains of the ar-
chaic world, I think we are on solid ground if we note that the
anti-commonsensical oddity of the goddess's discourse on Being is
not paralleled by biographical or doxographical oddities concerning
Parmenides' life, as we have for some other Presocratics. There are
no reports that Parmenides led a particularly strange, withdrawn
life, as one might possibly imagine of a fanatical or radical devotee of
the goddess's elenchus. Not that his manner of life failed to draw at-
tention or comment; one of our earliest ancient sources is concerned
to note that Parmenides lived in a serious, indeed noble, fashion, in
keeping with his philosophical views.65 None of the doxography or
capsule biographies suggests that those views led him to what other
brotoi would regard as abnormal behaviour. Yet, had he been so in-
clined, we would definitely expect to have heard of it, along with
64
See e.g. Cordero, By Being, It Is, 8-9 with references in n. 31. If the word <j>vai-
KOS in that context is properly interpreted as 'physician', this would fit well with the
Doxa's interest in embryology, as Alex Mourelatos pointed out to me in conversa-
6s
tion. See Plato, Theaet. i83E-i84A.
suitably extravagant embellishments such as we have, for example,
in the case of Heraclitus (D.L. 9. 3).
But Heraclitus is far from the only case in this regard. The an-
cient penchant for jibes at the supposedly impractical, bizarre, or
outrageous habits of philosophers begins with popular anecdotes
about Thales (cf. Plato, Theaet. 174 A), and continues concerning
Pythagoras (cf. e.g. Xenophanes 21 B 7 DK), Empedocles (cf. the
claims of divinity he himself made, beginning with 31 B 112 DK,
and the anecdotes regarding his death, e.g. A i), and Diogenes the
Cynic (D.L. 6. 20-81 passim).
That we have been left with no such gossip about Parmenides
suggests that he was not known for eccentricity of behaviour, super-
ficially in keeping with his teaching in Truth, but rather was know
for a relatively straightforward, normal life, untroubled in its every-
day affairs by the absolutism of the goddess's discourse.66 Notwith-
standing the latter, he lived in a manner that outraged that student
of Epicurus, Colotes of Lampsacus, who apparently insisted that
if Parmenides had taken his own thought seriously he should have
been indifferent to whether or not he walked off a cliff. 67
To revert to Heraclitus, the doxographical/biographical tradi-
tions associated with him and with Parmenides provide interesting
contrasts. Both men were prominent citizens of their cities; both
came from wealthy and important families. Both were sought out by
their fellow citizens as prospective lawgivers. But the biographical
similarities end there. Heraclitus insultingly refused his fellow citi-
zens' request to provide them with laws (D.L. 9. 2—3) while Parme-
nides became famous for his jurisprudential contribution to Elea.
Heraclitus' name became a byword for misanthropy and eccent-
ricity; no such gossip attached to Parmenides. We may write this
off, in the case of Heraclitus, as an assumed strangeness, imagined
to match his notoriously obscure style. Yet, the case of Parmeni-
des might readily be regarded as analogous. Many commentators,
ancient68 as well as modern, have remarked on how his choice of
epic verse as a medium has forced the expression of his thought to-
66
The point that Parmenides reportedly lived a normal, practical life, not that of
a philosophical fanatic, was emphasized by H. Stein, 'Comments on "The Thesis of
Parmenides'", Review of Metaphysics, 22 (1969), 725-34 at 725.
67
See Plut. Adv. Col. 1114 B, and B. Einarson and P. H. De Lacy (eds.), Plutarch's
Moralia, xiv (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 167.
68
e.g. Proclus, in his commentaries on the Timaeus (28 A 17 DK) and on the Par-
menides (A 18).
2O Matthew R. Cosgrove
wards obscurity, and although some modern experts—Mourelatos

prominent among them—have viewed this aspect of his articulation
with more sympathy and respect, even the typical ancient reader
could easily be expected to have seen the matter otherwise, and to
have regarded Parmenides' poem as deliberately obscure at best.
And, in the end, Parmenides' doctrine (or that of his goddess) is
even more paradoxical than that of Heraclitus, denying as it does
the possibility of speaking truthfully about the world of perception
and change. Who, then, should be regarded as the more obscure?
Despite this, once again nothing in the biographical tradition on
Parmenides parallels the weirdness of reports on Heraclitus.
Why should this be so? I submit that it was because Parmenides
was—and should still be—understood as presenting a philosophi-
cal or dialectical challenge to the intellect and to the cosmological
tradition, and not, as in the case of Heraclitus, a proud challenge
with ramifications for practical life. I urge this on the basis of what
we know (however little it may be) of Parmenides' biography, des-
pite what the goddess has to say in B 6 and B 7, warning the kouros
away from mortal habits, for this is a philosophical, not a practical,
admonition. 69 The goddess warns the kouros against supposing that
the mortal world can provide the basis for a true route of enquiry;
she does not advise suicide or withdrawal from normal life. Parme-
nides' 'successor', Admiral Melissus, evidently took this to heart as
well, as his military career attests, notwithstanding a radical Elea-
ticism (cf. Melissus 30 A i and A 3 DK).
All this is worth bearing in mind when we ask what might have
been Parmenides' attitude towards the scientific innovations to be
found in Doxa. I submit that he regarded them just as he might have
regarded inventing a chariot axle that did not screech, or breeding
a winning team of racehorses for the Olympic Games, or growing
superior olives, or crafting an exemplary body of laws for his fel-
low citizens to swear annually to follow. In none of these activities
do we imagine that Parmenides might have been troubled by a lack
of pistis alethes\ but we also do not imagine that he would have ex-
alted them to the level of Truth. Why should we when it comes
to scientific matters, such as his astronomical discoveries, save for
69
Cf. Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., 45: 'The imperatives issued by the goddess
are: "listen and carry the word," "look," "restrain your thought," "judge for your-
self," "learn." They are all imperatives of mental activity. There is not the slightest
indication that the imperatives bear on our fiios or our TrpdrreLv, our life-career.'
our very modern habit of regarding such theorizing as represent-
ing the pinnacle of knowledge? For this attitude is something that
Parmenides certainly did not share with us. If the Doxa is really—
as the goddess says—meant to be such that 'no thought of mortals
can outstrip you', then its tenets cannot be slovenly, much less dis-
posable, or already outstripped. It then should not be surprising
that they represent breakthroughs, especially when scientific—i.e.
cosmological—matters hold no privileged status for Parmenides.
The Doxa presents an interesting parallel with the Homeric
Shield of Achilles. Like the shield fashioned by Hephaestus for the
hero's return to the battle that is fated to claim his life, Parmenides'
shield includes depictions of all in the world that will be lost.70
It left nothing out, Plutarch tells us.71 Protected by the divinely
wrought shield that is the Doxa's cosmology from the deceptive
allure of the mortal world, the kouros will return to that world
bearing a talisman complete in all its details. Yet, as Achilles' shield
ultimately did not alter his fate, Parmenides' Doxa does not save
its world; it does not bestow non-mortal, philosophical life.
But if the Doxa, and mortal beliefs generally, are deceptive and
lacking in genuine credibility, does this mean that Parmenides be-
lieves that if two people are standing outside and one observes 'it is
sunny and it is not raining' while the other counters 'it is not sunny
and it is raining', there is nothing to choose between them? Philo-
sophically speaking, seen from the goddess's immortal world, that
may be precisely the case; it instances a difference of opinion and is
merely that, and it has no theoretical or philosophical relevance in
the world of Truth. It is only from within the world of mortals—
which to be sure is the world Parmenides lives in and to which the
kouros returns 72 —that it has relevance. However, that is not entirely
70
See C. Alexander, The War That Killed Achilles (New York, 2009), 157. Karl
Reinhardt drew attention to this parallel more than a hundred years ago, although
in the course of making a very different point from the one being made here. See K.
Reinhardt, Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophic (Bonn, 1916;
repr. Frankfurt a.M., 1959), 31; partial trans, with abridgements in A. P. D. Moure-
latos (ed.), The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, NY,
1974; repr. with a new introduction and revised bibliography Princeton, 1993), 293-
311 at 297.
71
Adv. Col. 1114 c i; see also Simpl. In De caelo 559. 26-7 Heiberg.
72
Cordero maintains that the 'mortals' referred to so scathingly in the poem are
only 'the bewildered masses', and do not include the Kovpos, who is a cfx^s el8a)s. See
Cordero, By Being, It Is, 152-3 n. 630. Apart from the fact that characterizing the
Kovpos as a fiws elSws has difficulties of its own and may be challenged (as I have done
in M. R. Cosgrove, 'The Unknown "Knowing Man": Parmenides, 6 1 . 3 ' , Classical
to belittle it. Surely we should not on that account imagine that Par-
menides, the lawgiver of his city, believed that well-thought-out,
well-crafted laws were no better than arbitrary, capricious, inco-
herent ones.73 Or that it made no difference whether one's vines and
olive trees were pruned correctly each year. Colotes complained im-
plicitly that Parmenides ought to have embraced such absurdities if
he took his own thought seriously. But that is Colotes' problem,
whose perverse reductio ignores the very distinction that Parmeni-
des has drawn. If, for Parmenides, a correct account of perceived
astronomical phenomena may have mattered a great deal, as did
his activity as a lawgiver, this simply had for him no philosophical
status or significance. Cosmology—if only as an as yet imperfectly
realized endeavour—had been dethroned; the goddess's elenchus
had deprived its project of philosophical authority. But that does
not necessitate suicide, as Colotes insisted. Such a stance would be,
to put it mildly, disproportionate: the insistence of a mortal that he
should live not in the mortal world, but in a divine one where Truth
prevails.
If we had more information about the laws of Elea in the the fifth
century BC, Parmenides might deserve a chapter in the history of
Western jurisprudence; but no one, I think, would suggest that this
would affect our interpretation of his goddess's philosophical doc-
trine as given in the section Truth. 74 It would not mean that we
should revise our view of the philosophically intransigent doctrine
of the goddess regarding what-is, or, implausibly, reinterpret it so
as to make room within it for Parmenides' contribution to practical
and legal affairs. This is exactly how we should regard his astrono-
mical discoveries.75
Quarterly, NS 61 (2011), 28-47), this view is totally unconvincing. At a minimum,

one might point out that the mortality of the Kovpos is emphasized from the outset,
as when the goddess in her initial greeting is at pains to reassure him that he has not
been brought to her house by a paipa KaKr), i.e. by death (see Mourelatos, Route, rev.
edn., 15).
73
This point has been made indirectly before, e.g. by W. K. C. Guthrie, A His-
tory of Greek Philosophy, ii. The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus
[History II] (Cambridge, 1965), 5, 51.
74
I do not agree, however, that Parmenides' activity as a lawgiver 'does not shed
light on Parmenides' philosophy' (L. Taran, Parmenides: A Text with Translation.,
Commentary and Critical Essays (Princeton, 1965), 5). As I argue here, it does so
indirectly, by helping us see the Doxa in the correct way.
75
Notwithstanding that they figure in the Doxa section of the poem, as his juris-
VI
I have alluded earlier to Wittgenstein, and comparison with the

author of the Tractatus is unavoidable, for Wittgenstein also con-
cluded that, philosophically, nothing could be said about certain
subjects that, nevertheless, remained very close to his heart, such
as ethics, aesthetics, and religion.
We must bear in mind that Parmenides' thought does not pre-
sent a 'philosophy of life', as did the possible Pythagoreanism of
his youth or as Colotes' Epicureanism purported to do. Nor does
it invite us to divine one from his poem. Not that we could, from
what remains of it, even were we to suppose that were his intent.
But in any case, a Parmenidean 'philosophy of life' is inconceiv-
able, once he is correctly understood. However far the goddess's
Doxa discourse did go in leaving no principal topic unaddressed,
it would not have proceeded in that sort of direction, which would
run counter to the entire thrust of her doctrine in Truth. And yet,
as I have suggested, the reports of Parmenides' life from antiquity
do not hint at such strangeness in his daily life as one would ex-
pect from a radical rejecter of mortal affairs, and that is in itself
what is significant. Consequently, it would be a mistake to wonder
whether and how Parmenides held a schizophrenic world-view, or
to suppose either that he must have confined belief in his conclu-
sion to his study, or that 'perhaps he believed it all the time, and
was mad'. 76
It is also a mistake to suppose that Parmenides tacitly posited
degrees of reality, or a hierarchy of Being, as Graham has in effect
suggested.77 Although the early duality of the real vs. the only ap-
parently real but actually false (as sketched above in Section III),
while not by itself introducing the notion of degrees of reality, ad-
mittedly does pave the way for it later, adopting such a hypothesis in
this context counters the goddess's logic by importing Non-Being
into Being, as Parmenides would have seen it.78 Given the way the
prudence may well not have, at least as we have things; but cf. Plut. Adv. Col. 11140:
'he left no principal topic undiscussed'.
76
M. Furth, 'Elements of Eleatic Ontology', Journal of the History of Philosophy,
6 (1968),! 11-32; repr. in Mourelatos (ed.), The Pre-Socratics, 241-70 at 268 (refer-
ence is to the latter version). Similarly, Aristotle in GC 325 a i8 (=28 A 25 DK).
77
See Graham, Cosmos, 177-85.
78
Cf. Granger, 'Cosmology', 108—9, recently re-emphasized in H. Granger, 'Par-
goddess characterizes the Doxa (B i. 30; B 8. 52), and the reason
she gives for telling its tale (B 8. 61), as well as the fact that the
Doxa's physical theories do require a wandering between 'is' and
'is not', as noted above, the Doxa cannot be properly viewed 'as a
success story within the realm of an inferior cognitive enterprise'. 79
Again, it is the explicitly hierarchical view that I think goes off the
track. There are no degrees of cognitive enterprises in Parmeni-
des, one—the route of 'it is'—merely superior to another. Rather,
the Doxa belongs to and describes a world in which, strictly speak-
ing, i.e. from the standpoint of the goddess, there can be no valid
or viable cognitive enterprises other than the sole route of enquiry
whose signposts she relates.
It is yet another mistake, and an anachronistic one by a century
or more, to note as Guthrie did that 'it is a strange freak of history
that so fundamental a discovery should have been made by one for
whom the whole physical world was an unreal show'.80 The goddess
never says that 'the whole physical world [is] an unreal show'. She
does not deny that the mortal world exists, nor does she hold that it
exists in some (undefined) lesser sense. What she does is point out
that mortals' attempt to say in what way their world exists inevitably
mixes 'is' and 'is not' and therefore remains deceptive and lacking
in genuine credibility. Once again, to leave the ground 'well pre-
pared' (Burkert's words) thereby for a doctrine of degrees of reality
is not yet to erect upon it such an ontological edifice of one's own.
Parmenides does not do so.
From our point of view, in the light of subsequent developments
made by Plato and Aristotle, Parmenides thought his way into a
dilemma, the implicit, unstated question of the ontological status
of mortals' world, from which he could find no philosophical way
out. Our account of the course of Greek philosophy should leave
him there, rather than invent an exit for him that runs counter to
the goddess's words. To be sure, it was not a stable position in
which he left himself. To the extent that the Doxa implicitly sug-
gests the need for a phenomenology of Seeming or Appearance, and
demands an ontological explication of the same, this is a problem
menides of Elea: Rationalist or Dogmatist?', Ancient Philosophy, 30 (2010), 15-38

at 29.
79
Graham, Cosmos, 185.
80
Guthrie, History II, 65 n. i. Guthrie is speaking of the sphericity of the earth,
but any of the astronomical breakthroughs discussed above would do.
that Parmenides unintentionally left to his successors, principally
Plato and Aristotle; but he himself shows absolutely no inclination
to adopt a philosophically hierarchical view of being, as they did.
His mortal life was one thing, his philosophical view, or that of the
goddess, quite another. Of course, that contrast, once philosophic-
ally thematized, is in fatal tension: it invites the paradoxes of Zeno.
The tension could not endure, and did not: it led to the different
attempts of Plato and Aristotle to resolve it.
In effect, i.e. in living as he did in the way that so upset Colotes,
Parmenides was perhaps the first thinker in history to draw an im-
plicit distinction between a life of theoria and life 'in the world', i.e.
the prudential life. The philosophical is radically insulated from
the pragmatic. This nascent distinction alone has had momentous
historical consequences. Although Parmenides did not yet make it
a subject of reflection, in the very different, more nuanced, subtle,
and integrated fashion of Aristotle, a split between theory and
praxis such as Aristotle discussed in the opening of his Ethics (NE
iO94b24) is already present, as is so much else fully developed later,
in Parmenides' thought.
In the Doxa Parmenides offers a cosmology that satisfies two ob-
jectives announced by the goddess: (i) to arm the kouros with a sys-
tematic view of the mortal world that is so advanced, in its represen-
tation of that world as perceived, 'that no thought of mortals may
outstrip' him (B 8. 61); and (2) to exhibit that view, for all its ad-
vanced character, as permeated through and through by a reliance
on 'is and is not', and so as fatally flawed with regard to the signposts
of Truth (B 8. 51— 9). Sl These two objectives have seemed to many
scholars to be in conflict, and much effort has been expended in try-
ing to resolve that conflict. But once it is recognized that, jointly,
her two objectives serve the goddess's pedagogic purposes as well
as the pragmatism of Parmenides' far-ranging mortal interests, as
evidenced by the biographical testimonia concerning other aspects
of his life, the supposed conflict vanishes. The question that con-
stitutes the title of this essay then deserves to be rephrased, from
the goddess's perspective. Not 'what are "true" doxai worth'—for
that question mixes two categories that must remain separated, viz.
the philosophical and the everyday, or the divine and the mortal.
Rather 'what are "acceptables" (la dokounta) worth, to Parmeni-
des?'. Then the answer is, on the one hand, they are worth their
81
Cf. Mourelatos, Route, rev. edn., ch. 9, 222-63.
pragmatic value or utility to mortals, but on the other hand, that
is all.
The Doxa thus has a double life. It has no philosophical status
of its own, from Parmenides' point of view, but it does have a phi-
losophical purpose, or what Owen called a 'dialectical' one, in ser-
vice of the goddess's teaching, and that is to exhibit how the most
fully realized and, to mortals, most acceptable cosmology devisable
nevertheless fails the tests of Truth, wavering ineluctably between
'is' and 'is not'. On the other hand, it serves Parmenides' pragmatic
interests in offering astronomical and other innovations of fascinat-
ing and dynamic import and of great everyday value—so long as
they are not presumed to rank with or compete with Truth.
However, to say bluntly that the Doxa 'gives a totally false view
of reality'82 invites two errors. One is to mix the philosophical with
the everyday purposes of the Doxa in the same sentence. The other
might be to conclude that the Doxa must then be worthless. It can
be far from that, without being in any Parmenidean sense (i.e. one
recognizable to the goddess) 'true'. But that also does not mean that
the Doxa, alternatively, 'has relative validity as a second-best expla-
nation of the world'. 83 That would be again to put the matter too
philosophically. There are not three Parmenides, as many previous
interpretations would have it: the author of the goddess's discourse
on what-is; the pragmatic lawgiver; and in between, a reluctant or
embarrassed cosmologist who is unable to say what the status of his
cosmology really is. Rather, there are two Parmenides: the philo-
sopher and the legislating man of affairs. His astronomy belongs
only to the latter, mortal realm. He doubtless asked himself, 'Is it
more acceptable (than other accounts)?'—and was satisfied that it
was. He did not insist, 'But is it not in fact True?'. His goddess had
foreclosed that question when it came to mortal matters and the
changeable world.
VII
This paper has offered a perspective on and ventured an explana-

tion of the much-debated status of Doxa in relation to Truth, and
82
A. A. Long, 'The Principles of Parmenides' Cosmogony' ['Cosmogony'],
Phronesis, 8 (1963), 90-107 at 91; repr. with revisions in Allen and Furley (eds.),
Studies II, 82-101 at 83.
83
Long, 'Cosmology', 90; repr. in Allen and Furley (eds.), Studies II, 82.
of cosmology generally, from Parmenides' own standpoint, while as-
suming that he took seriously the goddess's strictures imparted to
the kouros. In doing so it has been critical both of those who place
what I believe is an unsound philosophical emphasis (i.e. unsound
in its ranking) on the innovative theories of Doxa, and of those who
tend to explain Parmenides not from his own standpoint but rather
from the perspective of those who were to follow him. In closing I
want to say a final word about the latter. As I have already indicated
above in criticizing the interpretation of the Doxa by Curd, on the
view advocated here Parmenides is emphatically not an impotent
would-be pluralist, issuing a prolegomenon to any future cosmo-
logy while being unable himself to essay one that would satisfy his
own criteria, and leaving that to his successors. I do not believe that
Parmenides thought for a moment that a cosmology with philoso-
phical pretensions—i.e. one that might claim to be non-deceptive
and worthy of genuine credence, one that might claim to be true—
would ever be possible in the future, once his goddess had spoken.
That is why the cosmology of Doxa remains elaborated on the most
traditional of lines, as the outcome of paired contrarieties, entirely
vulnerable to the goddess's prior destructive critique delivered in
Truth. The Doxa's acceptability is a function of that very vulner-
ability: it is part not of divine thought but of mortal life, which the
goddess had already branded as wandering between is and is-not.
Does that make the view advanced here another version of the
Doxa as that tired bugbear, the 'best of the false' cosmologies? In
one sense yes, for the goddess in B 8. 60-1 has already indicated
as much. But in another, and decisive, sense no: for on my inter-
pretation the Doxa is not proposed as a cosmology. It has a double
function: dialectical (as Owen saw), i.e to teach and arm the kouros
against cosmology's pretensions to truthfulness, and, with respect
to its content, to represent, and here and there perhaps advance,
mere ongoing mortal concerns.
To my mind, Barnes was correct in offering his famous assess-
ment: if Parmenides is right, 'scientists may as well give up their
activities'; 'let [them] turn to poetry or gardening'. 84 But we must
add a proviso to Barnes's trenchant verdict: they should give up
their activities and take to gardening instead if they insist on brand-
ing those activities as science, as making truth claims. Barnes, how-
ever, provided this assessment in his chapter entitled 'The Ionian
84
J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, rev. edn. (London, 1982), 305.
Revival', devoted to the achievements of the post-Parmenidean cos-

mologists whom Barnes lauds for not following that Eleatic lead. He
did not see that his own words might shed some light, with the cor-
rection I have indicated, on Parmenides' intentions regarding the
Doxa, which on the view offered here is no longer science (or 'cos-
mology') but rather is a species of 'poetry or gardening'.
For present purposes I leave open the question of what content—
if any beyond the deductions of B 8—Parmenides might have envi-
sioned for an ontology of what-is, going forward. I am inclined to
think that he believed himself to have either rebutted or rendered
otiose anything further, and thus to have uttered the last word in
philosophy.
To focus on what a thinker of the distant past has effected, rather
than on the at best elusive question of what he may have inten-
ded, undoubtedly has a certain importance in assessing his histori-
cal place. But this principle can be carried too far, and in the case
of Parmenides I believe it has often replaced the thinker with an
imaginary figure viewed through a retrospective lens, that of the
meta-theorist pointing the way for cosmologists of the future. I do
not contest here the view that the pluralists who came after Parme-
nides may have seen in his thought a challenge to which they were
called to respond, only that this increasingly dominant narrative,
the 'meta-principle reading' of Parmenides, as Palmer calls it,85 ex-
hausts or even begins to represent his own meaning. The question
here has been: 'What did Parmenides himself really think?' This is,
I have suggested, a question long unjustly neglected, especially in
the recently burgeoning literature on his Doxa.
Missoula, Montana
matthew. cosgr ove@hotmail. com
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DESIRE, MEMORY, AND
THE A U T H O R I T Y OF SOUL:
P L A T O , PHILEBUS 3 5 c - D
VERITY HARTE
P L A T O ' S Philebus contains, among other things, one of Plato's more

detailed philosophical psychologies, and one that provides an im-
portant backdrop to Aristotle's more widely appreciated writings on
soul.1 In the course of the dialogue's detailed discussion of pleasure
and as preparation for its controversial suggestion that pleasures can
be false, Socrates provides us with skeleton accounts of perceptual
awareness, memory, desire, imagination, and judgement. His dis-
cussion of desire (epithumia)2 and, to a lesser extent, of perceptual
© Verity Harte 2014

Earlier versions of this paper were given at a workshop at Toronto (March 2009)
on time and consciousness in Plato's Philebus and related texts; at a meeting of the
Central APA in Chicago (February 2010); at the Princeton Colloquium in Ancient
Philosophy (December 2011); to the Philosophy Departments at Michigan, UNC,
and Wesleyan; and to the Townsend working group in ancient philosophy at Berke-
ley. Each occasion resulted in profitable questions from my audience, for which I
am grateful. In Toronto, Chicago, and Princeton I was especially fortunate to have
the benefit of commentators, Jakub Krajczynski, Sean Kelsey, and Jennifer Whit-
ing respectively, each of whose comments prompted significant improvements to
subsequent versions. For the details of the reading of the Desire Argument I now
put forward, I am particularly indebted to sharp and constructive questions from
Jakub, Victor Caston, Ursula Coope, John Cooper, David Ebrey, Hendrik Lorenz,
and Stephen Menn, together with a concrete proposal from Sean. I am grateful also
to Amber Carpenter, Matt Evans, and the students in my seminar on the Philebus at
Yale in spring 2012 for comments and discussion. The penultimate version profited
from comments and editorial advice from Brad Inwood.
1
For the general point that Aristotle's project in De anima is critically respon-
sive to Platonic psychology, especially as developed in the Philebus and Timaeus,
see S. Menn, Aristotle's Definition of Soul and the Programme of the De anima'
[Aristotle's Definition of Soul'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 22 (2002),
83-140. For a detailed exploration of some elements of Aristotle's engagement with
the Philebus in his De anima see A. Carpenter, 'What is Peculiar to Plato's and Aris-
totle's Psychologies? What is Common to Them Both?' ['What is Peculiar?'], in V.
Harte, M. M. McCabe, R. W Sharpies, and A. Sheppard (eds.), Aristotle and the
Stoics Reading Plato (London, 2010), 21-44.
2
I discuss the scope and meaning of this term below.
34 Verity Harte
awareness (aisthesis) and of memory (mneme) will be my focus in
this paper.
My starting-point is the conclusion of a short but difficult stretch
of argument, which Socrates first states at Philebus 35 D 5-6 and
subsequently reprises at 41 B i i-c 8, thus: 3
[i] soc. The argument proves that our body in no way suffers [paschein]
thirst, hunger, or anything of this sort.
[2] soc. We said a little while ago, if we remember, that when the things
called desires [epithumiai] are in us, the body is separated from the
soul in respect of the experiences.4
P R O . We remember. This is what we said before.
soc. And the soul was what desires [to epithumoun] conditions opposed
to that of the body, whereas the body was what provided the pain or
some kind of pleasure on account of the experience.
P R O . It was.
Prima facie, the conclusion Socrates draws in these passages is sur-

prising. It seems, for example, directly opposed to the view of the
Phaedo, where Socrates located hunger and thirst in the body as
distinct from the soul (Phaedo 946 7-0 i). Socrates' conclusion is
also of independent historical interest, in so far as his identifica-
tion of the soul as 'what desires' seems exactly the sort of claim that
Aristotle, in developing his own psychology, subjects to withering
criticism when he writes:
[3] To say that the soul is angry would be just as if someone were to say
that the soul weaves or builds. Presumably it is better not to say that
the soul pities, learns, or thinks, but that the person does so in virtue
of soul. (DA i. 4, 4o8 b n-i5)
And yet, I shall argue, correctly understood, Socrates' conclusion

comes closer to Aristotle's own philosophical position than Aris-
totle recognizes or admits.
The correct understanding of Socrates' conclusion, however, is
far from clear. Especially in the light of passage [i], one could be
forgiven for thinking that Socrates means to deny bodily involve -
3
Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. Citations without named text
are from the Philebus in Burnet's 1901 OCT edition.
4
The translation of this sentence is tricky, but this seems to give its sense. D.
Frede, Plato: Philebus [Philebus] (Indianapolis, 1993), ad loc., offers the following,
somewhat less literal translation: 'then body and soul part company and have each
their separate experiences'.
Desire, Memory, and the Authority of Soul 35
ment in such seemingly paradigmatic body-involving states as hun-
ger and thirst. Of course, Plato is a soul-body dualist of some sort,
so we might expect him to believe that there is soul involvement in
desires of this sort, the Phaedo passage mentioned notwithstanding.
Even if we are no kind of dualist, thirst, as opposed to dehydration,
is reasonably thought to be some kind of mental state. But to ex-
clude body from any involvement in these states would be not just
surprising, but absurd.
In his reprise in passage [2] Socrates attributes some role to body
in desire, the provision of pain or pleasure. This suggests that Soc-
rates cannot intend a radical exclusion of body from his account of
desires such as thirst. But what he does intend is not at all perspicu-
ous. Clearly enough, the claim that the body does not suffer hunger
or thirst goes hand in hand with the view that it is the soul that
does so. Soul is 'what desires', in the words of passage [2]. (This
is the claim that Aristotle appears to target for criticism.) But it
remains unclear, in passages [i] and [2], what more precisely Soc-
rates denies to body and assigns to soul. The goal of my paper is to
provide an understanding of these claims regarding desire, body,
and soul, and of the argument to them. 5 I shall call this argument
the 'Desire Argument'.
When properly understood, I shall argue, the conclusion of Soc-
rates' Desire Argument makes a first key move in the project of the
Philebus as a whole, the defence of Socrates' intellectual candidates
in their contest against pleasure as having responsibility for the best
5
The structure of the argument and the significance of its conclusion have not
received the attention I believe they deserve, especially when compared with the
enormous attention paid to the subsequent argument that pleasures can be false.
The argument is discussed by the major commentaries, but without close attention
to how it works or to the meaning and significance of its conclusion, except to say—as
is true—that the argument is important preparation for the subsequent discussion
of true and false pleasures of anticipation. See, for example, the discussions in R.
Hackforth, Plato's Philebus [Philebus] (Cambridge, 1972), ad loc.; J. C. B. Gosling,
Plato: Philebus [Philebus] (Oxford, 1975), ad loc.; and D. Frede, Philebos (Gottin-
gen, 1997), ad loc. For a detailed discussion of the argument and its merits, with
which my own may be profitably compared, see M. Evans, 'Plato and the Meaning
of Pain' ['Pain'], Apeiron, 40 (2007), 71-94. Unlike Evans, I am especially concerned
to situate the argument in the context of the dialogue's project and overall argument.
S. Delcomminette, Le Philebe de Platon: introduction a Fagathologieplatonicienne \Le
Philebe] (Leiden, 2006), 330-45, offers valuable treatment of the passage as a whole
in considerable detail, with a view to its overall importance within the dialogue, but
he is not similarly concerned with the structure of the argument. Our readings differ
both in the meaning and significance they accord to the argument's conclusion and
on various points of detail.
36 Verity Harte
human life. It does so by extending the reach of the rational soul

further into our bodily lives than has been seen in earlier Platonic
discussions of bodily appetites. A key engine of this extension is
the psychological role accorded to memory, which in turn explains
an otherwise surprising inclusion of memory in Socrates' family of
intellectual candidates for the good at the start of the dialogue.
Making my case will require careful consideration of exactly how
Socrates' Desire Argument does—and does not—work. In particu-
lar, it will be necessary to forestall two tempting but anachronis-
tic readings, which would see Socrates making distinctly modern
moves about the specialness of soul. In this connection, I shall fo-
cus in particular on the role that is played in the argument by the
phenomenon that we would call 'intentionality', the directedness or
'aboutness' of desire.6 While the dialogue can be seen to accord in-
tentionality to soul in a range of psychological phenomena and may,
with considerable interpretative supplementation, contain the seeds
from which a theory of intentionality might be developed, no such
theory is on offer in the dialogue; nor is it a concern of the dialogue
to offer one. Further, a correct understanding of the Desire Argu-
ment allows that, although Socrates works within an assumed soul—
6
Victor Caston has argued in a number of papers that the phenomenon of in-
tentionality was widely observed in Greek antiquity and that, in particular, the
widespread discussion in ancient Greek philosophy of the philosophical problems
arising from the possibility of false thought and speech should rightly be regarded
as part of the history of the problem of intentionality: V. Caston, 'Aristotle and
the Problem of Intentionality' ['Aristotle'], Philosophy and Phenomenological Re-
search, 58 (1998), 249-98; 'Intentionality in Ancient Philosophy', in E. N. Zalta
(ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 edn.) <http://plato.stanford.
edu/archives/fall2Oo8/entries/intentionality-ancient/>; and 'Connecting Traditions:
Augustine and the Greeks on Intentionality', in D. Perler (ed.), Ancient and Medi-
eval Theories of Intentionality (Leiden, 2001), 23-48. This is the main focus of the
Platonic discussion relating to intentionality Caston discusses, but not the one that I
will be exploring in focusing on the Desire Argument. It is to Aristotle, rather than
Plato, that Caston attributes an explicit solution to the problem of intentionality,
offered as such (see especially his Aristotle'). It is not my purpose to dispute this.
Indeed, I will be denying that it is a concern of the Philebus passages I am interested
in—or of the dialogue as a whole—to provide anything like an explicit account of in-
tentionality. However, if the admittedly speculative suggestion I will develop in the
paper as to how best to understand the Philebus's talk of memory's fastening on to an
object of desire is correct, materials from which an account of intentionality might be
developed can be found in the Philebus, and they share at least some of the features
that Caston identifies in Aristotle's account of intentionality in Aristotle'. Caston's
main sources in Aristotle, his De memoria and De insomniis, are works significantly
influenced by the Philebus, or so I would argue.
body dualist framework, he does not take as starting-point some
assumed specialness of soul.
i. Three conclusions at Philebus 35 c—D

The conclusion that Socrates draws in passage [i] is in fact one of
three conclusions that he draws in the passage:
(Ci) Desire (epithumid) is not 'of the body' (somatos) (35 c 6).
(Cz) Every impulse (horme), desire (epithumia), and the origin
or rule (arche) of the entire animal is 'of the soul' (psuches)
(35D 1-3).
(C3) Our body does not suffer (pascheiri) hunger, thirst, and the
like (35 D 5-6).
Two remarks on translation are in order here. First, it is not clear
what is in the scope of the Greek term that I have translated 'desire'
(epithumid), and which might also be translated 'appetite'.7 Socra-
tes treats hunger and thirst as examples of the general phenomenon
under discussion (34 D IO-E i). In so doing, he gives the impression
of picking up on something agreed upon earlier ('didn't we say just
now . . .?', 340 10—E i). In fact, however, the earlier discussion of
hunger and thirst to which he must be referring, at 31 E 3—32 B 4,
nowhere talks of desire (epithumia). There, hunger and thirst were
introduced as 'commonplace' (demosia, 31 E 3) examples of a type of
pain, with eating and drinking as examples of the correlative type of
pleasure. This type of pleasure and pain was the first type of plea-
sure and pain to be identified by Socrates in his general discussion
of pleasure and pain. It was identified as consisting in processes
in which an animal's natural harmonious condition undergoes de-
struction (pain) or restoration (pleasure).8 The scope of the term
'desire' (epithumia) will be the scope of this type of pain and plea-
sure, on which I say more below.
The second point of translation concerns the Greek term arche in
7
'Appetite' might be the better choice, but it has the disadvantage of lacking a
corresponding verb in English.
8
Rightly noticing this, Matthew Evans (Tain') takes it to show that the coming
analysis of desire (eTriOv/jiia) can be taken as an account of all bodily pains. By con-
trast, I take Socrates' position to be that desire is a species of pain, so that, contra
Evans (e.g. at 87-8), features of desire cannot automatically be attributed to pain in
general. Cf. Frede, Philebos, 235.
38 Verity Harte
(Cz). The term has two main connotations: the first makes an arche
a starting-point of some sort, yielding translations such as 'origin'
or 'beginning'; the second makes an arche some kind of ruling au-
thority and may be translated as 'rule'. For the moment, I do not
decide between these options.
Of Socrates' three conclusions, (Ci) and (Cz) are no more per-
spicuous than (C3) taken in isolation. It is not obvious what it means
for desire not to be 'of the body', nor, correspondingly, what is
meant by saying that it is 'of the soul'. It is also not clear what con-
nection there is between impulse, desire, and the arche (origin or
rule) of the entire animal. Our best aid to understanding these con-
clusions will be an understanding of the argument to them. Never-
theless, there is reason to think that these various conclusions can
be used to aid the interpretation of each other. This is because it is
clear from the context that Socrates thinks that each of these conclu-
sions can be drawn from the preceding Desire Argument without
the aid of any additional argument (with the possible exception of
each other).
This is clear from passage [4], in which Socrates usefully com-
ments on what his preceding Desire Argument may be understood
to have accomplished.
[4] s o c. Then do we understand what conclusion has emerged for us from

these statements?
P R O . Which conclusion?
soc. [i] This argument tells us that desire is not of the body.
P R O . How so?
soc. [ii] Because [desire]9 makes known the reaching out [or, liter-
ally, 'putting one's hand to', epicheiresis] in each animal,10 on each
occasion,11 in the opposite direction to its experiences.
P R O . Indeed.
soc. [iii] And the impulse leading [the animal] in the opposite direc
tion to the experiences reveals, presumably, that there is memory of
what's opposed to the experiences.
P R O . Very much so.
9
I take the subject here to be e-uiBv^la. from c 6, following Gosling, Philebus, ad
loc., against Frede, Philebus, ad loc., who takes the subject to be Aoyog-. The point is
not essential.
10
I take this as a generalization across animals (in the relevant circumstances). An
alternative but less likely translation would be 'of the entire animal' (cf. 35 D 3).
11
That is, on each relevant such occasion: there is no need to find here any claim
that animals always strive for the opposite of their experience, which Socrates could
surely agree is contrary to fact.
soc. [iv] Then, having demonstrated memory to be what leads on [the
animal] to the things desired, the argument made it clear that every
impulse [horme] and desire [epithumia] and the origin/rule [arche] of
the entire animal is of the soul.
P R O . Absolutely right.
soc. [v] Then the argument proves that our body in no way suffers
thirst, hunger, or anything of this sort.
P R O . Very true. (35 c 3-0 7)
For ease of analysis, I have broken Socrates' comment into its five
constituent assertions, identified by roman numerals. The goal of
passage [4] is to state the conclusion or conclusions reached by the
preceding argument. 12 Socrates does not here offer any additional
argument for these conclusions. Rather, he points to the central
claims and structure of his preceding Desire Argument in order to
make explicit the conclusions that may now be drawn from it, which
are introduced in [i] with the conclusion that desire (epithumia) is
not 'of the body'; this is (Ci). That Socrates is not in this passage
offering additional argument for this conclusion is the reason for
the striking fact that, throughout passage [4], Socrates focuses on
what the preceding argument and its central claims may be taken
to 'tell', 'make known', 'reveal', 'demonstrate', 'make clear', and,
finally, 'prove' (terms italicized for emphasis in passage [4]).
At the heart of the passage, [ii]-[iii], Socrates highlights two co-
ordinate claims found in the preceding argument: [ii] that, in de-
sire, an animal aims at the opposite of its current experience (cf.
34 E 9-35 A 5); and [iii] that the presence of this oppositional aim-
ing indicates that the animal has memory of the relevant opposed
experience (cf. 35 A 6-c 2). The phrase 'impulse leading [the ani-
mal] in the opposite direction to the experiences' in [iii] picks up
the phrase 'the reaching out . . . in the opposite direction to its ex-
periences' in [ii]. In [ii] a kind of oppositional striving is identified,
in [iii], a psychological implication of its occurrence. Not only can
these two claims be found in the preceding argument, in the pas-
sages indicated; they also seem, taken together, to be the claims that
emerge most centrally from the two main parts of that argument.
They will occupy considerable attention below.
12
Socrates states three conclusions (Ci—3). For present purposes it does not mat-
ter whether we think of these as three distinct conclusions drawn from the preceding
argument (and possibly each other) or as three distinct statements of the same con-
clusion.
40 Verity Harte
The statements [iv] and [v] that follow Socrates' mention of these
two co-ordinate claims both draw inferences.13 Socrates here states
what in the light of its two main claims the preceding Desire Argu-
ment may now be seen to 'have shown' and 'to prove'. In [iv] this is
said to be that desire (epithumia), here taken together with impulse
(horme) and the origin/rule (arche) of the entire animal, has been
shown by the preceding argument to be 'of the soul'; this is (Cz).
To bring together this and Socrates' statement of the argument's
conclusion in [i] (Ci), we need only make the reasonable assump-
tion that, in context, being 'of the soul' is meant in such a way as to
contrast with being 'of the body'. Socrates' final statement [v], like
his first [i], frames a conclusion about body: that the body does not
suffer thirst (thirst being, from the start of the preceding argument,
our sample desire (epithumia))\ this is (C3). Socrates gives no addi-
tional argument for (03). He must, then, take it either to be equiva-
lent to (Cz) or to follow from it directly. Passage [4] thus confirms
that Socrates takes (Ci—3) to be three conclusions (or three state-
ments of the same single conclusion) that together emerge from his
preceding Desire Argument. They can therefore be used as aids in
interpreting each other.
2. Introducing the Desire Argument
As we have seen, in passage [4] Socrates highlights two claims as

central to the Desire Argument resulting in conclusions (Ci—3).
The first is that, in desire, an animal aims at the opposite of its cur-
rent experience. The second is that this oppositional aiming reveals
that the animal has memory of the opposed experience. Framed in
this way, passage [4] gives the impression that the argument to show
that desire is the preserve of soul and not body turns on this point
about memory: Socrates shows that memory is involved in the op-
positional aiming of desire and in so doing attributes this oppositio-
nal aiming, and hence desire, to an activity that is assumed to belong
to soul and not to body. At least at first sight, however, this is not
how the preceding Desire Argument works. If anything, that argu-
ment seems to proceed in the reverse direction. Socrates argues that
the oppositional aiming of desire cannot be accomplished by body
and must therefore be accomplished by soul. Memory is then iden-
13
Note the inferential particle apa in 35 D i and 35 D 5.
lifted as available to soul for effecting this oppositional aiming, what
Socrates calls its 'reaching out' (epicheiresis, passage [4!!]). Never-
theless, the involvement of memory does turn out to be critical, as
we shall see.
Here, in rough outline, are the four main steps of Socrates' De-
sire Argument:
(DAi) What is desired when a person thirsts is the opposite of

that person's current bodily experience. This premiss is
supported by the claims that thirst involves the body be-
coming empty14 (34 E 11; 35 B 9) and that thirst is a desire
for filling (that is, for becoming full, the opposite of be-
coming empty) with drink (34 E 13-35 A 2; 35 A 3~4)-
(DAz) When a person who thirsts desires filling (desires to
become full), some part of the person who thirsts must
'fasten on to' (ephaptesthai) filling (35 B i—8).
(DA3) The body of the thirsty person, since it is becoming
empty, cannot be what fastens on to filling (to becoming
full) (35 B 9).
(DA4) The remaining alternative is that it is the soul of the
thirsty person that fastens on to filling (to becoming full),
doing so by memory (35 B i i-c 2).
This argument raises many questions, and I shall not attempt to

deal with all of them. In particular, I shall largely set aside questions
regarding the framework assumed in (DAi), according to which de-
sire is always aimed at the opposite of a person's current experience,
in the case of thirst, the opposite of their current bodily experience.
Even if some desires are of this sort, it seems far from clear that
all desires are of this sort. (Of course, it is also unclear whether all
desires are in this argument's sights.) The framework assumed in
(DAi) has some precedent in other Platonic passages where we find
arguments for some kind of conceptual entailment between desir-
14
I talk here and throughout of the body or soul 'becoming empty' or 'becoming
full' to make it clear that the focus is on the status of the body or soul as receptacle of
a filling or emptying process and not on the body or soul undergoing the processes
themselves. Although a receptacle can simultaneously undergo processes of filling
and emptying, a receptacle cannot simultaneously become empty and become full.
One can, for example, run water into a bath without the plug in so that the bath is
both emptied and filled, but, depending on the rate of fill and drainage, the bath-
water volume will be either increasing or decreasing (or neither), but not both.
42 Verity Harte
ing X and currently lacking X.15 But currently lacking X is different
from, though entailed by, being presently characterized by the op-
posite of X, which is what (DAi) takes to be the condition of the
body of the thirsting person.
I set aside questions about (DAi), even though the point is un-
doubtedly critical for the argument. Instead I shall focus on those
aspects of the Desire Argument that help us see what it is about
body and soul that has the consequence that it must be soul and
not body that desires, whatever exactly this may mean. It is these
aspects of the argument that will help to show what, if anything,
Plato takes to be special about soul.
3. What is so special about soul? Two options rejected
One possibility that might come naturally to mind in this context is

that Socrates is picking out soul in contrast to body as the subject of
desire because of the special sort of experience that desire involves.
Call this the 'Special Experience Reading': desire, the thought be-
hind this reading goes, involves conscious experience of a sort that
simply could not be found in a bodily occurrence; and this is the
reason why, in passage [2], Socrates identifies the soul as 'what de-
sires'. This Special Experience Reading may give reasonable sense
to the claims that the body does not suffer hunger or thirst (passage
[i]) and that the soul is what desires (passage [2]). However, there
are a number of reasons to reject this Special Experience Reading.
One is that consideration of Socrates' Desire Argument (DAi—
4) provides no support for the view that the attribution of desire
to soul rests on considerations regarding conscious experience, of
which there is simply no evidence in the argument. The core of
Socrates' argument turns on a point about opposites (in particular,
(DAi) and (DA3)). The body is precluded from occupying the role
that is attributed to soul because its current condition is the oppo-
site of the condition the occupant of that role must fasten on to. I
shall return to the details of this central piece of the Desire Argu-
ment. But it is already clear that nothing in the point being made
here turns on the nature of conscious experience.
A second reason to reject the Special Experience Reading is that
an argument of this sort ought to apply to other psychological
15
See e.g. Sym. 200 A 5-6 3.
activities, such as perceptual awareness (aisthesis}, just as much
as to desire (epithumia). Yet, although the Desire Argument oc-
curs within a context of discussion of a sequence of psychological
activities—perceptual awareness, memory, and desire—the argu-
ment clearly intends its point to be specific to desire and not to
extend to conscious experiences more generally Indeed, it is clear
that the conclusion of the Desire Argument does not generalize
to perceptual awareness (aisthesis) as Socrates characterizes it. In
perceptual awareness, he says, body and soul are affected together,
subject to a kind of 'shaking, peculiar and common to each' (330
5-6). There is here no opposition between body and soul of the
sort that Socrates' Desire Argument requires.
The contrast between Socrates' characterizations of perceptual
awareness and of desire suggests a second possible understanding
of what is special about soul so as to make it the subject of desire.
According to this second possibility, in desire, unlike in perceptual
awareness, all of the activity involved is activity of soul alone with
the body playing no part. Call this the 'Exclusive Activity Reading'.
Earlier, I acknowledged but rejected the possibility that, when Soc-
rates says in passage [i] that the body does not suffer hunger and
thirst, he means to exclude the body entirely from any involvement
in such paradigmatic body-involving states. However, when Socra-
tes says in passage [2] that the soul is 'what desires', while the body
provides the pain or pleasure, he might be read as acknowledging
the involvement of body but as nevertheless reserving the title 'de-
sire' exclusively for the activity of soul.
At issue is the role of the bodily process of becoming empty in
the analysis of a desire such as thirst. The occurrence of this bodily
process appears to be at least a necessary condition for the occur-
rence of thirst. 16 If it were not the case that the body necessarily
becomes empty on any occasion of thirst, then Socrates' argument,
in (DA3), that the body, since it is becoming empty, is incapable
of fastening on to the corresponding filling would not be success-
ful. However, this bodily process seems not only to be a necessary
concomitant of thirst: it is more natural to read Socrates as hold-
ing that this bodily process is itself a component in his analysis of
thirst. See, for example, what he says at 34 E 9-12:
16
Contrast Gosling, Philebus, 105. Presumably this does not commit Socrates to
the implausible view that one cannot desire to drink in the absence of such a bodily
condition; rather, he would deny that such a desire is thirst.
44 Verity Harte
[5] soc. By 'he thirsts' [dipsei] there is, on each occasion, something we
mean, presumably?
P R O . Of course!
soc. And is this that he is becoming empty?
P R O . What else?
Consider, then, again what Socrates says in passage [2]:

[2] soc. We said a little while ago, if we remember, that when the things
called desires [epithumiai] are in us, the body is separated from the
soul in respect of the experiences.
P R O . We remember. This is what we said before.
soc. And the soul was what desires [to epithumoun] conditions opposed
to that of the body, whereas the body was what provided the pain or
some kind of pleasure on account of the experience.
P R O . It was. (4iBii-c8)
While passage [2] can be read so as to have Socrates accord the title
'thirst' only to the soul's contribution, it is more naturally read as
his identifying the body's provision of pain or pleasure as part of
a twofold analysis of 'these things called desires'.17 (Strictly speak-
ing, the body would provide pain—the pain involved in becoming
empty—as part of the painful desire that is thirst, but pleasure—
the pleasure involved in becoming appropriately full again—as part
of actual or anticipated satisfaction of that desire through having
or anticipating the pleasure of eating. The greater complication of
Socrates' reprise in passage [2] takes into account the discussion
of how concurrent expectation can affect and enrich the experience
of desire, immediately following the conclusion of the Desire Ar-
gument, at 35 E 7-36 c 2.)
This first reason to reject the Exclusive Activity Reading is not
decisive. But there is another reason and one that stands as an addi-
tional objection to the Special Experience Reading also. On neither
of these readings does Socrates' conclusion make obvious use of
the additional features to which he explicitly relates desire when
he states and explains the conclusion of the Desire Argument in
passage [4]. These were impulse (horme) and the origin or rule
(arche) of the entire animal. But Socrates appeared to place consi-
derable weight on these additional features in stating and explaining
17
In passage [2] the activities of body and soul are connected as well as contrasted
in the construction using /jiev and Se (410 5—6).
the conclusion of his argument, such that it seemed appropriate to
identify (Cz) as one of the argument's three linked conclusions:
(Cz) Every impulse (horme), desire (epithumia), and the origin

or rule (arche) of the entire animal is 'of the soul' (psuches)
(35D 1-3).
The understanding of Socrates' conclusion to the Desire Argument

that I will defend takes its cue from this talk of 'impulse' and, in
particular, of the 'origin' or 'rule' of the entire animal. First, how-
ever, we need a better understanding of the work that is done in
the Desire Argument by the central claim about opposites. It is by
understanding this component of Socrates' argument that we will
best discover what, if anything, he does think special to soul and
what the role is that he accords to soul and not body in desire.
4. Intentionality and Soul
Return for a moment to the Special Experience Reading. This is a

species of a more general sort of reading of the Desire Argument
that one might call the Special Sort of Subject Reading, according
to which only the soul is the sort of thing that could be the subject of
a phenomenon such as desire. l8 I provided reasons to reject the view
that the argument appeals to conscious experience in an argument
of this form, in part because there is no evidence that conscious ex-
perience plays any role in the argument. There is, however, a dif-
ferent phenomenon arguably at work in the argument that has also
traditionally seemed to be the special preserve of soul: intentiona-
lity. I take intentionality to be what we would identify as the feature
of desire referred to when, in the argument, Socrates talks of some
part of the thirsty person fastening on (ephaptesthai) to the desired
refilling with drink, and when, in his statement of the conclusion of
the argument in passage [4], he talks of a 'reaching out' or literally
'putting one's hand to' (epicheiresis) that occurs in desire.19 Desire
is directed towards or about what is desired, in the example given, a
18
Of course, any reading of the argument must deliver the conclusion that the
soul, not the body, is that subject, whatever being that subject may mean. My point
is that a Special Sort of Subject Reading would root this fact in a prior assumption
about what sort of thing is needed and about the limitations of the bodily to support
such activity.
19
To say that intentionality is what we would identify as the feature referred to is
46 Verity Harte
restorative filling with drink. Perhaps, then, Socrates takes intentio-

nality to be the sort of phenomenon that could not belong to body,
but could only be attributed to soul. The possibility is worth ex-
ploring, although, as we shall see, the crucial parts of the argument
are maddeningly condensed.
Consider again the four steps of Socrates' Desire Argument:
(DAi) What is desired when a person thirsts is the opposite of

that person's current bodily experience.
(DAz) When a person who thirsts desires filling (desires to
become full), some part of the person who thirsts must
'fasten on to' (ephaptesthai) filling (35 B i—8).
(DA3) The body of the thirsty person, since it is becoming
empty, cannot be what fastens on to filling (to becoming
full) (35 B 9).
(DA4) The remaining alternative is that it is the soul of the
thirsty person that fastens on to filling (to becoming full),
doing so by memory (35 B i i-c 2).
Granted the intentionality of desire, assumed in (DAz), the criti-

cal claims of this argument are: (DA3), the claim that it is impos-
sible that the body of the thirsty person should fasten on to the
desired filling; and (DA4), the conclusion that the only remain-
ing alternative is for the soul of the thirsty person to do so. (DA4)
seems reasonable, once given (DA3) and given certain background
assumptions, although it is disputable whether Socrates is right to
conclude from this that the soul and not the person as a whole is
'what desires', as in passage [2]. This, recall, was Aristotle's objec-
tion. For the present, however, (DA3) should be the focus of our
attention and what is involved in fastening on.
One thought in (DA3) is clear enough, at least for now. The rea-
son that the body of the thirsty person cannot fasten on to filling is
that the body is currently becoming empty. More specifically, the
body is currently undergoing the opposite of the very thing to be
fastened on to, becoming full. That the body of the thirsty person
is currently becoming empty is secured by (DAi). The question is
why the body's current condition of becoming empty should make
it impossible for body to fasten on to becoming full in the way that
the intentionality of desire requires.
to remain neutral on the question of whether or not Socrates, in talk of fastening on
to the desired refilling, should be taken to have a theory of intentionality.
A simple explanation of this impossibility would be to suppose
that fastening on to becoming full involves actually becoming full.
If this were the case, the impossibility of body fastening on to be-
coming full would go through by appeal to a principle of non-
conflict. In desire, body cannot fasten on to becoming full, because
(i) (by assumption) fastening on to becoming full involves becom-
ing full, but (2) (by (DAi)) in desire the body is currently becoming
empty, and (3) (by an unstated principle of non-conflict) nothing
can become full and become empty at the same time and in the same
respect.
Considered on its own, this seems a perfectly possible and at-
tractively simple reading of the Desire Argument. However, there
is reason in context to suppose that this simple understanding of
the argument will not quite do. Although this reading provides an
explanation of why the body cannot fasten on to becoming full, it
turns out not yet to explain why soul is able to do so. Clearly, how-
ever, the two main desiderata for a reading of the argument are to
explain (a) why it is impossible for body to fasten on to becoming
full, but also (b) why soul is nevertheless able to do so.
The difficulty arises from the scope of desire (epithumia), in par-
ticular the question of whether the lacks—the conflict-generating
opposing conditions that all desires are assumed by the argument to
involve—must all be bodily lacks. The examples that Socrates gives
in the argument, hunger and thirst, evidently involve bodily lacks.
Indeed, bodily desires are the argument's explicit focus. However,
the context of the Desire Argument provides reason to reject the
generalization that all desires—all epithumiai—involve some bodily
lack.20
Earlier I noted that the scope of desire (epithumid) is fixed by
the extension of the first type of pain and pleasure that Socrates
introduced in the dialogue, consisting in processes in which an ani-
mal's natural harmonious condition undergoes destruction (pain)
or restoration (pleasure). In introducing this first type of pain and
pleasure Socrates made clear, at 31 c 2-11, that the harmonious
condition whose destruction constitutes the painful lack involved
20
The argument that follows focuses on the scope of 'desire' as a translation of the
Greek term e-uiBv^la. and not on the question of whether the scope of e-uiBv^la. extends
to everything we might call 'desire'. On this latter question, I would argue that in
the Philebus the term emû^/a does not include everything we would call 'desire', in
part because every e-uiBv^la. is painful. But this question is orthogonal to the point at
issue here and I will not be addressing it in this paper.
48 Verity Harte
in desire is the type of harmonious condition identified previously
in the dialogue as the third of four kinds in the fourfold ontological
division of Phileb. 23 c 4-27 c 2. Examples of this type of harmoni-
ous condition, at 31 c n, were health and harmony, analysed as a
mixture of the unlimited and limit (23 c 9—0 i; 25 E 7—26 D I G ) . As
Delcomminette has argued, the inclusion in the discussion of this
type of harmonious condition of purely psychological harmonies,
at 26 B 6—7, is reason to believe that there are disintegrative pains
and restorative pleasures involving purely psychological harmonies
also.21 By the same token, there is reason to think that such psycho-
logical harmonies give evidence of the existence of desires involving
purely psychological lacks, lacks occurring in soul and not body
As to examples, the passage on desire itself gestures in the dir-
ection of such a psychological lack. In a curious bit of byplay in
the frame of the Desire Argument, Socrates points to an intellec-
tual example of a restorative pleasure. 22 At 34 D i Socrates turns
to the topic of desire by suggesting that, having already considered
perceptual awareness, memory, and recollection, their next task is
to say what desire is and how it arises. Protarchus responds that
they 'have nothing to lose' (340 4). Far from it, Socrates replies.
If they discover what they are looking for, he says, they will lose
their 'aporia regarding these very matters' (340 5-7). Later in the
dialogue Socrates offers the pleasures of intellectual learning as an
example of true pleasure, and these pleasures are explicitly said to
involve being 'filled' with learning (52 A 5). The example is compli-
cated, because such intellectual pleasures will be true, according to
the later passage, only when not preceded by pain (51 E 7-52 A 3),
but desire (epithumia), as we have seen, is a species of pain. Never-
theless, if such lack of the relevant learning were to be painfully felt,
its pleasurable relief through learning would constitute the satisfac-
tion of a desire (epithumid) to learn.
The lack involved in a desire to learn seems an obvious example
of a purely psychological lack, given the plausible assumption
that Socrates regards the intellect as non-bodily. For additional
examples of purely psychological lacks, we may also look to the
dialogue's discussion of mixed pleasures involving both pains and
pleasures of soul and not body. (See the classification of mixed
21
Delcomminette, Le Philebe, 300.
22
Delcomminette, ibid., also draws attention to this framing material, though he
takes it to introduce a second type of desire.
pleasures at 46 B 8-c 4 and the discussion of mixed pleasures of
soul at 47 D 5-50 D 6.) We thus have evidence that Socrates' Desire
Argument should apply to purely psychological lacks as well as to
bodily lacks, even if the latter are the argument's principal focus.
If the Desire Argument applies to purely psychological lacks, the
simple reading of it offered above cannot be right. In the case of
lacks of soul, the desiring soul would be in just the same position
as the body in the argument's example of thirst. The desiring soul
would be currently in a condition opposed to the psychological re-
filling desired. This being the case, the simple reading of the ar-
gument would show that it could not be soul that fastens on to the
desired refilling in the requisite way.
We must think again. But we should not forget that the body's
condition of becoming empty would provide us with a good expla-
nation of the body's inability to fasten on to filling in the relevant
desires. Not only that: it would provide us with the explanation to
which Socrates himself points, at 35 B g.23 What we really need is
reason to think that for body, but not for soul, fastening on involves
actually becoming full. As it turns out, the argument gives us indi-
rect reason to think just this.
It is found in what seems to be a digression from the main line
of argument when Socrates interrupts the flow of his Desire Argu-
ment to consider the situation of someone who has the experience
of becoming empty for the first time:
[6] soc. What about this? Someone who is becoming empty for the first
time, do they have any way to fasten on to filling, whether through
perceptual awareness or through memory, that filling which they are
not suffering in the present nor have ever previously experienced?
P R O . How could they? (35A6-io)
Passage [6] implies, though does not state directly, that there are
two and only two available means of fastening on: perceptual aware-
ness (aisthesis) and memory (mneme). It implies this on the assump-
tion that the person under consideration, who is becoming empty
for the first time, is to be understood as someone who does not
experience desire (epithumia), but is merely pained. Socrates later
makes it clear that fastening on to filling (becoming full) is neces-
sary for desire (35 B 6-7, (DAz)). Thus, passage [6] will establish
that the person becoming empty for the first time does not desire
23
This is made clear in Greek by the occurrence of the explanatory particle yap.
50 Verity Harte
only if perceptual awareness and memory are assumed to be the
only available means of fastening on.24 I will return to the question
of why they should be assumed to be so.
For now, let us return to the situation for body In order to under-
stand how the Desire Argument might work, given the existence of
purely psychological lacks, we are looking for some reason to think
that for body, but not for soul, fastening on to a desired refilling
would involve actually becoming full. In this way, the body would
be precluded from fastening on to filling in just the way Socrates
suggests. Passage [6] suggests a reason to think this. Assume that
perceptual awareness of filling is the only context in which body
might be involved in fastening on.25 Perceptual awareness of filling
is also a context in which body is actually becoming full. 26 But this
means that it turns out to be impossible for the body to fasten on
to the desired refilling for the very reason that Socrates explicitly
gives: it is precluded from so doing by an assumed principle of non-
conflict on the grounds that the body of the desiring subject would,
at the relevant time, also be in exactly the opposed condition. Per
24
On both points I here agree with J. M. Lee 'Philebus 35 A 6-10', Phronesis, 11
(1966), 31-4. Delcomminette, Le Philebe, 332-3, offers a very different reading of
this passage, but I do not find his alternative translation plausible or necessary for
an interpretation of the argument in the ways he suggests.
25
I state this carefully to avoid implying either that perceptual awareness might
be an activity (exclusively) of body—according to Socrates, perceptual awareness is
an activity involving both body and soul (330 4-6); or that, in perceptual awareness,
the fastening on is definitively accomplished by body, not soul. The idea is simply
that, in the immediate Philebus context, the fact that perceptual awareness has been
identified as an activity of body and soul in common allows that perceptual awareness
would provide a context—indeed, the only context—in which fastening on might be
attributed to body, not soul.
26
Once we have begun to think about purely psychological lacks, it might seem
there is a gap in the argument here. The refilling of a purely psychological lack in-
volves no bodily refilling. In such a case, could not the body fasten on to the said
refilling? Even if it could in principle, Socrates' identification of perceptual aware-
ness (aiadrjais) as an activity of body and soul in common suggests that he could not
count such bodily activity as an occurrence of perceptual awareness. So, even if in
principle possible, this possibility too would be precluded by the suggested assump-
tion that perceptual awareness is the only context in which body might be involved
in fastening on. This leaves a puzzle as to how Socrates would characterize the soul's
awareness of the present refilling of a purely psychological lack, if not as an occur-
rence of perceptual awareness. The puzzle is a symptom of the fact that the explicit
focus of the Desire Argument, as John Cooper has stressed to me, is desires involving
body, exemplified by thirst. But this does not remove the necessity that an acceptable
reading of the argument should accommodate the existence of purely psychological
desires made evident by the broader context of the argument and at least hinted at
in its immediate frame.
impossibile, the body would be both becoming empty and becom-
ing full.
Why suppose that perceptual awareness is the only context in
which body might be involved in fastening on to a desired refilling?
There is no independent argument to explain this given here. But
we have been at least prepared for the thought in the discussion of
perceptual awareness and memory that immediately precedes the
Desire Argument in 33 c 5—34 c 3. There we were told that percep-
tual experience is something common to body and soul, though each
makes some distinctive contribution thereto (330 4-6). Memory,
by contrast, though closely connected to perceptual awareness (be
ing described by Socrates as the 'preservation [soteria] of perceptual
awareness', 34 A 10), is sufficiently detached from body to be avail-
able for involvement in activities of soul that are explicitly said to
occur 'without the body' (34 B y). 27
Socrates' immediate example of such an activity is 'recollection'
(anamimneskesthai, 34 B 8), which he describes as follows:
[7] soc. When the soul, on its own, without the body, takes up once again,
as far as is possible,28 those things it at one time suffered together with
body, we say presumably that it then recollects, do we not?
(34 B 6-8)
As we soon discover, another activity involving the soul's 'without
body' use of memories, including memories of body and soul-
involving perceptual experiences, is desire (epithumid).
Socrates' earlier discussion of perceptual awareness and memory
provides the resources needed for the reconstruction of the Desire
Argument offered above. It provides the context for supposing that,
27
There may be a hint of such detachment in Socrates' subsequent mention of
memory of an object of intellectual learning (nadyâros, 34 B n) in conjunction
with but distinct from memory of a perception (alaOrjaecus, 34 B 10—11). If learning
is a process in which nothing bodily occurs and perceptual awareness is, as Socrates
says, an activity of body and soul in common, it is hard to see how memory of this
kind could be understood as a 'preservation of perceptual awareness'. (Note, how-
ever, that Aristotle in fact takes memory of intellectual objects itself to depend on
perceptual activity, mDememoria i, 45oa 12-14.) The lack of clarity here is of apiece
with the overall focus on bodily processes (see also previous note).
28
I take OTL |U,aAiCTTa ('as far as is possible') with avaXa/jLâvrj ('takes up'). Why does
Socrates add the qualification 'as far as is possible' ? I take the qualification to be a
consequence of the earlier identification of perceptual awareness as something com-
mon to body and soul. In retrieving the memory of a perceptual experience 'on its
own' in recollection, the soul will recover, as it were, only the psychological compo-
nent of the remembered experience, the soul's distinctive contribution to the com-
mon activity of perceptual awareness.
52 Verity Harte
given two available options for fastening on, perceptual awareness
and memory, only perceptual awareness is a context in which body
might have been, but because of the principle of non-conflict cannot
be involved in the requisite fastening on to a desired refilling. The
principle of non-conflict on which the argument relies is perfectly
general, applying to body and soul. In the case of purely psycholo-
gical lacks—as we have seen that there are—the same principle of
non-conflict will preclude soul from fastening on to a desired re-
filling by means of perceptual awareness.29 For soul, however, unlike
for body, there is another means available. The soul can fasten on
to a desired refilling through memory, just as Socrates maintains
(DA4).3°
Although this reading of the argument seems successful, we are
not yet out of the woods. We still have to explain why the soul's
having memory of the desired refilling should enable it to fasten
on to this refilling. That is, we still have to illuminate the connec-
tion between memory and fastening on. More generally, we have to
explain why the argument presupposes two—and only two—means
available for fastening on: perceptual awareness and memory. (Note
that perceptual awareness is a means to fastening on even if it is not
a means that enables body to fasten on to the desired refilling in de-
sire. This much is clear from passage [6], 35 A y.) 31
Socrates has characterized memory as the 'preservation of per-
ceptual awareness' (34 A 10). He has not said in what such preser-
vation consists. One can see, in principle, why it might be that, if
perceptual awareness of filling counts as a means to fastening on,
memory, understood as the preservation of perceptual awareness,
might also so count. But perceptual awareness of filling is a means
to fastening on to filling—we have thus far assumed—because it in-
volves actually becoming filled. Since this is also the reason why
29
Alternatively: it will preclude soul fastening on to a desired refilling by means
of whatever psychological correlate of perceptual awareness Socrates may have in
mind for the phenomenon of the soul's awareness of its own present refilling, since
Socrates' account of perceptual awareness suggests that such awareness of soul does
not count as perceptual, since it does not involve the body at all. For the issue see
also above, n. 26.
30
The reading of the argument I offer here is broadly similar to that offered by
Evans, Tain', 86-7, though I do not agree with his apparent suggestion that the
central steps involved are made explicit in the ways he suggests, in his steps (8) and
(i i) especially.
31
The explanation, I take it, is that fastening on is not exclusive to desire, but
occurs in perceptual awareness also, as we would expect.
perceptual awareness cannot perform the role of fastening on in de-
sire, memory—to which this role is accorded—cannot, in fastening
on, likewise involve actually becoming full.
The shape of the problem suggests a solution. If perceptual
awareness of filling involves actually becoming full, memory, as the
preservation of perceptual awareness, must somehow involve be-
coming full, but not in the same way—in particular, not in actually
becoming full. How does it do so? My proposal is that it does so by
involving a preserved representation of the filling in question—the
soul's end of the filling experience, as it were. This preserved
representation is available for retrieval by the desiring soul. The
intuition behind this proposal is that when the Desire Argument
talks of fastening on or of 'putting one's hand to' (epicheiresis, 35 c
10), Socrates has in view what his terminology suggests: a model
of contact; and, further, that the relation of fastening on is like to
like. In thinking in this way, Socrates would be working within
an established tradition in antiquity of construing our awareness
of the world, perceptual and otherwise, as occurring by means of
contact and as involving relations between likes.32
This proposal is admittedly speculative; the argument does not
tell us so. Nevertheless, though a matter of speculation, there seem
to me a number of supporting reasons to think that Plato does in-
deed have in mind something in this vein.
The first involves another example of Platonic usage of the key
term that Socrates uses in the Desire Argument for the intentiona-
lity or directedness of desire: ephaptesthai or 'fastening on'. In a pas-
sage of the Theaetetus we find Plato using the term ephaptesthai in
a cognitive context in which the soul's fastening on clearly involves
its production of a representation, in this instance a linguistic repre-
sentation, as a component of the kind of silent judgement Socrates
takes to be made when the soul thinks by conversing with itself.
The context of this occurrence in the Theaetetus is Socrates'
short-lived proposal that Theaetetus and he will resolve the diffi-
32
A canonical example would be the theory of vision attributed to Empedocles
by Theophrastus, De sensibus i. 7—11 (=31 A 86 DK). For regarding awareness of
the world as a relation between likes, we also have direct evidence from Empedocles
in 31 B 109 DK. Early Greek theories of sensation and thought receive helpful dis-
cussion by A. Laks, 'Soul, Sensation and Thought', in A. A. Long (ed.), The Cam-
bridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, 1999), 250-70. The early
tradition continues, at least in Aristotle: see DA 2. 5, 4i6 b 35 (on aiadrjais), and 3. 3,
427a26-8 (on voefv).
54 Verity Harte
culty they have been experiencing in accommodating the possibility
of false judgement by taking false judgement to be a kind of 'other-
judging' (allodoxein, Theaet. 1890 5). What such other-judging
involves, Socrates goes on to explain, is '[setting] down a thing
in one's thought as another thing and not as itself'. 33 This setting
down of a thing in thought is what it is to think; and thinking,
Socrates proposes, is silent talking:
[8] soc. . . . Now by 'thinking' do you mean the same as I do?

T H E A E T . What do you mean by it?
s o c. A talk [logos] which the soul has with itself about the objects under
its consideration. Of course, I'm only telling you my idea in all ig-
norance; but this is the kind of picture I have of it. It seems to me that
the soul when it thinks is simply carrying on a discussion in which it
asks itself questions and answers them itself, affirms and denies. And
when it arrives at something definite, either by a gradual process or a
sudden leap, when it affirms one thing consistently and without di-
vided counsel, we call this its judgement. So, in my view, to judge
is to make a statement, and a judgement is a statement which is not
addressed to another person or spoken aloud, but silently addressed
to oneself. (Theaet. 189 E 4-190 A 6)
In what follows Socrates will destroy the other-judging proposal

by supposing that it commits them to the absurdity of supposing
that a person who mistakenly judges something beautiful as ugly
explicitly commits himself to a judgement of the form 'the beau-
tiful is ugly'. The means by which Socrates arrives at this conclu-
sion do not concern me here. Instead, I want to point to the way
in which Socrates characterizes the psychological operations that
constitute such silent judgements; it is here that our Philebus verb,
ephaptesthai, makes its appearance:
[9] soc. Well, then, if to make a statement to oneself is to judge, no one

who makes a statement, that is, a judgement, about both things, get-
ting hold of [ephaptomenos] both with his soul, can state, or judge,
that one is the other. . . . What I mean by it is this: no one judges
'The ugly is beautiful' or makes any other such judgement.
(Theaet. 190 c 5-0 2)
According to Socrates, in making a judgement—taking, for the

sake of example, the apparently absurd judgement 'the ugly is
33
Translations of the Theaetetus are those of Levett, revised by Burnyeat, in M.
Burnyeat, The Theaetetus of Plato (Indianapolis, 1990).
beautiful'—the person who judges gets hold of or fastens on to
both things with his soul. What are both things? They are, I take it,
the objects of the putative judgement: the beautiful and the ugly.
What does getting hold of them with one's soul consist in? The
production in the thinking soul of the linguistic representations
'beautiful' and 'ugly', which are the key constituents of the soul's
silent thought.
The Philebus has its own version of the Theaetetus proposal that
thinking is silent talking, conceiving silent talking as like the writ-
ing of a scribe on a psychological book (38 c 2-39 B 2). But it seems
unclear that any representations involved in the desires on which
Socrates is focused in the Desire Argument would be linguistic,
especially in the case of the commonplace bodily desires which
Socrates takes as examples. Nevertheless, the Theaetetus passage
provides a precedent for Platonic usage of the key term 'fastening
on' (ephaptesthai) as involving occurrence in the soul of representa-
tions in a way that offers general support for the understanding of
the Desire Argument I am proposing.
A second line of support comes from the central—and, as we have
seen, crucial—involvement of memory in the Desire Argument. It
is soul's use of memory—and the availability of such use of memory
to soul alone—that enables soul, but not body, to be in a position to
fasten on to filling, even granted the existence of purely psycholo-
gical desires. If my proposal about the mechanism for fastening on
involved in memory is correct, memory's role will be the produc-
tion in the soul of representations that are like that of which they are
representations. As we have seen, in the Philebus Socrates identifies
memory as the preservation (soteria] of perceptual awareness, 34 .
10, but does not say in what this preservation consists. Neverthe-
less, there is evidence that it is plausible to envisage the preservation
as involving some kind of likeness-involving representation.
First, some indirect evidence: this is the kind of model of
memory that Aristotle puts forward in De memoria, where he iden-
tifies memory as the having (hexis) of a kind of picture (zographema)
originating from the movement of perceptual awareness (aisthesis),
explaining that '[t]he process of movement stamps in, as it were, a
sort of impression of the percept, just as persons do who make an
impression with a seal' (Mem. 450^29—32). Here we have both of
the elements required for my proposal: memory as consisting in the
occurrence in the soul of representations, which representations
56 Verity Harte
are like what is remembered. Of course, it does not follow from the
fact that Aristotle has such a model of memory that Plato does so
also.34
Second, and more important, then, is direct evidence from the
Philebus that memory plays an important role in psychological op-
erations that are explicitly characterized as involving the production
of representations: these operations are (i) the formation of judge-
ments, characterized figuratively as the work of a scribe, writing in
the book of our soul the linguistic representations that feature in the
Philebus's version of the proposal that thinking is silent talking (38 c
2-39 B 2); (ii) a companion psychological operation that tradition
identifies as 'imagination' (phantasia),35 but which in the Philebus
is only indirectly identified by appeal to the work of a painter illus-
trating the work of the scribe and engaged in the production of in-
ternal pictures; the painter's pictures are clearly likeness-involving
representations (39 B 3-0 3).
The details and nature of these psychological operations do not
concern me here.36 Instead, my concern is to point to the important
role that Socrates ascribes to memory in connection with the oc-
currence of these two psychological operations. Judgement (doxa)
arises in us, according to Socrates, as a result of memory and per-
ceptual awareness (38 B 12-13). This is no doubt the reason why—
in a difficult sentence at 39 A i~337—Socrates identifies 'memory,
agreeing with the deliverances of perceptual awareness, and the af-
fections (pathemata) that occur in connection with these' as the ac-
tual psychological correlate of the figurative scribe: they are what
'as it were write statements [logoi] in our souls', those which the
painter illustrates.
Of course, it is possible that, while memory is central to the
34
Indeed, the comparison is controversial. Delcomminette, Le Philebe, 323,
denies that the Philebus account of memory shares with the Aristotelian account in
De memoria (and a literal-minded understanding of the wax-block image of Plato's
own Theaetetus] the involvement of an image.
35
That the work of the painter illustrates fiavraaia is assumed, for example, by
Damascius, In Phileb. 174. For text and translation see L. G. Westerink, Damascius:
Lectures on the Philebus Wrongly Attributed to Olympiodorus (Amsterdam, 1959).
36
For one recent discussion see K. Thein, 'Imagination, Self-Awareness, and
Modal Thought at Philebus 39-40', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 42 (2012),
109—49. Thein's concerns with self-awareness and modal thought are orthogonal to
the concerns of the present paper.
37
See the lengthy note on the sentence in R. G. Bury, The Philebus of Plato, Edi-
ted with Introduction, Notes and Appendices (Cambridge, 1897), ad loc.
production of psychological operations in which likeness-involving
representations occur in the soul, the occurrence of such repre-
sentations is all, as it were, downstream from memory itself. But
it seems far more likely that memory—and the other 'affections'
(pathematd) that Socrates mentions, but does not specify—can pro-
duce these kinds of likeness-involving representations, because they
themselves involve and contribute some part of the representations
concerned. That is, just as in the Theaetetus the soul's fastening on
resulted in the production of a linguistic representation 'the beau-
tiful is ugly' because it itself consisted in the occurrence within the
soul of component parts of this representation (the linguistic repre-
sentations 'beautiful' and 'ugly'), so, in the Philebus, memory plays
a role in the production of the representations involved in the work
of the scribe and the painter because it itself involves the occur-
rence of some type of likeness-involving representations as correl-
ates of perceptual awareness, in just the way the Aristotelian model
suggested it might. In this way there is, at least, considerable cir-
cumstantial evidence that the fastening on that memory is said to
accomplish in the Desire Argument involves the occurrence in the
soul of a representation in the way my admittedly speculative pro-
posal suggests.
A third and final line of support for my proposal comes from
the most explicit example that Socrates provides of the work of the
scribe and the painter.38 The example occurs at 40 A 9-12 in the
context of Socrates' defence of the possible existence of false plea-
sures. It is intended as an example of a false anticipatory pleasure.
The example is one in which a person 'sees himself acquiring a lot
of gold and many pleasures because of it. Moreover, he observes
himself painted within enjoying himself immensely.' The role of
this example in its context does not concern me here.39 Instead I
want to show, first, that the example, though complex, is directly
connected to the desires under discussion in the Desire Argument;
38
As an example of the work of scribe and painter, there is also the example of
wondering about and subsequently deciding for oneself the identity of an object seen
under a tree from afar (statue or man?), discussed at 38 c 2—E 8. But this example
comes before—and initiates—the discussion of scribe and painter. The example at
40 A 9-12 is more explicit inasmuch as it is framed in terms taken from the discus-
sion of the scribe and painter and indicative of their respective roles, the scribe's
Aoyoi (40 A 6) and the painter's images (TO, (f)avrdafjiaTa e^wypafirjijieva, 40 A 9).
39
I have discussed it in detail elsewhere: V. Harte, 'The Philebus on Pleasure: The
Good, the Bad and the False' ['Pleasure'], Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 104
(2004), 111-28.
58 Verity Harte
and, second, that, in the light of this connection, the example offers
support for the understanding of fastening on in the Desire Argu-
ment that I have proposed.
As to the connection between this example and the desires of
the Desire Argument: having stated the conclusion of the Desire
Argument (passages [4] and [i]), Socrates goes on to complicate
somewhat our picture of the desires at issue, according as the sub-
ject of the desire does or does not have the confident expectation
that the desire—thought of as a species of pain—will be satisfied.
In cases where confident expectation of satisfaction is present the
subject is, Socrates says, 'simultaneously pained and pleased' (36 B
8-9); in cases where there is no such confident expectation—or, bet-
ter, where there is confident expectation that the desire will not be
fulfilled—the desiring subject has a double pain. The discussion of
the possibility of false pleasures follows immediately, and is expli-
citly said to illustrate the use to be made of their investigation of the
various psychological phenomena discussed in the preceding pas-
sages culminating with the Desire Argument and the subsequent
comments on what to say about examples in which desires are ac-
companied by one or other sort of confident expectation (360 3—7).
The kind of anticipatory false pleasure Socrates subsequently gives
as an example is thus a perhaps especially complex form of the kind
of pleasure of expectation identified in the comments immediately
following the Desire Argument as capable of combining with the
pain of desire to yield a simultaneous pleasure and pain.40
How should we understand such anticipatory pleasures (setting
aside, for present purposes, the question of how to understand their
truth or falsity)? They are best understood not as pleasures in an-
ticipating, but as pleasures in the thing anticipated (for example,
winning the lottery), taken in advance.41 This explains Socrates'
use, in talking of such pleasures, of compound verbs to indicate tak-
ing pleasure (or in the case of anticipatory pains, pain) in advance
40
The example might be thought especially complex in so far as it involves
internal statements (Aoyoi) as well as pictures, on the assumption that such
statement-involving anticipatory pleasures might not in Socrates' view be available
to all animals. Some simultaneous pleasure-pain desires must be available to all
animals, given Socrates' explicit ascription of them to 'humans and the other
animals' at 36 B 8-9.
41
This is perhaps a clearer way to frame a point I previously put in terms of re-
ceiving an advance instalment of the corresponding pleasure (Harte 'Pleasure', e.g. at
123). For the importance of the point in the present context compare Frede, Philebos,
234-5-
(prochairein andprolupeisthai, at 39 D 4). There would be nothing in
advance about pleasure in anticipating, since the pleasure in ques-
tion occurs at the same time as one's anticipating. For present pur-
poses, what is important about the understanding of these pleasures
is that this is a view according to which the representation-forming
operations of the scribe and the painter which are responsible for
the occurrence of these sorts of pleasures and pains underwrite pre-
cisely the same broad model I have proposed for understanding the
fastening on of the Desire Argument.
In Socrates' example of anticipatory pleasure, the pleasure
constitutes a way of experiencing what is desired (the pleasure
of winning the lottery) when not as a matter of fact undergoing
the relevant pleasure-causing experience (winning the lottery),
doing so by means of the occurrence of a likeness in the soul (a
representation of oneself taking pleasure in winning the lottery).
Correspondingly, I am proposing, in the Desire Argument Socra-
tes' argument turns on the supposition that in memory the soul has
a mechanism that can fasten on to the object of desire by internally
producing that object in the occurrence of a memory-likeness. In
virtue of its relation to the actual filling desired, the production of
this memory-likeness counts as a method for fastening on to such
fillings,42 but is nevertheless distinct from actually becoming full in
such a way that its availability to soul (and not to body) provides the
basis for the Desire Argument's conclusion that it is soul (and not
body) that fastens on to filling in desire, doing so through memory.
5. The Desire Argument and the 'specialness' of soul
Let us regroup. In the preceding section I have spent considerable

time, first on setting out in detail an account of how the Desire Ar-
gument must work, and second on developing a speculative pro-
posal, supported by material from other contexts in the Philebus
and elsewhere, as to how to understand the fastening on of memory
in desire that my reconstruction of the Desire Argument (as well as
the explicit role that Socrates accords to memory in the text of the
argument) makes central to how the argument works. In memory,
42
Though the relevant relation involves likeness, it cannot be mere likeness, but
must be something more robustly connected to the desired refilling—for example,
likeness causally produced by actual fillings of the relevant kind.
60 Verity Harte
the soul has the ability to form likeness-involving representations
of the condition desired, and such representation formation is (at
least part of) what the soul's fastening on to a desired refilling con-
sists in, in desire. The availability of memory to soul, but not body,
as a means of fastening on is a central part of the background frame-
work to the Desire Argument's conclusion that desire is 'of the soul'
and not 'of the body'.
The development of an understanding of how the soul's fasten-
ing on through memory might work provides important support
for the reading of the Desire Argument that I have proposed. But
recognition of how much independent work has been needed to get
that understanding is as important, if we are to interpret the signi-
ficance of the conclusions and goal of the Desire Argument in its
context, and if we are to judge what if any specialness Socrates ac-
cords to soul in general and in the specific role that he accords to
soul in desire. It is to these topics, in reverse order, that I turn in
the remaining sections.
To begin with the question of the specialness of soul: is my view
of how the Desire Argument works a species of the Special Sort of
Subject Reading, mentioned above? That is, is it a view according
to which there is indeed something special about soul, its intentio-
nality, as we might put it? I think not. It is true that the argument
accords soul a specific role argued to be unavailable to body in the
intentionality of desire. But the inability of body to play this role (its
inability to play this role in desire, at least) is argued, not assumed,
and the explicit reasons that are relied on are perfectly general: be-
cause of the principle of non-conflict (unstated, but reasonably as-
sumed), neither soul nor body can fasten on to a desired refilling
through a means that would involve their becoming actually full.
In particular, then, neither body nor soul can fasten on to a desired
refilling by means of perceptual awareness.
Perceptual awareness is, nevertheless, a means to fastening
on, as Socrates makes clear in passage [6]. Unlike desire—and
recollection—perceptual awareness is an activity that Socrates
takes to be common to body and soul, though each makes a dis-
tinctive contribution to that activity. Since fastening on is common
to perceptual awareness and desire, but desire, Socrates argues,
belongs to soul alone, the role that Socrates accords to soul in
desire, though it relies on intentionality, cannot be accorded to soul
solely in virtue of some special connection between soul and inten-
tionality, since any such connection would be present in perceptual
awareness also.
Is there any evidence of Socrates positing a special connection
between soul and intentionality? It is possible that fastening on,
a key component in Socrates' characterization of what we would
call intentionality (the directed character of perceptual awareness,
memory, and desire), is generally regarded by Socrates as belong-
ing to soul and not body This would be true if we took the view
that in perceptual awareness the distinctive contribution of soul to
the common activity is that component of perceptual awareness that
makes available for production in memory a representation of the
bodily experience and that may be understood as the intentional
part of the perceptual activity The materials assembled for my pro-
posed understanding of the psychological mechanisms involved in
memory's fastening on may make this suggestion plausible. But the
view goes well beyond anything the Philebus could be taken to say,
let alone to highlight.
Even were this suggestion of a special connection accepted, we
would not need to see Socrates' attribution of desire to soul as re-
sulting from an assumed specialness of soul. Rather than seeing the
role accorded to soul as stemming from an assumption about the
special character of soul, we might envisage the train of thought
proceeding in the reverse direction. The phenomenon of desire
(perhaps among other phenomena, such as memory) shows that we
need a way in which we can latch on to things opposed to the body's
current experience, but our model for how latching on might occur,
in terms of contact, together with a principle of non-conflict, pre-
vents the body from doing so. Thus, a job is generated for soul to
do, from which its specialness in this regard might follow, but is not
assumed.
It is important, then, to be very clear about the way in which
intentionality does—and does not—figure in Socrates' Desire
Argument. First, the Desire Argument is in no way a precursor
to Brentano's famous claim that intentionality is the mark of the
mental. 43 Brentano's thesis is that intentionality is what charac-
terizes and distinguishes all mental phenomena as such. Socrates'
Desire Argument is focused on soul's intentional character as it
relates to only one specific, psychological phenomenon, desire.
Further, the Desire Argument in fact involves a somewhat narrow
43
F. Brentano, Psychologic vom empirischen Standpunkt, 2nd edn. (Leipzig, 1924).
62 Verity Harte
conception of intentionality, since the role of memory in the argu-
ment involves its being past-directed in ways intentionality need
not be.44
Second, although in modern philosophical discussions intentio-
nality has been regarded as a feature that cannot be successfully in-
tegrated into a physicalist theory of mind, 45 and despite the fact that
Plato is a soul—body dualist, the Desire Argument does not have as
its goal the defence of soul—body dualism and does not appeal to the
intentional character of soul for this reason. This is all to the good,
since, if it did, the argument would be an obvious failure. This is
because the argument—even with my admittedly speculative recon-
struction of how the soul's fastening on through memory is taken
to work—does nothing whatsoever to motivate the view that such
contact with filling without actual filling is unavailable to body. It
does nothing, that is, to motivate the crucial background assump-
tion of the Desire Argument, prepared for by the preceding discus-
sion, that fastening on to filling through memory, though available
to soul, is not available to body.
The speculative work I have done in putting together a story
about how the fastening on of the soul in desire might actually work
may do important historical work in showing the materials that are
available in passages of Plato from which later philosophers, begin-
ning with Aristotle,46 might draw to formulate an explicit theory of
intentionality. But the fact that the work is speculative and requires
drawing on different bits of limited evidence outside the context of
the Desire Argument helps to clear away a possible source of dis-
traction from understanding the intended conclusion of the Desire
Argument in its dialogical context. With a reading of the argument
in hand, I return then, finally, to the question of how to understand
this intended conclusion.
44
Does the argument limit desire (emû/Aia) to desires for things of which one has
remembered experience? This would be an implausible restriction, even granting
that €7n9vîa may not capture everything that we would call 'desire'. However, al-
though the Philebus does not stress this, its later accounts of imagination and judge-
ment allow that the soul has other resources with which it might generate desires for
things not previously experienced. Further, since these additional resources them-
selves involve memory in some way, the Desire Argument's conclusion will not
be superseded, but rather potentially extended through a set of richer, memory-
involving psychological resources.
45
For a classic statement of this view see W. V. O. Quine, Word and Object (Cam-
bridge, MA, 1960), 219-21.
46
See Caston, Aristotle'.
6. 'The arche ("origin" or "rule") of the entire animal'
We have seen that the assumption that memory is available to soul

and not body is something the Desire Argument relies on but does
not defend. If we make the charitable assumption that Socrates is
aware of this reliance, we should conclude that the simple fact of de-
sire's being, as it were, a psychological phenomenon—the exercise
of an activity of soul—is not what Socrates means to point out in de-
fending the view that desire is not 'of the body' but 'of the soul'.47
The intent and significance of the conclusions he draws from it must
be sought elsewhere, in the nature of the soul's role in desire and in
the implications of its having such a role. I begin with closer consi-
deration of his second conclusion:
(Cz) Every impulse (horme}, desire (epithumia), and the origin

or rule (arche} of the entire animal is 'of the soul' (psuches)
(35D 1-3).
Recall how Socrates states this conclusion in passage [4]:

[4] soc. Then, having demonstrated memory to be what leads on [the ani-
mal] to the things desired, the argument made it clear that every im-
pulse [horme] and desire [epithumia] and the origin/rule [arche] of
PRO. Absolutely right. (35 D 1-4)
Socrates here highlights what we have seen to be the critical in-

volvement of memory in his analysis of desire. I shall come back to
the significance of his overall focus on memory. For now, the ques-
tion is how to understand his claim about the 'origin' or 'rule' of an
animal as something illustrated by the conclusion he draws about
desire.
Begin with the idea of 'origin'. Particularly in conjunction with
the term horme—'impulse' or 'start'—at 35 D 2, the conclusion that
it is to soul that we must attribute desire along with the arche of the
47
Hackforth, Philebus, 61, takes the main point of the argument to be to dispel
possible misunderstandings of bodily appetites as bodily events. Gosling, Philebus,
104, says that '[t]he conclusion of this argument is that desire is a psychic function',
though he goes on to point to 35 D 1-3 (my (Cz)) as '[t]he important sentence' (105),
identifying soul (Gosling: 'the mind') as 'responsible for the initiation of activity'
(105), but without interrogating further the nature of this responsibility, as I am
concerned to do.
6 4- Verity Harte
animal suggests that soul is being identified as responsible for giv-
ing the animal its 'starts', for getting it going, as it were; and that
desire is the or a psychologically produced mechanism for getting
the animal going. In this way, soul would be being given responsibi-
lity for the origins of animal action, an understanding that fits well
with the characterization of soul in Plato elsewhere, for example in
Phaedrus, as 'what moves itself (Phdr. 245 E 7—246 A i).
But how might soul be responsible for getting the animal going?
One possibility is that soul is the temporally antecedent originator
of the movements involved, the first (the arche) in the causal se-
quence. However, the problem with this proposal is that it does
not seem true that soul is temporally first in the causal sequence
of desire or action in the Philebus's picture, either in general or in
individual instances of action. In general, the Philebus passage it-
self makes it clear that the occurrence of desire in the soul is itself
conditional on the soul having had a prior perceptual experience of
the relevant pleasant refilling. This is clear from passage [6], where
Socrates considers the person who has the experience of becoming
empty for the first time:
[6] soc. What about this? Someone who is becoming empty for the first
time, do they have any way to fasten on to filling, whether through
perceptual awareness or through memory, that filling which they are
not suffering in the present nor have ever previously experienced?
P R O . How could they? (35A6-io)
This passage has as its moral that such a person fails to experience
anything that could properly be called desire. In desire, as Socrates
makes clear at 35 E 9-10, a person is not only pained by their pre-
sent experience, but also remembers, and specifically remembers as
pleasant, the things that 'were they to come about would put a stop
to the pain' (35 E io). 48 This shows that the original temporal ante-
cedent of desire in general is one's perceptual awareness of the re-
levant pleasant restorative experience. Since perceptual awareness
is common to soul and body, Socrates could not appeal to temporal
antecedence to argue that the origin of desire and, through desire,
of action belongs to soul and not body.
Nor could we fix this proposal by focusing, not on the temporal
antecedents of desire in general, but on those of any one individual
desire. While the memory of the appropriate filling is a psycho-
48
I take fjiefjivriTaL rcov rjftecov to indicate de dicto remembering as pleasant.
logical origin of any individual desire, this memory is itself called
into play in the instance by a currently painful bodily experience.
Even if, as I have argued, this painful bodily experience should be
regarded as itself a component of the desire in question, it seems
either the equal of or indeed to have the edge on the memory in
terms of temporal priority
Is there, then, an alternative way in which the soul might be
regarded as giving the animal its 'starts'? Taking my cue from a
proposal made in a different context by Sean Kelsey, I want to
try out the idea that what is in focus here is not temporal origin,
but—another available meaning of the Greek word arche—control
or authority.49 Kelsey proposes this understanding of arche for an
Aristotelian context: the identification in Physics 2. i of natural
things as possessing an internal arche of change and rest. But he
supports it by appeal to a Platonic precedent and backdrop: an ar-
gument in Laws 10 to the effect that soul, more than anything,
'governs every change and rearrangement of [bodies]' and that,
therefore, 'judgement, concern, reason, skill and law would be prior
to hards and softs, heavies and lights', the sorts of thing that are 'go-
verned by skill and by reason' (892 A 2—B 8).5°
Kelsey could just as easily have found his precedent in the Phile-
bus, where the same lines of conflict are drawn up—between those
who attribute the construction and arrangement of the cosmos to
nature and chance, and those who rather take it to be the result of in-
telligent craftsmanship (cf. Phileb. 28 D 5-9 with Laws 10, 889 B i-c
6). 51 Arguing on the basis of a parallel between the microcosm (us)
and the macrocosm (the universe as a whole), Socrates sides with
those who claim that 'reason rules' (nous archei) (300 8), identify-
ing in the nature of Zeus 'a kingly soul' (basiliken psuchen) and 'a
49
Dorothea Frede rightly chooses 'rule' for the translation of apx7? at 35 D 3, m
Frede, Philebus, ad loc.
50
S. Kelsey, 'Aristotle's Definition of Nature' ['Aristotle's Definition'], Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 25 (2003), 59-87. My translations from the Laws in
this paragraph are drawn from Kelsey, 'Aristotle's Definition', 85, with modifica-
tions.
51
In general, the attribution to soul of rule, stated in the language of political au-
thority, is a common theme in Plato in dialogues earlier than the Philebus. See, for
example, the counterfactual condition at Gorg. 465 c 7-0 i (eVeaTarei) (a reference I
owe to Stephen Menn), picked up at 517 c 7 ff., and Phaedo 94 B 5. In both Gorgias
and Phaedo, however, desires of the sort under discussion in the Philebus are attri-
buted to body and are the objects of, as opposed to being examples of, soul's rule. I
return to this contrast later.
66 Verity Harte
kingly reason' (basilikon noun) (300 1-2), adjectives that underline
the focus here on quasi-political authority.
Socrates' microcosm-macrocosm argument is the means by
which he assigns his own candidates in the dialogue's contest—
here gathered under the single umbrella heading 'reason' (nous)—to
the category of 'cause' in his fourfold ontological division, an as-
signment that, together with the assignment of pleasure to the
category of 'unlimited', we are instructed to remember in the
discussion of pleasure and knowledge that follows this argument
(31 A 7-10), and which foreshadows the dialogue's main argument
that it is reason and not pleasure that is primarily responsible for
the goodness of the best human life. My proposal is that under-
standing Socrates' conclusions about desire in terms of control
or authority will not only give an appropriate understanding of
these conclusions, but will also show how, in the remainder of the
Philebus, Socrates begins to make good this victory of reason.52
What could it mean to assign to the soul, as opposed to the body,
a certain authority and to take as an instance of the soul's authority
the phenomenon of desire? What would it be for desire to be a re-
spect in which the soul is in charge? For a way to put flesh on this
(as it were), it helps to return to the two types of pleasure on which
the Philebus has been focused in the run up to Socrates' Desire Ar-
gument. The immediate goal of Socrates' discussion of the psycho-
logy of perceptual awareness, memory, and desire is to help us get a
clearer view of the second type of pleasure Socrates indicates, which
is identified as being a pleasure of the soul alone, independently of
body (34 c 6-8; 33 c 5-6; 32 B 9-0 5). This type of pleasure, in turn,
is the pleasure produced by anticipation of the first type of pleasure
that Socrates indicates, mentioned before. About this first type of
pleasure, Socrates has this to say:
[10] soc. I say that when we find the harmony being destroyed in animals,
there comes to be, at that time, both a destruction of the nature and
an occurrence of pains.
PRO . What you say is very plausible.
soc. And, in turn, when the harmony is being restored and is return-
ing to its own nature, pleasure must be said to occur, if we must
52
Compare here Carpenter, 'What is Peculiar?', 35-8, who makes this point about
the moral psychology of the Philebus in general while giving a brief account of the
Desire Argument with which I am largely in agreement.
speak as economically and swiftly as possible regarding the most
important things. ( S I D 4-10)
It has, of course, not gone unnoticed that a significant amount of
work is done in Socrates' description of this type of pleasure by the
normative notion of harmony,53 prepared for by the fourfold divi-
sion of beings earlier presented. If evidence of this is needed, we
need only note that, when Socrates goes on to provide examples,
he is explicit that it is 'contrary-to-nature' (para phusiri) processes
that are destructive and painful, just as it is 'according-to-nature'
(kataphusin) processes that provide occasions of pleasure. To make
things even clearer, Socrates gives examples in which one and the
same process—heating or cooling—is painful or pleasant, depend-
ing on the context of its occurrence and its direction in respect of
the animal's harmonious nature (32 A 1-8).
Back, then, to my question: what would it be for desire to be a
respect in which the soul is in charge? My proposal is that desire is
a means by which the soul is able to regulate the body in line with
these independently given norms. Through desire, as we have seen,
when we are in pain, we are able, not only to register this fact, but
also, in virtue of memory, to identify and, in identifying, set as tar-
get the appropriate restorative pleasures, which pleasures are the
means to restore our harmonious nature. Soul can do this, as body
cannot, because soul has the resources to reach out to conditions
other than the ones that body—or soul itself—is currently under-
going.
This, of course, is when things go right, normatively speaking,
that is, when things go as we should wish them to go in terms of
achieving some good.54 And it is a striking fact that, up to and
including Socrates' discussion of desire, Socrates' examination of
pleasure might be thought to give a certain amount of encourage-
ment to his opponent, the hedonist. True, there is—as will be made
clear later in the dialogue—a sting in the tail of the dependence on
normatively prescribed harmonious natures: any value that plea-
sure may have will be dependent on the (independent) value of these
53
By 'normative', I mean that harmony is a presumptively positive notion which
makes a claim upon us; it is introduced here on the assumption that it is to be wel-
comed and sought.
54
T. S. Ganson, 'Appetitive Desire in Later Plato', History of Philosophy
Quarterly, 18 (2001), 227-37, makes an interesting case for regarding the Philebus—
along with other late Platonic dialogues—as offering a 'teleological approach' to
appetitive desire.
68 Verity Harte
harmonious natures. But, in the Philebus as a whole, Socrates pre-
sumably wants to establish more than this: he wants to establish
not only that there are limitations on the way in which pleasures
can be good, if and when they are; he also wants to establish that,
often, pleasures are not good, but bad. As Socrates frames the op-
tions and suggests his ambition at 32 D i—6:
[n] soc. . . . whether the whole kind is to be welcomed or whether we
should grant this to another of the aforementioned kinds, but to
pleasure and pain, as to hot and cold and all such things, [should
grant] that they are sometimes to be welcomed, but sometimes not
to be welcomed because, though they are not goods, some of them
sometimes receive the nature of what are at that time goods.
Just as, I have argued, desire is a psychological mechanism respon-
sible for directing and regulating the body in line with the prescrip-
tions of harmonious nature, so, I would argue, the Philebus will,
in the end, trace to the soul the roots of how things go astray and
of moral failure. This is the task to which Socrates turns imme-
diately after his analysis of desire, putting the psychology he has
developed to work in defence of the possibility of various different
kinds of false pleasure. It is striking that it is not until this point in
the examination of pleasure that Protarchus, the hedonist, begins
to protest vociferously. The authority of soul that, I argue, Socra-
tes uses the Desire Argument to establish is a double-edged sword:
it is central to the victory of Socrates' candidates in the dialogue's
overall contest; but the presence of soul in us is no guarantee that
we will achieve the good life that the Philebus is in the process of
describing: to do that, we must get our psychology right.
Return once more to Socrates' claim in passage [4]:
[4] soc. ... Then, having demonstrated memory to be what leads on [the
animal] to the things desired, the argument made it clear that every
impulse [horme] and desire [epithumid] and the origin/rule [arche] of
P R O . Absolutely right. (35 D 1-3)
My contention is that, in the conclusion of the Desire Argument,
what Socrates attributes to soul and denies to body is a certain kind
of authority, and that one example of that authority of soul is found
in desire. This contention gets additional support from the talk,
here and elsewhere in passage [4], of 'leading' or 'guiding' (using
ago and compounds, at 35 c 12 and D i). But I have still to explain
how this understanding of the Desire Argument's conclusion sheds
light on the puzzling claim with which I began this paper (passage
[i] or (03)): Socrates' claim that it is the soul and not the body that
'suffers' (paschein) desires such as hunger or thirst, 35 D 5-6.
Let me start once again from a suggestion by Kelsey In explain-
ing the consequence of Aristotle's distinction of natural from artifi-
cial in terms of the natural's possession of a kind of authority over its
characteristic changes, Kelsey proposes that possession of such au-
thority amounts to its being the case that natural things, unlike ar-
tificial things, are the 'proper subjects' of the characteristic changes
that they undergo.55 For this idea he cites no precedent in Plato.
But we find one, I propose, in this passage of the Philebus. Socra-
tes' claim that the body does not suffer hunger and thirst (passage
[i]), like his subsequent recollection of them as having agreed that
the soul is 'what desires' (passage [2]), is a claim that the soul is
the proper subject of the activity of desire. Understood in this way,
Socrates' claim in the Philebus may be understood as an extension of
his claim in the Theaetetus that it is the soul that perceives, though
it may use parts of the body as instruments in doing so (Theaet.
184 D 1—5). Just as, in the Theaetetus, the soul's perception does not
rule out the involvement of body, the Philebus's identification of the
soul as 'what desires' does nothing to rule out the occurrence in at
least some desires of constitutive bodily processes.56
There are, of course, some characteristic and significant differ-
ences between Plato and Aristotle on these points. For Plato, the
relation between authority and skilled, rational activity seems no
mere analogy. Further, as I pointed out earlier, Socrates' identifi-
cation of soul as 'what desires' seems precisely the kind of view that
Aristotle is rejecting in De anima i. 4 (passage [3]):
[3] To say that the soul is angry would be just as if someone were to say
that the soul weaves or builds. Presumably it is better not to say that
55
Kelsey, 'Aristotle's Definition', 81-4. The notion of a proper subject is a com-
plex one, given subtle discussion by Kelsey. Very roughly, the idea, at least as I
understand it, is that an artefact is not the proper subject of its characteristic changes
or activities—those that constitute its functioning—because it is a kind of tool in use
by the craftsman in an activity that, strictly speaking, is an activity of that craftsman;
in particular, in such cases, any good involved is a good that accrues to the proper
subject of the activity and not the tools (animate or otherwise) involved in the pro-
cess.
56
So too Carpenter, 'What is Peculiar?', 37, though on the assumption—which I
reject—that all desires (eiridvîai) have a bodily component.
70 Verity Harte
the soul pities, learns, or thinks, but that the person does so in virtue
of soul. (DA i. 4, 4o8 b n-i5)
Socrates and Aristotle disagree, it would appear, about what should

be identified as the subject of desire: the soul (Socrates) or the per-
son, the embodied soul (Aristotle). 57 But there is a question as to
how deep this disagreement really is. Given the understanding of
the Desire Argument's conclusion that I have defended, Socrates
need not disagree with the causal authority that Aristotle would be
according to soul in saying that the desiring person does so in virtue
of soul.
7. Conclusion
The authority that I have argued Socrates attributes to desire in the

Philebus can be set in the context of how the Desire Argument's dis-
cussion of thirst compares with other Platonic discussions of desires
such as thirst. In the Phaedo, in the context of Socrates' rejection
of the proposal that the soul is a harmony (harmonid) of bodily ele-
ments, it is the soul's ability to oppose the body, when the body is
hot and thirsty, that provides Socrates with evidence that it is the
soul, and in particular reason, that governs (archein) (Phaedo 94 B
4-0 2). In the Republic, as in the Philebus and apparently unlike the
Phaedo, thirst is the prerogative of the soul, not the body, where it
is identified as being 'of drink alone'—and not, as the Philebus will
have it, of 'filling with drink' (contrast Rep. 439 A 4—7 and Phileb.
34 E 14—35 A 2).5§ The Philebus builds on the Republic's incorpora-
tion of desire into the soul's own machinery to arrive at a conclusion
comparable to the Phaedo about the authority of soul and extend it
even as far as these bodily needs.59 Note, however, that the Phile-
bus's attribution of this authority to the soul is in no way incon-
sistent with the Republic's claim that the soul has, in addition, the
capacity to surmount or ignore even the reasonable demands of the
body in the service of some higher goal.
57
For the significance of this locus of disagreement see Menn, 'Aristotle's Defi-
nition of Soul'.
58
But note Rep. 439 D 8 TrA^pdjaedW nvwv, which brings the dialogues' respective
pictures closer.
59
To see the Philebus building on the Republic's picture, compare the language of
guiding or leading at Rep. 439 A 9-6 6 (especially opâ, 439 B i, and ayovros, 439 B 4)
with that in passage [4].
In the Philebus the authority attributed to the soul in desire
helps to explain what is otherwise a rather surprising inclusion
of memory—which, as we have seen, plays a critical role in the
assertion, in desire, of this authority of soul—in Socrates' original
group of candidates for defence in the dialogue's overall dispute as
to what is the good.60 Here is how he summed up Philebus' and his
original dispute, from which the dialogue takes off:
[12] soc. Philebus, here, says that enjoyment, pleasure, and delight are
good for all animals and all consonant things of this family; the
contention on our part, by contrast, is that not these, but reason-
ing, thinking, and remembering and the things akin to these—both
correct judgement and true reckonings—are, at any rate, better and
more valuable than pleasure for all that are capable of having a share
of them; that they are the most beneficial of all things for those who
are and will be capable of partaking of them, (i i B 4—0 2)
By suggesting that the inclusion of memory on this list is surprising,
I have in mind that, while everyone would expect to find Socrates a
champion of 'reasoning and thinking' (to phronein kai to noein, 11 B
7), I doubt that many of us would, unprompted, have come up with
'remembering' (memnesthai, 11 B 7) as a core Socratic candidate for
the good. The argument of this paper is intended to make it clear
that this surprising initial inclusion anticipates the way in which, in
his Desire Argument, Socrates will find in memory a means to ex-
tend the authority of the rational soul into our bodily lives further
than any of his previous attempts to date.
Yale University
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brentano, F., Psychologic vom empirischen Standpunkt, 2nd edn. (Leipzig,
1924).
Burnyeat, M., The Theaetetus of Plato (Indianapolis, 1990).
Bury, R. G., The Philebus of Plato, Edited with Introduction, Notes and Ap-
pendices (Cambridge, 1897).
60
Delcomminette, Le Philebe, 315, notes the placement of memory among Soc-
rates' candidates, though not with special reference to the desire argument, but in
connection with the preceding discussion of memory, thereby rightly drawing at-
tention to an occurrence of 'auto-referentialite' as underlining the fact that Socrates'
candidates are not only the object of study in the dialogue, but the conditions of such
study's possibility.
72 Verity Harte
Carpenter, A., 'What is Peculiar to Plato's and Aristotle's Psychologies?
What is Common to Them Both?' ['What is Peculiar?'], in V. Harte,
M. M. McCabe, R. W Sharpies, and A. Sheppard (eds.), Aristotle and
the Stoics Reading Plato (London, 2010), 21—44.
Caston, V., Aristotle and the Problem of Intentionality' [Aristotle'], Phi-
losophy and Phenomenological Research, 58 (1998), 249-98.
'Connecting Traditions: Augustine and the Greeks on Intentiona-
lity', in D. Perler (ed.), Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality
(Leiden, 2001), 23-48.
'Intentionality in Ancient Philosophy', in E. N. Zalta (ed.),The Stan-
ford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 edn.) (http://plato.Stanford.
edu/archives/fall2Oo8/entries/intentionality-ancient/}.
Delcomminette, S., Le Philebe de Platon: introduction a ragathologieplato-
nicienne [Le Philebe] (Leiden, 2006).
Evans, M., 'Plato and the Meaning of Pain' ['Pain'], Apeiron, 40 (2007),
71-94.
Frede, D., Philebos (Gottingen, 1997).
Plato: Philebus [Philebus'} (Indianapolis, 1993).
Ganson, T. S., Appetitive Desire in Later Plato', History of Philosophy
Quarterly, 18 (2001), 227-37.
Gosling, J. C. B., Plato: Philebus [Philebus] (Oxford 1975).
Hackforth, R., Plato's Philebus [Philebus] (Cambridge, 1972).
Harte, V., 'The Philebus on Pleasure: The Good, the Bad and the False'
['Pleasure'], Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 104 (2004), 111-28.
Kelsey, S., Aristotle's Definition of Nature' [Aristotle's Definition'], Ox-
ford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 25 (2003), 59-87.
Laks, A., 'Soul, Sensation and Thought', in A. A. Long (ed.), The Cam-
bridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, 1999), 250—70.
Lee, J. M., 'Philebus 35 A 6-10', Phronesis, 11 (1966), 31-4.
Menn, S., Aristotle's Definition of Soul and the Programme of the De
anima' [Aristotle's Definition of Soul'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Phi-
losophy, 22 (2002), 83-140.
Quine, W. V. O., Word and Object (Cambridge, MA, 1960).
Thein, K., 'Imagination, Self-Awareness, and Modal Thought at Philebus
39-40', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 42 (2012), 109-49.
Westerink, L. G., Damascius: Lectures on the Philebus Wrongly Attributed
to Olympiodorus (Amsterdam, 1959).
ESSENCE AND END IN ARISTOTLE
JACOB ROSEN
i. Introduction
Three [modes of cause] often converge upon one thing: the what-is-it and
the for-the-sake-of-which are one, and the primary source of change is one
in kind with these; for a man generates a man.1 (Phys. 2. 7, 198^4-7)
IN a handful of passages, Aristotle claims that a thing's formal cause

is often one with, or the same as, its final cause. I believe that this
claim has led many commentators into confusion and wrong think-
ing about teleology, essences, and causation generally in Aristotle's
thought. In this paper I hope to clear the way for a better under-
standing of these topics.
When Aristotle's sameness claim is understood in a straightfor-
ward way, it is open to obvious counter-example. An eye, for ex-
ample, exists for the sake of seeing—that is its final cause—whereas
its essence or formal cause is sight. Sight is a power, seeing is an
activity. Sight can exist while no seeing exists. The two are not
the same. As I will argue, the same goes for many other things in
Aristotle's world, including plants and animals. They too have fi-
nal causes which are not the same as their forms. Now, Aristotle's
sameness claim admits many interpretations, since there is more
than one way of being a final cause and there is more than one way
of being the same. Perhaps there is some interpretation on which
the claim comes out true. Certainly there are important truths for
Aristotle which sound very similar to it. But I have not yet found a
good explanation in the literature of how the sameness claim itself
is true on Aristotle's overall theory.
Meanwhile, the sameness claim has had a great influence in the
interpretation of Aristotle, and understandably so. Aristotle's te-
leology and his essentialism are among his most contentious and
© Jacob Rosen 2014
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at Humboldt University Berlin, Uni-
versity of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Chicago, and UCLA. Thanks are
due to audiences there for discussion, as well as to Jonathan Beere, Marko Malink,
and Stephen Menn for helpful comments.
1
Translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
74 Jacob Rosen
also most enduring legacies. By bringing together these two as-
pects of his thought, the claim promises to illuminate both. Thus,
for example, when scholars are puzzled as to how an end should
be thought of as a cause, they often appeal for help to forms, or
to some 'drive' or 'irreducible potential' for form (these things, at
least, actually exist at the time of the explanandum). 2 Conversely,
when they wonder in what way a form should be thought of as a
cause, they often look for answers in the role of form as a goal of
generation and development.3
What is more, the sameness claim promises a major simplification
of Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes. It suggests that, in the na-
tural world, the number of causal factors can be reduced from four
to three, or even just two: matter and form. Suggestions for such a
simplification are found already among the earliest and best extant
commentaries on Aristotle, and continue to be put forward today.4
But despite these promises, the claim has done more to obscure
than to help. If its upshot really is, as Ross puts it, that 'the final
cause has been completely identified with the formal', 5 then it can-
not represent Aristotle's considered view. Its uncritical acceptance
by many commentators has led to error and confusion, not only
about Aristotle's substantive beliefs, but about his very conceptual
apparatus for thinking about causation.
After talking of confusion and error, I want to emphasize the con-
2
Gotthelf proposes an influential definition of 'for the sake of in terms of irredu-
cible potentials for form in A. Gotthelf, 'Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality',
in A. Gotthelf and J. Lennox (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology (Cam-
bridge, 1987), 204-42 at 213 and 214 n. 19. Hankinson writes: 'Final causes, then,
are parts of reality in the sense that the drive for form that they represent is writ-
ten directly into the structure of things' (R. J. Hankinson, Cause and Explanation in
Ancient Greek Thought [Cause and Explanation} (Oxford, 2001), 146).
3
According to Bostock, in biological contexts Aristotle thinks that a form 'func-
tions as a cause by way of being the goal towards which the animal develops' (D.
Bostock, Aristotle on Teleology in Nature', in id., Space, Time, Matter, and Form:
Essays on Aristotle's Physics [Essays] (Oxford, 2006), 48—78 at 61—2). For a similar
thought see Hankinson, Cause and Explanation, 134-5.
4
Alex. Aphr. In Metaph. 181. 19-22 Hayduck: 'someone will say that it is possible
to reduce the principles to a pair of opposites, namely the active and the passive, if
indeed matter is passive and the three causes apart from matter are reduced to the
formal cause, which is active'. J. Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand [Aristotle]
(Cambridge, 1988), 27: '[Aristotle] believed that for the generation of natural orga-
nisms and for the production of artefacts there were at most two causes—form and
matter.'
5
W. D. Ross (ed. and comm.), Aristotle's Physics: A Revised Text with
Introduction and Commentary [Physics] (Oxford, 1936), 526.
structive purpose of this essay. Most immediately, what I am doing
is pointing out an apparent tension in Aristotle's writings, posing
thereby an interpretative puzzle, and expressing dissatisfaction with
how the puzzle has been handled up to now But the larger aim is
a positive one. The essay is motivated by the conviction that Aris-
totle's concepts of formal cause and of final cause possess great and
enduring philosophical interest, and that a certain kind of work will
help us recover a clearer understanding of them. The approach I
have in mind is inspired by the ways in which philosophers today
go about elucidating their own concepts, and in particular by two
guiding ideas of much current practice. The first idea is that the
elucidation of a concept need not consist in a definition or analysis
of it. Instead, and above all when a concept is primitive, one can
and should clarify it by laying out principles of its use, and by map-
ping its inferential connections with other salient concepts.6 The
second idea is that the best account of a concept is the one that best
systematizes our use of the concept in making judgements about
particular (actual or possible) cases. The use of the concept is, by
and large, authoritative over accounts of the concept.7 Thus, for ex-
ample, when David Lewis developed his analysis of the concept of
causation, he aimed to fit his analysis to our particular judgements
about whether this event was or was not a cause of that event, in
various described situations. When our judgements were seen to
contradict his analysis, he revised his analysis rather than try to
overrule our judgements. 8
6
For example, in a study of modal concepts, Stalnaker writes: 'One clarifies such
notions, not by reducing them to something else, but by developing one's theories
in terms of them' (R. Stalnaker, Ways a World Might Be (Oxford, 2003), 7). Gideon
Rosen describes a related strategy in his discussion of metaphysical dependence:
'The plan is to begin to lay out the principles that govern this relation and its interac-
tion with other important philosophical notions' (G. Rosen, 'Metaphysical Depen-
dence: Grounding and Reduction', in B. Hale and A. Hoffmann (eds.), Modality:
Metaphysics, Logic, andEpistemology (Oxford, 2010), 109-35 at J H)- Rosen does not
claim to be elucidating the concept in question, but only to be arguing that it is legi-
timate; still, I think he clearly contributes to the former project as well as the latter.
7
Only by and large. Sometimes our judgements about a specific case are tentative,
or divergent. Then the account that best deals with the clear cases can be allowed
to settle the unclear case ('spoils to the victor'). Sometimes our pattern of speci-
fic judgements turns out to be incoherent or otherwise in need of revision, and an
account of the concept can guide this revision. Again, sometimes a concept is in-
troduced by stipulatory definition; in this case the definition presumably settles the
standards of correct use.
8
D. Lewis, 'Causation', in id., Philosophical Papers, vol. ii (Oxford, 1986), 159-
213; id., 'Causation as Influence', Journal of Philosophy, 97 (2000), 182—97.
76 Jacob Rosen
These two guiding ideas can, I think, be fruitful in our efforts
to recover concepts that Aristotle employed and that are no longer
current—in the present case, his concepts of formal and of final
cause. It is likely that these concepts served for him as primitive
ones, and that no acceptable definition of them is possible. But we
can still elucidate them by setting out the patterns according to
which he applied the concepts, and by identifying the sorts of infer-
ences in which they figure in his thought. Aristotle's sameness claim
is of double importance for such a project of elucidation. First, and
most directly, it seems to identify an inferential connection between
claims of formal causation and claims of final causation. It suggests,
namely, that there is mutual entailment (given the presence of ap-
propriate additional premisses) between the claim that B is a final
cause of A and the claim that B is a formal cause of A. But second, it
induces Aristotle's readers to make a whole range of interpretative
moves whose effects ripple out. For example, some commentators
seek to validate the sameness claim by means of the view that each
organism exists for the sake of surviving and reproducing, thereby
securing the continued existence of its species (see Section 4.1).
This view about the ends of whole organisms places constraints on
the ends that can be attributed to the organisms' parts and traits.
The result is that Aristotle is supplied with a picture very similar
to the outlook of today's evolutionary biology—a highly mislead-
ing outcome, in my view. Other commentators seek to validate the
claim by conflating it with other, neighbouring truths, for example
the truth that a thing's form is frequently a final cause of its ge-
neration, or of its parts, or of some of its activities (see Section 4.2).
The net result of this is slippery and ambiguous talk: for example,
when someone says that B is a final cause of A, it becomes unclear
whether they mean that A exists for 5's sake, or that A came into
being for 5's sake, or that (for some </>) A <£s for 5's sake, or some-
thing else.9 Such a situation is fatal to the project of sorting out the
logic governing Aristotle's concept of final cause.
9
I have sometimes heard it said that a cause of X is anything that figures in an
answer to a 'why' question about X. This account encourages the kind of ambiguity
I am complaining about. For a slightly less extreme case, in print, see B. Hennig,
'The Four Causes', Journal of Philosophy, 106 (2009), 137-60 at 138 n. 3: 'Things
and states have final causes insofar as they are, typically or as a matter of intention,
involved in processes that have final causes.' (I typically walk to HusemannstraBe
for the sake of ice cream, but surely ice cream is a final cause of my walking only, not
of me.)
It is therefore important to settle whether or not Aristotle's same-
ness claim accurately reflects his core understanding of formal and
final causation. The second guiding idea suggests a method for ad-
dressing the question. We cannot, it is true, follow exactly the same
methodology that David Lewis and others do. We have no body
of 'folk' intuitions to work from; all of our data consist of theore-
tical statements made by Aristotle. Nevertheless, I think, we can
distinguish between statements in Aristotle that are more and less
authoritative for our purposes. Some statements figure in reason-
ably workaday explanations of concrete biological or other natural
facts. Some statements derive from, or are used to derive, claims
that are clearly central to Aristotle's thought, and are thus tightly
bound into his web of beliefs. Such statements are weighty. Other
statements are comparatively free-floating, or they are sweeping ge-
neralizations of the kind that philosophers often get wrong. These
statements are less weighty. I have no overall system on offer for
measuring the evidential weight of a statement. This paper follows
the motto: first do it, then think about how to do it. It is an experi-
ment in methodology, which will, I hope, lead to useful reflection
on methodology.
2. Aristotle's sameness claim
The quotation with which I began, from Physics 2.7, does not stand
alone. It contains Aristotle's best-known identification of formal
and final cause, but there are other places as well where he iden-
tifies or appears to identify them.
One such place is in the opening lines of Generation of Animals.
Here Aristotle reviews the different kinds of cause in order to cla-
rify the task of the treatise which he is introducing. He explains that
some kinds of causes of organisms have been treated beforehand in
his other biological works, but that one kind of cause (namely, the
efficient) remains to be examined:
We laid down four causes: the for-the-sake-of-which as an end and the ac-
count of the essence (now these should pretty much be regarded as one), then
third and fourth the matter and the source of the beginning of motion. Now
we have spoken of the others, for the account and the for-the-sake-of-which
as an end are the same, and the matter for animals is their parts . . . but there
remains to discuss the following. (GA i. i, 715*4-11, emphasis added)
78 Jacob Rosen
Important here is Aristotle's remark that 'the account of the es-
sence', i.e. the formal cause, and 'the for-the-sake-of-which as an
end', i.e. the final cause, 'should pretty much be regarded as one';
and, again, his statement that these two things 'are the same'.
A further passage to consider is found in Metaphysics H 4:
When someone seeks the cause, since causes are spoken of in many ways,
one must state all the possible causes. For example, of a man: what is the
cause as matter? Is it the menses? What as mover? Is it the seed? What as
form? The essence. What as for-the-sake-of-which? The end. Perhaps these
are both the same. (Metaph. H4, io44a32-bi, emphasis added)
Finally, there is the following argument, justifying an account of

what a polis is, at the beginning of the (pseudo-Aristotelian) Oeco-
nomica:
Furthermore, households are joined together [into a polis] for the sake of
this [namely, self-sufficiency with a view to living well]; and that for the
sake of which each thing is and has come to be is the substance of that thing.
(Oec. i . i , I343 a i2-i4, emphasis added)
In addition to these four passages, there are a few more in which

Aristotle may be read as asserting the same identification, but need
not be so read. The best-known of these is in De anima 2. 4. Here
Aristotle explains that an organism's soul is a cause in three differ-
ent ways: as a formal cause, as a final cause, and as an efficient cause:
The soul is a cause and principle of the living body. These are said in many
ways, and similarly the soul is a cause according to three of the modes which
we distinguish: for the soul is a cause both as source of motion, and for the
sake of which, and as the essence of ensouled bodies. (DA 2. 4, 4i5 b 8-i2)
When Aristotle goes on to elaborate this claim in the following lines,

it appears that he is thinking of the soul as a cause of three differ-
ent things, not of one single thing, in these three different ways.10
Nevertheless, the passage quoted certainly gives the impression that
a soul is a formal, final, and efficient cause of one and the same thing,
namely of an ensouled body (that is, an animal or plant).
Ambiguous statements, suggestive of the sameness claim, can also
10
Aristotle's explanation at 415b 12-28 suggests that the soul is a formal cause of
the animal, a final cause (in a special sense—see sect. 4.3, esp. n. 61) of the animal's
body, and an efficient cause to the animal of locomotion, alteration, and growth. (Being
a cause of something to X is not the same as being a cause of X; see sect. 4.2, esp.
nn. 44-5.)
be found in Parts of Animals (PA i. i, 641*27) and in Generation

and Corruption (GC 2. 9, 335b5-7).
2.1. Scope of the statements
Before enquiring into the truth of Aristotle's sameness claim, we

must take a moment to clarify how this claim should be under-
stood. To begin with, the assertion from the Physics is qualified by
an 'often'. So, just how often—in what range of cases—is the con-
vergence of formal and final cause supposed to obtain? Tradition-
ally, the range is taken to be very wide. W. D. Ross, for example,
comments as follows:
The qualification ['often'] is necessary, because the formal cause eV rots- OLKL-
VTJTOIS [among unchangeable things] is not an efficient or a final cause. But
ev TOIS xivj]Tois [among changeable things] the essence of a thing is identical
with the end that is fulfilled in it; and the efficient cause of a thing is the
essence of the thing present in another member of the same species.11
For Ross, then, Aristotle's thesis applies to every changeable thing.

Other commentators are slightly less generous, but still pretty
openhanded. Bostock, for example, holds that the thesis of Physics
2. 7 is intended to apply at a minimum to all living things, and
probably to many artefacts as well. 12 The application to all living
things, at any rate, is very plausible in the light of the passage
from Generation of Animals quoted above, where Aristotle seems
to speak quite generally about the causes of animals.
Next, what sort of convergence is Aristotle talking about? We
must avoid reading his claim either too strongly or too weakly.
In the one direction, we should note that Aristotle is not saying
that the role of formal cause is ever the same as the role of final cause.
He is only saying that, often, the same thing has both of these roles
in relation to something. For comparison, if I say that often a child's
mother and its primary caregiver are one and the same, I do not
mean that being someone's mother is the same as being someone's
11
Ross, Physics, 526.
12
'While it is left somewhat vague quite how "often" this triple coincidence oc-
curs, it presumably is intended to apply at least to all living things, which are Aris-
totle's primary examples of substances' (D. Bostock, 'Aristotle's Theory of Form',
in id., Essays, 79-102 at 84). Bostock adds in a footnote (n. 15) that Aristotle would
probably 'wish to identify the form and the purpose of many manufactured objects',
including houses, ships, walls, and saws.
8o Jacob Rosen
primary caregiver. I only mean that one person often occupies both
roles.
In the other direction, we should note that Aristotle is not merely
saying that the formal cause of one thing is often the final cause of
some other thing. Rather, he should be understood as saying that
the formal cause of a given thing is often the same as the final cause
of that same thing. The first, and weaker, claim is without doubt
true for Aristotle, but it would not naturally be expressed by say-
ing, straight out, that the formal cause and the final cause are one
or the same. For comparison, I believe that everything that is to the
east of something is also to the west of something, and vice versa;
yet I would not say, 'what is to the east and what is to the west are
the same'. I also believe that, often, the father of one person is also
the brother of another person; but this is not well expressed by say-
ing, 'the father and the brother are often one'.
Finally, we must consider what is meant in these passages by 'one'
and 'same', given that Aristotle famously distinguishes several dif-
ferent uses for each of these terms.13 In our passages, Aristotle does
not explicitly qualify or restrict his assertion of unity or sameness
between formal and final cause.14 This makes it natural to read him
as asserting sameness and oneness in their strictest and most do-
minant sense, which we may express by saying that a thing's formal
cause and its final cause are the same per se and in number. I5 To spell
this out: let A stand for a term picking out some item under some
description, and consider the best, most canonical way of filling in
the blanks in the following two sentences: ' is the formal cause
of Ay\ ' is the final cause of Ay. Aristotle's sameness claim is
naturally read as asserting that, in many cases, the very same term
13
The loci classic! for Aristotle's distinctions are Top. i. 7 and Metaph. A 6 and 9.
14
The sorts of qualification we might look for and do not find include 'in number
(but not in being)', 'in kind (but not in number)', 'accidentally', or, most vaguely,
'in a way' (TTWS). It is true that Aristotle gives what might be taken as signs of hesita-
tion or qualification, namely the word 'often' (-rroXXaKis} in Phys. 2. 7, 'pretty much'
(ax^Bov) in GA i. i, and 'perhaps' (LOWS) in Metaph. H4. However, the first pertains
only to the range of cases, not to the kind of sameness at issue; and the latter two
words are frequently used by Aristotle to soften his tone without indicating any real
limitation or uncertainty (cf. H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus (Berlin, 1870), 347b32 ff.
and 739a53 ff.).
15
Cf. Top. 7. i, i5i b 28-3O. My 'strictest and most dominant' corresponds to Aris-
totle's Kvpia)TaTov. Aristotle omits the phrase 'per se' (KaO* avro) in his gloss of strict
sameness in Top. 7. i, but it is obviously intended: see Top. i. 7, iO3a25~6, and the
fact that his tests for strict sameness would clearly be failed by true statements of
accidental sameness such as 'the seated man is the same as the cultivated man'.
should fill both blanks. Or, at the very least, that the blank-fillers
should be related as synonyms (like himation and lopion, two words
for a cloak) or as a word to the corresponding definition (like 'hu-
man' and 'biped land animal').
This reading is natural in the light of the use to which Aris-
totle puts his sameness claim. For he uses it in the introduction to
Generation of Animals in order to justify the assertion that, having
spoken of the formal causes of animals, he has thereby also spoken
of their final causes. This works most easily if he is thinking that
the questions 'what is its formal cause?' and 'what is its final cause?'
should receive precisely the same answer, and not answers related
as, say, 'the woodworker' and 'the mason' are related when Johnny
is both woodworker and mason.
The natural reading may turn out not to be the right reading. But
it is, I think, the usual reading (for example, Ross says that Aristotle
has 'completely identified' the formal and final cause16), and a rea-
sonable place to start. If we think that a different kind of sameness
is in play, then we owe an explicit account of what kind of sameness
this is. I do not know of any such account in the recent literature.
(On the other hand, I have received some interesting suggestions in
spoken discussion, and will report them later.)
3. Aristotle should have disavowed

the sameness claim (in its strict form)
Now that we have clarified what Aristotle's sameness claim amounts

to, let us consider whether it coheres with his wider body of views.
I will argue for at least a qualified negative answer. On a strict read-
ing of the sameness claim, Aristotle is committed to rejecting this
claim over a wide swath of cases that are central to his concern.
Here is my argument in outline. There are many things, includ-
ing animals, plants, and their functional parts, to which Aristotle
ascribes a work (ergon), that is, some type of activity or product
which the thing has the task of doing or making. Aristotle states,
both as a general principle and in connection with various particu-
lar cases, that whatever has a work is there for the sake of its work.
Hence, for a wide class of things, the work of each thing is a final
cause of the thing.
16
Ross, Physics, 526.
82 Jacob Rosen
Now, scholars sometimes say that a thing's work is the same as its
formal cause.17 But even these same scholars seem, as if led by the
truth itself, to contradict themselves, and rightly say that the two
are different. 18 One way to establish the difference is by observing
that a thing's work is something that need not actually be there in
order for the thing to be there. For example, the work of my eyes is
an activity, seeing, and my eyes are still there when no seeing is tak-
ing place, for example in the dark. Likewise, the work of an axe is
chopping, or perhaps chopped wood, and the axe is still there while
it hangs in the shed and no chopping or chopped wood is present.
By contrast, it seems evident that a thing's formal cause is some-
thing that necessarily is there so long as the thing is there. Taken
together, the last two points imply that it is possible for a thing's
formal cause to be there while its work is not there, and this implies
that the two are different. Since the work is a final cause, it follows
that for a wide class of things, each thing has a final cause that is
different from its formal cause.
In a moment I will offer a more formal version of the argument,
and provide evidence that Aristotle is committed to all the relevant
premisses. In preparation for that, I need to offer a few clarifica-
tions.
First, a note about the term 'work'. This corresponds to the Greek
ergon, also commonly translated 'function'. It signifies an activity or
product which a thing has the task of doing or making. I emphasize
that a thing's work is an activity or product, not the having it as one's
task to do or make this activity or product. 19 The latter property
(perhaps 'job' or 'functional state' is an apt term for it?) will be
17
'The soul is the characteristic functions and activities that are essential to the
organism' (T. Irwin, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Translated, with Introduction,
Notes, and Glossary, 2nd edn. (Indianapolis, 1999), 348); 'a full identity between
form and function . . . obtains in the case of fully realized forms' (M. Leunissen,
Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle's Science of Nature [Teleology} (Cambridge,
2010), 87 n. 19).
18
'Aristotle therefore identifies substance and form with first actuality, the perma-
nent state of the organism, as opposed to the intermittent vital activities' (T. Irwin,
Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford, 1988), 236); 'Functions . . . exist "on top of"
the realized forms that constitute the first type of final cause. For instance, a com-
pleted house is the final cause and the fully realized form of the art of house-building,
while "shelter" is the function and final cause of the realized house' (Leunissen, Te-
leology, 13).
19
This is especially clear at EE 2. i, 1219*13-17. Perhaps Irwin means 'functional
state' when he says 'function', in which case I have been unfair to him in nn. 17 and
18 above.
there on an ongoing basis, whereas the work is sometimes there and
sometimes not. For example, Sir Simon Rattle's conducting job is
continually with him, whereas his work, conducting, occurs only
intermittently.
Second, a remark about the attribution of works, final causes, and
formal causes to things. We must bear in mind that the truth of all
such attributions is highly sensitive to the descriptions under which
each item is referred to. More accurately, this is the case when the
attributions are understood as tacitly qualified by adverbial phrases
such as 'per sey or 'without qualification' (kath* heauto, haplos), and
the propositions in my argument should all be understood in this
way. For example, suppose that one and the same person is both a
doctor and a clown. Then we should say that the work of the doc-
tor is health, and that the work of the clown is mirth. We should
not say that the work of the doctor is mirth or that the work of the
clown is health. Furthermore, though we may suppose that mirth
is what Ebenezer despises, it would be misleading, and not true per
se, to say that the clown has the task of producing what Ebenezer
despises. So we should not say that the work of the clown is what
Ebenezer despises. Both the work and that of which it is the work
must be referred to under appropriate descriptions, if the attribu-
tion of work to thing is going to be true per se and without qualifi-
cation. The same goes for attributions of final causes and of formal
causes. An upshot of this for my semi-formal argument is that it
must employ substitutional, rather than objectual, quantification.
In other words, the letters (Ay, (By, etc. should be thought of as
standing in for noun phrases, rather than referring to objects di-
rectly in a description-neutral way.
Third, when I say that something 'is there', I mean that the item
both exists and is the relevant sort of thing. (Furthermore, since
Aristotle says that 'is' is sometimes ambiguous between 'potentially
is' and 'actually is', I should note that I mean 'actually'.) For ex-
ample, 'the axe is there' means that the axe exists and is an axe. The
second conjunct is included in case Aristotle would allow (I do not
know whether or not he would allow this) that the item that is actu-
ally an axe could exist without being an axe. If he would allow this,
then an axe's formal cause is something that necessarily is there so
long as the axe is an axe, but is not necessarily there so long as the
item in question exists.
Fourth and last, a word about the kinds of things my argument
84 Jacob Rosen
is intended to apply to. Above all, I want the argument to apply to
embodied animal and plant kinds, for example horse, human, and
oak.20 This constitutes the central challenge to Aristotle's assertion
of sameness between formal and final causes, since embodied living
things are generally taken to be the primary case in which sameness
holds good. The argument also applies to kinds of animal and plant
part which have a work, such as hand, eye, and leaf. We may refer to
these as 'functional parts'. (I wish to exclude gerrymandered parts,
such as a part consisting of some liver and some intestine, as well as
any useless parts Aristotle may have believed certain living things
to possess.) Finally, the argument applies to kinds of man-made
instrument or artefact, such as axe and house. Perhaps the argu-
ment could be extended to other kinds as well, but I will focus on
these three: embodied organisms, functional parts of embodied or-
ganisms, and man-made instruments.
Some of the premisses will still require clarification, but I have
now said enough to allow a presentation of my semi-formal argu-
ment:
For any A, B, and C, where A belongs, as such, to a kind of animal,
plant, functional animal or plant part, or man-made instrument:
(1) A has a work.

(2) If C is the work of A then C is a final cause of A.
(3) If C is the work of A then it is possible that A is actually there
while C is not actually there.
(4) If B is the formal cause of A then, necessarily, if A is actually
there then B is actually there.
(5) If C is the work of A and B is the formal cause of A then it is
possible that B is actually there while C is not actually there.
(From 3, 4)
(6) If C is the work of A and B is the formal cause of A then C is
not the same as B. (From 5)
(7) If B is the formal cause of A then for some D, D is a final
cause of A and D is not the same as B. (From i, 2, 6)
Recall that the argument employs substitutional quantification (one

should think in terms of substituting noun phrases for the letters
20
The qualification 'embodied' is needed because Aristotle at least once refers to
an immaterial substance, namely god, as an animal (Metaph. A 7, io72b28-9). The
premisses of my argument would not all hold true of immaterial substances accord-
ing to Aristotle.
A, B, C, and D, as opposed to assigning them direct reference to
objects), and that the phrase 'per sey is to be understood liberally
throughout.
Now, let us consider what grounds there are for thinking that
Aristotle would be committed to accepting each step in the argu-
ment. Afterwards, I will discuss a few approaches which might be
taken to answering the argument and upholding Aristotle's claim
that formal and final causes are (often) the same.
3.1. A has a work
The first premiss of the deduction is that every animal, plant, func-
tional animal and plant part, and man-made instrument has, as
such, a work.
The premiss trivially holds true of functional animal and plant
parts, since these were stipulated to be those parts which have a
work. The only question could be whether, for Aristotle, there are
any such parts. The answer to this is undoubtedly affirmative. Aris-
totle refers to the works of various animal parts—most typically
hands and eyes—both in his biological writings and in physical, me-
taphysical, and ethical contexts.21
The case of instruments seems equally straightforward. For ex-
ample, Aristotle indicates in the Meteorology (4. 12, 39O a i3) that an
axe has a work, in the Metaphysics (B 2, gg6bj) that a house has a
work, and in the Politics (7. 8, 1328*31) that instruments in general
have works.
Finally, in the Nicomachean Ethics (1.7, iO97 b 24 fT.) Aristotle ap-
peals to a work of man, and in Generation of Animals he speaks of
the works of plants and animals quite generally:
Of the being of plants, there is no other work and no other action than the
generation of seed; of an animal, on the other hand, generation is not the
only work (for this is cornrnon to all living things), but all animals partake
also of some sort of knowledge—some of more, some of less, some of very
little indeed. (GA i. 23, 73ia24~33)22
Now, some commentators have urged that Aristotle's attribution of
works to entire living beings should be treated with caution. Martha
21
For example, HA 10. i, 633b 18-29 (eYe and womb); PA 4. 10, 6f)Oa2>o-b2 (hands
and feet); De somno i, 454^*26-30 (eye, hand, and something whose work is percep-
tion in general); Meteor. 4. 12, 390*10—15 (eye, flesh, and tongue); Metaph. Z n,
iO36b3O-2 (hand); NE i. 7, io97b3O-2 (eye, hand, foot, 'and altogether each of the
22
parts [of a man]'). See also GA i. 4, 7i7 a 2i-2.
86 Jacob Rosen
Nussbaum claims, for example, that according to Aristotle's core
notion of a work, something can have a work only if it acts as part of a
larger system, of whose activity its work will be a constituent. Since
Aristotle does not think of animals and plants as forming parts of a
larger system in the appropriate way, it would follow that they do
not have a work in the core sense. Nussbaum concludes that when
Aristotle ascribes a work to an animal or plant (in particular, when
he writes in the Ethics of a work of man), he is relying on a rather
loose analogy. 'Work' in such a case means no more than a charac-
teristic or distinctive activity.23
Similar reservations are expressed by David Bostock. Bostock as-
sumes that a work in the proper sense is only had by instruments,
because a thing's work is always 'useful for something further'.
Since an animal or plant is not an instrument, and its activity is
not useful for something further, Bostock thinks it is wrong or at
best misleading to call its activity a work. 24
I suspect that these reservations come from reading modern phi-
losophical notions of function back into Aristotle's notion of ergon
('function' being the commonest translation of the Greek word).
It is true that numerically the greatest quantity of works in Aris-
totle are attributed to parts and to instruments, but that could be
explained in various ways: the works of parts and instruments are
more easily and less controversially identified than those of whole
plants and animals; perhaps there simply are more parts and instru-
ments than there are wholes and users; and so on. It does not show
that Aristotle had no single notion of a work which was applicable
both to activities or products of parts and instruments, and to ac-
tivities or products of wholes which are not instruments. A thing
has as its task to do such-and-such. Why should it do this task?
Well, perhaps because doing so would contribute to something fur-
ther, but perhaps because doing so would be intrinsically valuable.
The difference between mere usefulness and intrinsic value is in-
deed important; but this does not preclude there being a common
relation of the thing to what it does in both cases. Aristotle himself
speaks in the same way of a tool's work, of a part's work, and of an
animal or plant's work, and to my mind no persuasive case, whether
textual or philosophical, has been made against accepting what he
23
M. Nussbaum, Aristotle's De motu animalium: Text with Translation, Com-
mentary, and Interpretive Essays (Princeton, 1978), 81-5 and 100-2.
24
Bostock, 'Aristotle's Theory of Form', 88 (see esp. n. 21).
25
says literally. Thus there is good reason for attributing to Aristotle
the view that every animal, plant, and instrument, along with many
animal and plant parts, has, as such, a work.
3.2. IfCis the work of A then C is a final cause of A

The second premiss of the deduction is that the work of each ani-
mal, plant, working animal and plant part, and man-made instru-
ment is, as such, a final cause of it.
Aristotle's commitment to the truth of this premiss is evidenced,
first, by two general pronouncements made in De caelo and the Eu-
demian Ethics, respectively:
Each of the things that has a work is for the sake of the work. (De caelo 2. 3,
286a8-9)
The end of each thing is its work. (EE 2. i, I2i9 a 8)
Now, the sentence from De caelo appears to float somewhat free of

its context: it is not obvious what role it plays, if any, in the ar-
gumentation surrounding it. Because of this, its evidential weight
might be queried. If it were our only evidence, it could be regarded
as a mere one-off assertion, something Aristotle no doubt believed
when he said it but which did not occupy any central position in his
network of beliefs, and which he could easily have given up.
The pronouncement from the Eudemian Ethics, on the other
hand, does get relied upon in the text which ensues. Aristotle's
argumentation relies first on an identity between the works and
the ends of states (hexeis), including arts, perceptual abilities, and
bodies of theoretical knowledge. He then extends his argument to
apply to soul and its parts. Thus even if he could have stopped
short of a completely general identification of work and end, his
argument does evince a commitment to the view that at least for
every state and for every soul and soul part, the work is a final cause.
Let us consider a few more passages. In the Politics Aristotle of-
fers the example of an instrument and its work as illustrative of one
thing being for the sake of another:
When one thing is for the sake of another . . . I mean, for example, every in-
strument in relation to the work that comes about. . . (Pol. 7.8, 1328*28-3i)
25
Here I am in agreement with M. R. Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology [Teleology}
(Oxford, 2005), 219.
88 Jacob Rosen
According to this text, the work of any instrument is a final cause
of the instrument.
Another class of things to consider are animal parts. Aristotle in-
dicates in Parts of Animals that each of these exists for the sake of
its work:
Hence the body is, in a way, for the sake of the soul, and its parts are for the
sake of the works to which each is naturally suited. (PA 1.5, 645 b i9—20)
(The sense in which the body is for the sake of the soul is, I take it, a
special one; see Section 4.3, especially n. 61.) Moreover, in particu-
lar cases such as teeth, he refers to the same things both as the work
and as the final cause of the part in question.26 He also sometimes
combines talk of work with talk of final causation, for example in
Parts of Animals'.
Animals also have the nature of a mouth for the sake of these works, as well
as—in those animals that breathe and are cooled from outside—for the sake
of breathing. (PA 3. i, 662 a i6-i8)
A further reason to think that the work of an animal part is a final
cause of it derives from Aristotle's repeated description of animal
parts as instruments.27 We just saw that according to the Politics,
every instrument is for the sake of its work. If animal parts are in-
struments, then in their case too the work is a final cause.
Finally, we must consider the case of whole animals and plants. It
is difficult to find direct evidence relating specifically to these items.
In De somno 455 b 22—5 Aristotle seems to say that waking ac-
tivity (egregorsis), in particular perceiving and thinking (aisthane-
sthai, phronein) is the end of everything that is capable of them,
hence of every animal.28 We saw that in Generation of Animals Aris-
totle spoke of the work of animals as being 'some sort of knowledge'
26
Teeth are for the sake of nourishment, in some animals also for defence, and
in humans for speech (GA 5. 8, 788b3~6); the work of teeth is the preparation of
nourishment, in some animals also defence (PA 2. 9, 655 b 8—11; see also PA 4. 11,
69ib19-20; GA 2. 6, 745*27-30; 5. 8, 788b3o-3).
27
DA 2. i, 4i2 b i~4 (the parts of plants too [sc. like the parts of animals] are in-
struments); PA 3. 6, 669 a i3 (the lung is an instrument of breathing); 4. 10, 687an
(hands are an instrument); 4. 12, 694 b i3 (nature makes instruments [sc. body parts]
with a view to their work); GA i. 2, 716^4-5 (the parts of the body are instruments
for an animal's powers).
2
rj S' eypr/yopais reXos' TO yap alaOdveaOai KOLI TO fipoveiv Trdai TeXos ois imapxei
OaTepov avTOJv. fieXnaTa yap TavTa, TO 8e TeXos fieXnaTov. I have some reservations
about relying on this passage, because, strictly speaking, Aristotle says that waking
activity is an end for animals, not that it is an end of animals.
(gnosis tis). In the continuation of that passage Aristotle went on to
specify that he regards perception as a sort of knowledge.29 Thus we
can identify the 'sort of knowledge', which Aristotle in Generation
of Animals attributes to all animals as their work, with the percep-
tion and thought referred to in De somno as an animal's end. In this
pair of passages, then, Aristotle would refer to the same thing as the
work and as a final cause of each animal.
3.3. I f C is the work of A then it is possible that A is actually there

while C is not actually there
The next premiss of the deduction is that every animal, plant, func-
tional animal and plant part, and man-made instrument can exist
and be an animal etc. of the kind in question while its work is not
actually there. I have not found a text in which Aristotle says ex-
plicitly that this is so, but it seems obviously true. Axes, teeth, and
eyes surely do not start and stop existing every time we start and
stop chopping, biting, and seeing. Again, the work of an animal is
not actually present while the animal sleeps, but animals do not start
and stop existing every time they wake up and nod off.
Perhaps the strongest textual evidence to be found is the follow-
ing. In a handful of passages, Aristotle draws a connection between
a thing's work and the conditions on the thing's existence. In each
case he says that it is impossible for a thing of a given kind to exist
if it is not capable of performing or producing the relevant work. It
would be very difficult to explain Aristotle's mention of capability if
he had held the simpler and stronger view that each thing could not
exist unless actually performing or producing its work. Consider:
Furthermore, there cannot be a hand disposed in any arbitrary way, such
as a brazen or wooden hand, except homonymously, like a drawing of a
doctor. For it will not be capable of producing its own work . . . (PA i. i,
64Ob35-64ia2)
All things are defined by the work: for those things that are capable of
producing their own work truly are each thing, such as an eye if it sees,
whereas what is not capable [is the thing] homonymously. (Meteor. 4. 12,
390 a io-i2) 3 °
To these passages we may add De anima 2. i, 4iz b io—4i3 a i. There
29
aiaOrjaiv yap exovaiv, r] S' aiaOrjais yvwais TIS (GA I. 23, 73 ia 33~4)-
30
Another passage: Metaph. Z 10, iO36 b 3O-i (something is a hand only if it is
capable of accomplishing the work: Swaêvr) TO epyov cwroTeAefv).
90 Jacob Rosen
Aristotle clarifies his account of soul by means of analogies to an
axe and to an eye. He states that the substance of an eye is sight
(opsis, b i9), and that without sight nothing is an eye except hom-
onymously Sight is the capacity for the activity of seeing (horasis,
cf. 4i2 b 28—4i3 a i), and, as we know from other texts, seeing is the
work of an eye (HA 10. i, 63 3b 19—22; De somno i, 454^6—9). Thus
the substance of an eye, that which stands to an eye as soul stands to
an animal, and without which an eye does not exist, is the capacity
for performing the eye's work. Surely, then, the capacity suffices: a
thing of a given kind can exist and belong to the kind while its work
is not actually present.
3.4. //B is the formal cause of A then, necessarily, if A is actually

there then B is actually there
The final premiss of the deduction is that nothing of a given kind
can exist and belong to the kind while the formal cause of it (as
member of the kind) is not actually there. Similar to the previous
premiss, this was perhaps for Aristotle a truth too obvious to state.
I can point to no passage where the thesis is asserted in generality,
but it seems both clear and generally agreed that Aristotle held it.31
It is strongly suggested by remarks such as the following:
Moreover, matter is potentially because it could proceed into the form; and
when it is actually, then it is in the form. (Metaph. & 8, 1050^15—16)
According to this passage, some given matter will actually consti-
tute a given thing only when the appropriate form is actually there
informing the matter. Aristotle does not state that this is necessar-
ily so, but it is plausible that he intends to be offering a scientific
truth here, and, according to Aristotle, scientific truths are neces-
sary truths. 32
The thesis is also suggested in Aristotle's explanations of particu-
lar cases. For example, when he analogizes in De anima 2. i between
animals, axes, and eyes, he says of the formal cause of each of the lat-
ter two that 'if it were separated off' (or 'went away'), 'there would
31
For one example from the secondary literature see J. L. Ackrill, 'Aristotle's
Definitions of PsuchP ['Psuche'], in M. Nussbaum and A. O. Rorty (eds.), Essays
on Aristotle's De anima [Essays] (Oxford, 1992), 65-75 at 68: 'The form is what the
matter has to get or have if it is to become or be an X\ for the matter, to become or
to be an X is precisely to get or to have the form.' Presumably the 'has to' in 'has to
get or have' expresses necessity.
32
Post. An. i. 2, 7i b i5-i6; see also i. 4, 73^1-3; i. 6, 74b6, 75*12-13.
33
no longer be an axe' (or 'eye'). Here, as in the passage above from
the Metaphysics, it is plausible that Aristotle intends to be offering
scientific, hence necessary, truths. Thus the presence of the formal
cause of an axe or eye is a necessary condition on being an axe or eye.
Here is a further consideration. Aristotle's phrases for referring
to formal causes include 'the what is it' (to ti esti), 'what it is to be
the thing' (to ti en einai), and 'the being' (he ousia). Where K is a
kind of thing, it seems obviously necessary that every actually ex-
isting k actually exemplifies what a k is, what it is to be a k, and the
being of a k.
This point is reinforced if we recall the close connection in Aris-
totle between formal causes and definitions. The definition of a
kind of thing specifies what the form of this kind of thing is.34
Thus, necessarily, if something actually satisfies the definition of a
k then it actually exemplifies the formal cause of a k.35 It moreover
seems clear that, necessarily, all actually existing members of a
given kind actually satisfy the definition of that kind. At any rate,
this is strongly suggested by Aristotle's statements in the Posterior
Analytics that definitions are among the principles of demonstra-
tions and that the principles of demonstrations are necessary.36 Put-
ting all this together, it follows that, necessarily, all actually existing
members of a kind actually exemplify the formal cause of that kind.
3.5. IfCis the work of A and B is the formal cause of A then it is

possible that B is actually there while C is not actually there
Now we are ready to draw an inference from premisses 3 and 4.
Suppose that C is the work of A and B is the formal cause of A.
Then it is possible that A is actually there while C is not actually
there (premiss 3), and it is necessary that if A is actually there then
B is actually there (premiss 4). Whenever one proposition is pos-
sible and another proposition is necessary, it is possible for the two
33
DA 2. i, 4i2 b i3-i4, 20-1.
34
See e.g. Metaph. A 8, ioi7 b 2i-2; Z 5, 103^12; Z n, 1036*28-9; H i, 1042*17.
For discussion see M. Frede, 'The Definition of Sensible Substances in Met. Z', in
D. Devereux and P. Pellegrin (eds.), Biologic, logique, et metaphysique chez Aristote
(Paris, 1990), 113-29.
35
I assume that there is a unique formal cause for each kind. By 'unique' I mean
specifically unique—we need not decide whether all ks share numerically one formal
cause; perhaps each individual k has its own individual form.
36
For the first claim see Post. An. i. 2, 72 a 2i (in conjunction with a7, 14-16); 2. 3,
9Ob24. For the second claim see Post. An. i. 6, 74b5~6, 15, 18, 26 ff.
92 Jacob Rosen
propositions to be true together.37 So it is possible that: A is actually
there while C is not actually there and if A is actually there then B is
actually there. Hence it is possible that A is actually there and B is
actually there while C is not actually there. Therefore it is possible
that B is actually there while C is not actually there.
3.6. IfC is the work of A and B is the formal cause of A then C is not
the same as B
With the above result in hand, we can apply one of Aristotle's tests
for sameness from Topics 7. i:
Moreover, see if it is possible for the one to be without the other: for then
they will not be the same. (Top. 7. i, I52b34~5)
Where C is something's work and B is its formal cause, we have

seen that it is possible for B actually to be there without C actually
being there. Applying Aristotle's test, it follows that B and C are
not strictly the same.
3.7. //B is the formal cause of A then for some D, D is a final cause
of A and D is not the same as B
From premiss i we know that every animal, plant, functional part,
and instrument has a work. From premiss 2 we know that this work
is also a final cause of the animal, plant, part, or instrument. Lastly,
we know from line 6 that this work is not strictly the same as the
thing's formal cause. Hence, every animal, plant, functional part,
and instrument has a final cause which is not strictly the same as its
formal cause. This is the conclusion of my argument.
Now that the argument is complete, let me say again, carefully,
what its conclusion amounts to. We start with a term denoting, as
such, an organism, functional part, or instrument. For example, we
may consider the term 'the eye'. Then there will be, on the one
hand, a term yielding a true per se ascription of a final cause to the
thing, and, on the other hand, a term yielding a true per se ascrip-
tion of the thing's formal cause to it. And these latter two terms will
figure in a true denial of strict sameness. Continuing the example
37
See e.g. the theorem called 'K<X in B. Chellas, Modal Logic: An Introduction
(Cambridge, 1980), 117. Or think of it this way: the possible proposition is true at
some possible world, and the necessary proposition is true at every possible world.
So at some world, both propositions are true.
of the eye, the relevant terms would be 'seeing' and 'sight': seeing
is per se a final cause of the eye, sight is per se the formal cause of
the eye, and seeing is not strictly the same as sight. I emphasize that
my conclusion concerns sameness in the strictest and most domi-
nant sense of the term. For all I have proven, it may yet turn out
that a thing's final cause and its formal cause are the same in some
weaker sense. Indeed, for all I have proven, it could even turn out
that they are identical (in today's sense of 'identical', which may or
may not have been a concept employed by Aristotle himself). 38 Car-
rying on with the eye, it could be that, although seeing is not strictly
the same as sight, seeing is identical with sight. I am confident that
such an identity does not in fact hold, but I have not proven that it
does not hold. We will meet this point again (Section 4.4).
4. Can we preserve (a qualified version of) the sameness claim?
There are many possible strategies for responding to the argument

I have given. It is not practicable to consider them all, because the
range of interpretations and views in play is so vast and unwieldy.
But I would like to touch on a few lines of response which I think
raise important issues.
4.1. Survival and reproduction

I attributed to Aristotle the view that living things exist for the sake
of their works (Section 3.2). An objection might be raised to this
based on the idea, often expressed in the secondary literature, that
an animal's characteristic activities and products are all directed to-
wards the maintenance or reproduction of the animal itself. The
idea suggests that an animal's work is for the sake of the animal's
form, in the sense that the work is performed in order to secure the
form's continued existence by way of survival and reproduction. A
scholar who holds this view may perhaps grant that the work of an
animal is its proximate final cause, but insist that its form is also a
final cause of it. The form is the higher end to which the work is
a means; an animal works in order to maintain and propagate it-
self, and thereby to further the existence of its form. Thus the ani-
38
Thanks to Kevin Klement for bringing home to me the fact that my argument
does not disprove identity.
94 Jacob Rosen
mal's form has good title to be called the final cause of the animal.
(This line of thought is addressed to whole organisms only; it is not
designed to identify the formal and final causes of parts or instru-
ments.)
Such a view is endorsed, for example, by Gareth Matthews:
Now if the soul of a living thing is the cause of its living, and its living is
naturally directed towards the preservation of its species, then the soul's
powers (the 'psychic powers' we have been talking about) are presumably
powers naturally directed toward the preservation of the species of that
particular thing.39
The view is also suggested by Jonathan Lear when, after listing

some characteristic plant and animal activities, he writes:
In each case such activities of plants and animals are for the development,
maintenance, or protection of form: 'Since nature is twofold, the matter
and the form, of which the latter is the end, and since all the rest is for the
sake of the end, the form must be the cause in the sense of "that for the sake of
which."'*0
What are we to think of this view? To begin, let us grant for the sake
of argument that the working of an animal or plant always contri-
butes to survival or reproduction. Then we are faced with a circle:
the form promotes the work (since it grounds the ability to work,
or is this ability), and the work promotes the form (since it pre-
serves and reproduces the form). In this mutual furthering of form
and work, which is for the sake of which? Or, to shift the question,
which is the more intrinsically valuable, and which rather derives
its value from that of the other?41
It seems to me that preference must go to the work, not to the
form. The situation is analogous to what we find in the Ethics in the
relation between virtue and virtuous activity. Virtue is a state which
provides, or is, a disposition to act virtuously; acting virtuously
develops or reinforces the state of virtue. Aristotle is insistent—
39
G. Matthews, 'De anima 2. 2-4 and the Meaning of Life', in Nussbaum and
Rorty (eds.), Essays, 185-94 at 190-1.
40
J. Lear, Aristotle, 35. The passage quoted by Lear is Phys. 2. 8, 199^0-2 (the
emphasis is Lear's).
41
When one thing is for the sake of another, normally the latter is intrinsically
better than the former. This comes out, for example, in the reasoning about goods
and ends in NE book i: see especially NE i. i, 1094^-6, and i. 7, 1097^5-34; also
EE 2. i, I2i9 a 8-n.
against Plato—that the higher good is the activity, not the state.42
As in the practical realm, I say, so in the biological. An activity such
as perception or thought is of basic intrinsic value; its value is akin
to the value of god's activity. The form of an embodied animal is
valuable because it is or provides the ability to perform such valu-
able activity. Aristotle's higher valuation of activities over capacities
seems to be quite general, extending outside his ethical works into
the physical and metaphysical.43 For example, in Metaphysics & 9
he argues that whenever a capacity is good, the corresponding ac-
tivity is better.
I started out by granting the claim that, for Aristotle, the work-
ing of a living thing always contributes to its own survival or re-
production. I do not think that this should really be granted. In the
human case, theoretical activity is an obvious and acknowledged
sticking point for the claim. In other animals and in plants, there
are no such obvious counter-examples: the activities described in
Aristotle's biological works all seem to be connected with getting
food, mating, and protecting oneself. Nevertheless, it is important
to see that Aristotle's theoretical framework leaves room for animal
activities which are performed simply for their own intrinsic value,
and not for the sake of any contribution to survival or reproduc-
tion. Correspondingly, it leaves room for teleological explanations
of animal traits or parts in terms of their usefulness for intrinsically
valuable activities, without any regard to considerations of survival
or reproduction. This is a crucial difference between Aristotle's
framework and the prevailing Darwinian framework of today, and
it would be a shame to obscure it or cover it over.
4.2. Coming to be
Aristotle's way of referring to final causes consists in a mere frag-
ment of a clause, 'that for the sake of which', and we might wonder
how to complete this fragment: that for the sake of which . . . wharf
I have been taking the view that, in the case where A is an object
such as an animal or a plant, a final cause of A is something for
the sake of which A is there. But one might argue for completing
42
Cf. NE i. 5, io95 b 3i-io96 a 2; i. 7, 1098^-6; i. 8, io98 b 3i-io99 a 7; 10. 6,
II
?6 a 33~ b 2. For the opposite view, on which virtuous action is choiceworthy
because of its contribution to one's virtuous state, see e.g. Rep. 4, 443 E 5-6 and
445 A 5-B 4-
43
Cf. PA i. 5, 645 b i7~i9; De somno 2, 455 b 22~5; EE 2. i, I2i9 a 8 and 31.
g6 Jacob Rosen
Aristotle's fragment in some other way. In particular, it might be
thought that a final cause of A is something for the sake of which
A conies into being, perhaps also something for the sake of which
A undergoes maturation.^ It is uncontroversial that, for Aristotle,
things typically come into being in order that their respective forms
be instantiated, and it is widely held that organisms undergo ma-
turation in order that their forms be more completely instantiated.
So, if this view of final causation is correct, the form of a thing will
count as a final cause of that very thing.
But I do not think that this view of final causation is correct, and
I would like to indicate why. To begin, let us remind ourselves of
two distinctions. First is the distinction between being a cause of
something and being a cause to the thing. For example, if you are
enjoying this paper, then the paper is a cause of enjoyment to you.45
Generally speaking, being a cause of something to X does not suf-
fice for being a cause of X.46 For example, this paper is not a cause
of you. But perhaps being a cause to X of being, or, as our proposal
has it, being a cause to X of coming into being, does make something
a cause of X. This brings us to our second distinction. We must bear
in mind that, for Aristotle, a thing's being and the thing's coming
into being are distinct explananda. For example, one of the metho-
dological issues he discusses in Parts of Animals book i is whether
the explanation of an animal's being is prior to or posterior to the
explanation of its coming into being (PA i. i, 64O a iofT.). He could
not have asked about the order of priority among these explana-
tions without distinguishing between them; and it is unlikely that
he would distinguish between the explanations of being and of com-
ing into being without distinguishing between the causes of being
and of coming into being. After all, he appears to hold that a cor-
44
This view is not often stated explicitly, but it seems to lurk behind many things
that people say. Simplicius pretty much states the view when he describes a thing's
final cause as that for the sake of which it is made (Simpl. In Phys. 363. 28-32 Diels).
I suspect that the view is at work in Ross, Physics, 526, and in Hankinson, Cause
and Explanation, 146. The form's role as end of generation is also appealed to in ex-
plaining Aristotle's sameness claim by Philoponus (In Phys. 298. 3-6 and 301. 22-5
Vitelli) and by Aquinas (In Phys. lib. 2, 1. 11, n. 2 Maggiolo).
45
It is common in classical Greek literature and philosophy to have a pair of words
in the genitive and dative cases when talking about causation or responsibility. For
example, someone or something can be said to be a cause of death to some men
(Lysias, In Agoratum 49), a cause of goods to the city (Plato, Euthph. 3 A 2-4), or a
cause of sterility to the lion (GA 3 . 1 , 750*31—2).
46
The difference between what something is a cause of and what it is a cause to
comes out especially clearly in Post. An. 2. 16-17 (see esp. 98b28~9, 99a5, 99b4~5).
rect explanation of something consists precisely in a specification of
its causes. In Metaphysics Z, too, Aristotle distinguishes between a
cause of something's being and a cause of its coming into being.47
One might think that, whenever something explains why a thing
came into being, it thereby explains why it is there. But this is not
so. Consider the fact that I walked into the library in order to be in
the library, whereas it is not the case that I am in the library in order
to be in the library. It could have been so (if I pursued inhabitance
of libraries for its own sake), but in fact I am there in order to read
and work. Being in the library is thus a final cause of my coming
to be in the library, but not of my being in the library. Similarly,
a cat comes into being in order that the cat's form be instantiated,
but it does not follow that the cat exists in order that its form be in-
stantiated. Indeed, given that the cat's existence is grounded in the
instantiation of the form, it is hard to see how the former could in
any way be a means to, or for the sake of, the latter.48 Thus, it seems,
the cat's form is a final cause of the cat's coming into being, but not
a final cause of the cat's existence.
When he wishes to be explicit, Aristotle can make it clear which
explanandum he is explaining. He sometimes says that one thing is
a cause to another of coming into being, or that one thing is a cause
to another of being.49 The question is, what does he mean when,
instead of using an 'of . . . to . . .' construction, he says simply that
something is a cause of a given object? And what should we mean
when, in reporting Aristotle's views, we employ this simple form of
expression? In our own case, it seems clear that, though we might
use the simple expression as equivalent to one or the other of the
47
Metaph. Z 17, iO4i a 31-2: 'but this sort of cause [i.e. the efficient cause] is sought
for coming into being and perishing, while the other [i.e. the final cause] is also
sought for being'.
48
It has become a familiar point in discussions of Aristotle's Ethics that his 'for
the sake of relation is more inclusive than a purely instrumental means-ends rela-
tion. Even so, in standard examples, such as when I putt for the sake of playing golf
or play golf for the sake of having a good holiday (J. L. Ackrill, 'Aristotle on Eudai-
monia', in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (Berkeley, 1980), 15-33 at
19), I achieve the end because of or in virtue of the thing that is for the sake of the
end. I am playing golf in virtue of the fact that I am putting; I am having a good
holiday in virtue of the fact that I am playing golf. Now, a cat is there in virtue of
its form's being there, not vice versa, so it is implausible that the cat is there for the
sake of the form's being there.
49
Coming into being: GC 2. 10, 336 a 2i; De long. vit. 4.65*16; MA 7ooa35-bi; Phys.
8. 7, 26i a 2. Being: GC 2. 10, 336*21-2; DA 2. 4, 4i5 b i2-i3; Cat. 13, i4b28, b 3i-2,
I5 a 9-io.
98 Jacob Rosen
first two, more elaborate ones, we should not use it in a way that is
ambiguous between them. We strive for clarity and precision, and
avoid vague or ambiguous expressions. As for Aristotle's usage, it
is hard to be certain, but it seems unlikely that he meant (B is a
cause of A' to be ambiguous between 'B is a cause of being to A'
and (B is a cause of coming into being to A\ Aristotle makes a great
many distinctions concerning the ambiguities of causal claims, and
he does not indicate that there is any ambiguity of this particular
kind.
Finally, to complete my argument, there are passages in which
Aristotle appears to use 'cause of A* interchangeably with 'cause of
being to Ay.5° If the appearance is correct, and given that we and
Aristotle both wish to avoid ambiguity, then 'cause of Ay should
not be used as a proxy for 'cause of coming into being to A\ In the
case of final causation, this means that we should call B a final cause
of A only if it is a final cause of Ays being, that is, only if A is there
for the sake of B, and not if it is merely a final cause of Ays coming
into being. So, although an organism's formal cause is a final cause
of the organism's generation and maturation, this is no good reason
for calling the form a final cause of the organism itself.
4.3. Benefit
In a handful of passages, Aristotle distinguishes between different
senses in which one thing can be for the sake of another.51 It is worth
considering the distinctions he makes, to see if they deliver some
sense in which things can plausibly be said to be for the sake of
their forms.
The clearest elaboration of a distinction is found in Generation
of Animals 2. 6. Here Aristotle distinguishes between, on the one
hand, something's being there in order to generate or produce a
given thing, and, on the other hand, something's being there in
order to be used by the thing (GA 2. 6, 742*22-32). For example,
50
For example, at DA 2. 4, 4i5 b i 1-13, Aristotle first says that the soul is a cause
of living bodies as substance (i.e. as a formal cause), and then says universally that
each thing's substance is a cause to it of being. Thus the soul is a cause of the living
body and a cause of being to the living body. At EE i. 8, i2i8 b 2O-2, he says first
that something healthy is a cause of health (TTJS vyieias), and then that it is a cause of
health's being (TOL> eivai rrjv vyieiav}.
51
In addition to the texts discussed below, see Phys. 2. 2, I94a35~6, EE 8. 3,
I249 b i5, and perhaps (depending on the correct reading of the text) Metaph. A 7,
I072b2-3.
a flute teacher is there for the sake of a flautist in the first sense,
whereas a flute is there for the sake of a flautist in the second sense.
A much more condensed statement of a distinction is found in De
anima 2. 4. Here Aristotle tells us that that for the sake of which is
'twofold'; it encompasses (to translate in minimal fashion) 'that of
which and that to which'. 52 It is difficult to be sure what he means
here. There is fairly wide agreement nowadays that 'that of which'
means an end to be attained or realized, and there is wide verbal
agreement in saying that 'that to which' means someone or some-
thing to be benefited. 53 But the verbal agreement masks a great dis-
parity in understandings of benefit. Some scholars think that to
benefit someone is to bring him or her into a better condition.54
Others think that our enemies can properly be called 'beneficiar-
ies' of the measures we take to frighten them in battle.55 For these
scholars, 'benefit' has a touch of the gangster's euphemism about it,
or at any rate a rather broad meaning. Finally, some seem to think
that the notion of benefiting something is equivalent to (or encom-
passes) the notion of being useful to it.56
The third understanding of benefit has the advantage of mak-
ing Aristotle's distinctions in De anima and Generation of Animals
line up pretty well with each other. I have no objection to it con-
sidered as an interpretation of the De anima passage, but I would
like to plead for more differentiated terminology. There are many
reasons for keeping the notion of benefit clearly separated from the
notion of usefulness. For one thing, it is widely assumed that some-
thing can be benefited, or 'benefited', only if it is changeable.57 But
it is possible to be useful to an art, which is presumably not (per se)
changeable.58 Moreover, as Plato has Socrates argue in Republic i,
52
DA 2. 4, 4i5 b 2—3 and 20—1. 'That of which' translates TO ov, and 'that to which'
translates TO &. Other translations are possible based on the variety of relations which
can be expressed in Greek by means of the genitive and dative cases.
53
See e.g. P. McLaughlin, What Functions Explain (Cambridge, 2001), 20; S.
Menn, 'Aristotle's Definition of Soul and the Programme of De anima' ['Pro-
gramme'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 22 (2002), 83-139 at 113; G. Lear,
Happy Lives and the Highest Good [Happy Lives] (Princeton, 2004), 75-6; Johnson,
Teleology, 66-7.
54 55
Lear, Happy Lives, 75. Johnson, Teleology, 67 n. 8.
56
Stephen Menn writes of being for the sake of something as 'the to-benefit-
whom, as an opyavov is for the sake of the art or the artisan' (Menn, 'Pro-
gramme', 113).
57
Lear, Happy Lives, 76; Johnson, Teleology, 76.
58
Menn emphasizes that an art can be the 'to-benefit-whom' (as he calls it) of an
instrument ('Programme', 113).
ioo Jacob Rosen
and as Aristotle repeats in Politics 3. 6, exercises of an art typically
do not, as such, aim at the artisan's own benefit. 59 Accordingly, be-
ing useful to an artisan, which means serving her in the achievement
of her aim as artisan, will not typically benefit her. For example, if a
doctor is treating my friend and I fetch some bandages, I do this in
order to benefit my friend, not the doctor; I do it in order to be use-
ful to the doctor, but not in order to benefit her. Finally, we should
recall how, in Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates and Euthyphro strenu-
ously deny that we can improve or benefit gods. The thought that
we might serve gods and be used by them is introduced as an al-
ternative idea, and is not rejected.60 For all these reasons and more,
a distinction must be respected between being for something's use
and being for something's benefit.
There is more to say about all this, but the immediate question is
whether these distinctions reveal a sense in which a thing's form is a
final cause of the thing. Is there any plausibility, say, to the thought
that animals or plants, or parts, or instruments, exist for the sake of
being useful to their respective forms? Or, alternatively, is it plau-
sible that these things exist for the sake of benefit to their respective
forms?
The 'usefulness' proposal is reminiscent of something Aristotle
says. He says, namely, that each organism's body is an instrument of
the organism's soul, and exists for the sake of the soul in the sense
of being there for its use.61 It does not immediately follow that the
organism itself is for the sake of its soul, given that (I think) an orga-
nism is not the same as its body. To be sure, an organism is a body,
a living body (DA 2. i, 412*15-16), but the living body is to be dis-
tinguished from the organism's instrumental body. If I understand
Aristotle rightly, his view is that the living body is a composite sub-
stance whose proximate matter is the instrumental body and whose
form is the soul (DA 2. i, 4i3 a 2— 3). If this is correct, then it is plau-
sible that the soul is the formal cause of the living body but not of
the instrumental body, and that it is a final cause of the instrumental
body (in the sense that the instrumental body is for its use) but not
of the living body. Thus I do not see how, along these lines, we can
59
Rep. i, 3460 1-6 and E 3-7; Pol. 3. 6, I278 b 37~i279 a 5.
60
Euthph. 12 E 5-14 A 10, esp. 13 c 6-9 (talk of benefit and of making better, ox/>eA/a
and fieXrlovs Troieiv} and E 10—11 (talk of servants and of using, vTryperai and xprjaOai).
61
/M 2. 4, 415b 18-20. The statement at PA i. i, 645b 19,'the body is in a way for
the sake of the soul', should, I think, likewise be understood in terms of the thought
that the body is an instrument for the soul's use (cf. 642 a i i).
Essence and End in Aristotle i oi
make the soul come out as the formal cause and a final cause of one
and the same thing. Perhaps it can be done, but I am not optimistic.
What of the 'benefit' proposal? Aristotle does seem to hold that
an animal's being is a benefit to it: he says that being is choiceworthy
and lovable, and that a child's being is a great service done to it by
its father.62 It is not implausible to assign the enjoyment of benefits
specifically to the animal's soul, and thus to say that the animal's
being is a benefit to the animal's soul. However, it is difficult to go
further than this, and to claim that we have here a partial expla-
nation of why the animal exists. Though it is plausible that each
animal's existence is a benefit to the animal's soul, it is neither in-
tuitively plausible nor (to my knowledge) ever asserted by Aristotle
that each animal exists for the sake of this benefit to the animal's
soul. Perhaps this strategy can somehow be carried off, but again I
am not optimistic.
4.4. Sameness of activity and capacity

I would like to mention one last strategy for upholding a kind of
sameness between formal and final causes. I have not seen the stra-
tegy pursued in print, but it has arisen often in conversation about
the argument presented in Section 3 above.63 An interlocutor be-
gins by granting that a thing's formal cause and its final cause are,
in a way, different. In particular, he says, typically a thing's formal
cause is a capacity while its final cause is the corresponding activity.
For example, an animal's formal cause, its soul, is a complex capa-
city for certain life activities, and the animal's final cause is those
life activities. But then, the interlocutor proceeds, a capacity and
the corresponding activity are the same.
It remains to spell out what kind of sameness is at issue. As an
opening move, the interlocutor notes that a capacity and an acti-
vity can typically be referred to by the same linguistic expression.
For example, if Aristotle says that something 'sees' (horai), this can
mean either that the thing is able to see, or that it is actively seeing.
If something 'lives' (zei), this can mean either that it is alive, or that
it is actively performing life activities (cf. NE 1.7, 1098^—6). So we
can answer the question of essence and the question of end with the
62
NE 9. 7, n68a5-6; 8. n, 1161*15-17.
63
The strategy addressed in this section has been defended in discussion (whether
from conviction or for dialectical purposes) by Stephan Schmid, Christian Pfeiffer,
Antonio Vargas, Jonathan Beere, Gavin Lawrence, and Calvin Normore.
102 Jacob Rosen
same form of words. What is the essence of an eye? To see. What is
an eye for? To see. What is the essence of an animal? To live. What
is an animal for? To live.
In my own view, this is mere homonymy, not real sameness
among the things talked about. But the interlocutor insists that
the linguistic sameness points to a genuine metaphysical one. He
reminds us of Aristotle's famous doctrine that, among the ways in
which being is spoken of, there is being-in-capacity and being-in-
activity^^ And, if he is willing to commit himself to any definite
way of working this all out, he proposes the following.65 Aristotle's
view is that in each case where there is a capacity and an activity,
there is some single selfsame item which, when it enjoys being-in-
capacity, is rightly called by the name of the capacity (e.g. 'sight'
or 'soul'), and, when it enjoys being-in-activity, is rightly called by
the name of the activity (e.g. 'seeing' or 'living').
The core of this proposal is that seeing, or singing, or whatever
other activity, is identical with the capacity for seeing or singing or
whatever other activity. When I undergo a transition, say, from be-
ing merely capable of singing to actually singing, this is not a matter
of acquiring a further property, singing, additional to the property
capable of singing which I already had. Rather, what happens is that
my capacity for singing somehow 'rises into' another mode of be-
ing, in such a way that it itself is then the property of singing.
The proposal ought to be very controversial. It would take quite
a lot of work to show that it is (a) philosophically intelligible and
(b) plausibly regarded as Aristotle's view. It raises deep and inter-
esting metaphysical issues, which is why I mention it. But for the
same reason, it is impossible to give it adequate treatment in the pre-
sent paper. Moreover, I find myself unable to say even a little about
it without saying quite a lot. So I will content myself with one small
objection: it would be surprising if Aristotle's remark about formal
and final causes, made in an easy tone in works of biology and na-
tural science, should turn out to depend on such a subtle and diffi-
cult doctrine, which ingenious commentators claim to have teased
out of the Metaphysics.
64
Metaph. A 7, 1017^5 ff.
65
Presumably there are several ways one could go from here, but what follows is
the only concrete proposal I have heard.
5. Conclusion: rewards of shaking off the sameness claim
I have argued that Aristotle is committed to accepting the result

that a thing's formal cause and its final cause are not, strictly speak-
ing, one or the same. On one level this represents a difficulty in the
interpretation of Aristotle, given his repeated claim that a thing's
formal and final cause are one and the same. There are countless
ways in which one might try to solve or remove the difficulty, and
it would of course be good to come to an agreement on the best solu-
tion (or rejection) of the problem. But for the moment I would like
to recommend that Aristotle's sameness claim simply be set aside
and, temporarily, left out of consideration. Let us look at the rest of
Aristotle's physical works, his biology, and his metaphysics, and see
what picture suggests itself of formal and final causes when we have
discarded the preconception that these causes must somehow co-
incide. I would like to sketch a picture which I find attractive, and
which I think is fairly widely shared. The picture concerns both
what Aristotle's concepts of a formal cause and of a final cause are,
and which items fall under these concepts in relation to material
substances. I do not guarantee the picture's complete accuracy and
faithfulness to Aristotle, but I think it is a reasonable place to work
from. It is as follows.
To be the formal cause of an individual of a given kind, as mem-
ber of the kind, is to be that in virtue of whose presence the indi-
vidual belongs to the kind in question. If the kind is a substantial
kind, then being the formal cause also means being that in virtue
of whose presence the individual exists. For example, the art of
medicine is the formal cause of a doctor as doctor: the individual
belongs to the kind doctor in virtue of the presence of the art of
medicine. For another example, the human soul is the formal cause
of a human as human: the individual both exists and belongs to
the kind human in virtue of the presence of the soul. In the first ex-
ample, the individual exists regardless, and the formal cause merely
grounds the fact that it is a certain sort of thing. In the second ex-
ample, the very existence of the individual depends on the presence
of the formal cause. The individual is composed out of a plurality
of things or stuffs, and it is precisely in so far as the components are
jointly informed by soul that they compose an individual. In the
soul's absence, there would be some things or some stuff there, but
104 Jacob Rosen
there would be no individual composed out of those things or that
stuff.
A formal cause, then, is a metaphysical ground of kind-
membership and, in some cases, of existence by composition.
What sorts of thing play the role of formal cause for Aristotle?
Sometimes he gives the example of a shape, as in the case of a statue
(Metaph. Z 3, 1029^—5). Or it might be some other sort of struc-
ture or arrangement, such as (to borrow a example from Ackrill) the
arrangement by which bread and cheese compose a sandwich.66 But
an especially central sort of case is that in which the formal cause
is a capacity to do or to make something. Man-made instruments
have such formal causes: a thing is an axe in virtue of the capacity
to chop wood, a house in virtue of the capacity to shelter bodies and
goods. Many animal parts are like this too: a thing is an eye in virtue
of the capacity to see, a hand in virtue of the capacity to grasp. Souls
also—the formal causes of animals and plants—are capacities to do
things such as to perceive, to move about, and (in the human case)
to think. Thus the formal cause of a living thing is the capacity to
perform certain life activities.
Now let us turn to final causes. Aristotle describes this sort of
cause elliptically, as 'that for the sake of which'. Filling out his de-
scription, it is plausible to suppose that the final cause of a change
or action is that for the sake of which the change occurs or the ac-
tion is performed; and the final cause of a thing is that for the sake
of which the thing is there. In particular, to be the final cause of
an individual of a given kind (as member of the kind) is to be that
for the sake of which the individual belongs to the kind in question,
and, in some cases, to be that for the sake of which the individual
exists altogether.
Aristotle's reasons for regarding this as a kind of cause seem to
be based on the following observation. A statement of the form *p
in order that #', if true, is a felicitous answer to the question 'why
pr (Phys. 2. 3, I94 b 33~5). In this way, clauses of the form 'in order
that qy stand alongside clauses of the form 'because ry in their ex-
planatory force. Similarly, the question why A is there is properly
answered by a true statement to the effect that A is there for the
sake of B. So again, clauses of the form 'for the sake of By stand
alongside clauses of the form 'because of C' or 'as a result of C' in
their explanatory force. It may be thought that, since statements of
66
Ackrill, 'Psuche', 66.
the form 'in order that . . .' and 'for the sake of . . .' count as an-
swers to 'why' questions, they must somehow be translatable into
statements of the form 'because . . .' or 'as a result of . . .'. But I
think we should keep an open mind about this. Doubtless, 'in order
that' statements stand in inferential connections with certain sorts
of 'because' statements,67 but these connections are complex and
will most likely not lead to any straightforward translation, defini-
tion, or reduction.
What plays the role of final cause? Well, typically, where a kind is
defined by a capacity, the final cause will be the activity or the thing
which kind-members are able to do or to make. (I offer this as a ge-
neral rule, not as a necessary or conceptual truth. 68 ) For example,
the art of medicine is a capacity to produce health, and a person is
a doctor for the sake of health: health is the final cause of a doctor.
Similarly, a house exists for the sake of sheltering bodies and goods,
and an eye exists for the sake of seeing. A living thing exists for the
sake of certain life activities: those activities are the final cause of
the living thing.
On this picture, although the final cause of a house is closely re-
lated to the formal cause of the house, the causes are not the same.
Its formal cause is the capacity to do something; its final cause is
that which it is able to do, namely to shelter. Similarly, the final
cause of a living thing, such as a cat, is related to but different from
the thing's formal cause. The formal cause is a capacity (this is why
the cat still exists while asleep), while the final cause is the corres-
ponding activity. If the argument of this paper is acceptable, then
we should not let Aristotle's sameness claim deter us from adopt-
ing the picture I have just sketched; we should consider adopting
it even though 'it is clear that capacity and activity are different'
(Metaph. 0 3, 1047*18-19).
What, in the end, should we think of Aristotle's assertion of the
67
For example, Aristotle indicates that a final causal explanation can sometimes be
given in the form 'because it is better thus' (Sion fleXriov OVTWS: Phys. 2. 7, I98b8~9).
Also, some of his arguments presuppose connections between final causes and effi-
cient causes: for example, he evidently assumes that if a process is efficiently caused
entirely by weight and heaviness, then the process does not occur for the sake of co-
vering and preserving (Phys. 2. 9, 2OOa5~7).
68
One exception to the rule might be a doomsday machine, if, as is plausible to
think, (a) its essence is a capacity to destroy life on earth under certain conditions,
but (b) it does not exist in order to destroy life on earth under those conditions. (On
(b), remember what Dr Strangelove says: 'The whole point of the doomsday machine
is lost if you keep it a secret.')
io6 Jacob Rosen
sameness claim? I am inclined to think that Aristotle was speak-
ing loosely, or was making a subtle mistake. Relative to his own
purposes, the mistake is minor and easily corrected. For there are
truths in the neighbourhood of the sameness claim, and the neigh-
bouring truths can do the work that Aristotle needs done. Aristotle
is mainly concerned with the question how a scientist should go
about describing the causes of things, and his main message is that
the scientist need not list formal causes and final causes separately.
For example, in the passage we saw in Generation of Animals, his
whole point seems to be that, having discussed the formal causes
of animals, he need not give an additional set of lectures on their
final causes. This point is reasonable provided only that a thing's
final cause can be easily inferred from its formal cause, regardless of
whether it is strictly the same as it; and the latter claim is plausible in
Aristotle's theoretical framework. Aristotle's train of thought goes
through, and relative to this his mistake or loose expression is harm-
less. Relative to our purposes, on the other hand, when we are trying
to elucidate and reconstruct Aristotle's causal concepts, the mistake
is harmful and it is crucial to recognize it as such. It encourages
inaccuracy in the identification of causal relations and relata. And
it obscures the fact that many ends in Aristotle's natural world—
indeed the highest ends, I think—are not forms, but rather activi-
ties such as perceiving and knowing.
Humboldt-Universitdt zu Berlin
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ackrill, J. L., 'Aristotle on Eudaimonia', in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on
Aristotle's Ethics (Berkeley, 1980), 15-33.
'Aristotle's Definitions of Psuche* ['Psuche'], in Nussbaum and Rorty
(eds.), Essays, 65-75.
Bonitz, H., Index Aristotelicus (Berlin, 1870).
Bostock, D., 'Aristotle on Teleology in Nature', in id., Essays, 48—78.
'Aristotle's Theory of Form', in id., Essays, 79-102.
Space, Time, Matter, and Form: Essays on Aristotle's Physics [Essays]
(Oxford, 2006).
Chellas, B., Modal Logic: An Introduction (Cambridge, 1980).
Frede, M., 'The Definition of Sensible Substances in Met. Z y , in D.
Devereux and P. Pellegrin (eds.), Biologie, logique, et metaphysique chez
Aristote (Paris, 1990), 113-29.
Gotthelf, A., 'Aristotle's Conception of Final Causality', in A. Gotthelf and
J. Lennox (eds.), Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology (Cambridge,
1987), 204-42.
Hankinson, R. J., Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought [Cause
and Explanation] (Oxford, 2001).
Hennig, B., 'The Four Causes', Journal of Philosophy, 106 (2009), 137-60.
Irwin, T., Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Translated, with Introduction,
Notes, and Glossary, 2nd edn. (Indianapolis, 1999).
Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford, 1988).
Johnson, M. R., Aristotle on Teleology [Teleology'] (Oxford, 2005).
Lear, G., Happy Lives and the Highest Good [Happy Lives'] (Princeton,
2004).
Lear, J., Aristotle: The Desire to Understand [Aristotle'} (Cambridge, 1988).
Leunissen, M., Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle's Science of Nature
[Teleology] (Cambridge, 2010).
Lewis, D., 'Causation', in id., Philosophical Papers, vol. ii (Oxford, 1986),
159-213-
'Causation as Influence', Journal of Philosophy, 97 (2000), 182-97.
McLaughlin, P., What Functions Explain (Cambridge, 2001).
Matthews, G., 'De anima 2. 2-4 and the Meaning of Life', in Nussbaum
and Rorty (eds.), Essays, 185-94.
Menn, S., Aristotle's Definition of Soul and the Programme of De anima'
['Programme'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 22 (2002), 83-139.
Nussbaum, M., Aristotle's De motu animalium: Text with Translation,
Commentary, and Interpretive Essays (Princeton, 1978).
and Rorty, A. O. (eds.), Essays on Aristotle's De anima [Essays'] (Ox-
ford, 1992).
Rosen, G., 'Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction', in B.
Hale and A. Hoffmann (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Episte-
mology (Oxford, 2010), 109-35.
Ross, W. D. (ed. and comm.), Aristotle's Physics: A Revised Text with
Introduction and Commentary [Physics'] (Oxford, 1936).
Stalnaker, R., Ways a World Might Be (Oxford, 2003).
HO POTE ON ESTI AND
C O U P L E D E N T I T I E S : A F O R M OF
EXPLANATION IN ARISTOTLE'S
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
HARVEY LEDERMAN
i. Introduction
THE difficult phrase o TTOT€ ov eon (hereafter 'OPO'), which occurs

in key passages in Aristotle's discussions of blood and of time, has
long vexed interpreters of Aristotle. 1 This paper proposes a new
interpretation of OPO, which resolves some textual and interpre-
tative problems about Aristotle's theories of blood and of time.
My interpretation will also shed light on more general issues in
© Harvey Lederman 2014
Malcolm Schofield patiently read numerous early drafts of this paper. Nick Denyer
gave extremely helpful written comments at a critical stage. Recently, Brad Inwood's
probing and detailed comments have pressed me to improvements in substance and
style on every page. Discussions with David Charles, Alan Code, and Philomen
Probert inspired key arguments. I have enjoyed and benefited from (in some cases,
numerous and extensive) conversations with: Peter Fritz, Jeremy Goodman, Luuk
Huitink, Tiankai Liu, Jessica Moss, Michail Peramatzis, Daniel Rothschild, Volker
Schlue, David Sedley, Stefan Sienkiewicz, Barney Taylor, James Warren, and Jesse
Wolfson. I am grateful to all of these teachers and friends for their time, advice, and
insight. Any remaining errors are, of course, my own. As the notes testify, I ow
an immense intellectual debt to Ursula Coope's superb study of Physics 4. 10-14.
In the time of writing, I received financial support from the Henry Griffith Keas-
bey and Anna Griffith Keasbey Memorial Foundation and from the University of
Oxford Clarendon Fund. I am grateful to both for their generosity. Thanks, finally,
to Rachel Stewart, of King's College Library, and Maureen Jones, of the Christ
Church GCR, for cheerful pre-dawn encouragement.
1
The abbreviation OPO is Remi Brague's (R. Brague, Du temps chez Platon et
Aristote [Temps] (Paris, 1982), 97). The phrase occurs seven times in the extan
works of Aristotle: once in Parts of Animals (2. 3, 649b23~4) and six times in the
Physics (4. n, 2i9 a i9~2i, 2i9 b i3~i5, 2i9 b i8-i9, 2i9 b 26, 22oa6-8; 4. 14, 223^5-8).
Similar but distinct phrases occur in PA 2. 2, 649^4—16 (see sect. 2.2 below), and
Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 b io-i i (see n. 106 below). Another phrase related to OPO occurs at
the end of GC 1.3(319 b 3~4). Previous interpreters of OPO have included the phrase
from On Generation and Corruption as an instance of OPO itself. But that phrase
has vTTOKeirai in place of OPO's final eari, and so is not an instance of the phrase.
My analysis of OPO does, however, shed light on the passage in On Generation and
Corruption, as I hope to show in future work.
no Harvey Lederman
Aristotle's metaphysics. In the passages I will discuss, Aristotle

takes both blood and time to be examples of his peculiar 'coupled
entities'. 2 He then uses OPO to provide explanations which differ
from what we might call his 'standard' metaphysical explanations.
On the 'standard' approach, Aristotle explains derivative entities—
non-substances—by describing their relationship to substances.3
By contrast to this standard form of explanation, when Aristotle
uses OPO he explains blood and time by describing their relation-
ship to wow-substances. This paper thus identifies a new species
of metaphysical dependence in Aristotle. In addition, it provides
detailed examination of evidence concerning whether Aristotle
himself used coupled entities in his own physical and metaphysical
theories.
My interpretation of OPO has two main components. The first
characterizes the sort of entity to which OPO refers. The refer-
ent of OPO is closely related to coupled entities. To fix ideas, a
coupled individual such as cultured Coriscus or sitting Socrates is
an individual underlier (for example, Coriscus) coupled with an ac-
cident (for example, culturedness). 4 These individuals have pecu-
liar lives: if Coriscus forgets what he has learnt, cultured Coriscus
perishes, even if Coriscus survives. OPO is more closely related
to coupled kinds than to coupled individuals. What I will call the
'kind' of an entity is the distinguished property which answers the
2
I use'coupled entities' (aw8t>a£o/Aevov, Metaph. Z 5, iO3O b i4-iO3i a i4 at iO3O b i6
and 103i a 6; PA 2. 2, 649^4—23 at 649^5) for what others call 'accidental com-
pounds' or 'kooky objects'. Cf. e.g. G. Matthews, 'Accidental Unities', in M.
Schofield and M. C. Nussbaum (eds.), Language and Logos: Studies in Ancient
Greek Philosophy Presented to G. E. L. Owen (Cambridge, 1982), 223-40.; F. A.
Lewis, Substance and Predication in Aristotle [Substance] (Cambridge, 1991), part n,
esp. ch. 3; S. M. Cohen, 'Kooky Objects Revisited: Aristotle's Ontology', Metaphi-
losophy, 39.1 (2008), 3—19. (K. Fine, Acts, Events and Things', in W. Leinfellner,
E. Kraemer, and J. Schank (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Wittgenstein
Symposium (Vienna, 1982), 97-105, merits more discussion in this context than it
has received.) Aristotle does not seem to have had a technical name for these enti-
ties. My choice of terminology has been guided by the fact that Aristotle describes
coupled entities which are both 'accidental', and 'per se'\ 'accidental compounds'
covers only one species of this genus. For this point see further n. 73 below, and the
main text there. For cultured Coriscus see SE 17, i75 b 15-27; 22, I78 b 36-i79 a io.
For sitting Socrates see Metaph. F 2, ioo4bi-4, with Z i, io28a22~5. On coupled
entities in general see Metaph. Z 4-5, io29 b 22-iO3 i a i4.
3
Cat. 5, 2ai i-b6c; Metaph. Z i, io28ai-3i.
4
I use 'underlie' to translate Aristotle's vTroKeLâi and 'underlier' to translate the
substantive participle TO v-uoKelêvov. These translations have the advantage of pre-
serving some remnant of the relationship between the two words.
A Form of Explanation in Aristotle 111
question of what that entity is, on a particular resolution of this
context-sensitive question.5 For example, Coriscus is a member of
the kind humanity. Coupled individuals have kinds too. For ex-
ample, cultured Coriscus is a member of the coupled kind cultured
humanity.
Aristotle uses OPO in relation to coupled kinds which differ from
cultured humanity in one crucial respect. The members of these
coupled kinds—unlike the members of cultured humanity—do not
have particular substances as their underliers. Since these 'under-
liers' are not substances, they are underliers only in an extended
sense: as I will say, they merely 'play the role of the underlier'. The
first main claim of my interpretation of OPO thus holds that: in
every instance, OPO refers to the kind of the entities which play
the role of the underlier for the members of a coupled kind.
This first claim reinstates a component of the traditional inter-
pretation of OPO. The Greek commentators, perhaps following
Eudemus, interpreted OPO as 'the underlier' (TO vTroKeifjuevov), or
'the underlier, whatever it is'.6 Remi Brague and Ursula Coope
rightly reject the claim that the phrase means f the underlier' (TO
5
This use of the term 'kind' has an obvious similarity to some of Aristotle's dis-
cussions of what he calls a 'species' (eiSos) (e.g. Cat. 5, 2b29~37), but I do not wish
to claim that Aristotle would have used the word 'species' to name the properties
I will be calling 'kinds'. Aristotle did use the words 'species' and 'genus' of enti-
ties in categories other than substance (e.g. of changes, in Phys. 5. 4, 227b3~20).
In fact, in at least one passage he even speaks of the 'genus' of a coupled entity
(Metaph. A 6, ioi5 b 28-34). But Aristotle's use of 'species' sometimes implies—as
my 'kind' never does—that the entity whose species is under discussion has an es-
sence in the primary sense (most strikingly in Metaph. Z 4, iO3O a i 1-14; see also Cat.
5, 2^4-19).
6
Eudemus appears to have understood OPO to mean 'the underlier (whatever it
is)' (fr. 87 Wehrli, from Simpl. In Phys. 723. 36-724. 8 Diels, esp. at 724. 4-5, per-
haps elaborated also in 724. 2-3). Simplicius (In Phys. 721. 29-36; cf. 712. 16-27),
Philoponus (In Phys. 720. 26-30 Vitelli; perhaps similarly In GC 63. 14-17 Vitelli),
and Michael of Ephesus (In PA 33. 17-20 Hayduck) appear to agree with Eudemus
on this count. (Passages of Alexander (In Metaph. 324. 13-16 and 324. 7-10 Hay-
duck) are more difficult.) Among modern scholars, Adolf Torstrik argues that the
phrase indicates the underlier plus certain attributes which are considered irrelevant
to the discussion at hand (A. Torstrik, "'0 irore ov. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntnis des aris-
totelischen Sprachbrauchs' ['Beitrag'], Rheinisches Museum filr Philologie, 12 (1857),
161—73, followed by W. D. Ross (ed. and comm.), Aristotle's Physics: A Revised Text
with Introduction and Commentary [Physics] (Oxford, 1936; 2nd edn. 1955), 598 ad
Phys. 4. 11, 219a19-21). For Torstrik, Aristotle contrasts a single relevant attribute
with the underlier taken together with any irrelevant attributes ('Beitrag', 163—4).
This position could, of course, be understood to challenge the commentarial tradi-
tion, but Torstrik and Ross seem to have viewed it as a development of that inter-
pretation.
ii2 Harvey Lederman
1
v7TOK€i^€vov\ But Coope goes too far in rejecting any systematic
connection between OPO and the underlier.8 On my interpretation
of OPO, Aristotle uses the phrase only to refer to the kind of the
entities which play the role of the underlier for the members of
a coupled kind. The tradition's insistence that OPO is intimately
related to 'the underlier' (TO VTTOKÎ^VOV) does contain a kernel of
truth.
The second main component of my interpretation of OPO
characterizes the explanandum of the explanation contained in
the phrase. According to my interpretation, the verb 'is' (ecm) in
OPO, which is sometimes only implied, should be understood
as 'is a being'. This English phrase translates Aristotle's use of
the participle ov as the complement of the copula; the resulting
predicate, 'is a being', has a different sense from that of 'exists'.
I present a general argument which shows that 'is' (ecm) in OPO
can be interpreted neither as 'is what it is' nor as 'exists'. This
argument, which applies in some form to every instance of OPO,
refutes what I call the 'essentialist' ('is what it is') and 'existential'
('exists') interpretations of the final 'is' (eon) of the phrase. Only
my 'ontic interpretation', in which the final 'is' (eon) in OPO is
interpreted as 'is a being', remains as a viable interpretation.
The ontic interpretation of OPO is of particular interest in the
context of recent scholarly analyses of ontological dependence in
Aristotle. These analyses have rejected the traditional 'existential-
modal' interpretation of Aristotle's expressions for ontological de-
pendence or 'priority in being' (A cannot exist without B, but B
can exist without A').9 In its place, some have proposed an essential
7
Brague, Temps, 99-101; U. C. M. Coope, Time for Aristotle [Time] (Oxford,
2005), 173-7.
8
'There is nothing about the meaning of the phrase which suggests that it refers
to the vTTOKeiêvov. If that were all Aristotle meant, it would be unnecessary for him
to introduce this unusual expression at all' (Coope, Time, 175-6). Coope does allow
that OPO refers to the underlier ('the subject') in some instances (e.g. Time, 135, 139).
But in other instances she takes it to refer to something else (esp. Time, 66, inter-
preting Phys. 4. n, 2i9 a i9~2i). For discussion of this passage see below, sect. 3.2.
I discuss Coope's interpretation of it in detail in n. 80.
9
P. Corkum, 'Aristotle on Ontological Dependence' ['Dependence'], Phronesis,
53 (2008), 65-92. M. Peramatzis, Aristotle's Notion of Priority in Nature and Sub-
stance', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 35 (2008), 187-248, and Priority in
Aristotle's Metaphysics [Priority] (Oxford, 2011). 'Existential-modal' is taken from
K. Fine, 'Essence and Modality' ['Essence'], Philosophical Perspectives, 8 (1994),
i—16. Interestingly, Fine himself suggests that Aristotle—at least sometimes—
employed an existential-modal model of ontological dependence ('Essence', 4;
or real-definitional interpretation of these expressions (A cannot be
what it is without B being what it is, but B can be what it is without
A being what it is'). 10 Others, by contrast, have opted for an inter-
pretation in terms of 'being a being' (A admits of the ontological
status of a being independently of standing in some tie to any B
whatsoever, but not conversely'). 11 Priority in being, like ontologi-
cal dependence, is intimately related to a distinctively metaphysical
kind of explanation, often called 'grounding'. 12 When Aristotle uses
OPO, he adverts to this relation of metaphysical explanation. The
ontic interpretation of OPO reveals that Aristotle, at least when he
uses this phrase, takes the explanandum of this special kind of me-
taphysical explanation to be that something is a being (and not that
it is what it is).
The paper falls into two parts. Section 2 argues for my general
interpretation of OPO by examining the instance of the phrase in
Aristotle's discussion of blood in PA 2. 3. Section 3 shows how my
interpretation applies to the remainder of the instances of OPO,
all six of which occur in Aristotle's discussion of time in Physics
4. 11-14.
2. Parts of Animals 2. 3
2.1. Introducing the phrase

In PA 2. 2-3 Aristotle seeks to explain how blood is hot, even
though the mixture which composes it is not hot.13 He explains
cf. K. Fine, 'Ontological Dependence', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 95

(1995), 269-90 at 270).
10
This formulation is derived from Peramatzis's 'Priority in Being' (Priority, 204
et passim).
11
This formulation is derived from Corkum's OI 2 ('Dependence', 78).
12
e.g. J. Schaffer, 'On What Grounds What', in D. J. Chalmers, D. Manley,
and R. Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics (Oxford, 2009), 347-83; G. Rosen, 'Me-
taphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction', in B. Hale and A. Hoffman
(eds.), Modality: Metaphysics, Logic and Epistemology (Oxford, 2010) 109-36; K.
Fine, 'Guide to Ground' ['Guide'], in F. Correia and B. Schneider (eds.), Metaphy-
sical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality (Cambridge, 2012), 37-80.
13
The enquiry begins in PA 2. 2, 648^9, and is concluded in PA 2. 3, 65oa2. Aris-
totle's doctrine about the matter of blood is stated in Meteor. 4. 7, 384^5-8; 4. 10,
389^9-22; 4. 11, 389b7~i5. In the second of these passages Aristotle adds air (which
is hot) to his list of the constituents of blood. During notes ad loc.: 'Nowhere else
does Aristotle say that blood contains Air' (I. During, Aristotle: Meteorologica IV.
Critical and Literary Commentaries (Goteborg, 1944), 100). Perhaps there was so
little air in blood that it was insignificant. In any case, the view in Parts of Animals
ii4 Harvey Lederman
the relationship between blood and this cold mixture by compar-

ing blood to standard examples of coupled entities.14 His idea is as
follows. Call the mixture of earth and water which can compose
blood 'sanguineous fluid'.15 Blood is the coupled kind composed
of sanguineous fluid and heat. To be blood is to be hot sanguine-
ous fluid. Blood is, therefore, essentially hot: heat, after all, figures
in its (real) definition. But some portions of sanguineous fluid are
cold, some tepid, and some hot. So it is not the case that to be san-
guineous fluid is (even in part) to be hot (or, for that matter, to be
cold, or to be tepid). In describing this complex situation, Aristotle
uses OPO—as I will argue—to refer to the kind sanguineous fluid.
[g] C/)aV€pOV OTL TO OLLfJia (1)81 [JL€V €OTL OtpfJiOV, OiOV f\V CLVTO) TO al'[JLaTL €LVCLll (l<a6a-
appears to be that water and earth are at least the main constituents of this mixture
(cf. e.g. PA 2. 4, 65o a i6-i8).
14
Aristotle uses the word 'coupled' in PA 2. 2, 649^5, where he introduces the
examples of hot iron and hot water (649 a i6, [b] in sect. 2.2; boiling water appears
also in PA 2. 3, 649b22~3, [g] below). Tale man' (used in 649b26~7, [j] below) is a
standard example of a coupled entity (cf. Metaph. Z 4, io29 b 22-iO3O a 7).
15
Aristotle does not explicitly name this mixture. In GC i. 5 he says 'for both the
form and the matter are said to be flesh or bone' (KO.L -yap rj vXrj Xeyerai KO.L TO eiSos aapt;
rj OOTOVV, 32i b 2i-2; cf. more generally 32i b i6~32). If this remark applies to blood as
well (cf. the mention of homoiomeres at 32i b i8, 32i b 3i), then Aristotle may have
been willing to call the mixture which can compose blood 'blood' as well. But Aris-
totle may have believed that blood, as the material for the whole body, and thus the
other homoiomeres (PA 3. 5, 668ai~4, with 668a7~9 and 17-19; cf. PA 2. 4, 65i a i2-
14), did not itself have form and matter in the proper sense (see S. Cohen, Aristotle
on Heat, Cold, and Teleological Explanation', Ancient Philosophy, 9 (1989), 255-70
at 260—3). In the passages discussed in this section, Aristotle clearly thinks of blood
as a coupled entity, and so does not commit to holding that blood has form and
matter properly speaking. I will not take a stand here on the complex and difficult
question of whether Aristotle's considered view was that blood is in fact a coupled
entity (as opposed to a hylomorphic compound). A suggestion of Nick Denyer's in-
spired 'sanguineous fluid'.
16
Bekker, Louis (P. Louis (ed. and trans.), Aristote: Les Parties des animaux
[Parties] (Paris, 1956)), and Lennox (J. Lennox (trans, and comm.), Aristotle: On
the Parts of Animals [Parts] (Oxford, 2001)) read oiov TL rjv avTw TO aiân eivai
with PSUYZ. I follow E and During (I. During, Aristotle: De partibus animalium.
Critical and Literary Commentaries (Goteborg, 1943), 137-8) in omitting TL, which
(in my view, as in Diiring's) is a corruption deriving from confusion with the more
standard TO TL rjv eivai. (A. L. Peck (trans.), Aristotle: Parts of Animals (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1955), excises the phrase altogether, apparently without manuscript
support.) I cannot see how to construe TL while respecting the dative OLLLOLTL. Fur-
thermore, Aristotle's views about coupled entities explain why he used the phrase
without TL. Coupled entities do not have essences in the primary sense (Metaph.
Z 4, !O29 b 22-iO3O a i7; Metaph. Z 5). Had Aristotle written TO TL rjv eivai (or the
variant transmitted by PSUYZ), a reader might have taken that phrase to refer to
whatever is the essence (in the primary sense) of the thing which also happens to
(PA 2. 3, 649^1-7)
[g] It is clear that blood is hot in this way, in so far as its being is the be-
ing of blood—just as if we should indicate boiling water by some name, so
[blood] is called ['blood']—[h] but the underlier, or17 whatever is such that,
by being that, blood is, is not hot. [i] [Blood] is also intrinsically hot in one
sense, and, in another sense, not [intrinsically hot], [j] For heat will belong
[to it] in its definition just as paleness in the definition of 'pale man', [k] but
in so far as blood is [blood] in respect of an attribute, it is not intrinsically
hot.18
OPO, which occurs in [h] above, is a 'free' relative clause, a relative

clause without an expressed antecedent. Together with Trore, the
definite relative o has the same effect here as cm, 'whatever', would
have in its place (Section 2.3 below). Within the relative clause,
the relative pronoun o is the complement of the participle ov (Sec-
tion 2.4), which shares its subject with ecm, the main verb of the
clause. The participle itself is a causative or explanatory circum-
stantial participle ('by being' or 'because it is': Section 2.5). 19 In
the passage above, the subject of both ecm and ov is 'blood', so the
be the coupled entity blood. In an analogous case, one might take the phrase 'the
essence of a pale human' to refer to the essence of the human, and not to the essence
of the pale human, considered as a coupled entity. The phrase olov rjv avrco TO ai'/jLari
eivai, by contrast, unambiguously indicates that Aristotle intends to speak of the
coupled 'essence' of blood as blood.
17
Two interpretations of Kal are possible (I favour the second). First, it might be
understood as the copulative 'and'. In this case, Aristotle would hold that neither
the underlier of blood nor the kind of the underlier of blood is hot. This interpre
tation demands a loose understanding of TO v-uoKelêvov (for example, one on which
it can stand for 'the matter'), since the underlier of blood, contrary to what the pas-
sage would say, is hot. Alternatively, Kai might be epexegetic, so that OPO restates
the nature of the underlier in question. (More properly, the 'epexegetic' use would
be Denniston's sense I.(5) ('appositionally related ideas') or I.(6) ('with a sense of
climax'): J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles, 2nd edn., rev. K. J. Dover (Oxford,
1954), 291-2.) Aristotle would suggest the general context for OPO by using the
term TO jmoKeiiJ.evov, but then make his description more precise with the technical
term OPO. Aristotle's mention of the underlier, although strictly speaking incorrect,
would be intended to help someone who did not appreciate the subtlety of OPO grasp
the gist of the passage. The ambiguity of Kal in this passage may help to explain some
of the confusion in the commentarial tradition (see above, n. 6).
18
All translations are my own. The text of Parts of Animals is from Louis, and of
the Physics from Ross, except where noted.
19
Up to this point, I am in broad agreement with Brague and Coope. I agree
116 Harvey Lederman
phrase as a whole runs: 'by being whatever, blood is'.20 In order

for 'whatever' to function in the rest of the English sentence (as
it does in the Greek), we must introduce an independent clause,
which is not present in the original. I therefore translate the phrase
as 'whatever is such that (o TTOTG), by being that (6V), blood is (aipa
ecm)'. On the intended reading, the second 'that' is anaphoric on
'whatever'. Figure i depicts the relationship between the Greek and
this translation.
FIGURE i
I begin with an independent argument that OPO in this passage

refers to the kind sanguineous fluid (Section 2.2). Sections 2.3-5
then argue for some details of my linguistic interpretation of OPO.
Section 2.6 presents my argument that the final 'is' (ecm) in OPO
must be interpreted as 'is a being'.
2.2. The parallel with PA 2. 2
Aristotle introduces his doctrine about the heat of blood in an earlier

passage, in PA 2. 2:
(649^4—17)
[a] For whatever the underlier happens to be is not hot, but, coupled, it is
also with Charles (D. Charles, 'Simple Genesis and Prime Matter', in F. A. J. de
Haas and J. Mansfeld (eds.), Aristotle's On Generation and Corruption / (Oxford,
2004), 151-70 at 151 n. 2) on the referent of the phrase in this instance, but he some-
times seems to take the relative to be the subject of the participle. For my arguments
against this construal see sect. 2.4.
20
In one other instance of OPO (Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 b 26) the subject of ecm comes be-
fore the verb and has no article, as here. When the subject comes after the verb e'cm,
it has an article in both instances (Phys. 4. n, 2i9 b i4~i5; 4. 14, 223 a 27). It might
seem that the nouns without articles (as here) should be taken as the complement of
e'cm and not its subject, but the phrase o Trore ov e'cm TO vvv (Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 b i4-i5) i
used interchangeably with o irore ov vvv e'cm (2i9 b 26), revealing that the presence or
absence of the article is due only to difference in word order, and not to a difference
2I
in sense. Louis has an unnecessary comma here.
22
hot [b] just as if someone should give a name to hot water or to hot iron.
This is how blood is hot.
The syntax of the underlined phrase differs from OPO: the par-
ticiple ov is the complement of 'happens' (rvyâv€i) and cannot be
translated 'by being'. I therefore render the phrase as 'whatever the
underlier happens to be'. 23 This free relative clause does not refer
to an individual underlier. We can see this point by assuming that
it does, for contradiction. If the relative pronoun referred to an in-
dividual, the sentence would be false by Aristotle's lights. Certain
individual underliers for blood (namely, those portions of sanguine-
ous fluid which are blood) are in fact hot. If the underlier were one
of those portions, it would be hot. But Aristotle says that whatever
the underlier happens to be is not hot. So o does not refer to an in-
dividual, but rather to a property. In the context, it is clear that if
it refers to a property, it refers to a kind. 24
When Aristotle says the kind in question is not hot, he does not
mean to say that the relevant property is not hot to the touch (of
course it is not). Nor does he mean to say that the kind of the un-
derlier is not identical with heat (once again, of course it is not). In-
stead, he means that the kind of the underlier does not include heat
in its definition, or, more precisely, that: for this F, it is not the case
that to be F is in part to be hot.25 Aristotle's gloss in [b] confirms
22
Lennox translates this phrase as: 'For what the subject happens at some time
to be may not be hot, but be coupled with heat' (Parts, 22). I see no word for 'may' in
the Greek; neither is there a word for 'heat'. Finally, Trore does not have the temporal
force Lennox attributes to it (see below, next note, and sect. 2.3).
23
For this construal cf. Top. 4. 4, 125^3-5 and i25 b i-2 (note also the use without
rvy-âvon in I25 a 38). I discuss this use of Trore at length in the next section (2.3). The
standard English translation 'happens' exaggerates the extent to which rvyxavw de-
scribes a chance occurrence (it need not—cf. e.g. Theaet. 160 E 6-7). Unfortunately,
without 'happens', the presence of a form of rvy-âvon in the Greek would go un-
marked in the translation.
24
Louis's comma (which I have deleted) suggests an interpretation of the opening
phrase as an unconditional, and not a free relative clause: 'Whatever the underlier
happens to be, it [the underlier] is not hot.' On this construal, the point would be
that the (individual) underlier is not in itself hot. But the clause with Tuyâvei would
still range over kinds, which is enough for my purposes here.
25
In what follows, I will speak of Aristotle's 'definitions' and 'partial definitions'.
I take 'a human is a rational biped' as a paradigm of the first, and 'a human is an
animal' as a paradigm of the second. Throughout, I co-opt the English expression
'for a to be G is for a to be F' as a translation of Aristotle's definitions, and 'for a to
be G is in part for a to be F' as a translation of his partial definitions. The 'real-life'
English expressions may not draw distinctions as finely as Aristotle did in his defi-
nitions, but on the intended reading of these sentences (which, to repeat, may well
118 Harvey Lederman
this interpretation. He cannot be suggesting that one might point
at the hot water in a cup and say 'call it "Thrasymachus"'. Rather,
he considers giving a single name to the coupled kind, hot water.
This kind is not hot to the touch or identical with heat. Instead it
is hot in the sense that: to be hot water is in part to be hot. In our
passage, Aristotle denies an analogous claim, applied to the kind of
the underliers for blood: it is not the case that to be a member of
this kind is in part to be hot.
OPO in PA 2. 3 should be taken to have the same referent as the
similar phrase in PA 2. 2. Both phrases describe Aristotle's theory
of the heat of blood, and in both contexts Aristotle uses the same
examples to illustrate his point (compare [b] with [g] in Section
2.1). Furthermore, the two phrases exhibit striking lexical simi-
larities, suggesting an intended parallelism. 26 So the passage in PA
2. 2 provides evidence—independent of my analysis of the syntax
of OPO—that OPO refers to the kind sanguineous fluid.
2.3. The word Trore27
The Greek Trore, which has a core temporal sense ('at some time',
'once'), was also commonly used with a non-temporal sense. The
word could be used to emphasize questions introduced by an in-
terrogative pronoun (e.g. ri TTOT€ . . .;) or an interrogative adverb
(e.g. TTCOS TTore . . .;). In a related use, Trore was also commonly used
with the indefinite relative pronoun (oaris, TJTIS, on) and also with
indefinite adverbs.
TTore does not have its temporal sense in OPO. If the conclusion
of the previous section (2.2) was correct, this point follows imme-
diately: blood is not sanguineous fluid only 'at some time'; blood is
be a perversion of their English sense), a definition of Aristotle's and a definition of

this English form are equivalent. (I came to use these expressions after conversa-
tions with Jeremy Goodman on topics unrelated to the interpretation of Aristotle.)
These partial definitions are well attested in the Categories, where Aristotle says (for
example) 'animal is predicated of human' (Cat. 3, i b io-i5; cf. e.g. Cat. 5, 2 a 35~ b i;
2 b i7~22). For further discussion of this point see below, sect. 2.5, paragraph con-
taining n. 45.
26
Recognizing the similarities of the two phrases does not, however, require the
extreme line of Ross (Physics, 598), who held that the phrase in PA 2. 2 is the full
syntactic unit, and that the other instances of OPO (including that in PA 2. 3 [h])
are mere abbreviations of the fuller phrase.
27
The view in the main text is much indebted to a suggestion of Philomen
Probert's, although she should not be held responsible for it.
always sanguineous fluid. But the fact that Trore does not have its
temporal sense in OPO can also be established by an independent
argument. OPO occurs in key passages in Aristotle's analyses of
time and the now. But then in one passage Aristotle explicitly ana-
lyses the temporal Trore in terms of the now.28 This passage suggests
that Aristotle would have recognized a problem in providing a me-
taphysical analysis of time and the now in terms of properties these
entities have at some time. If Trore had its temporal sense in OPO,
Aristotle would provide precisely the kind of analysis which should
be problematic by his own lights.29
In a number of passages, independent of the instances of OPO,
Aristotle uses Trore with a definite relative pronoun, where Trore must
not be interpreted temporally. In these passages the phrase o Trore
seems to be equivalent to the indefinite on.30 This relationship
between on and o Trore can be easily explained. When Trore is used
with the indefinite relative oaris, TJTIS, on, the word amplifies the
force of the indefinite, exaggerating the speaker's ignorance about,
or indifference to, the precise referent of the relative pronoun. 31 But
when used with the definite relative, Trore cannot operate on the ex-
28
Phys. 4. 13, 222a24~7. 29
So too Coope, Time, 174.
30
Cat. 7, 7 b i~3, 10; Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 b io-i i; Top. 3. 5, i I9 a i8; 4. 4, I25 a 33, 125^*38,
b b
I25 2; and 6. 8, I46 7~9 (using the reading of Bekker and Brunschwig, pace Ross).
With the exception of Top. 3. 5, H9 a i8, and Phys. 4. n, 2i9 b io-n (discussed at
n. 106 below), all of these instances occur in discussions of the category of relatives
(777)0? TI). (Interestingly, the instances of a phrase related to OPO in Alex. Aphr. In
Metaph. 324. 13-16 and 324. 7-10 Hayduck also occur in a discussion of relatives.)
Three further putative instances of Trore with a definite relative in its non-temporal
sense (Cat. 8, na34~6; Top. 3. 3, n8 b i9; NE 9. 9, ii72 a i-6) may be corrupt. In
the first of these passages every manuscript reads KaO* as Trore, but Turner (E. Lo-
bel, C. H. Roberts, E. G. Turner, and J. W. B. Barns (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Pa-
pyri, xxiv (London, 1957), 128-9) argued that the Ka6' aa-rrep of R Oxy. 2403 (fr. i,
1. 21) should be preferred. Bodeiis now follows Turner and the papyrus (R. Bodeiis
(ed. and trans.), Aristote: Categories (Paris, 2002), 51). In Top. 3. 3, n8 b i9, Bekker
thought the correct reading was oirore, as a single word; Brunschwig (J. Brunschwig
(ed. and trans.), Aristote: Topiques. Livres I—IV (Paris, 1967), 160 n. 5) now finds
the passage to be corrupt. Earlier editors preferred the o n Trore of Mb in NE 9. 9,
i i72 a i (hence its omission from Bonitz's list of instances of the non-temporal irore
with the definite relative), but Bywater and Siisemihl reverted to the manuscripts'
reading, against M b , printing simply o Trore. Pace Bonitz (H. Bonitz, Index Aristo-
telicus [Index] (Berlin, 1870), 627 b i9~25), in PA i. i, 64^14, Metaph. B 4, 999 b i4,
and Metaph. Z 7, iO32 b 24, Trore is best interpreted temporally (in categorizing the
latter two passages Bonitz may have inherited the error of Torstrik, 'Beitrag', 171).
31
Bonitz, too, relates this use of irore to the one with interrogatives: 'eandem TTJS
dopiarias notionem, ac pronominibus interrogativiis, addita particula Trore tribuit
etiam pronominibus demonstrativis . . . ac praecipue pronominibus relativis' (In-
dex, 627 b i7~2i).
120 Harvey Lederman
isting effect of the indefinite relative pronoun. Instead, the word
seems to act directly on the relative pronoun, to generate the effect
the indefinite relative would have had in its place.32
Recently, linguists have converged on a treatment of standard free
relative clauses (e.g. 'what Mary ate') as roughly analogous to de-
finite descriptions. Like definite descriptions, standard free rela-
tive clauses refer to the maximal element (within a contextually
salient set of entities) which satisfies the 'matrix', the description
contained in the relative clause.33 But controversy still reigns over
how to analyse the function of words like 'whatever' in -ever free
relative clauses. In what follows, I will not rely on claims which
some linguists contest. Still, it may be helpful to have a concrete
32
If the phrases are equivalent, why did Aristotle consistently write o Trore, and
never on, in OPO? A speculative suggestion is that he did not use on ov (or on Trore
ov} in OPO because he wished to avoid confusion with the distinct but lexically simi-
lar phrase oVep ov n (see e.g. Phys. i. 3, i86 b i4-i7, 31-5; Metaph. F 2, ioo3b3O-3;
H 6, iO45a36-b7; with Bonitz, Index, at 533b36~534a23). But this suggestion remains
speculative at best.
33
This 'maximal' element is usually defined following the elegant semantics
of Link (G. Link, 'The Logical Analysis of Plurals and Mass Terms: A Lattice-
Theoretical Approach', in R. Bauerle, C. Schwarze, and A. von Stechow (eds.),
Meaning, Use, and Interpretation of Language (Berlin, 1983), 302-23). The extension
of this analysis of definite noun phrases to free relative clauses can be found in P.
Jacobson, 'On the Quantificational Force of English Free Relatives', in E. Bach, E.
Jelinek, A. Kratzer, and B. H. Partee (eds.), Quantification in Natural Languages
(Dordrecht, 1995), ii. 451-86; H. Rullman, 'Maximality in the Semantics of Wh-
Constructions' (diss. Ph.D., UMass Amherst, 1995) <http://www.linguistics.ubc.
ca/sites/default/files/dissertation.pdf) 139-53 [accessed 7 May 2013]; A. Grosu and
F. Landman, 'Strange Relatives of the Third Kind' ['Strange Relatives'], Natural
Language Semantics, 6 (1998), 125-70 at 155-62; A. Grosu, 'Strange Relatives at
the Interface of Two Millennia', GLOT International, 6 (2002), 145-67 at 148-9;
and K. Rawlins, '(Un)conditionals: An Investigation in the Syntax and Semantics
of Conditional Structures' ['Unconditional'] (diss. Ph.D., University of Cali-
fornia at Santa Cruz, 2008) <http://mind.cog.jhu.edu/~rawlins/papers/rawlins_
dissertation.pdf) 211-16 [accessed 7 May 2013]. I. Caponigro, 'Free Not to Ask:
On the Semantics of Free Relatives and Wh- Words Cross-Linguistically' (diss.
Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles, 2003) <http://idiom.ucsd.cdu/~
ivano/Papers/2OO3_dissertation_revised_7-13-O5.pdf) 82-110 [accessed 7 May 2013],
considers two classes of counter-examples to semantic treatments of free relative
clauses in general as maximalizing: existential (or irrealis: Grosu and Landman,
'Strange Relatives', 155-8) free relative clauses; and free relative clauses which
behave like prepositional phrases. Here, it is enough to observe that OPO falls into
neither category, and so may be safely interpreted as maximalizing. The heterodox
view of Laurence Horn ('any and ever(-}\ Free Choice and Free Relatives', in IATL
7: The Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Conference, The University of Haifa,
1999 (2000), 71-111 at 101-7) differs only when one considers the felicity of -ever
free relatives in contexts where no salient entity satisfies the matrix. Since Aristotle
never doubts the existence of the referent of OPO, these putative differences are
irrelevant here.
hypothesis about the function of '-ever' or Trore in view. On one
popular hypothesis, free relative clauses of the -ever variety include,
in addition to the components of standard free relative clauses, a
'domain-widening' instruction, which asks the hearer or listener to
expand the set of salient entities along some contextually specified
axis.34 The resulting referent of the —ever free relative clause is then
selected from the expanded domain by the same mechanism as the
referent of the corresponding standard free relative clause would be.
If this hypothesis is right, Trore would provide this kind of domain-
widening instruction to the reader or listener.
A final uncontroversial feature of -ever free relative clauses will
be crucial to the arguments of later sections. In general, these rela-
tive clauses are felicitous only if the speaker is ignorant of or indif-
ferent to the precise referent of the clause.35 When Aristotle uses
o with Trore in both 649*15 ([a] in Section 2.2) and 649b24 ([h] in
Section 2.1) he may be uncertain about the precise kind of the un-
derlier, or perhaps simply unwilling to provide detailed specifica-
tion of this mixture of earth and water.36 In these passages he never
names what I have been calling 'sanguineous fluid'. He appears to
have been so uncertain of, or so uninterested in, the kind of the en-
tities which play the role of the underlier for portions of blood that
he did not give this kind a name.
Aristotle's ignorance of or unwillingness to elaborate on the re-
ferent of OPO will be more difficult to explain in passages in the
34
The notion of domain-widening is found in N. Kadmon and F. Landman,
'Any', Linguistics and Philosophy, 16 (1993), 353-422. Here I follow Philomen
Probert's discussion of '-ever' Greek relatives (Probert, Early Greek Relative
Clauses [Early Relatives] (Oxford, forthcoming), ch. 3.3.2). My terminology is
intended to be neutral on whether the 'instruction' is expressed semantically or
pragmatically.
35
For a representative statement, see D. Heller and L. Wolter, 'Identity and
Indiscriminability in -ever Free Relatives', in T. Friedman and S. Ito (eds.),
Proceedings of SALT XVIII (2009), 394-410 at 394. Rawlins ('Unconditional',
176) provides a more complete catalogue, noting that sentences like 'John reads
whatever books Mary does' do not presuppose the ignorance of the speaker as
to what Mary reads. OPO is not used in sentences like this one, so we need not
worry about the exception. Linguists differ on how -ever free relatives express the
ignorance or indifference of the speaker; all that matters for our purposes is that
the phrases do express that the speaker is ignorant or indifferent. In his own termi-
nology, Adolf Torstrik already recognized this component of what OPO expresses,
arguing that the indefinite 'aspect' or 'moment' of Trore reflects the fact that the
referent of the phrase is 'unknown, irrelevant, or both' ('entweder unbekannt oder
gleichgiiltig ist, oder auch beides': 'Beitrag', 171).
36
He may also view air as a constituent of this mixture; see n. 13 above.
122 Harvey Lederman
Physics. I will defer explaining his use of the -ever free relative in
these passages until Section 3, where I discuss them in detail.
2.4. o is the complement of the participle

I now argue that, in the passage in PA 2. 3, o is the complement of
the participle 6V.37
Suppose, for reductio, the only alternative: that the relative pro-
noun is the subject of the participle. The three main possibilities
for the interpretation of ov are: the predicative interpretation 'being
[T7]'; the essential interpretation, 'being what it is'; and the existen-
tial interpretation, 'existing'.38 According to the predicative reading
of the participle, the phrase would be interpreted as 'that which, be-
ing [F], is blood'. A proponent of this translation might hope that,
in the context quoted above, 'hot' could be supplied for 'F\39 On
this interpretation, OPO would refer to an entity which, when it is
hot, or because it is hot, is blood. This reading is ingenious, but it is
not a possible interpretation of the Greek. The focus of the passage
is the heat of blood, but the word 'hot' is not used in a construction
which would make it possible for the reader or hearer to supply it
as a complement in our sentence.
In the face of this linguistic fact, the interpreter who holds that o
is the subject of the participle is left with two readings of the parti-
ciple itself: 'exists'; or 'is what it is'. An interpretation which takes
37
The main argument for taking the pronoun as complement of the participle is
that this is both a natural and an unproblematic interpretation of the Greek. Brague's
more sophisticated 'knock-down' argument for this construal is based on a false
premiss. He claims that if the pronoun were the subject of the participle, the par-
ticiple would be attracted to the gender of its complement (Temps, 102-4). Thus,
he writes: Vest la presence meme du neutre qui permet d'identifier la construction
relative, la copule n'etant attiree que par le predicat, et non par le sujet' (104; cf.
103). But the subject of the participle need not attract the participle in order for
the two to agree in gender. In Soph. Ajax 1094 (av8pa . . . | 6V jU/^Sev cov yovaicn
eid* dâpTavei) the relative pronoun is the subject of a participial form of the verb 'to
be', but the participle agrees with its masculine subject and not its neuter comple-
ment. Prob. i i . i, 898b3O-i, is an Aristotelian parallel for a similar phenomenon,
although with a nominal, not a pronominal, subject.
38
Two further interpretations, as identity and as 'is a being', will also fall to the
arguments in the main text. See below, n. 41.
39
Coope claims that irore could make the (unexpressed) predicate indefinite: 'that
which, by being some F, whatever F that is, is blood' (Time, 174). But Trore requires
at least a relative or an adverb to have this 'indefinite', non-temporal sense. Coope's
putative Platonic parallel, Theaet. 160 E 6-7, has the indefinite relative on, and thus
does not even support the use of Trore with a definite relative, never mind the use of
it without any relative pronoun at all.
the relative pronoun as the subject of the participle must also take
the relative as subject of the verb 'is' (e'ari).40 So the referent of the
relative pronoun would be said to be blood. When the participle was
supposed to be interpreted as 'is F\ the consequences of this fact
were minimal: it might be that the referent of the relative pronoun
is blood because it is F, despite not being blood in itself. But when
the participle is interpreted as 'is what it is' or 'exists', this line of
escape is blocked: if the referent of the pronoun is blood merely by
its existing or its being what it is, then it must be that the referent of
the relative pronoun is, in itself, blood. In [g], Aristotle says that to
be blood is in part to be hot. This claim implies that if something is
blood, then it is hot. If the relative pronoun were the grammatical
subject of the relative clause, and if the participle were to be inter-
preted as 'exists' or 'is what it is', the pronoun would have to refer
to something hot. But in [h] above, Aristotle says that the referent
of OPO is not hot.41 So the relative pronoun o is the complement,
and not the subject, of the participle 6V.42
2.5. The participle ov

But how should we understand the participle itself? The preceding
section showed that the relative o is the complement of this par-
ticiple, so the participle cannot be interpreted as 'exists' or as 'is
what it is', senses in which 'is' does not take any complement at
all.43 The 'is' of identity also fails as an interpretation of this parti-
40
Otherwise, one would expect a genitive absolute. In principle, the genitive ab-
solute could be attracted by the accusative of the implied antecedent of the relative
pronoun, but this would be tortuous Greek indeed.
41
This argument also dispatches a reading of 'to be' as identity: if the antecedent
of the relative, by being identical to itself (the only complement that could conceiv-
ably be supplied), is blood, then it would have to be hot, in contradiction of [h].
Similarly, if the antecedent of the relative, by being a being, is blood, then it would
have to be hot, in contradiction of [h].
42
In sect. 2.2 I argued that an interpretation which maintains the parallelism
between the phrases in PA 2. 2 and 2. 3 is to be preferred to one which does not.
This conclusion leads to a further argument against a position which takes o to be
the subject of the participle ov. In the passage from PA 2. 2, the use of the article
with 'the underlier' (TO vTroKeipevov) makes it clear that this term is the subject of
the phrase with ruyxavei; the relative o is the complement in that passage. We thus
have another reason to prefer an interpretation which takes o as the complement of
ov (Brague also notes the importance of the article here: Temps, 107).
43
In the sense of 'is a being' (see below, sect. 2.6.2), the verb 'to be' also does not
take a complement. So this reading of the participle is ruled out by the same consi-
deration.
124 Harvey Lederman
ciple in the context. Aristotle says (in [h]) that the referent of OPO
is not hot. But he believes that blood is hot. So anything to which
blood is identical is also hot. If ov is construed as expressing iden-
tity, Aristotle's comment in [h] would contradict Leibniz's law.44
This argument leaves the predicative reading of the participle as
the only possibility.
The subject of this predication is, as I have argued, a kind. But
Aristotle does not claim here that the kind blood is made of sangui-
neous fluid. Rather, he uses the verb 'to be' in a way which becomes
readily available when one describes (what Aristotle called) 'pre-
dication' relations between kinds. Consider the examples Aristotle
gives, in the Categories, of how genera are predicated of species.45
On one reading of the sentence 'a human is an animal', the sen-
tence entails that every human is an animal. Aristotle accordingly
may have interpreted the original sentence as synonymous with a
partial definition, which we may express by 'to be a human is in
part to be an animal', or 'human is a species of animal'. The parti-
ciple in OPO indicates this type of predication, in which the genus
is predicated of the species. To be blood is in part to be sanguine-
ous fluid. In a manner of speaking, blood is a species of the genus
sanguineous fluid, namely, hot sanguineous fluid.46
The fact that the participle ov indicates this relation between
kinds makes it clear that the participial phrase is best interpreted
as causal or explanatory. A concessive reading of the participial
phrase ('although it is') would conflict with the partial definition
expressed by the participle itself. Since to be blood is in part to be
sanguineous fluid, there is no relevant contrast between being blood
44
Some think Aristotle had 'a sense of identity' which does not obey Leibniz's
law. But the correct terminological decision is to deny that such a 'sense' is a sense
of identity. What others call a sense of identity, I call a type of predication. See n. 46
for an interpretation related to this 'sense of identity'.
45
Cat. 3, i b io-i5. Cf. e.g. Cat. 5, 2 a 35~ b i, 2b 17-22.
46
Aristotle may allow an alternative interpretation of 'is', which would fit the par-
ticiple in OPO even more exactly. In Metaph. A 7, ioi7 a 7-i9, he recognizes a sense
of 'is' in which it may be said that the cultured thing (the coupled entity) is a man.
(Cf. also Post. An. i. 22, 83^-9, with 83^4-20.) At the level of individuals, this
sense of 'is' is closely related to Aristotle's notion of 'accidental sameness'. (See es-
pecially Lewis, Substance, 103.) In a different passage Aristotle considers a related
notion as applied to coupled kinds. He there says that a coupled kind such as cultured
human is accidentally one with the kind of the underliers of its instances, namely,
human (Metaph. A 6, ioi5 b 28-34). The participle 6V may thus indicate the accidental
sameness or oneness of the coupled kind with the kind of its underliers, in a precise
parallel with the sense of 'is' in which (for Aristotle) the cultured thing is a human.
and being sanguineous fluid. A temporal interpretation of the par-
ticipial phrase is also unattractive, for reasons described earlier in
the discussion of Trore. The phrase 'when to be blood is in part to be
sanguineous fluid' carries the bizarre implicature that this relation
between the properties holds only at some times and not at others.
And, as above, the temporal interpretation as applied to the Physics
leaves Aristotle providing an analysis of time which would be con-
fused by his own lights.47 So the participle ov is best interpreted as
'by being' or, equivalently, 'because it is'.
2.6. The verb eon

I now turn to the second form of 'to be' (efvcu) in OPO, the final 'is'
(eari). In her analysis of the instances of OPO in the Physics Ursula
Coope considers three options for the interpretation of this final
'is': (i) 'is [something or other determined by context]'; (2) 'is what
it is'; or (3) 'exists'.48 But Coope's list is not exhaustive. Aristotle
sometimes uses the verb 'to be' to indicate what he elsewhere writes
as 'is a being'. In this latter phrase he uses the neuter participle ov
as the complement of the copula (which is usually only implied).
The expression 'is a being', like 'to be' when used in this sense, has
a different meaning from that of 'exists'.
The argument of this section proceeds in two stages. First, I
argue that none of Coope's three alternatives is a possible inter-
pretation of the final 'is' of OPO. Second, I describe my positive
proposal, discussing Aristotle's use of the expression 'is a being'.
47
A conditional interpretation of the participial phrase ('if it is . . .') is not a real
option for OPO. Moreover, what the grammars call participial phrases of 'means'
and of 'manner' would be equivalent in this context to some form of causal interpre-
tation.
48
Coope, Time, 173-5. Some might worry that these distinctions among senses of
'to be' are anachronistic. But first, even if Aristotle had not made these distinctions
explicitly, he may have been conscious of a difference in 'feel' between different uses
of the verb. Second, Aristotle does distinguish questions with syntactically 'com-
plete' uses of the verb from those with syntactically 'incomplete' uses of the verb
(see Post. An. 2. i, 89 b 3i~5). This distinction among questions is at least enough to
license distinguishing ( i ) from (2) and (3). (For the distinction between syntactically
'complete' and 'incomplete' uses see L. Brown, 'Being in the Sophist: A Syntactical
Enquiry', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 4 (1986), 49-70, and now revised
as 'Being in the Sophist1, in G. Fine (ed.), Plato i: Metaphysics and Epistemology
(Oxford, 1999), 455—78). Brown herself holds that Aristotle distinguishes between
these uses in the passage in the Posterior Analytics; see L. Brown, 'The Verb "To
Be" in Greek Philosophy', in S. Everson (ed.), Language (Companions to Ancient
Thought, 3; Cambridge, 1994), 212-36 at 233-6.)
126 Harvey Lederman
2.6.1. Against the essentialist and existential interpretations The in-
terpretation of the verb 'to be' as the copula ((i) in Coope's list) re-
quires that a suitable complement can be supplied from context. In
the passage in PA 2. 3, only 'blood' could be supplied in this way.
But the sentence 'blood is blood' is equivalent, for our purposes, to
'blood is what it is'. So Coope's list reduces to two options: 'is what
it is' and 'exists'.
What I will call the 'essentialist interpretation' of OPO interprets
the final 'is' (eon) of OPO as 'is what it is'. The 'existential interpre-
tation', by contrast, interprets the final 'is' (ecm) as 'exists'. Coope
herself adopts the essentialist interpretation, although she admits
the possibility of the existential interpretation. In this section I ar-
gue against each of these interpretations, in turn.
In the passage from PA 2. 3 two points are clear:
(1) Blood is hot in so far as its being is the being of blood, ([g]
above; cf. also [j])
(2) The referent of OPO is not hot. ([h] above)
Since the proponent of the essentialist interpretation agrees that
OPO refers to a kind, we can rewrite (2) equivalently as a partial
definition:
(2^) It is not the case that to be F (where F is the referent of
OPO) is in part to be hot.49
Once again, the parallel Aristotle draws between blood and boiling
water (in [g]) makes it clear that he intends a partial definition of
this kind. He is not imagining that we should give a name to the
boiling water in some particular pot. 50
I will now argue that the essentialist interpretation of OPO re-
quires that, in this passage, OPO refers to something hot. Since
this requirement contradicts (2), and (2) is evident in the text, the
argument shows that this interpretation must be rejected.
On the essentialist interpretation, Aristotle would say: 'whatever
is such that, by being that, blood is what it is, is not hot'. To avoid
the syntactic contortions of this English translation, I will para-
phrase OPO with a definite noun phrase. This simplification will
49
The wide-scope negation in (2*) is not required for the relevant reading, but 'to
be F is not in part to be hot' invites confusion with metalinguistic negation, where
the sentence might precede an emphatic 'to be F just is to be hot'.
50
The parallel with the passage in PA 2. 2 also supports this reading. See again
n. 25, and the arguments in the main text there.
not affect the argument, which does not depend on neglecting the
fact that Aristotle must be ignorant of or unwilling to elaborate on
the referent of the clause, if the -ever free relative clause is to be
felicitous. Given this paraphrase, the essentialist interpretation can
be identified with the Essentialist Thesis:
(Essentialist Thesis] OPO refers to that F, by being which,

blood is what it is.
A version of my argument runs as follows. The most natural under-

standing of the Essentialist Thesis takes the relative pronoun o to
refer to blood itself. Blood is that, by being which, blood is what it
is. Or, in simpler syntax: blood is what it is because it is blood—no
more, no less. But if the Essentialist Thesis implies that OPO refers
to blood, the Thesis is false. Blood is hot. But Aristotle says expli-
citly that the referent of OPO is not hot ([h]).
This argument can be generalized, and made more precise. The
key premisses in the more general argument derive from formal
constraints governing the kind of explanation Aristotle seeks to
provide in this passage. The context makes it clear that he does not
aim to provide an explanation by way of the efficient or material
causes. The heart is the efficient cause of the heat of blood.51 But
Aristotle cannot mean to say 'blood, by being the heart, is . . .', for
the simple reason that blood is not the heart. Moreover, the advo-
cate of the Essentialist Thesis cannot hold that Aristotle means to
give an explanation by the material cause. As we have seen, since
the ingredients of the mixture which composes blood are cold, he
does not believe that the 'matter' of blood is a cause of the heat of
blood. 52
Aristotle need not have his doctrine of the four causes in mind as
he gives this explanation of the heat of blood. But the fact that the
efficient and material causes are not in view in this passage strongly
suggests that he aims to give something analogous to a formal-
causal explanation of the heat of blood. In other words, he aims
to explain the heat of blood by explaining what it is for blood to be
hot. Recently, philosophers have become increasingly interested in
this metaphysical style of explanation, in which 'explanans and ex-
planandum are connected, not through some sort of causal mecha-
51
PA 3. 5, 667bi9-29; cf. also PA 3. 4, 665 b 3i-666 a 8, esp. 666a2-3.
52
On this mixture see n. 13 above. On whether blood has matter see n. 15.
128 Harvey Lederman
nism, but through some form of constitutive determination'. 53 Aris-
totle's efficient and material causes count as 'causal' in the sense
used in this quotation, but the formal and final causes do not. His
explanations by way of the formal cause are a paradigm of explana-
tion by way of 'constitutive determination'.
The following schema allows us to translate the explanation by
'constitutive determination', expressed by the participle, into an ex-
plicit definition:
(Translation) If a is G by being F, then for a to be G is for a to

be F.
Premiss (3) is the instance of this schema relevant to assessing the

Essentialist Thesis:
(3) If blood is what it is by being F, then for blood to be what it

is is for blood to be F.
In motivating Translation and (3), I have so far ignored one possi-

bility. Aristotle might have intended his 'by being' as only a partial
metaphysical explanation by way of constitutive determination. In
that case, we would have:
(3#) If blood is what it is in part by being F, then for blood to be

what it is is in part for blood to be F.
(3#) represents a possible interpretation of the participle ov on its

own. But we are interested in the participle as it occurs in the
free relative clause OPO. As in the case of singular definite noun
phrases, an assertion containing a free relative clause is felicitous
only if the description in the relative clause is satisfied by a unique
entity within a contextually salient set of entities. If (3#) repre-
sented a correct interpretation of OPO here, Aristotle's use of OPO
in PA 2. 3 would violate this requirement of uniqueness. More than
one salient F partially explains the fact that blood is, however we
should understand this final 'is'. Aristotle is explicit that he views
blood as a coupled entity. The Essentialist Thesis, plus (3$), yields
an interpretation of OPO as 'what (partially) explains blood's be-
ing what it is'. But an utterance containing this clause would cause
a failure of the presupposition of uniqueness: blood is what it is in
53
Fine, 'Guide', 37.
part by being sanguineous fluid and also in part by being hot. On
pain of infelicity, then, the explanatory participle 6V in OPO cannot
be read as indicating a partial explanation. 54 (3$) is incorrect, and
(3) stands.
We need one more premiss to complete the argument:
(Transmission of Parts) If for a to be G is for a to be F, and if

for a to be G is in part for a to be H, then for a to be F is in
part for a to be H.
This premiss appears complex, but the idea is simple. Suppose that
for Socrates to be human is for Socrates to be a rational biped. Then
if for Socrates to be human is in part for Socrates to be rational, then
to be a rational biped is also in part to be rational. In general, given
a definition of this form, the definiens can be substituted, salva ve-
ritate, in any partial definition of the definiendum. 55
From these premisses we can derive a contradiction. The Essen-
tialist Thesis and (3) together yield:
(4) OPO refers to that F such that, for blood to be what it is is

for blood to be F.
But then (4) and (i), together with Transmission of Parts, yield:
(5) The referent of OPO is an F such that to be F is in part to

be hot.
(5) contradicts (2*), which is equivalent to (2), and thus explicit

in the text. (5) follows by a valid argument from the conjunction
of the Essentialist Thesis, (3), (i), and Transmission of Parts, (i)
is explicit in the text. A defender of the Essentialist Thesis must
either deny (3) or Transmission of Parts. I argued for (3) on the
basis of the kind of explanation Aristotle gives in this passage: it is
neither material nor efficient, and cannot be a partial explanation.
The burden rests on a proponent of the Essentialist Thesis to find
54
In three prima facie similar passages in the Posterior Analytics Aristotle may use
the participle to give a partial explanation similar to the one proposed in (3$) (Post.
An. i. 4, 73b5~8; i. 22, 83^0-2; 83bi7~24; cf. also Post. An. i. 22, 83^3-15). But in
these passages Aristotle does not use a free relative clause. So the parallel between
the passages is not exact.
55
The converse, however, need not hold. Aristotle may have thought that substi-
tuting the definiendum in some partial definitions of the definiens did not preserve
truth.
130 Harvey Lederman
an alternative style of explanation which would not lead to premiss

(3). Transmission of Parts reflects the natural view that a full defi-
nition should capture all partial definitions. Although the premiss
may appear complicated, it is difficult to know what the essentialist
interpreter could put in its place. Together with these premisses,
the Essentialist Thesis leads to an outright contradiction. So the
Thesis should be rejected.
An analogous problem arises for the existential interpretation. I
will continue to paraphrase the —ever free relative clause as a defi-
nite noun phrase. This paraphrase of the existential interpretation
yields:
(Existential Thesis) OPO refers to that F, by being which, blood

exists.
According to Aristotle's view that blood is a coupled entity:
(lex) For blood to exist is in part for blood to be hot.
The same considerations we gave for adopting (3) when 'is' is in-
terpreted as 'is what it is', apply to an interpretation of the word as
'exists':
(3ex) If blood exists by being F, then for blood to exist is for

blood to be F.
The conjunction of the Existential Thesis with (lex), (3ex), and

Transmission of Parts leads, once again, directly to (5), and to con-
tradiction of (2) (or (2*)), which is explicit in the text. This argu-
ment is slightly weaker than the previous version of the argument,
since (lex) is not explicit in the text (whereas (i) was explicit). But,
given Aristotle's repeated comparisons between blood and standard
examples of coupled entities, (lex) clearly holds in this context.
The two candidate interpretations gleaned from Coope's taxo-
nomy of possible interpretations of 'is' both lead to contradiction
when combined with Aristotle's statement that the referent of OPO
is not hot. If an alternative interpretation of the word 'is' can avoid
this consequence, that interpretation is to be preferred.
2.6.2. The ontic interpretation of OPO Aristotle opens Metaphysics

Z i with the statement that 'being' (TO 6V) is said in many ways.56 He
56
TO in this sentence has the effect of quotation marks, as often in Aristotle:
contrasts 'being' in the sense of substance with the sense in which
members of the other categories are called 'beings': 'But the others
are said to be beings (Aeyerai 6Wa), some because they are quanti-
ties of that which is in this way [viz. as a substance], others because
they are qualities, still more because they are affections, and the
rest in some other way' 57 The verb Xeyco does not take the parti-
ciple in indirect statement. Accordingly, in Xeyerat ovra ('are said
to be beings'), ovra ('beings') is the complement of an implied zlvai
('to be'). 58 Aristotle seeks to explain in what sense these entities are
beings\ this aim governs the remainder of the passage.
Aristotle provides a schematic explanation, which, as the ex-
amples show, is supposed to apply to entities such as goodness.
Each member of each category (for example, goodness) is a be-
ing because it is (for example) the quality of a substance. In the
succeeding sentences Aristotle applies this style of explanation
to coupled entities: the walking thing, the seated thing, the thing
which is becoming healthier, and the good thing.59 He sums up his
discussion of these entities with an important conclusion: 'There-
fore it is clear that each of these [e.g. the sitting thing, the good
thing] is [a being] [earn/] on account of this [sc. the substance] [Sia
Tavrr]v].y6° Following the train of thought from the earlier part of
Metaph. Z i, io28 a 3i-2; Z 10, iO34b32~5. Also, further afield, e.g. Metaph. A 18,
iO22 a i4-i7; A 23, iO23 a 8-n; A 24, 1023*26—9 (etplura alia). The fact that Aristotle
introduces the section by focusing on 6v does not imply that his focus will remain
exclusively on the participle. (Compare, for example, Metaph. A 7, where the parti-
ciple is never used in a key formulation after the opening sentence.) But Aristotle's
train of thought in this passage does focus on an expression which uses the participle.
(It is an open and interesting question why Aristotle uses the participle when he says
that the verb 'to be' is ambiguous (e.g. Metaph. F 2, ioo3a33-b6 (cf. K 3, io6o b 3i-
3); A 10, ioi8 a 35~8; E 2, iO26 a 33~ b 2), as opposed to his ordinary practice of using
the infinitive when indicating that verbs are used ambiguously (cf. e.g. Pr. An. i. 3,
25a37~4o; Phys. i. 7, i9O a 3i; Metaph. A 23, iO23 a 8-n; © i, iO46a4-6).)
57
(Metaph. Z I, !O28ai8-2o).
58
For a precise parallel, Metaph. F 2, ioo3 b 6-io. The participle is the comple-
ment of an explicit eon in Metaph. A 7, io72 b io. The syntax of Aristotle's fj is not
well understood, but it is probable that the word invariably introduces a full subordi-
nate clause. If so, the locutions ovra fj ovra and ov fj 6v (e.g. Metaph. F2, 1003b 15-16,
ioo5 a 2~3, et passim) provide extensive evidence for Aristotle's use of 6V as a com-
plement of the copula.
59
Metaph. Z i, io28 a 2O—9; discussion in A. Code, Aristotle and Existence' (un-
published MS on file with the author), 10-11. My interpretation of this passage is
indebted to Code's paper.
0
(Metaph. Z I, iO28 a 29~30).
132 Harvey Lederman
this passage, this 'is' (eariv) must be equivalent to 'is a being' in
the foregoing discussion.61 A good thing is a being because of the
substance it is. More precisely, the good thing is a being because it
is the substance it is.
Both of these explanations—of entities such as goodness, and of
entities such as the good thing—reveal that Aristotle is not explain-
ing the existence of the relevant entities. For goodness to exist is
not merely for goodness to be a quality—goodness must also be the
quality it is. Perhaps even more clearly, for a good thing to exist is
not merely for it to be the substance it is—that substance must also
be good.
The final 'is' in OPO, like the 'is' (ecmv) in Metaph. Z i, 1028*30,
is synonymous with Aristotle's 'is a being'. In Metaphysics Z i Aris-
totle suggests that an ordinary coupled individual, for example a
walking thing, is a being because it is the substance it is. When
Aristotle uses OPO, the relevant coupled entity may not have a par-
ticular substance as its underlier. But the explanation contained in
OPO is parallel to the one in Metaphysics Z i: the coupled kind is a
being because it is the kind of those entities which play the role of
the underlier for its instances. This explanation, moreover, meets
the stringent requirements on explanation which were the downfall
of the essentialist and existential interpretations of OPO. In Meta-
physics Z i Aristotle suggests that for walking Socrates to be a being
is for walking Socrates to be Socrates. Similarly, for the coupled
kind to be a being is for it to be the kind of those entities which play
the role of the underlier for its instances. The passage in Metaphy-
sics Z i shows that this ontic interpretation is possible; the verb 'is'
(ecrrtv, 1028*30) here has exactly the required sense. The argument
of Section 2.6.1 demonstrates that the ontic interpretation is also
preferable to the alternatives.
61
Aristotle refers to Metaph. A 7 at the opening of Metaph. Z i (io28 a i-2); the
discussion which follows in Metaph. Z i has parallels with A 7, 1017*22-30. In A 7,
ioi7 a 27-3O, Aristotle says that there is no difference between e.g. 'a man is a walking
one' (avOponTTos fiaSi^cDv eariv) and 'a man walks' (avOponTros fiaSiêi). If this transla-
tion scheme is wholly general, as it seems intended to be, the result would be that
the predicate 'is a being' (eariv 6V) does not differ from the predicate 'is' (ean). I
this line of thought is correct, Aristotle seems (at least in Metaph. Z i) to take the
form with the participle as explanatory of the sense of 'is' on its own. In the light of
this passage, then, we see that 'is' (eari) on its own can mean 'is a being', but 6V used
as a complement need not have the sense of 'exists'.
2.7. Conclusion
In the passages from PA 2. 2—3 Aristotle conceives of blood as a
coupled entity. This view of blood occupies middle ground between
the claim that blood is a compound substance and the claim that
the heat of blood is an accident of an underlying substance. In the
course of this explanation, in PA 2. 3 Aristotle uses OPO to refer to
the kind sanguineous fluid. In that passage, OPO should be under-
stood as 'whatever is such that, by being that, blood is a being'.
Blood is the coupled kind hot sanguineous fluid. In so far as its be-
ing is the being of blood, blood is hot. But that, by being which, the
kind blood is a being—namely, sanguineous fluid—is not hot.
3. Physics 4. 11-14
3.1. Coupled kinds in Physics 4. 11-14

In Physics 4. 11-14 Aristotle argues that time and two other enti-
ties related to time—the before-and-after-in-change and the now—
are properties of changes. Aristotle may have held that these pro-
perties of changes could ultimately be reduced to properties of the
substances which change.62 If he did, the theory of time in Physics
4. 11—14 would extend, but not conflict with, his 'standard' picture,
in which accidents depend directly on substances. Still, at least in
Physics 4. 11-14, Aristotle does not argue for this kind of reduc-
tion. Instead, he describes a layered structure of dependence, in
which coupled kinds are coupled with further attributes to form
new coupled kinds. This layered structure is depicted in Figure 2.
On my interpretation of Physics 4. 11-14, coupled kinds are cent-
ral to Aristotle's theory of time. Scholars since Broadie have recog-
nized that Aristotle makes use of coupled entities at least twice in
these chapters, in his discussions of Coriscus (4. n, 2i9 b i8-22),
and of the thing-in-motion (4. n, 219b 16-25 and 2i9b33-22Oa9;
see Section 3.4 below).63 Aristotle uses neither the word 'coupled'
nor related technical terminology in these passages, but he is clearly
62
D. Bostock, Aristotle's Metaphysics Z and H (Oxford, 1994), 101-2, also voices
some thoughts along these lines. The view that changes are not substances is ex-
pressed even in these chapters: 4. 11, 2i9 b 3O-i.
63
S. [Waterlow] Broadie, 'Aristotle's Now' ['Now'], Philosophical Quarterly, 34
(1984), 104-28, esp. 120-2. Cf. Coope, Time, 132-9. Coriscus is a standard ex-
ample of a coupled entity: e.g. SE 17, i75 b i5-27; 22, I78 b 36-i79 a io; 24, I79a35~b4;
134 Harvey Lederman
The '+' indicates that a kind and an accident form a coupled entity. The
first term after each ' =' is the kind of the entities which play the role of un-
derliers for the members of the coupled kind. Arrows indicate the explana-
tory relation expressed by OPO. Passages by arrows show where Aristotle
uses OPO. References in bold type indicate where I discuss those passages.
Phrases in italics name determinates of a determinable which is universal
but non-definitional for the kind of the underliers (Section 3.2 ad fin. ex-
plains the terminology).a
An interval of time = the before-
and-after-in-Change+êmg divi-
ded at a division which has temporal
number n and divided at a division
which has temporal number m
The now = the before-and-after-
in-Change + being divided at a
division which has temporal num-
ber n
b
26-8
219b 12 –15; 219b 26—8 4. 14, 223^-9 The thing-in-motion = thing +
Section 3.3.2 Section 3.5 being in placep (where 'placep'
names a place)
The before-and-after-in-<2-change =
a change +being divisible into this
series
219 12-15 219bI 8-22
Sectilon 3-4
2i9 a i9~ 21
Section 3.2
A change The thing
a
In Section 2 I named properties by abstract nouns (e.g. 'heat') and not by
phrases formed from the predicates which express the properties (e.g. 'being hot'}. In
Section 3 it becomes difficult to maintain the practice, which would strictly require
that I write (for example) 'divided-at-a-division-counted-with-i-ness'. Instead, I
have opted to write 'being divided at a division which has temporal number n'. I will use
italics to indicate that the whole phrase should be read as designating one property.
F I G . 2. OPO in Physics 4. 11-14
thinking of coupled entities here. And, furthermore, since he uses

Coriscus and the-thing-in-motion as part of his explanation of the
nature of the now, these two passages provide strong evidence that
Aristotle thought of the now, too, as a coupled entity.
Metaph. E 2, iO26 b i5-2i; Phys. 5. 4, 227b24~228a3. Cf. Simpl. InPhys. 723. 14-20,
885. 11-21 Diels.
Tony Roark's interpretation of Physics 4. 10-14 also places
coupled entities at the heart of Aristotle's theory of time. Roark
and I differ in many places, but one difference marks a basic dis-
tinction between our understandings of coupled entities. Roark
attempts to defend the slogan that Aristotle held that change is the
matter of time, and perception is its form. 64 Roark's supposed evi-
dence for the thesis that time is hylomorphic derives from his claim
that Aristotle generally understood coupled entities as hylomorphic
compounds, which have their underlier as their matter, and their
coupled property as their form. 65 But none of the passages Roark
adduces supports an identification of the underlier of a coupled
entity with its matter.66 And in passages Roark does not cite, Aris-
totle explicitly denies that the relationship between accident and
underlier in a coupled entity is the relationship between form and
matter.67
In spite of this basic divergence between Roark's interpretation
and my own, the account of time which Roark attributes to Aris-
totle is similar in its structure to the view I believe Aristotle en-
dorsed. Systematically replacing Roark's use of 'matter' and 'form'
with 'entity which plays the role of underlier' and 'coupled acci-
dent' would yield an interpretation not too dissimilar to my own.
64
T. Roark, Aristotle on Time [On Time] (Cambridge, 2011), i et passim.
65
Ibid. 34-5. In the remainder of the book, the view is simply asserted, e.g. 41, 94.
Some of Roark's arguments purport to establish the consistency of this assumption
with other passages in Aristotle, but, as far as I can see, Roark provides no direct
arguments for the claim itself.
66
Roark cites Metaph. Z 4, io29b22-9, and F 2, ioo4 b i-4 (On Time, 35, with 34
n. 42), in support of the claim that coupled entities are hylomorphic compounds. In
neither passage can I see any indication that Aristotle intended his reader to think of
the accident as the form and the underlier as the matter. A more delicate question is
whether Aristotle thought that the accident alone was the being of the coupled entity,
or whether he thought that the being of coupled entities included both components
(e.g. paleness and humanity). In some passages (esp. Metaph. Z 6, 103 i b i9~28; H 2,
1043^-28) Aristotle does say that the being of the coupled entity is its accident. But
this question is tangential to the point in the main text, since the fact that something
has 'being' need not imply that it has matter in Aristotle's technical sense. Aristotle
does often draw an analogy between coupled entities and compound substances in
order to illustrate how the latter includes both form and matter in its definition (e.g.,
once again, Metaph. H 2, iO43a4~28). But analogies are illustrative only if the com-
paranda are different in some respect. In this case, the analogy would be unhelpful
if Aristotle believed (which he evidently did not) that the underlier for any of these
coupled entities was matter for it.
67
Metaph. © 7, iO49 a 27~ b 3. For brief discussion of this point in relation to blood
see above, n. 15.
136 Harvey Lederman
3.2. The before and after in change
At the opening of his positive account of time, Aristotle claims
that time 'follows' change, and that change 'follows' magnitude. 68
He relates this claim to two further findings: first, that magnitude,
change, and time are all continuous; and, second, that 'the before-
and-after' is 'in' magnitude, change, and time.69 The passage re-
veals that, like continuity, the before-and-after is a property. Each
of these properties is a property of non-substantial entities, whether
of magnitudes, of changes, or of intervals of time.
Aristotle quickly puts the expression 'the before-and-after' to use
in the form of a further set expression, 'the before-and-after-in-
Change' (TO Trportpov KCLI vartpov Iv TTJ Kivrjaei, 2i9 a 2o). The phrase
'in the change' (lv rfj Kivrjaei) must be translated as 'in Change',
where the capitalized 'Change' refers to the kind, as opposed to
the lower-case 'a change', which refers to an instance of Change.
In the lead-up to this sentence Aristotle uses 'magnitude' (êye-
9os), 'change' (KIVJJOIS), and 'time' (^povos) to refer to the relevant
kinds.10 The article rfj in 2i9 a 2O continues this practice. Aristotle
has not mentioned an example of a change, so it would be inap-
propriate for him to speak of 'the change', as if his hearers knew to
which change he was referring.
In the expression 'the before-and-after-in-Change', the 'in' is
the 'in' of inherence.71 A close parallel to this use of 'in' in the
name of a property can be found in Aristotle's definition of snub-
ness as 'concavity in a nose'.72 In Metaphysics Z 5 Aristotle uses
'snub nose' interchangeably with 'snubness' as an example of a per
se coupled entity.73 Aristotle seems to have held that, since snubness
68
4. I I , 2 I 9 a I O - I 2 6Q
4. I I , 2 I 9 a I 2 - I 9
70
The universally quantified statement in 2i9 a io—12 provides Aristotle's grounds
for introducing discussion of the kinds themselves, and the uses in 2i9 a i2-i9 are
clear-cut. The point in the main text about the article rfj in 2i9 a 2O carries over also
to rrjv Kivyaiv in 2i9 a 23 and rfj Kivrjaei in 2i9 a 24~5.
71
Cf. Cat. 2, ia20-9.
72
Metaph. Z 5, 103ob 16-20. In other passages, where Aristotle uses the phrase
'this in this' (r68e ev roiSe), it indicates that matter and form must both be included
in a definition: DA 3. 4, 429b 10-14; PA i. i, 64Ob22~9. But the passage in the Meta-
physics clearly describes per se coupled entities, where these are not taken to include
form-matter compounds.
73
The sense of per se here is the second sense in Post. An. i. 4 (73a34~b5), in
which a property is per se of an entity if it mentions that entity in its definition. For
the remainder of the paper, when I write 'per se', I mean 'per se in the second sense
in Post. An. 1.4'. Aristotle's view that 'snubness' and 'snub nose' are interchange-
mentions nose in its definition, the property snubness is identical
to the coupled kind snub nose. The name 'the before-and-after-
in-Change' thus suggests that its referent is a per se property of
changes.74 Analogously to the case of snubness, this per se property
can be thought of as a coupled kind, here composed of Change and
its per se property.
After the introductory lines already discussed, Aristotle says that
the soul marks out the before-and-after-in-Change by actualizing
at least two divisions in a change, and noting that something has in-
tervened between them.75 A division in a change is an interruption
which might be made or have been made in the change. So the soul
marks out the before-and-after by dividing the change into an inter-
val, and remarking on the 'space' between its endpoints. Together
with the name 'the before-and-after-in-Change', this description
of how the soul perceives the before-and-after-in-Change suggests
that this property is related to changes' being divisible into an ordered
series. The before-and-after-in-a-change, which the soul perceives
when it actualizes at least two divisions in a particular change, is
thus a coupled individual composed of that particular change and
its property being divisible into this ordered series of divisions. The
before-and-after-in-Change is the kind of such individual before-
and-afters-in-changes:76 it is the per se coupled kind composed of
able is illustrated by his use of 'coupled', first, to describe snubness in Metaph. Z 5,
iO3O b i4-2O, and, second, to describe odd number in Metaph. Z 5, io3i a 5~6. Clearly
the same sort of coupling is indicated by the two instances of the word. But linguist-
ically 'odd number' is analogous to 'snub nose', not to 'snubness' (which is analogous
to 'oddness'). So Aristotle holds that the coupled descriptions are equivalent to the
single-word names of properties. He does draw an orthogonal distinction in this
passage, between pale human and snubness (Metaph. Z 5, io3Ob2O-6): paleness is
predicated per accidens of humans whereas snubness (like femaleness) is predicated
per se of nose (respectively, animal). But Aristotle's drawing of this distinction does
not conflict with the view in the main text, that he thought of snubness as identical
to the kind snub nose.
74
In 4. n, 219^7-18, Aristotle says that the before-and-after is in Change 'by
analogy to those there' (ava\oyov TOIS eVef), referring to the before-and-after-in-place
(219a 14-15) and the before-and-after-in-magnitude (2i9 a i6-i8). We can understand
this comment by contrasting continuity with the before-and-after. Continuity has
all continua as its per se underliers: continuity-in-Change is the same property as
continuity-in-magnitude. The before-and-after-in-Change, by contrast, has only
changes as its per se underliers; it cannot be instantiated by places or times. Since
the before-and-after-in-Change and the before-and-after-in-place have different per
se underliers, they are different properties, and are the same only by analogy.
75
Phys. 4. n, 2i9 a 23~9. For the actualization of divisions cf. e.g. Phys. 8. 8,
263a23-V
76
To clarify the syntax of these two expressions: the before and after in Socra-
138 Harvey Lederman
Change and its property being divisible into some ordered series of di-
visions.77
Aristotle uses OPO in his description of the relationship between
the before-and-after-in-Change and Change:
[a] ecm Se TO TTporepov KCLL vorepov ev rrj Kivrjaei o î€v TTOT€ 6V KLVJ^GLS [ecmv]-
[b] TO jitevTOi efvcu avrto erepov KCLL ov Kivj]ais. (219^9—21)
[a] And the before-and-after-in-Change, in respect of whatever is such that,
by being that, it is, is change, [b] but its being is different, and not change.
With Torstrik and Ross, I delete the final lonv of [a] as a scribal
insertion 'due to misunderstanding of the difficult phrase' OPO.78
The loriv Ross and Torstrik and I excise seems to have been ab-
sent from the texts on which Simplicius and Philoponus based their
comments.79 The postpositive particle êV after o signals the begin-
tes' walk from Athens to Thebes is a before-and-after-in-Change, or the before-
and-after-in-<2-change: these two equivalent complements are to be understood by
analogy to 'a man'. When I wish to refer to a specific before-and-after-in a specific
change (but without naming the change), I will write 'the before-and-after-in-that-
change'.
77
The view in the main text, that the before-and-after-in-Change is a coupled
kind, whose instances have changes (or intervals of change) as underliers, is compa-
tible with Coope's and Inwood's interpretations of this notion. Thus, Coope writes
of an interval-like 'series of earlier and later stages in the change' (Time, 66, and
more generally 65-71; cf. M. Inwood, 'Aristotle on the Reality of Time', in L. Jud-
son (ed.), Aristotle's Physics: A Collection of Essays (Oxford, 1991), 151—78 at 173—
4). Both of these interpretations are compatible with my claim that the before-and-
after-in-Change is a coupled kind, instantiated by intervals of change (= changes).
My interpretation is not, however, compatible with views which take the before-and-
after-in-Change to be point-like (see E. Hussey, Aristotle's Physics Books III andIV
[Physics III and IV] (Oxford, 1983), 148-9 (cf. 153-7), and now Roark (On Time,
80—101)). I cannot argue in full here against these interpretations. Outpace Hussey
and Roark, I cannot see how an interpretation of the before-and-after-in-Change as
point-like can satisfactorily accommodate the text in Phys. 4. 11, 219*22-30.
78
Ross, Physics, 598 ad 219^9—21. The emendation is proposed in Torstrik,
'Beitrag'. The manuscripts all have eariv.
79
Simplicius' lemma does not quote the relevant passage, but in the text (In Phys.
712. 24-7 Diels) he quotes the passage without the final eanv. Philoponus' lemma
does include the final eariv (although it is missing ev rfj Kivrjaei, which is transmitted in
all manuscripts and in Simplicius), but the word does not appear in the version of the
text in Philoponus' comment (In Phys. 720. 27-8 Vitelli). Ross's apparatus is some-
what optimistic to claim that Simplicius certainly omitted ecmv; Simplicius makes
no attempt to quote the passage in full. But Philoponus' and Simplicius' comments
both give an interpretation which requires syntax similar to the syntax used in my
translation. Since this interpretation is possible only if one reads just one instance
of the verb 'to be', and since the first eon of the sentence is more certain—owing to
the 8e which follows it—it seems likely that neither Simplicius nor Philoponus had
the final eariv in the text on which they based their comments.
ning of a new construction, so I construe the relative o as an accusa-
tive of respect, and translate: 'And the before-and-after-in-Change,
in respect ^tv of whatever is such that, by being that, [the before-
and-after-in-Change is], is Change. But its being is different, and
not Change'.
The passage fits straightforwardly with the interpretation of OPO
proposed in Section 2. The coupled kind, the before-and-after-in-
Change, is a being because it is the kind of the entities which play
the role of the underlier for its members. In respect of this kind, the
before-and-after-in-Change is Change. But its being is not Change,
since its being also includes the property being divisible into some
ordered series of divisions.
This interpretation depends on deleting ianv ('is') in [a]. But, as
the following argument shows, the word does not belong in the text.
In general, -ever free relative clauses like OPO are felicitous only if
the speaker is ignorant of or indifferent about the precise referent of
the relative pronoun. But the transmitted text in this passage makes
Aristotle's use of the —ever free relative clause OPO infelicitous (if
not ungrammatical) according to this rule. Suppose we translate,
following Coope: 'the before and after is that, whatever it is, by be-
ing which, Change is'.8° As this translation shows, the point of the
transmitted sentences is to say that that, by being which, Change
is is the before-and-after-in-Change. But then Aristotle cannot be
ignorant of or unwilling to elaborate on the referent of the phrase,
since he explicitly tells us that it is the before-and-after-in-Change.
We can make the infelicity of 'whatever' even clearer by translating
80
Coope, Time, 65-6. Roark (On Time, 95-6) claims that this sentence states that
that, by being which, Change is just is that by being which the before-and-after-
in-Change is: the referent of OPO here is thus that, by being which, they both are.
Unfortunately, his discussion provides no guidance on how to extract this claim
from the Greek. Coope's interpretation, by contrast, has some linguistic plausibi-
lity (although see main text). But it has a strange philosophical consequence. Coope
writes: 'Though this series of earlier and later stages is not identical to the change
("its being is different"), it provides what we might call the structure of the change.
It is in virtue of having this structure (in virtue of being divisible into this before and
after series) that the change is the change it is' (Time, 66). Suppose that, as Socrates
walks briskly, he becomes hotter. Socrates' walking and Socrates' heating are differ-
ent changes, but they are marked out by the same series of instantaneous divisions.
In the second sentence of the quotation, Coope seems to commit Aristotle to holding
that Socrates' walk is the walk it is in virtue of being this series and that Socrates'
heating is the heating it is in virtue of being the same series. But this verdict seems
odd. Thanks here to Nick Denyer, who first suggested an example of this form to
me, though in a different context. Aristotle considers a related example in Phys. 5. 4,
227b4-228
140 Harvey Lederman
the transmitted text as: 'the before-and-after is whatever is such
that, by being that, Change is'. This infelicity is comparable to that
of the English (?): 'Hamlet is whatever Mary is reading'. 81
We can render Aristotle's use of the -ever free relative clause OPO
felicitous only if we follow Torstrik and Ross in excising zariv. In
the resulting text, Aristotle claims only that in respect of the referent
of OPO (which he does not specify further), the before-and-after-
in-Change is Change. The infelicity disappears. But the corrected
text still does not explain why Aristotle was uncertain of or indif-
ferent to the referent of OPO in this passage.
Aristotle's reason, I will suggest, is that the before-and-after-in-
Change is a special variety of coupled kind. As we will see, all of
the instances of OPO in the Physics describe this variety of coupled
kind; appropriate modifications of my suggestion will help to ex-
plain Aristotle's uncertainty in those passages as well.
When Aristotle uses OPO in these chapters, he analyses coupled
kinds composed from a property which is universal but non-
definitional for the kind of the entities which play the role of the
underlier for the members of the coupled kind. A determinable
property is universal for a kind if and only if every instance of
the kind bears some determinate of this determinable. It is non-
definitional for a kind if and only if it is not mentioned in the
definition of the kind.
In these passages, Aristotle aims to explain what it is for the
coupled kind in question to be a being. He does so by conceiving
of the kind of the entities which play the role of the underliers for
the members of the coupled kind as if it did not possess the relevant
universal but non-definitional property. According to my hypothe-
sis, Aristotle then worries that, if a kind were not to possess a uni-
versal property, the kind would no longer be the kind it is. Since
the relevant property is non-definitional for the kind of the entities
which play the role of the underlier, it seems possible to conceive of
the kind as if it did not possess the property. But since the relevant
property is universal for the kind, Aristotle is uncertain whether the
81
The infelicity of this sentence is analogous to the infelicity of Dayal's examples
of 'namely' with —ever free relative clauses (V. Dayal, 'Free Relatives and Ever: Iden-
tity and Free Choice Readings', Proceedings of SALT VII (1997), 99—116 at 109):
(29) a.* Whatever Mary is cooking, namely ratatouille, uses onions,
b. What Mary is cooking, namely ratatouille, uses onions.
For the same point, applied to ancient Greek, see again Probert, Early Relatives, ch.
3-3-2.
kind would still be the kind it is, if its instances did not have some
determinate of this determinable.
This hypothesis applies straightforwardly to the before-
and-after-in-Change. The property being divisible into some
appropriately ordered series is a universal property for changes.
Every change is infinitely divisible.82 Moreover, every change has
both a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quern .^ These termini
order the divisions which can be made between them.84 So every
change will be an instance of the before-and-after-in-Change; the
property is universal.
According to my hypothesis, then, Aristotle uses an -ever free
relative clause in place of an alternative specification of the referent
of OPO because he does not wish to take a stand on whether, if the
instances of Change did not possess this universal property, Change
would still be Change. The relevant property, it is true, does not fi-
gure in the definition of Change.85 But still, if Change were to lack
this property, it might not be Change. So Aristotle hedges his bets:
in respect of the abstracted kind, whatever that is, the before-and-
after-in-Change is Change. It does not follow from this claim that
Change is that, by being which, the before-and-after-in-Change is.
3.3. The now

Aristotle says that perceivers grasp the passage of time by 'mark-
ing out' (o/n£co) Change.86 A perceiver marks out Change by mark-
ing out the before-and-after-in-Change. In the course of marking
out the before-and-after-in-Change, the perceiver counts. Aristotle
seems to imagine a perceiver who utters the names of the natural
numbers in sequence ('one, two . . .') while observing a specific
change. The perceiver's counting has the consequence that divi-
sions in the change are counted. As Aristotle notes later, this count-
82
Phys. 4. n, 2i9 a io-i3. As this passage shows, the putative counter-examples
discussed in Phys. 1.3, i86 a i3-i6, and 8. 3, 253b23~6, are not in view in Phys. 4. n.
Cf. Coope, Time, 50-5, with Hussey, Physics III and IV, 143.
83
Eternal changes are a possible exception, but see n. 109.
84
Coope (Time, 72-5) shows how Aristotle might have derived this order using
only the terminus a quo of the change. The use of the terminus ad quern in the main
text may therefore be superfluous.
85
At least not in the definition given in Phys. 3. 1—3. In this respect, change dif-
fers from magnitude, the definition of which does mention divisibility: Metaph. A 13,
IO2OaIO-II.
86
For this sentence and the following two sentences see Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 a 22—9.
142 Harvey Lederman
ing of divisions bears an important relationship to the now: 'it is
in so far as the before-and-after-in-Change is countable, that the
now is'.87
In the course of an explanation of how in one sense each now is
the same as every other, and in another sense different from every
other, Aristotle uses an example which shows roughly how this
counting of the before-and-after-in-Change is related to the now.
In the example, Aristotle accepts a sophistical definition of Cori-
scus, as the coupled entity formed from Coriscus and being in a given
place. According to this view of Coriscus, when Coriscus moves, he
changes his being (etvat), because he changes in place (Phys. 4. n,
2i9 b i8-2z). The parallel between Coriscus (so defined) and the now
is clear.88 The before-and-after-in-£/m-change is like Coriscus; its
being divided at a counted division is like Coriscus' being in a given
placet The now, like coupled Coriscus, is thus a coupled entity:
as this change progresses, the before-and-after-in-£/m-change is di-
vided at a different division, which is, in addition, counted with a
different number. As a result of this difference in division and num-
ber, each now differs in being from every other.
A later remark confirms this interpretation. 'Therefore, in so far
as the now is a limit, it is not time, but it is accidental to time. But
in so far as it counts, it is a number. For limits belong only to that of
which they are the limits; but the number of these horses, ten, is also
elsewhere.'90 Earlier interpreters have struggled with this passage to
the point of suggesting its irretrievable corruption. But the trans-
mitted text makes excellent sense when we recognize that Aristotle
thinks of the coupled property which helps to compose the now as,
at least in part, a number.91
7
(Phys. 4. 11, 219 28). This
sentence repeats a point which is also made a few lines earlier, at Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 b 23—
5. Cf., for a similar remark about time itself, 4. 14, 223^8-9. In all three passages,
apid^Tov may also be translated as 'counted'.
88
Less clear is why the explanation requires this sophistical definition. I explain
why, below, main text at n. 115.
89
On 'the before-and-after-in-£/zzs-change' see n. 76.
90
(Phys. 4. n, 22O a 2i~4). Ross, Physics, 603, follows Torstrik in obelizing

the first two clauses (fj /jiev . . . apidpos). But, pace Ross's complaints, the opening
antithesis relates directly—as my interpretation shows—to the second half of the
passage. Coope (Time, 124) rightly retains the transmitted text, but expresses baffle-
ment (124 n. 8) at why the now should be called a number.
91
In the course of an extended parallel between motion and time in Phys. 4. 11,
According to the picture with which we began, as a perceiver
counts a change she observes, she actualizes divisions in the change,
and assigns them natural numbers. 92 Divisions assigned greater na-
tural numbers will be 'after', and those with lesser natural num-
bers will be 'before'. In this setting, properties of divisions such
as being counted by '2' correspond directly to properties which de-
scribe divisions' positions in temporal order. This picture suggests
a simple interpretation of the now. If a perceiver counts a division
in a change, he or she actualizes a coupled entity composed of the
before-and-after-in-£/£<2£-change and its property being divided at a
division counted with f n', where (n* is the name of the number as-
signed to the division. One might leap to the conclusion that the
now is the before-and-after-in-â^-change, divided at a division
counted with (n\
This simple interpretation is close to the view I believe Aristotle
held, but it is not quite right. Different perceivers might utter the
names of different numbers at what is intuitively the same time.
Moreover, since the before-and-afters in different changes are dif-
ferent, the simple interpretation has the undesirable consequence
that different changes cannot share the same now. In the next sec-
tion (3.3.1) I present an extension of the simple theory which over-
comes these difficulties. I believe Aristotle held a theory which
was at least very similar to my extension of the simple theory. But
the textual evidence is comparatively thin, and what Aristotle says
is compatible with different interpretations. My interpretation of
OPO, however, requires only the relatively weak claim that Aris-
totle understood the now as a coupled kind. This weak claim re-
ceives strong support from Aristotle's descriptions of Coriscus and
the thing-in-motion, mentioned above, and discussed further in
Section 3-4. 93 The full theory I sketch in the next section provides
2i9 b 31—22O a 3, Aristotle suggests that the now is 'the number of the thing-in-motion'
(o dpLOfjios 6 rov (f)€pofji€vov), and says 'the now, like the thing-in-motion, is like the
unit of number' (TO vvv Se MS TO fiepofjievov, olov fjiovas apiOôv). According to the re-
ceived view in Aristotle's day, one—the unit—was, strictly speaking, not a number.
But the passage supports the view that the coupled property which helps compose
the now is closely related to the number of a division. Cf. Phys. 4. 12, 22i a i3~i6.
92
A perceiver, of course, need not actually utter the names of numbers to count
divisions. In general, I will say that a division is counted if it is actualized by a per-
ceiver who can count, whether or not the perceiver actually does so. Still, the model
of a perceiver counting out loud will help us to develop the theory, and I continue
to use it in the main text.
93
Coope would reject the claim that the now is a coupled entity. In Coope's
144 Harvey Lederman
additional support for this claim by showing that Aristotle's dispar-
ate remarks fit with a simple, natural way of developing a theory on
which the now is a coupled kind.
3.3.1. Temporal numbers The key notion of the extended theory

will be that of a temporal number. All and only actualized divisions
in changes have the property of having a temporal number. Divisions
in changes have this property because of facts about how perceivers
do or would count those divisions. The properties of the form hav-
ing temporal number n (the determinates of the determinable having
a temporal number] differ in structure from the natural numbers;
they are not numbers in the sense of 'number' used in the mathe-
matics of Aristotle's day. But since they are properties which divi-
sions have because perceivers count them, they are closely related
to numbers. In Aristotle's terminology, they are 'numbers as coun-
ted' and not 'numbers by which we count'. 94
Two principles govern the relationship between perceivers' ut-
terances of the names of natural numbers, as in the simple model,
and the property of having temporal numbers, or, more specifically,
having temporal number n. The first principle characterizes what it
is for divisions to have the same temporal number.95 For two di-
visions to have the same temporal number is for it to be the case
view, Aristotle holds that the activity of counting nows is irreducible to counting
the before-and-after-in-change. Coope's Aristotle believes that the soul's counting
of nows—and not of before-and-afters-in-changes—explains temporal order (e.g.
Time, 86, 125, 129). For Coope, Aristotle takes it as a primitive fact that the now
defines simultaneity by dividing all ongoing changes. As a result, Aristotle does not
require a story about the role of perception in defining simultaneity (for my version
of this story see below, n. 96 and main text there). Coope's interpretation is most
strongly supported by Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 a 27~8, where Aristotle says 'the soul declares
that the nows are two' (KCU 8vo eiTrr) rj fiv^r) ra vvv). In my view, the soul distinguishes
the nows in part because it has counted divisions (aKpa, 219*27). But this text favours
Coope, since Aristotle explicitly only describes the counting of nows. Still, this ad-
vantage of Coope's interpretation is, I believe, outweighed by other considerations.
In particular, my interpretation takes the two sets of passages discussed here at face
value in a way Coope's cannot. First, Coope struggles with Aristotle's remarks relat-
ing the now to number (4. 11, 22O a 2i~4 (see above, n. 90); 2i9 b 33~22O a 4). Second, in
Coope's view, the countability (or: countedness) of the before-and-after-in-Change
has at most an oblique relationship to the now. It is thus somewhat obscure why
Aristotle says that it is in so far as the before-and-after is countable that the now is
(Phys. 4. n, 2i9 b 23~5, 2i9 b 28).
94
For this distinction see Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 b 5~8.
95
More precisely, this principle defines what it is for two divisions to have a
property in common, namely, having temporal number n. In what follows I will
often speak of relations between temporal numbers, where the reader should beware
that, for each division, it is possible that it be counted, and that:
if a perceiver (perceiving normally) counted the two divisions, he
or she would count them with the same utterance of the name of a
number. For a perceiver to count two divisions with the same utter-
ance is for him or her to perceive them as simultaneous.96 It follows
that two divisions have the same temporal number just in case a
perceiver (perceiving normally) would perceive the two divisions
as simultaneous. Two divisions may thus have the same temporal
number even if various perceivers have in fact used the names of dif-
ferent numbers to count them. Moreover, two actual divisions, for
example the ends of two changes in the depths of the sea, may have
the same temporal number even if neither has in fact been counted
or even perceived.
A second principle characterizes a relation of greater than (and
less than) between properties of the form having temporal number n.
For an arbitrary division D to have a greater (respectively, lesser)
temporal number than an arbitrary division E is for it to be the case
that any perceiver (counting correctly, and perceiving normally)
who counts D and E, counts D with a greater (respectively, lesser)
number than the one with which he or she counts E. This relation
of greater than orders the class of determinate properties of the form
having temporal number n analogously to the way a similar relation
orders the natural numbers. But the relation of 'greater than' on
this class of properties differs from the one on the natural numbers
in at least one important respect: since Aristotle believed that there
was no first time, the class of properties does not have a first or least
element.97
The soul counts divisions in the before-and-after-in-<2-change
by mapping the divisions to the natural numbers—in our simple
model, by uttering the names of those numbers. In general, when
that a more perspicuous formulation would speak of relations between properties of
divisions.
96
This definition need not be viciously circular, since the second occurrence of
'simultaneous' occurs within the scope of 'perceive as': to be simultaneous is to be
perceived as simultaneous. In my view, Aristotle does not attempt to explain simul-
taneity in terms of more basic properties of pairs of changes. Instead, he seeks to
explain why perceivers tend to perceive divisions as simultaneous if and only if they
occur at the same time. This phenomenon is explained by the simple fact that, ac-
cording to Aristotle's theory, temporal simultaneity is perceived simultaneity (or:
simultaneity as perceived under normal conditions). This interpretation stands in
strong contrast to Coope's (see above, n. 93).
97
See e.g. Phys. 4. 13, 222^*24-30; 8. i, 25i b io-28.
146 Harvey Lederman
we count, we follow a similar practice, mapping the objects before
us to the natural numbers by uttering the names of the numbers
in sequence, one at a time, as we point at the objects in a group,
until we have pointed at each of them exactly once. In the case of
counting the before-and-after-in-a-change, these names are chosen
according to a further rule: for any pair of divisions, if they belong
to the same change, count the division 'before' with a name which
refers to a lesser number, and the division 'after' with a name which
refers to a greater number.98 Provided that Aristotle did have a way
of ordering divisions based on properties of change alone (and re-
cent interpreters agree that he did), this rule for counting divisions
need not circularly use features of time to derive temporal order."
The rule for counting divisions appeals to the independent 'kinetic
order' of divisions.
One final background assumption is required, if these two prin-
ciples will suffice to determine the temporal number of all actual-
ized divisions in all changes. It must be that any pair of divisions
in changes can be related by a series of overlapping changes. To il-
lustrate what I mean by 'a series of overlapping changes', consider
Figure 3. A and B, like C and D, are divisions in a single change,
where the before-and-afters in their respective changes have A as
before B, and C as before D. Moreover, B and C are divisions which
a perceiver (perceiving normally) perceives as simultaneous.
So far, we have not said how a perceiver will count divisions D
and A, since they are not perceived as simultaneous, and do not
belong to a single before-and-after-in-Change. But the following
reasoning yields the conclusion that D has a greater temporal num-
98
There are at least two different ways in which we might count divisions in
change. We might count divisions in one change, say, Socrates-in-Athens and
Socrates-in-Thebes. But we might also count divisions in different changes, say,
Socrates-in-Athens and Cleon-in-Athens, if we were interested in counting how
many changes we were witnessing. Aristotle tells us he intends the first kind of
counting when he defines time as 'the number of change [counted] in respect of the
before and after' (219^1—2, emphasis mine). The Greek for 'in respect of (Kara)
could be used to translate 'by' in the English 'count by rows'. Just as we could
count a two-dimensional matrix horizontally or vertically, we could count changes
in respect of the before-and-after-in-Change, or in some other respect. But the
counting which helps to constitute time is counting 'by' or in respect of the before-
and-after-in-Change.
99
Coope, Time, 69—75; Roark, On Time, 63—79. Coope shows how one might de-
rive the order of any two divisions in change, by reference to the origin of the change.
Note that the perceiver need not be able to articulate the rule described in the main
text in order to follow it; even one who counts idly follows the rule as a matter of
course.
FIGURE 3
ber than A. By the second principle, the number used to count D

is greater than the number used to count C. By the first principle,
C is counted by the same utterance as B. By another application of
the second principle, the number used to count B is greater than
the number used to count A. So D has a greater temporal number
than A, and, therefore, is temporally later than A—even though D
and A stand in no kinetic before-and-after relations.
In Aristotle's cosmos, every division in every change is such that
a perceiver (perceiving normally) would, if she were interested in
the question, perceive it as simultaneous with some division in the
(eternal) rotation of the first heaven.100 By reference to the first hea-
ven, then, every pair of divisions in change can be related to one an-
other by an overlapping series of changes, as A and D are related in
the example just given. This fact ensures that what are intuitively
temporally later (respectively, earlier) divisions in changes will in-
variably have greater (respectively, lesser) temporal numbers. With
the eternal rotation of the first heaven in the background, Aristotle
could conclude that temporal order is given by the ordering of pro-
perties of the form having temporal number n. Divisions in changes
possess these ordered properties because of the way perceivers (per-
ceiving normally, and counting in accordance with the two prin-
ciples) do or would count them.
This extended theory replaces the natural numbers of the simple
theory of the now with the class of properties of the form having
temporal number n. This substitution allows the extension to avoid
the problems of the simple theory. If a perceiver counts a division
in a change, he or she actualizes a coupled entity composed of the
before-and-after-in-£/z<2£-change and its property being divided at
a division which has temporal number n. Aristotle does not name
the coupled individual composed of an individual change and the
property being divided at a division which has temporal number n.
His 'the now' (TO vvv] refers to a kind of such entities.101 The now
100
See e.g. Metaph. A 7, 1072*19-23; GC 2. 10, 336*14-17. The claim is intended
as an 'in principle' possibility, so we need not fiddle with putative counter-examples
about cloud cover or other obstructions of actual perceivers' view of the first heaven.
101
In particular, the expression TO vvv refers to the kind of the counted divisions
148 Harvey Lederman
is a coupled kind composed of the before-and-after-in-Change (the
kind) and a distinctive property being divided at a division which
has temporal number n. Each such kind has many counted-and-
divided-before-and-afters-in-changes as its members. If Cleon's
talk and Socrates' walk are divided at divisions which have the
same temporal number, then, in spite of being the before-and-
afters-in-different-changes, the before-and-after-in-Cleon's-talk
and the before-and-after-in-Socrates'-walk will belong to the same
now. They both belong to the coupled kind, the before-and-after-
in-Change, divided at a division which has temporal number n.102
3.3.2. Two passages Two instances of OPO describe the relation-

ship of the now to the before-and-after-in-Change. In both of these
passages Aristotle seeks to explain how 'the now is in one sense the
same, in another sense not the same'.103 His verdict is as follows.
The now (now) differs from the entity which was the now (at some
earlier time) in respect of its being (TO zlvai). The members of each
now are divided at a division which has a different temporal num-
ber from the temporal number which marks the members of every
other now. So this now is different in being from previous nows.
But in another sense, each now is the same as every other now:
in changes happening now. What Aristotle says about the now, however, is supposed
to apply more generally to every kind which either will play the role of the now in
the future, or has played that role in the past.
102 "Yhg view that the now is a kind makes sense of Aristotle's obscure explana-
tions of the idea that 'time is everywhere the same' (Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 b io-i2; 4. 12,
22O b 5~i2; 4. 14, 223 b 8-i2). Early on, Aristotle explains this idea (4. 12, 22Ob 10-12)
by analogy to the way in which the number of a hundred horses and the number of
a hundred people is different and yet the same. As Coope notes (Time, 118-20), he
glosses this notion of sameness of number at the end of Phys. 4. 14 (224^-15) by
observing that two triangles may be different triangles, while nevertheless being the
same shape, as compared with a circle. Sameness of kind suffices for two things to be
the same if the speaker's interest lies in the relevant kind. Similarly, Socrates' walk
and Cleon's talk are different changes, but they may be members of the same now (a
kind). (The point applies also to Phys. 4. 11, 22O a 2i~4, quoted above in n. 90, where
Aristotle says that the now, in so far as it is a number, can belong not only to one
thing, but to many.) The interpretation of the now as a kind allows us to take these
remarks about sameness of differentia (Sia</>opa) at face value. The interpretation also
remains faithful to what Aristotle actually says, while achieving an effect similar to
the anachronistic set-theoretic machinery of some interpreters (M. J. White, Aris-
totle on "Time" and "A Time'", Apeiron, 22.3 (1989), 207—24 at 211—13; Roark, On
Time, ch. n, esp. 183-4).
103
Phys. 4. 11, 219b12-13. Aristotle is sketching a solution to the problem posed
in Phys. 4. 10, 2i8a8-25.
(219 9 — I 5)
[c] And just as Change is always different, also time [is always different]
[d] (but all simultaneous time is the same: for the now, whichever it was,
is the same—but its being is different—[e] and the now measures time, in
so far as [it measures] before and after). 106 [f] But the now is the same in
one respect, and different in another, [g] For in so far as it [the now] is in
one [position] and another,107 it is different (for this was now for it) [h] but
whatever is such that, by being that, the now is, is the same.
The reasoning in this passage is straightforward, [c] Any two dis-

tinct divisions in the same change will have different temporal num-
bers: just as Change is different because changes would be divided
at different divisions, so too time is different because those differ-
ent divisions would have different numbers, [f] But the difference
between any two instants of time does not preclude a sense in which
any two instants are the same. For [h] each now is the same as every
other in respect of whatever is such that, by being that, the now is
a being.
What is the referent of OPO in this passage? A few lines later,
Aristotle indicates that whatever is such that, being that, the now
is, has a close relationship to the before-and-after-in-Change:
[i]
104
I retain the reading of the manuscripts, against Torstrik's emendation to op/£ei
and Ross's ^€pit,€i. The problem is a difficult one. E alone reads the verb after fj,
which may reflect the fact that it is natural to take a second instance of the verb as
implied after fj, as in my translation. In conversation, Malcolm Schofield suggested
excising the whole of my [e], on the grounds that it violates the train of thought in
the passage and can easily be understood to be a gloss, referring to what Aristotle
says at greater length elsewhere, in particular Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 a 22- b 2 and 22Oa 18-26.
105
Rejecting Bekker's elvai after vvv.
106 por tjie text see above) n jo^ The phrase o TTOT' rjv is not an instance of OPO,
in spite of the lexical similarity of the two expressions. Aristotle observes here that
'the now, whichever it was [o TTOT' fjv]' (that is, irrespective of its position in the
order of nows), was the same for all the before-and-afters-in-Change which were its
instances. This phrase generalizes over different nows without referring (as OPO
would) to the kind of the underliers of instances of the now.
107
Since 'the now' is supposed to be what differentiates temporal instants, it does
not make sense to say that different nows are different by being at different times.
My 'position' should thus be understood as 'position in the ordered series of divi-
sions which might be made in Change'.
150 Harvey Lederman
( 2 I Q 26~8)
[i] So that also in these cases [viz. of the now and the before-and-after]
whatever is such that, by being that, the now is, is the same (for the before-
and-after is the before-and-after-in-Change) [j] but its being is different
(for in so far as the before-and-after is countable, the now is).108
Every member of the now—the kind—is an instance of the before-

and-after-in-Change, divided at a division which has temporal
number n. The now is a being because it is the kind of the entities
which play the role of underliers for its members, that is, roughly,
because it is the before-and-after-in-Change. In [j] Aristotle says
that the now is a being 'in so far as the before-and-after is count-
able'. This statement holds for every now. But the fact that one can
count the before-and-after also explains how each now differs from
every other in being (TO efvai): each now is the before-and-after-in-
Change coupled with the property being divided at a division which
has temporal number n. If the members of two nows exhibit distinct
temporal numbers (say, n and m), the nows differ in being (TO zlvai).
Aristotle takes the before-and-after-in-Change to be intimately
related to that, by being which, the now is a being. He does not,
however, claim that the two kinds are identical. Aristotle's retreat
to the -ever free relative clause OPO in this passage fits with the
general hypothesis described in Section 3.2. The property being
divided at a division which has some temporal number or other is a
universal but non-definitional property for the before-and-after-
in-Change. Every before-and-after-in-<2-change has one endpoint,
bearing some property of the form 'divided at #', where q is its ter-
minus ad quern. So every before-and-after-in-a-change is divided at
least once.109 Moreover, every such division has a temporal num-
108
My translation of the final phrase follows Coope (Time, 128 with n. 9), against
the Oxford Translation. Bostock also allows this translation as a possibility (D.
Bostock, 'Aristotle's Account of Time', Phronesis, 25 (1980) 148-69; repr. in id.,
Space, Time Matter, and Form: Essays on Aristotle's Physics (Oxford, 2006), 135-57
at 145).
109
Eternal changes, of course, do not have natural termini (see Coope, Time, 75-
7). But one could extend the notion of the before-and-after to these changes, too. If
a perceiver perceives eternal changes, he or she divides them conceptually into finite
sections. These finite sections are divisible into ordered before-and-after series just
as other finite changes are. Whether or not Aristotle would accept this extension, in
the context of Phys. 4. 11, he seems to accept that the property applies to all changes
he is considering; after all, he begins this section by stating that what changes changes
from something into something (Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 a io—11).
ber. For a division to have a temporal number is for it to be the case
that it is possible for it to be counted, and that: if a soul did count
the division, it would count it in a given way. Aristotle believed that
necessarily, there are souls which can count. So every before-and-
aft er- in -a- change is divided at a division such that it is possible for
a perceiver to count it, and such that it is determined how the per-
ceiver would count it if he or she did. Thus, being divided at a divi-
sion which has some temporal number or other is a universal property
for the before-and-afters-in-changes. But even so, the property is
not mentioned in the definition of the before-and-after-in-Change.
Aristotle, I suggest, worries that if the before-and-after-in-
Change did not possess this universal property, it would not be the
before-and-after-in-Change. On my hypothesis, he uses the -ever
free relative clause OPO precisely because of this concern. The
referent of OPO is what would remain of the before-and-after-in-
Change if the latter were stripped of the property being divided at
a division which has some temporal number or other.
3.4. The thing-in-motion

In two instances of OPO from Physics 4. n, Aristotle uses the
phrase to refer to the underlier of a (f)€p6^€vov, a moving thing.110
Here Sarah Broadie has argued compellingly that 'a moving thing'
is 'a thing-in-motion', a coupled entity.111 This thing-in-motion is
best understood as a coupled entity composed of a movable thing
and a property of the form being in pT, where (pzy is the name of a
place. When the coupled thing-in-motion changes place, it changes
in being, because it changes its place.
In the first discussion of the thing-in-motion, Aristotle makes re-
ference to a sophistic puzzle:
(219b18-22)
And this [the thing-in-motion] is the same in respect of whatever is such
that, by being that [it is] (for it [the thing-in-motion] is either a point, or
110
4. I I , 2I9 b l8-22, 220a6-8.
111
Broadie, 'Now', 120—2. Cf. Coope, Time, 132—9. I borrow the expression
'thing-in-motion' from Coope. My interpretation of this entity differs from
Broadie's and Coope's. See below, n. 119, for a statement of the difference, and
defence of my interpretation.
152 Harvey Lederman
a stone, or some other such thing) but it is different in definition, just as

the sophists take Coriscus-in-the-Lyceum to be different from Coriscus-
in-the-agora. This, too, is different by being now here, now there. 112
The sophists included an accidental attribute (place) in the defi-

nition of Coriscus, and claimed that the difference in definition
between Coriscus-in-the-Lyceum and Coriscus-in-the-agora
entails that Coriscus is different from himself (as standardly
defined). 113 Aristotle here accepts—for present purposes—the so-
phistic definition of Coriscus as (say) Coriscus-in-^j, where (pTy
is the name of a place. As Coriscus moves, Coriscus-in-pj will
change in definition to Coriscus-in-/) 2 (where pT andp2 are distinct
places). As the underlier changes place, the coupled entity changes
in being.114
Aristotle accepts this sophistic definition because he wishes to
explain the way in which each now is the same as every other in
one respect, and different from every other in another respect. 115
If Coriscus is to help explain the now, Aristotle must somehow
erase a crucial disanalogy between the two entities. When Cori-
scus moves, Coriscus—a 'this such' (roSe ri)—remains Coriscus
throughout the change.116 Coriscus-in-pj and Coriscus-in-/) 2 have
the same individual as their underlier, and not just an underlier of
the same kind. Different nows, by contrast, will not in general have
the same individuals (before-and-afters-in-changes) as the entities
which play the role of underliers for their instances. So if Coriscus is
to provide a parallel with the now, Aristotle must not allow himself
112
Owen suggested TJ ariy/Aij in 2igbi() instead of rj ariy/Aij, as if Aristotle were
pointing to a whiteboard on which the point represented the moving object (G. E. L.
Owen, Aristotle on Time', in P. Machamer and R. Turnbull (eds.), Motion and
Time, Space and Matter (Columbus, Ohio, 1976), 3-27 at 22 n. 32; followed by
Miller (F. D. Miller, Aristotle on the Reality of Time', Archiv filr Geschichte der
Philosophie, 56 (1974), 132-55), who had heard Owen's paper in draft). If Owen's
suggestion is not accepted, it would be of some interest that Aristotle uses the point
here as an example of the 'thing-in-motion'. He would perhaps be describing the
typically Greek (but un-Aristotelian) generation of the line from a moving poin
(see e.g. Simpl. In Phys. 722. 27-30 Diels: T) ypa^r^ pvais any/A^s, 722. 28). Coope
makes a related point (Time, 136 n. 30).
113
On Coriscus see n. 63 above. Cf. also Brague, Temps, 128-9.
114
Coriscus is a particular substance, and so does not merely 'play the role of the
underlier'.
115
4. 11, 219 b 12—15, 31—3. This explanation may rely on the claim that the now
'follows' the thing-in-motion (4. 11, 2i9 b 22~3, 2i9 b 33-22O a io).
116
Aristotle contrasts the substantiality of the movable thing with the non-
substantiality of Change at 4. 11, 2i9 b 3O—i.
A Form of Explanation in A ristotle 153
to use the fact that a single individual persists throughout Coriscus'
motion. 117 Aristotle's answer to this problem is to conceive of Co-
riscus (the individual) as if he were the kind of the underliers of the
coupled kinds of the form Coriscus-in-£w.118
Aristotle again uses OPO of a thing-in-motion later in the
chapter, in his fullest explanation of the relationship between the
now and the thing-in-motion:
(220^4—14)
And time is continuous because of the now, and it is divided according
to the now. For this [the relationship between the now and the thing-
in-motion] 'follows' [the relationship between] motion and the thing-in-
motion. [k] For change and motion are also one because of the thing-in-
motion, because it is one (and not in respect of whatever is such that, by
being that, [it is]—for [if it only satisfied this condition] then it [the change]
might have a gap—but [the thing-in-motion must be the same] in account).
And this [the thing-in-motion] divides the earlier and later change. It fol-
lows the point in some sense: for the point also joins and divides length.
For it [the point] is the beginning of one [length] and the end of another.
But whenever someone grasps [the point] in this way, using one point as
two, it is necessary that the point stand still, if the same point will be begin-
ning and end. By contrast, because the thing-in-motion changes, the now
is always different.
In [k], Aristotle relies on an understanding of the thing-in-motion

as a coupled entity. Two things-in-motion which are the same in re-
spect of their underlier may still be different in definition. Since the
definition of the thing-in-motion mentions its place, if two things-
in-motion are in different places, they differ in definition. As Aris-
totle says, even if two things-in-motion have the same underlier,
there still may be a gap between their respective places. Thus Aris-
117
Aristotle's explanation depends on the conceit that Coriscus (and, later, the
thing-in-motion) are coupled kinds. But it bears repeating that he need not have
endorsed this doctrine in propria persona as the correct metaphysical analysis of sub-
stances which change.
118
Each of these kinds will, of course, have only a single member.
154 Harvey Lederman
totle requires a stronger criterion of sameness, in definition, to rule
out such gaps. He imposes this stronger criterion by requiring that
the thing-in-motion which holds a movement together be the same
both in the kind of its underlier (say, being Coriscus) and in the place
it occupies.119
Aristotle's explanatory gambit, which requires that he treat Co-
riscus as if he were a kind, prevents him from treating Coriscus as
the particular substance (roSe TI) he is. In line with this attempt to
use Coriscus to explain the now, Aristotle conceives of the coupled
Coriscus as if he were a kind formed from a determinable property
which is universal to instances of Coriscus, namely, being in some
place.
This baroque theory of Coriscus creates a problem of abstraction
analogous to the one we have encountered before. Every movable
thing is in some place,120 so being in some place is a universal de-
terminable property for movable things. But being in some place is
not mentioned in the definition of any movable substances. So the
relevant determinable property is universal but non-definitional for
movable substances. Aristotle then worries whether, if Coriscus (or
any thing-in-motion) were in no place at all, he would still be Co-
riscus. Aristotle uses the -ever free relative OPO to refer to what
Coriscus would be, if he were in no place at all.
119
Coope and Broadie take the thing-in-motion to be a coupled entity formed
from a thing and the property being in motion of such and such a sort. On Coope's and
Broadie's interpretation, if the thing-in-motion is the same in definition (where its
definition includes its motion), its motion will also be the same in definition, so that
this passage agrees fully with Physics 5. 4 (227b3~229a6, esp. 227b2O-228a2), where
Aristotle requires sameness in the definition (AoyosO of a change if the change is to be
continuous. This interpretation is elegant, but three points lead me to prefer the one
in the main text. First, when Aristotle explicates the case of Coriscus in the earlier
passage, he clearly couples Coriscus with his being in placep, where 'placep names a
place. Second, the Broadie-Coope interpretation cannot explain why Aristotle says
'for there might be a gap' (Phys. 4. n, 22Oa8). Sharp change of direction suffices
to end one change and begin a different one, but it does not suffice to leave a gap
between them. Third, and finally, including motion in the definition of the thing-
in-motion disrupts the parallel with the now. What differs about successive nows
cannot be how they are changing (whatever that would mean), but is rather their
position in the before-and-after series.
In my view, our passage states necessary conditions for the unity and continuity
of a change (sufficient conditions are given later, in Phys. 5.4). The thing-in-motion
can ensure the continuity (or at least contiguity) of a motion or two motions only if
we select the same instantaneous stage of this coupled entity.
120
Phys. 4. 5, 2i2 b 7-n.
3.5. Time and the soul
Aristotle claims that time is 'something of change',121 in particular,
that it 'is the number of change [counted] in respect of the before
and after. Time is not change, but [it is change] in so far as change
has a number'. 122 As Aristotle goes on to say, time is the number
as counted, and not the number by which we count. 123 Thus, time is
Change-which-is-numbered. It is not (or: not just) a number which
could also be used to number spatial magnitudes or, for that matter,
any continua whatsoever. As a coupled entity composed of change
and its number, time is the number only of Change; it is a property
of no other entity.
These remarks about time fit neatly with the theory of tem-
poral numbers developed earlier. A given interval of time, like the
now, is a coupled kind: the before-and-after-in-Change coupled
with its property, being divided at a division which has temporal
number n and divided at a division which has temporal number m,
where n and m are distinct. Consider Socrates' walk, and Cleon's
talk. The before-and-after-in-the-change-divided-at-Socrates-at-
the-Metroon-w-and-at-Socrates-at-the-Stoa-m is different from
the-before-and-after-in-the-change-between-Cleon-^roem-w-and-
deon-narratio-m, where c n' and c m' name temporal numbers.
They are, after all, before-and-afters in different changes. Bu
these two coupled individuals belong to the same coupled kind: the
before-and-after-in-Change-divided-at-a-division-counted-by-w-
and-at-a-division-counted-by-m. That coupled kind is the interval
of time between n and m. Every interval of time has a unique pair of
temporal numbers which all of its members have at their counted
termini. Time itself is measured by such intervals, which it has as
121
This 'of is parallel to a definition in SE 31, i82a4-6 (cf. SE 13, i73 b 9-n),
where Aristotle proposes that one should define snubness as 'concavity of a nose'.
The parallel may be more than merely lexical; it may be that just as snubness is con-
cavity of a nose, time is the number of change. If this parallel is the right one, it
provides further evidence that time is a per se attribute of changes (once again, in
the second sense of per se described in Post. An. i. 4). As argued in sect. 3.2, this
claim, in turn, supports the hypothesis that time can be understood as a coupled
kind (roughly) composed of Change and its number.
122
(Phys. 4. 11, 219 1—3).

123
(Phys. 4. 11, 219 5~9)-

156 Harvey Lederman
124
parts. Time is thus the continuum of divisions which could be
made and counted in Change.
As we have seen, divisions have temporal numbers because per-
ceivers do or would count them in a specific way. In Physics 4. 14,
Aristotle turns directly to the relationship between time and the
percipient soul, and asks: if soul were not, would time still be? In
answer to this question, he uses OPO to explain the relationship
between time and the before-and-after-in-Change:
(223 & 2I—9)

Someone might question whether, if soul were not, time would or would
not be. For since it would be impossible for there to be something which
will count, it would also be impossible for there to be something counted,
[1] so that it is clear that [in such a situation] neither would there be num-
ber. For a number is either the thing counted, or the thing which is able
to be counted. But if nothing is by nature able to count other than the soul
and the mind of the soul, it is impossible that there be time when the soul
is not, except this, whatever is such that, by being that, time is, [m] that is,
if it is possible that change be without soul. And the before and after is in
change. And time is these [the before and afters in change] in so far as they
are countable [or: counted].
In [1], Aristotle expresses a view in the philosophy of mathematics:

if there were no intelligent beings which could count, there would
be no numbers. Aristotle argues for his view by claiming that num-
bers are either what is counted or what is countable. The relation-
ship between this remark and Aristotle's earlier distinction between
the number by which we count and the number as counted should
be understood as follows. Aristotle holds that numbers are not basic
entities: they are derivative properties of substances. When clarify-
ing the meaning of his definition of time, he was happy to refer to
an independent, abstract number 'by which we count'. But when
considering the metaphysical status of numbers, Aristotle takes a
more careful view: those 'numbers by which we count' are them-
selves classified either as what is counted or what is countable.
124
Cf. 4. 10, 2i8a3~8, with 4. 11, 22oa 18-21.
125
For Aristotle, time is in part a kind of number. It follows that,
if there were no souls, and hence no numbers, there would also be
no time. But, as we have seen, temporal numbers also depend in a
further way on percipient souls' activity of counting divisions. Di-
visions in changes have temporal numbers because percipient souls
could count them, and, if they did, would count them in a particu-
lar way.126
Still, Aristotle qualifies this view of the non-existence of time.
Even if there were no souls which could count divisions, there
would still be a continuum of ordered divisions in changes. Each
change would still be divisible into its before and after series, and
there would still be the before-and-after-in-Change, the kind of the
entities which play the role of underliers for the members of each
now.127 So in the absence of souls, some entity related to the before-
and-after-in-Change is all that would be left of time, if, that is—as
Aristotle is quick to add—change itself could be without soul.
This passage provides strong support for my earlier hypothesis,
that Aristotle uses the —ever free relative clause OPO in the Physics
because he is uncertain of what an entity would be like in a spe-
cific counterfactual situation. Here Aristotle explicitly considers a
counterfactual (in fact, a counterpossible) situation in which a uni-
versal determinable property (having a temporal number) would not
exist. He expresses his concern (in [m]) whether, in a counterfac-
tual situation in which there are no numbers, Change would still
be Change. This doubt infects his view of the before-and-after-in-
Change as well. In accord with the hypothesis discussed in previ-
ous sections, Aristotle here does not identify the referent of OPO
with the before-and-after-in-Change. He does not assert that the
two are identical because he is uncertain whether, if there were no
temporal numbers, the before-and-after-in-Change would still be
the before-and-after-in-Change.
125
Not in my technical sense of 'kind'. For 'a kind of see Phys. 4. 11, 2i9 b 5.
126
The scope of 'because' is intended to extend to the end of the sentence.
127
In the main text I take the view that the before-and-after-in-Change is more
closely related to the referent of OPO here than Change itself is. But the point is
not required for my interpretation. Aristotle's official definition of time as the num-
ber of change elides the importance of the before-and-after-in-Change, which more
proximately plays the role of the underlier for time. But since the before-and-after-
in-Change itself is a coupled kind composed in part from &per se attribute of Change,
time (which is composed from a per se attribute of this coupled entity itself) is also
per se of Change. So either interpretation of this text would fit with my interpreta-
tion.
158 Harvey Lederman
3.6. The argument against essentialist and existentialist interpreta-
tions of OPO
This concludes my analysis of the passages in which OPO occurs.
But I have so far postponed arguing that the second main claim of
my interpretation of OPO—that the final 'is' (ecm) of OPO is to
be interpreted as 'is a being'—applies to the instances of OPO in
the Physics. As I will now show, an argument similar to the one
presented in Section 2.6.1 applies to each of these six instances of
OPO. The essentialist and existential interpretations of OPO fail in
every instance of the phrase.
The last four sections have aimed to establish that a number of
key entities in Aristotle's theory of time are coupled kinds. My ar-
guments that Aristotle understood the relevant entities as coupled
entities did not rely on my interpretation of OPO. The fact that
Aristotle viewed these entities as coupled kinds, then, can be used
without dialectical unfairness as a premiss in the argument against
the essentialist and existential interpretations of OPO:
(lA) For the before-and-after-in-Change to be what it is is only

in part for the before-and-after-in-Change to be Change.
For the before-and-after-in-Change to be what it is it must
also be divisible into some ordered series of divisions. (3.2)
(iB) For the now to be what it is is only in part for the now to
be the before-and-after-in-Change. For the now to be what
it is it must also be divided at a division which has temporal
number n. (3.3)
(iC) For the thing-in-motion to be what it is is only in part for
it to be a stone or Coriscus, or any movable thing. For the
thing-in-motion to be what it is, it must also be in placep,
where 'placep names a place. (3.4)
(iD) For time to be what it is is only in part for time to be
the before-and-after-in-Change. For time to be what it is
it must also be divided at a division which has temporal num-
ber n and divided at a division which has temporal number
m. (3.5)
In all four sets of passages discussed in Section 3 (the before-and-

after-in-Change; the now; the thing-in-motion; time), Aristotle
explicitly mentions an entity which is intimately related to the
referent of OPO. My interpretation of these remarks about the
referent of OPO has also not presupposed my interpretation of the
final 'is' in OPO.128 Here, too, we can legitimately use the fact that
the different instances of OPO have the referents they have in an
argument against the essentialist and existential interpretations of
the phrase.
(zA) In Phys. 4. 11, 219*20-1, the referent of OPO is closely re-

lated to Change.
(zB) In Phys. 4. n, 21 gb 14-15 and 2i9 b z6, the referent of OPO
is closely related to the before-and-after-in-Change.
(zC) In Phys. 4. n, 2i9 b i8 and 220*8, the referent of OPO is
closely related to some arbitrary movable thing.
(zD) In Phys. 4. 14, 223*27, the referent of OPO is closely related
to the before-and-after-in-Change.
The qualification 'is closely related to' is required to account for

Aristotle's use of the —ever free relative clause. In each of these cases,
the referent of OPO is whatever would be left if the entity in ques-
tion were stripped of a universal but non-definitional property.
Our next premiss is derived from the kind of explanation Aris-
totle gives by way of the participle:
(3) If a is what it is by being F, then for a to be what it is is for a

to be F.
The argument for this premiss is the same as the argument given in
Section 2.6.1. The explanations we have considered can be neither
material nor efficient; the participle indicates an explanation ana-
logous to explanations by the formal cause. For example, Aristotle
explains time by describing what time is. And this explanation can-
not be merely partial, if Aristotle's use of the free relative clause
OPO is not to suffer from a failure of the linguistic presupposition
that a unique entity satisfies the description within the clause.
Finally, according to the essentialist interpretation:
(General Essentialist Thesis) The referent of OPO is the F such

that, by being F, a is what it is.
The new argument is simpler than the version given earlier. If we

remove 'closely related to' from (2A), then (lA), the revised (2A),
128
In sect. 3.2 I used the fact that OPO is an -ever free relative to argue against
the transmitted 'is' (eanv), but this component of my interpretation is independent
of my interpretation of the final 'is'.
160 Harvey Lederman
the General Essentialist Thesis, and (3) are inconsistent. We can
also derive a contradiction from the other pairs of premisses in (i)
and (2) in the same way. For example, the revised (zB) together with
the General Essentialist Thesis and (3) yields: for the now to be
what it is is for the now to be the before-and-after-in-Change. But
this statement contradicts (iB). The qualification 'is closely related
to' was required to respect Aristotle's use of the —ever free relative
clause. But as we have seen, the concern which drove Aristotle to
use this form of expression is that the referent is in a sense missing
an aspect of Change or the before-and-after-in-Change. Removing
the qualification strengthens the case for the essentialist thesis here,
since with the qualification removed, the referent of OPO is closer
to being the being of the entity to be explained (the now, time).
So even if we restore the qualification in (zA) and (zB), but keep
in mind the reason for the qualification, a contradiction still fol-
lows. The same line of reasoning applies to (iC) and (zC), and (iD)
and (zD).
This argument against the essentialist interpretation can also be
used against the existential interpretation of OPO. Replace every
occurrence of 'be what it is' in (iA)—(iD) with 'exist', and note that
these premisses remain true by Aristotle's lights. (zA)-(zD) require
no alteration. In place of (3) and the General Essentialist Thesis, the
revised argument uses the following two premisses:
(3ex) If a exists by being F, then for a to exist is for a to be F.

(General Existential Thesis) The referent of OPO is the F such
that, by being F, a exists.
The argument is analogous to the one I have already given.129
4. Conclusion
In every instance, OPO refers to the kind of the entities which play
the role of the underlier for the members of a coupled kind. Aris-
129
The argument I have just given does rely on an interpretation in which, for ex-
ample, the now is a coupled kind (these interpretations gave us (iA) through (iD)).
But a version of the argument could be given even on a variety of alternative inter-
pretations of this notion. In fact, for five of the six passages in which Aristotle uses
OPO (the exception is Phys. 4. n, 219^9-21, where Coope and I print different
texts), a version of this argument can be given using Coope's interpretations of the
relevant notions in place of my (iA)—(iD).
totle cites the referent of OPO as part of his explanation of the
coupled kind's being a being. For example, the kind sanguineous
fluid is that, by being which, the kind blood is a being.
In OPO, the participle 6V ('by being') indicates a specifically me-
taphysical kind of explanation. Throughout this paper, I have em-
phasized two features of the explanations Aristotle gives when he
uses OPO. First, as I have argued, Aristotle takes the explanandum
of this explanation to be an entity's being a being (and not its being
what it is, or its existing). I hope that this insight into the explana-
tions contained in OPO will be a useful datum for those who seek
to understand Aristotle's more common metaphysical explanations,
for example those described by 'priority in being'.
Second, in these passages Aristotle explains the relevant entity
(say, blood) by describing its relationship to a non-substance. In
Physics 4. 11-14 in particular, Aristotle considers properties of non-
substances at length. In the opening lines of his positive account of
time, he discusses properties of magnitude, change, and time. He
then focuses on one property of these non-substantial entities: the
before-and-after. In fact, the theory of time which Aristotle deve-
lops involves layers of coupled entities. For example, the before-
and-after-in-Change (which is itself a coupled kind) is coupled with
a further property to form the now. For each of these complicated
coupled entities, Aristotle follows the same explanatory tactic. He
explains the coupled kinds by describing their relationship to the
kind of the non-substantial entities which play the role of underlier
for their members.
Christ Church, Oxford
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ARISTOTLE AND THE COGNITIVE
COMPONENT OF EMOTIONS
GILES PEARSON
Introduction
A R I S T O T L E thinks that emotions have cognitive content. Anger

involves cognizing oneself as having been insulted or slighted; fear
involves cognizing oneself as in imminent danger; pity involves cog-
nizing someone as having suffered some undeserved misfortune,
and so on. Clearly, then, in order for an agent to experience an emo-
tion, on Aristotle's view, such cognitive content has to be grasped
by a cognitive state that the agent possesses. Now, interestingly, just
as in current discussions of emotions there is a dispute about what
sort of cognitive state is essential to emotions, with some advocat-
ing perceptual theories and others belief-based theories,1 a dispute
has emerged concerning whether Aristotle advocates a phantasia-
based account of emotions, according to which emotions are some
kind of perceptual construal or imagining, or whether he is instead
best thought of as holding some kind of belief-based view. Further-
more, each camp not only thinks that their interpretation of Aris-
totle is the most likely; they also think that their reading provides
Aristotle with the most philosophically plausible position. I shall
argue that neither camp is right, and on both counts. On my view,
Aristotle thinks that a variety of psychological states can grasp the
© Giles Pearson 2014
An earlier version of this paper was presented to the B Club at Cambridge Univer-
sity in May 2012. I thank the audience for their probing questions, which prompted
significant expansion and development of the paper. I would also like to thank the
editor for his comments on the version first submitted to this journal.
1
For a general discussion see R. de Sousa, 'Emotion', in Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 edition) <http://plato.Stanford.
edu/archives/spr2Oi2/entries/emotion/>, §§ 5-6. For another perceptual theory, be-
sides Roberts's discussed in sect. 2 below, see J. Prinz, Gut Reactions: A Perceptual
Theory of Emotions (Oxford, 2004). For contemporary accounts of emotions as a type
of judgement see e.g. R. C. Solomon, The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life
(Indianapolis, 1993), 125-32, and (in line with her interpretation of Aristotle consi-
dered below) M. C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions
(Cambridge, 2001), ch. i.
166 Giles Pearson
cognitive content involved in emotions, and he is right to think
so. To see the plausibility of this account, both as an interpreta-
tion of Aristotle and philosophically, it will help to review some
key arguments that have been put forward in the debate thus far.
Thus, I shall first provide a sketch of some of the key points in
the current debate (Part I) before reconsidering Aristotle's view
(Part II).
Part I: Outline of the Current Debate
i. A phantasia-based reading of Aristotle's account of the emotions
In his definitions of different emotions in book 2 of the Rhetoric,

Aristotle repeatedly uses phantasia (imagination, appearance, con-
strual) and cognates to explain how the emotion in question relates
to what I call its 'focal' cognitive content, that is, the basic cognitive
content that marks out any given emotion from other emotions.2 For
example, he claims that fear (phobos) is a distress or disturbance ow-
ing to the appearance (ek phantasias) of some destructive or painful
evil in the future (2. 5, 1382*21-2), that shame (aischune) is a dis-
tress or disturbance owing to the appearance (phantasia) of disgrace
(2. 6, I383 b i2-i3, with 2. 6, 1384*22), and that pity (eleos) is a pain
at an apparent (epi phainomenoi) evil, destructive or painful, which
befalls one who does not deserve it (2. 8, I385 b i3-i4). In the light of
this, a view has become popular that Aristotle thinks that emotions
essentially involve phantasia and so (along the lines of Aristotle's
account of phantasia in DA 3 . 3 ) are to be understood as some kind
of quasi-perceptual construal. John Cooper writes:
It seems likely that Aristotle is using phantasia here to indicate that sort
of nonepistemic appearance to which he draws attention once in De anima
3. 3 (428b2~4), according to which something may appear to, or strike one,
in some way (say, as being insulting or belittling) even if one knows there
is no good reason for one to take it so. If so, Aristotle is alert to the crucial
fact about the emotions, that one can experience them simply on the basis
of how, despite what one knows or believes to be the case, things strike
2
Others refer to this in different ways. R. Roberts, for example, refers to this con-
tent as 'the defining proposition' of an emotion (Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral
Psychology [Emotions] (Cambridge, 2003), e.g. 110).
one—how things look to one when, for one reason or another, one is dis-
posed to feel the emotion.3
Gisela Striker goes on to suggest that phantasia is in fact the denn-
ing feature of emotions for Aristotle:
What serves as the denning feature—the differentia specified, as it were—
is in almost all cases an impression or appearance (phantasia}—that a ter-
rible evil is near, that someone has suffered an undeserved misfortune, that
one has been treated with disrespect, and so on—which causes the pain or
disturbance. It is evident that Aristotle is deliberately using the term 'im-
pression' rather than, say, 'belief (doxa) in his definitions in order to make
the point that these impressions are not to be confused with rational judg-
ments. Emotions are caused by the way things appear to one unreffectively,
and one may experience an emotion even if one realizes that the impression
that triggered it is in fact mistaken.4
On this view, Aristotle has specifically selected phantasia, rather
than belief, as the cognitive capacity that grasps the cognitive con-
tent involved in emotions.
Cooper and Striker evidently think that such an account of the
emotions has a philosophical advantage—hence they both slide
from characterizing Aristotle's account to making claims about
what emotions in fact are. The putative advantage is that in ty-
ing emotions to appearances or impressions Aristotle can explain
how emotions can come apart from, and indeed conflict with, our
beliefs or judgements.
For ease of reference, let me refer to this interpretation of Aris-
totle's account of the cognitive component of emotions as 'thephan-
to/<2-based reading'. 5
2. A construal account of emotions
Interestingly, a contemporary account of emotions bears a striking

similarity to this view of emotions as a type of appearance or impres-
3
'An Aristotelian Theory of Emotions' ['Emotions'], in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays
on Aristotle's Rhetoric [Essays Rhet.] (Berkeley, 1996), 238-57 at 247.
4
'Emotions in Context: Aristotle's Treatment of the Passions in the Rhetoric and
his Moral Psychology' ['Emotions'], in Rorty (ed.), Essays Rhet., 286-302 at 291.
5
A recent defence of this view by J. Moss (Aristotle on the Apparent Good:
Perception, Phantasia, Thought, and Desire [Apparent Good] (Oxford, 2012)) will be
considered later. See also P. Nieuwenburg, 'Emotion and Perception in Aristotle's
Rhetoric', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 80. i (2002), 86—100.
168 Giles Pearson
FIG. i. 'My wife and my mother-in-law'

sion. Robert Roberts argues that emotions are a kind of construal.6
Roberts introduces the general notion of a construal by example
(Emotions, 69-75). One kind of example he appeals to is gestalt fi-
gures, such as the old woman/young woman image reproduced in
Figure i. Roberts understands seeing an old woman in the image
as a matter of construing the figure as an old woman, and seeing a
young woman in the image as a matter of construing the figure as a
young woman, and he thereby takes the image to bring to light two
different construals.1 He also notes:
the two construals are not sheer subjectivity; the viewer does not create the
figure as she might if she were drawing it. Instead she discovers something
that is there in the drawing. Yet it is not as though the old lady is the truth
about the picture, while the young lady is not. Different as the construals
6
See R. Roberts, 'What an Emotion Is: A Sketch', Philosophical Review, 97
(1988), 183-209; 'Propositions and Animal Emotion', Philosophy, 71 (1996), 147—
56; Emotions, esp. ch. 2.
7
Image created by W. E. Hill, first published in Puck in 1915. If you are having
trouble seeing either figure, it may help to note that the old woman's chin is the neck
of the young woman and the old woman's eye is the young woman's ear. The duck/
rabbit ambiguous figure is another similar image.
Aristotle and the Cognitive Component of Emotions 169 169
are, neither is to be preferred to the other, absent some special conventional

circumstances. (Emotions, 71)
Roberts thinks that emotions, too, are a kind of construal. They in-
volve construing circumstances, people, or states of affairs in cer-
tain ways. And Roberts explicitly contrasts his account of emotions
as a kind of construal with the view that emotions are a kind of
judgement or belief. He resists the latter on three main grounds
(Emotions, stated 84, discussed § 2.4, 89-103), the first of which will
be familiar to us from the phantasia-based reading of Aristotle:
(1) The prepositional content of some full-fledged emotions is

not 'assented to' by the subject of the emotion. Phobic reac-
tions are provided as paradigmatic examples.
(2) The very same judgement that is supposed to be identical
with the emotion in question is sometimes made in the ab-
sence of the emotion.
(3) Emotions are subject to Voluntary control' in a way they
would not be if they were judgements.
Roberts (Emotions, 89-103) thinks that his construal account of

emotions can account for these phenomena, (i) is accounted for by
the fact that agents can construe a situation a certain way without
assenting to the judgement that it is in fact that way (Emotions,
89-93). ( 2 ) i§ explained by the fact that emotions are construals,
not judgements. And (3) is accounted for by the fact that constru-
als, in contrast to judgements, have the sort of voluntariness that is
required—cf. the fact that we can voluntarily switch from constru-
ing the gestalt figure above as an old woman or as a young woman.8
If Aristotle understands emotions in the way the phantasia-based
reading suggests, his view would seem close to the construal account
advocated by Roberts. Indeed, it is striking that Roberts explicitly
equates his notion of 'construal' with phantasia: 'on the view that
8
Note, however, that there is at least a prima facie tension between (i) and (3):
the phobic's response may well often seem to be out of the control of the agent. (In-
deed, Cooper thinks that the phantasia-based view enables us to account for cases
in which we are unable to control the emotion: '[bjeing unable to control an emo-
tion is, partly, taking as a ground of it something that you know was not one at all'
('Emotions', 247).) But the construal account need not claim that every case of emo-
tion is equally under our control (some people might not be able to see the gestalt as
a young woman), and even the phobic may be able to control his emotion in some
sense, e.g. he may know that therapy will be able to cure him from construing the
snake as dangerous.
170 Giles Pearson
I am proposing', he claims, 'emotions are concern-based phanta-
siaiy (Emotions, 90). Advocates of the phantasia-based reading may
thereby see their interpretation as providing Aristotle with a presci-
ent account of emotions, one that pre-empts the construal account
championed by Roberts.
3. A belief-based reading of Aristotle's account of emotions

However, there is a rival interpretation—advocated by e.g. Martha
Nussbaum and, more recently, Jamie Dow.9 On this reading, it is a
mistake to attribute the phantasia-based view to Aristotle. Instead,
Aristotle is best thought of as advocating a belief-based account of
emotions. Furthermore, the phantasia-based account does not have
the philosophical advantage it was thought to have (Dow).
Let us start with the interpretative question. Dow notes that in
spite of the fact that the phantasia-based reading holds that the
reason Aristotle employs phantasia (rather than belief) in his ac-
counts of the emotions in the Rhetoric is to distinguish the cogni-
tive component of emotions from rational judgements—and hence
to allow for recalcitrant emotions, such as the phobic's fear—in fact,
not once in Aristotle's discussion of the emotions in book 2 of the
Rhetoric is there a reference to such a recalcitrant emotion.10 This
is somewhat surprising. If it were so integral to Aristotle's usage
of phantasia in this work that he wanted to account for recalcit-
rant emotions, one might have thought that he would have either
(a) mentioned the point, or (b) employed the idea in at least some (or
indeed one) of the numerous examples of emotions that he provides
in these chapters. But in fact he is silent in both respects.
If this might at least make us suspicious of the phantasia-based
reading, that suspicion might incline us to return to the Rhetoric
to investigate the way Aristotle employs phantasia and cognates in
the rest of the text, to see if that has any bearing on the matter.11 If
9
M. C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Eth-
ics [Therapy] (Princeton, 1994), ch. 3; J. Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic? Emotions and Ap-
pearances in Aristotle' ['Feeling Fantastic'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 37
(2009), 143-75. See also S. R. Leighton, Aristotle and the Emotions', in Rorty (ed.),
Essays Rhet., 206-37, and W. W. Fortenbaugh Aristotle on Emotion [Emotion] (Lon-
don, 1975; 2nd edn. with added 'Epilogue' 2002), 94-103.
10
Dow claims that this holds in general across all of Aristotle's works ('Feeling
Fantastic', 152 and 152 n. 35).
11
Grammatically, phainesthai-cum-infinitive indicates that a thing appears to be so
we do this, Dow suggests, we find that the phantasia-based reading
(which, recall, claims that Aristotle is using phantasia in a way that
contrasts with belief and judgement) founders. He writes:
Phantasia and cognates are important words in the Rhetoric as a whole,
and are used to indicate how the listener takes things to be. The words are
used to make clear that this is not necessarily how things actually are. So,
someone can be persuaded by something that she thinks is a piece of good
rhetorical reasoning, even if it is not—this would be a case of persuasion
by 'apparent enthymeme' (phainomenon enthumema, I356b2~3), just as in
dialectic someone can be brought to draw the conclusion based on what
she takes to be a reasonable inference, even if the inference is not in fact
reasonable. In cases like these, it would be absurd to understand 'apparent
enthymeme' as meaning something that has the visual or auditory appear-
ance of an enthymeme. This has nothing to do with sensory appearances at
all. It simply marks how the listener takes the matters under discussion (not
just signs or sounds) to stand. The word 'apparent' (phainomenon) empha-
sizes that how the person takes things may not be correct—she takes this
to be an enthymeme but it may not actually be one. ('Feeling Fantastic',
I53-4)12
If this is how phantasia and cognates are used elsewhere in the Rhe-
toric, there would be a natural presumption in favour of thinking
that this is how they are being employed in Aristotle's discussions
of the emotions. And, given the lack of an explicit reference to re-
calcitrant emotions in Aristotle's discussions of the emotions in the
Rhetoric, there seems little reason to think that the notion of phan-
tasia in which it contrasts with belief must be in play none the less.
There is a further supporting corollary. If Dow and Nussbaum
were right, we would expect Aristotle in Rhetoric book 2 to be
content to switch interchangeably between phantasia (and cog-
nates) and other thought-/belief-based terminology. But in fact,
as Dow notes, this is precisely what we do find—with Aristotle
frequently employing (cognates of) oiesthai (to think), nomizein
(to hold, to believe), and dokein (to believe) in his discussions of
emotions as well.13
Dow concludes that Aristotle is using phantasia and cognates in
and so, whereas phainesthai-cum-particip\e states that it manifestly is so and so (see
LSJ s.v.), but this distinction does not align with the distinction between the phan-
tasia-based reading and the belief-based reading, and in any event Aristotle does not
use such constructions in his definitions of the emotions.
12
Dow appears to be following Fortenbaugh (Emotion, 97) here.
13
He cites 2. 4, i38ob37, 138^18; 2. 5, i382b29~34, 1383*26; see also 2. 3, i38obi6-
172 Giles Pearson
his discussion of the emotions in the Rhetoric 'to indicate that, for
example, what is involved in fear is not that harm actually threatens,
but that the fearful person takes it that harm threatens' ('Feeling
Fantastic', 155). In so doing, he is, Dow claims, 'alive to what really
is a crucial and central fact about emotions, namely that they are re-
lated to the subject's perspective' (ibid.).
Although the dispute here concerns how phantasia is used in the
Rhetoric, I shall, for the sake of clarity, continue to use the phrase
'phantasia-based reading' (of Aristotle's account of the emotions)
to refer to the reading that makes phantasia, in the sense in which
it contrasts with belief and judgement (i.e. as seen especially in DA
3. 3), necessary for emotions. We can then say that Dow and Nuss-
baum dispute whether phantasia and cognates in the Rhetoric are
employed in the way that the phantasia-based reading maintains.
Instead, both Dow and Nussbaum take the Rhetoric usage of
phantasia and cognates to suggest that Aristotle thinks that beliefs
are necessary for emotions. Nussbaum writes:
we can see by looking at Aristotle's accounts [of the emotions in the Rhe-
toric] that the [focal] beliefs must be regarded as constituent parts of what
the emotion is . . . Emotions . . . are individuated by reference to their
characteristic beliefs. We cannot describe the pain that is peculiar to fear,
or say how fear differs from grief or pity, without saying that it is pain at
the thought of a certain sort of future event that is believed to be impending.
(Therapy, 88)
Likewise, Dow suggests that Aristotle's account of the emotions

could be called a 'beliefs-view' since 'the distinctive outlook' of
emotions is not a matter of 'how things merely appear to the
subject—but of how the subject takes things to be' ('Feeling Fan-
tastic', 173). Now, of course, taking-things-to-be-a-certain-way
(even though they may not in fact be that way) could be captured
by saying that things appear to one a certain way (even though
they may not in fact be that way). But, in advocating the phanta-
mz-based reading, Cooper and Striker evidently did not have in
mind taking-things-to-be-a-certain-way, since, following DA 3 . 3 ,
4z8ai8-b9, they explicitly appealed to a notion of phantasia that
is distinct from belief or judgement, and took this independence
from belief to account for cases in which one may experience an
17; 2. 8, I385 b i6-i8, I385b24; 2. 9, 1387^*24-5; 2. 10, I387b34; and see also Nussbaum,
Therapy, 85-6.
emotion even if one judges that one's impression or appearance is
mistaken (hence the view can explain recalcitrant emotions). By
contrast, Dow insists ('Feeling Fantastic', §§ 5-6) that the 'tech-
nical' account of phantasia that Aristotle develops in DA 3. 3, in
which phantasia is distinguished from belief, cannot be in play
in the Rhetoric account of the emotions, because in the former
Aristotle explicitly rules out the idea that phantasia is or involves
a belief, whereas in the latter it appears that belief is necessary for
emotion ('Feeling Fantastic', 164).
In fact, Dow also appeals (ibid.) to a passage early on in DA 3 . 3 ,
which he thinks supports his view. Aristotle writes:
when we believe [doxazein] that something is terrible or alarming we are
immediately affected correspondingly, and similarly if it is something en-
couraging; but in the case of phantasia we are just as if we saw the terrible
or encouraging things in a picture. (427b2i~4)14
Dow concedes that strictly speaking this passage only claims that
such beliefs are sufficient for emotions, whereas equivalent phan-
tasiai are not; it does not claim that phantasia cannot generate
emotions. However, he thinks that the passage, when coupled with
Aristotle's general awareness of the idea that emotions are sensi-
tive to (changes in) what the subject believes, 'strongly suggests
(though it is not explicit)' that Aristotle's position 'is that belief is
also necessary for emotion' ('Feeling Fantastic', 164).
Finally, consider the putative philosophical advantage that the
phantasia-based account was alleged to possess, namely, that it
could explain recalcitrant emotions better than a judgement-based
view. Dow resists even this. He concedes that the phantasia-
based view might well accommodate the possibility of recalcitrant
emotions.15 But we standardly hold not only that recalcitrant emo-
14
Translations of De anima in this paper are based on those in D. W. Hamlyn,
Aristotle: De Anima Books II and III (with Passages from Book /), with a report on
recent work and a revised bibliography by C. Shields (Oxford, 1993; rev. edn. of the
1968 original).
15
In a note, Dow suggests that it might do so too easily, however: 'is it really pos-
sible to feel grief that someone is dead, while believing that the person is still alive?'
(147 n. 14). In a subsequent note he adds: 'a fully developed view would need to pay
attention to differences between emotions on this point: the irrationality of fearing
spiders known to be harmless is not the same as that of grieving for the death of
someone known not to have died' (148 n. 6). (In fact, although we know what Dow
is getting at, it seems clear that we can in some sense grieve for the death of someone
we know full well has not died—hence we can form emotions about fictional people
or in response to fictional scenarios, on which see sect. 10 below.)
174 Giles Pearson
tions exist, but also that they are irrational, as with the phobic's
fear. And yet it seems, as Dow points out, that 'conflicts between
how appearances stand and how the same subject takes things to
be involve no irrationality whatsoever' ('Feeling Fantastic', 147).
Why should an agent be charged with irrationality simply owing
to the fact that things appear to him or her a certain way? The
phantasia-based view, Dow contests, eliminates 'the source of
irrationality of emotions whose content conflicts with the subject's
better beliefs' (ibid.).
This objection can be applied straight back to Roberts's construal
account of emotions as well. In so far as Roberts explains recalcit-
rant emotions by appealing to the idea that in such cases the agent
construes circumstances a certain way without 'assenting' to the
content of that construal (Emotions, 89-91), his account would fail
to explain the irrationality of such emotions. For, a (non-assenting)
construal of a snake as dangerous (it appearing to one that the snake
is dangerous) is perfectly compatible with believing that the snake
is not dangerous. Hence an emotion formed on the basis of such a
construal would not count as irrational. But we tend to think that
such an emotion is irrational. 16
4. The phantasia-based reading revived
However, just as the belief-based reading of Aristotle's account of

the cognitive component of emotions may be beginning to look at-
tractive, Jessica Moss has recently attempted to revive the phanta-
mz-based reading.
Moss first attempts to undermine Dow's contention that the Rhe-
toric does not employ phantasia in the technical sense we find in
DA 3 . 3 . She finds a particularly clear instance of phantasia in the
technical sense in Rhet. 2. 2, when, in discussing the pleasure asso-
ciated with anger, Aristotle refers to the phantasia stemming from
thoughts-about-retaliating as producing pleasure, 'just as does the
phantasia that occurs in dreams' (i378 b io). Moss notes:
This is an explicit comparison between phantasies role in a paradigm
passion and its role in one of the phenomena attributed to it by the psycho-
logical works, dreams (see De insomn., throughout, and De anima 428a8).
16
For Roberts's attempt to respond to a similar objection put to his view by Ben-
nett Helm, see his Emotions (91—3). See also sect. 9 below.
Anger and vengeful hope are pleasant for the same reason that sweet dreams
are: they involve pleasure-inducing quasi-perceptual representations—
phantasiai. (Apparent Good, 78)
She also points out (ibid.) that in referring to phantasia as a 'weak
perception' in Rhet. i. n (1370*28-9), Aristotle seems to have
in mind the technical notion of phantasia from DA 3. 3, which
was there said to be 'a movement arising from actual perception'
(428b25~6).17 If Aristotle is using the technical notion of phantasia
in some passages, he might well be using it in this way more gener-
ally in his discussion of the emotions.
In response to the point that Aristotle seems happy to interchange
belief-terms with phantasia-terms in his accounts of the emotions in
the Rhetoric, Moss provides an alternative explanation of such us-
age compatible with the phantasia-based reading. On her view, 'in
standard cases the phantasia as of p automatically triggers a belief
that py (Apparent Good, 97) and 'Aristotle construes the evaluative
beliefs relevant to passions . . . as belonging to this class' (ibid.).
Moss thus maintains that 'the passions themselves are based on
phantasiai alone, but those phantasiai normally prompt correspond-
ing beliefs' (98). This explains, Moss thinks, why, in standard cases,
beliefs will track emotions in rational creatures:
. . . even though it is phantasia that gives rise to passions . . . evaluative
beliefs are their normal, default accompaniments: unless the agent actively
withholds assent, the evaluative phantasia which gives rise to the passion
will also give rise to a corresponding belief. Fear is a response to a phanta-
sia of a future evil, but those subject to such a phantasia will normally also
believe that there is a future evil. (Apparent Good, 98)
This, in turn, she thinks, explains why Aristotle is happy to in-
terchange belief-terms with phantasia-terms in his accounts of
emotions in the Rhetoric. For, given that the phantasia involved in
emotions will normally give rise to corresponding beliefs, f one can
for the most part characterize the passions by way of corresponding
beliefs, as Aristotle often does in the Rhetoric' (98—9).
Turning next to the passage from DA 3. 3 that Dow appeals to,
in which Aristotle claims that when we believe that something is
terrible or alarming we are immediately affected correspondingly,
but in the case of phantasia we are just as if we saw the terrible or
17
Both Nussbaum and Dow acknowledge that the passage at Rhet. i. n may
provide a technical use of phantasia.
176 Giles Pearson
encouraging things in a picture (4.2^21-4.), Moss suggests that the
lines should not be taken as a general claim about phantasia, but
as pertaining to just one kind of phantasia, namely, those that are
'up to us' (see also Apparent Good, 94). l8 Aristotle had just referred
to such phantasiai in the immediately preceding passage (see 3. 3,
427 b i7—20), and in any event cannot think that phantasiai are un-
able to generate emotions since later on in this very same chapter of
De anima, viz. 3 . 3 , 429^—8 (and in other places in the corpus too),
'Aristotle unequivocally characterizes phantasia as able to cause ac-
tion, by inducing emotions and desires' (Apparent Good, 91). I con-
sider this latter passage from DA 3. 3 in Section 6 below.
Instead, Moss insists that Aristotle holds that emotions must be
generated along the lines the phantasia-based reading suggests. A
key piece of evidence she cites stems from Aristotle's ethical works.
Aristotle situates the passions, and hence the virtues of character
that stem from them, in the non-rational part of the soul (albeit a
part of the non-rational part of the soul that can obey reason). Cit-
ing Pol. 1.5, I254 b 8, she refers to this as 'the passionate part of the
soul' (pathetikon morion), and, given that the passionate part is dis-
tinguished from the part of the soul that exercises reason, Moss sug-
gests that this part will not itself (as such) be able to employ rational
forms of cognition, but must instead use perception and phantasia:
'the passions', she notes, 'belong to a part of the soul which lacks lo-
gos but can exercise perception and phantasia' (Apparent Good, 72).
She thinks that this part of the soul is possessed by non-rational
animals as well, and while of course the fact that we also possess
a rational part may influence the way the non-rational part func-
tions in us, it none the less remains the case, on Moss's view, that
'passions do not belong to the intellectual part of the soul' and 'in
so far as they involve cognition of any kind, involve non-rational
cognition—perception or phantasia' (74).
In fact, Moss ultimately reduces 'perception or phantasia', here,
to just 'phantasia', on the ground that passions either involve
memory or expectation, or at least visualization, and each of these
tasks is beyond perception proper (Apparent Good, 81-4). On
Moss's reading, then, Aristotle thinks that emotions 'are based
on phantasiai alone', and these phantasiai, like the emotions they
underpin, are manifestations of the non-rational part of the soul,
18
Cf. M. Schofield, 'Aristotle on the Imagination', in G. E. R. Lloyd and G. E. L.
Owen (eds.), Aristotle on Mind and the Senses (Cambridge, 1978), 99—141 at 102—3.
which explains why non-rational animals can have them. In rational
beings, emotions will normally trigger corresponding evaluative
beliefs, and so there will be beliefs that correspond to the emotions
in question, but, on Moss's account, these beliefs are not part of the
passion itself. They are, she claims, 'epiphenomenal' (66 n. 35). I Q
Part II: Aristotle's View Reconsidered

Both the phantasia-based reading and the belief-based reading in-
terpret Aristotle as holding that one and only one psychological
state can grasp the cognitive content involved in emotions. The
readings differ merely concerning which state they think is always
in play. As I mentioned in the Introduction, I shall reject this com-
mon assumption. Instead, I shall argue that Aristotle thinks that
both phantasia and belief are capable of grasping the cognitive con-
tent involved in emotions, and I shall suggest that that view has a
number of philosophical advantages. In the process of arguing for
this, I shall explain my understanding of all the key points raised in
the previous sections.
5. Animal emotion
A general consideration (one that others have noted too) that

should make us suspicious of the belief-based reading is that Aris-
totle clearly thinks that non-rational animals can undergo at least
some emotions, e.g. fear and anger.20 Given that he also thinks
19
Moss, Apparent Good, 79-80, also argues for her view on the ground that (i) in
the Rhetoric Aristotle thinks that all pleasant and painful experiences involve percep-
tion or phantasia and (ii) emotions essentially involve pleasure or pain on Aristotle's
view. I cannot go into this in detail, but I should just note that even if Aristotle did
intend the pleasure and pain mentioned in his definitions of the emotions in the Rhe-
toric to be sensory, this would not itself support the phantasia-based reading. For it
could be that he thinks that emotions arise when agents experience sensory pleasure
or plain as a result of their grasping the focal cognitive content of the emotion (by
e.g. belief) (in a way similar to how one might feel sensory distress through coming
to believe that one's lover is leaving, or some such). I aim to investigate Aristotle's
understanding of the relation between emotions and pleasure and pain on another
occasion. See also J. Dow, Aristotle's Theory of the Emotions: Emotions as Plea-
sures and Pains' ['Theory of Emotions'], in M. Pakaluk and G. Pearson (eds.), Moral
Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle [Moral Psychology] (Oxford, 2011), 47-74.
20
For both, see e.g. PA 2. 4. See also J. Sihvola, 'Emotional Animals: Do Aris-
178 Giles Pearson
that animals lack the capacity for belief and judgement, and are
instead restricted to 'phantasia and memory of particulars' (NE
7. 3, H47b3-s), he therefore cannot make belief or judgement
necessary for emotions in general.21
If this undermines the belief-based reading of Aristotle's account
of the emotions, in so far as it shows that he cannot think that be-
liefs are necessary for emotion, it does not yet establish that he
would maintain that emotions can form in response to non-belief-
based psychological states, such as phantasia. I suppose it might in-
stead be suggested that Aristotle would consider animal emotions
to be some kind of behavioural response or instinctual reaction,
and therefore as lacking a cognitive component altogether. If so, al-
though he would not make belief necessary for emotion, this would
in fact be because he does not think that cognition is necessary for
emotion in the first place.
But we should resist this suggestion. For one thing, as mentioned
earlier, he appears to distinguish his different emotions from each
other in terms of their differing focal properties, focal properties
that pick out different cognitive content that must be grasped in
some way in order for the agent or animal to experience the emotion
in question. In addition, he has the machinery to explain animal
emotions in cognitive terms. He assigns not just perception, but also
phantasia (which allows stored perceptual content), to non-rational
animals (see NE 7. 3, ii47 b 3~5, mentioned above). And he states
on a number of occasions that equivalent cognitive content can be
provided by perception, phantasia, or thought. 22 So all he needs to
maintain is that the focal properties of emotions, or at least those
emotions that animals are capable of undergoing, can be grasped
by phantasia or perception, no less than reason. This will of course
entail that the basic cognitive content required to experience such
totelian Emotions Require Beliefs?' ['Emotional Animals'], Apeiron, 29.2 (1996),
105-44, f°r many further references.
21
Dow does acknowledge that 'nothing in the account of human emotions in Rhe-
toric 2 rules out the possibility that non-human animals also experience emotions
closely analogous to these' ('Feeling Fantastic', 153), but he does not explain how
this would fit with his contention that Aristotle appears to make belief necessary
for emotions (164), and yet such an explanation seems pressing given that Aristotle
also denies that non-rational animals have beliefs. See also Fortenbaugh, Emotion,
94-103.
22
See e.g. NE 7. 6, i I49a32-bi (evaluative content), quoted in sect. 7 below; and
(for non-evaluative content) MA 7, 701*32—3: '"I have to drink", says epithumia.
"Here's drink", says perception or phantasia or thought (nous). At once he drinks.'
emotions must not be so conceptually complex that non-rational
animals will be unable to grasp it through phantasia. But that seems
reasonable enough; for even though humans may have more com-
plicated manifestations of various emotions than their non-rational
cousins, it seems reasonable to think that those more complex in-
stances of emotions will count as manifestations of e.g. fear or anger
precisely because they satisfy certain key features (i.e. the focal pro-
perties) that make them equivalently similar to the more primitive
instances of those emotions experienced by non-rational animals.23
Furthermore, this cognitivist understanding of the emotions of
non-rational animals aligns with Aristotle's account of the desires
of these creatures. For, interestingly, Aristotle does provide us with
some explanation of how he thinks the desires of non-rational ani-
mals function, and he clearly does not think that they are merely be-
havioural responses or instinctual reactions. In DA 3. 10 he writes:
It is at any rate clear that these two produce movement, either desire or
thought, if we set down phantasia as a kind of thought; for many follow
their phantasiai against their knowledge, and in the other animals thought
and reasoning do not exist, although phantasia does. (433^-12)
We can say that there are two movers, desire and thought, only if we
take 'thought' (nous) to stand not just for thought proper, but also
phantasia. One reason for this, as Aristotle states, is that in non-
rational animals thought (noesis) and reasoning (logismos) do not ex-
ist, although phantasia does (I shall return to the other possibility—
rational agents following phantasia against their knowledge—in the
next section). Now, in fact, Aristotle goes on to make it clear that
neither thought (proper) nor phantasia can move creatures in the
absence of desire. This is because thought (proper) and phantasia
move us only through their grasping objects of desire (433*18-21).
Aristotle summarizes his view thus:
that which produces movement... is first of all the object of desire; for this
produces movement without being moved, by being thought of or grasped
through phantasia [toi noethenai e phantasthenai] . . . (433 b io-i2)
This suggests that the desires of non-rational animals will motivate

them not in some merely behavioural way, but through the creature
23
I explore the non-rational responses of non-rational animals in more detail in
my 'Aristotle and Scanlon on Desire and Motivation', in Pakaluk and Pearson (eds.),
Moral Psychology, 95—117 at 100—3.
180 Giles Pearson
grasping an object of desire by means of the capacity of phantasia.
And Aristotle repeats similar points in other contexts too (see espe-
cially DA 3 . 3 , 429*4-8, quoted in Section 6 below).
Now, in fact, two states that Aristotle sometimes places on his
lists of emotions (pathe) also appear as two parts of his tripartite
analysis of desire, viz. epithumia (pleasure-based desire) and thumos
(roughly, anger).24 The most plausible explanation for this dupli-
cation is that Aristotle thinks that these states can be considered
either as emotions or as desires, that is, either as emotional desires
or as desiderative emotions.25 But even though the above only ex-
plicitly shows that Aristotle would understand these states in cog-
nitive terms qua their desiderative aspect, the fact that he does so
strongly suggests that a parallel point would apply to grasping the
focal properties of these states qua their emotional aspect (see also NE
7. 6, H49 a 32- b i, discussed in Section 7 below).26 For Aristotle is
clearly intent on explaining the psychological states of non-rational
24
One or the other appears on lists of emotions at NE 2. 5, no5 b 2i-3; 2. 6,
i io6 b i8-2o; and EE 2. 2, i22O b 12-13. (Interestingly, in the Nicomachean Ethics lists
just mentioned we find orge and epithumia, but not thumos, whereas in the parallel
list in the Eudemian Ethics we find thumos and epithumia, but not orge. I argue that
for the most part Aristotle treats orge and thumos as synonyms in my Aristotle on De-
sire [Desire] (Cambridge, 2012), ch. 5. Cf. also NE 3. i, i i i i b i — 2 , where Aristotle
refers to thumos and epithumia as non-rational pathe. Epithumia and thumos appear
as part of the tripartite division of desire (orexis), alongside boulesis, at e.g. EE 2. 7,
i223a26-7; 2. 10, i225 b 24-6;/M 2. 3,4i4 b 2; MA 6, 7oob2 (also MM 12, n87b36-7);
cf. DA3.9, 432b5-6.)
25
Cf. the way, in Nicomachean Ethics 6 . 2 , Aristotle characterizes choice (prohai-
resis) as either 'desiderative thought' (orektikos nous) or 'intellectual desire' (orexis
dianoetike) (NE 6. 2, i I39b4~5; cf. also NE 3 . 3 , 11 i3 a i i, and 6. 2, 1139^3, which
characterize choice as 'deliberate desire' (bouleutike orexis)). The suggestion is that
epithumia and thumos similarly straddle emotions and desires. This does not im-
ply that Aristotle cannot distinguish between emotions and desires: he can focus on
epithumia and thumos qua desires or qua emotions. Notice that anger (orge), unlike
most of Aristotle's accounts of the emotions in the Rhetoric, explicitly includes refer-
ence to a desire (orexis) in its definition. This desire is not thumos; rather, the overall
state specified in the definition is thumos (=orge); see Pearson, Desire, 117. See also
Striker, 'Emotions', 288-9, for some suggestions as to why Aristotle does not discuss
epithumia again (it was already discussed in Rhet. i. 10-11) in the book 2 account of
emotions.
26
Both epithumia and thumos are said to involve distress (meta lupes) (see e.g. NE
3. 11, iii9 a 4; EE 2.10, i225 b 3O—i) and to be for something else (in the first case,
pleasure (hedeos); see e.g. EE 2. 7, 1223^4; 2. 8, I224 a 37; in the second, revenge; see
e.g. EE 3. i, I229 b 31-2; NE 7. 6, i 149^0-4). It could be that they count as emotions
qua the former and as desires qua the latter. But, to undergo the states, creatures have
to grasp the cognitive content that realizes the distress (although see Pearson, De-
sire, 114, for a potential difference between the desires in this respect), no less than
be aware of the object of desire.
creatures in cognitive terms, i.e. by means of perception and phan-
tasia. If so, the focal properties of such emotions will be graspable
by phantasia (or perception) no less than reason.
6. Phantasia-based emotions in humans when reason is obscured
Even though the emotions of non-rational animals cannot be

grounded in beliefs (since they lack the capacity to form them), this
does not itself rule out the possibility that all human emotions are
grounded in beliefs. It could be that since we possess the faculty of
belief, belief ends up governing all our emotional states rather than
phantasia.27 So let us first see if we can establish that emotions in
humans can be grounded in phantasia alone (in the sense in which
phantasia contrasts with belief and judgement).
The parallel with desires we considered in the last section already
suggests this. Aristotle allowed (DA 3.10, 433*9-12) that we could
reduce the movers of animals to just two, desire and thought, only
if we take 'thought' (nous) to stand not just for thought proper,
but also phantasia. Animal motivations were given as one instance
in which phantasia grasps objects of desire and so functions as a
mover, but Aristotle also provided another case, viz. when rational
creatures follow their phantasiai against their knowledge. If hu-
mans can be moved in accordance with their phantasiai against their
knowledge, why should they not form phantasia-based emotions
that conflict with their knowledge too?
That Aristotle would accept this is supported by a closely related
passage (one we mentioned in Section 4 that Moss appeals to) at the
end of DA 3.3, the very chapter in which he explicitly distinguishes
phantasia from belief and judgement. He writes:
because they [phantasiai] persist and are similar to perceptions, animals do
many things in accordance with them, some because they lack reason, viz.
beasts, and others because their reason is sometimes obscured by emotion
[pathos],28 disease, or sleep, viz. men. (3.3, 429^-8)
Non-rational animals do many things in accordance with their

27
So Fortenbaugh, Emotion, 95 ff.
28
As Moss notes (Apparent Good, 113), pathos could here possibly mean, more
generally, 'affection', 'undergoing', 'suffering', but given that these broader usages
would probably also cover the other states on the list (disease and sleep), it would
seem likely that he is using pathos in the narrow sense that picks out the emotions.
182 Giles Pearson
phantasiai because they lack reason, whereas humans do things
in accord with phantasiai when their reason is obscured (epika-
luptesthai) by various states, such as emotion, disease, or sleep.
The animal case corresponds to the account we provided in the last
section, but it is the human case that interests us now.
The envisaged set of cases may appear to represent quite an ex-
treme set. One might think that Aristotle is envisaging the tem-
porary suspension of all rational capacities, so that when reason is
obscured by the states in question, it is effectively 'switched off' or
'shut down' for a period, only to return when (or 'if', in the case of
disease) the agent recovers (or recovers sufficiently: cf. De insomn.
2, 46o b i 1-16). If this is what Aristotle had in mind, it really would
represent a fairly extreme and dramatic set of circumstances. While
under the influence of the state in question, the agent would, for
all intents and purposes, be reduced to an animal.29 No thoughts
or belief-based cognitions would be possible at all, and the agent
would be able to form only perceptual or quasi-perceptual constru-
als. This would indeed be extreme, and certainly would not cor-
respond to most human experiences of being affected by emotions,
illness, or sleep. For, during such states we standardly experience
thoughts and beliefs, however chaotic, uncontrolled, and unstable
they may be.
But given that this would not correspond to most human experi-
ences of being affected by emotions, illness, or sleep, and given that,
in the passage, Aristotle does not indicate that he has such extreme
and rare cases in mind, we are invited to consider whether there is
not another reading available. And in fact there is. All Aristotle ac-
tually claims is that because reason can be obscured by some states,
humans can do many things in accordance with their phantasia.
He does not claim that when this occurs, all reasoning processes
are shut down.30 All that is required is that since in such circum-
29
Note that even on this reading the simple fact that such emotion-generated ac-
tions were motivated by phantasia, rather than belief, would not itself, on Aristotle's
account, make such acts involuntary; for, if it did, that would make all animal actions
involuntary, something Aristotle thinks absurd (NE 3. i, 111 i a 24~ b 3).
30
H. Lorenz writes: '[t]he image Aristotle is employing in this passage is that of
the intellect being covered over or shut down. An epikalumma is a lid or a cover, used
to cover or shut something, e.g. a sense-organ or a passage (cf. DA 2. 9, 422 a 2; HA
2. ii, 5O3a35; Sens. 2, 437a25~6)' (The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and
Aristotle (Oxford, 2006), 199 n. 29). 'Shut down' goes too far for me. Aristotle clearly
means that the capacities are not functioning normally, but this does not require that
they are not functioning at all. Indeed, one of Aristotle's non-metaphorical uses of
stances reason is not functioning properly ('obscured'), what ulti-
mately drives the agent's action is the way things appear to him.
This seems compatible with the agent possessing thoughts, think-
ing, and, indeed, forming beliefs—it will just be that the beliefs
will not be being formed and corrected in standard ways, but will
be generated by—channelled through, we might say—the agent's
phantasiai. In this way, the agent's rational capacities will count
as 'obscured' or 'covered up' because their proper functioning is
tampered with to such an extent that they are prevented from exert-
ing the influence over the agent's actions that they would normally
be able to.31
Aristotle actually provides some examples that seem closely re-
lated to such a process in De insomniis. He notes (2, 46ob5~8) that
when a coward is in the grip of a fear, he might, with but little re-
semblance to go on, think (dokein) that he sees his enemy approach-
ing, and he notes that when a lover is gripped by an amorous desire,
he might, with but little resemblance to go on, think that he sees his
beloved everywhere. Normally, agents would take the perceptual
encounter at face value, as a stranger walking down the street, say.
But the emotion prevents the standard functioning of the agent's
discriminative capacities, and he forms impressions (phantasmatd)
that accord with and are amplified by the emotional state.32 In such
circumstances, our DA 3. 3 passage tells us, the agent may be moti-
vated to act. Perhaps the coward turns and runs in the other direc-
tion, or the lover starts bounding towards the stranger. But there
is no specification here that the agent has lost the ability to think.
Indeed, thoughts may now be racing through the agent's head: 'My
God! That's Fred! I'm in for it now! Run!', and so on. Instead, what
would make the act count as driven by phantasia, rather than rea-
son (or perception), is that ultimately the agent acts in accordance
with the phantasia that he forms of, say, the enemy approaching
(cf. DA 3. 7, 43i b 4~6), and not how he would if he were not in the
a cognate of epikaluptesthai nicely illustrates this point: he refers to encountering

the flash of sparks in one's eyes if one presses on them when the eyelids are closed
(epikekalummenon: De sensu 2, 437^4-6). Some sort of visual sensation occurs here,
even though it is not normal seeing. Likewise, I suggest, reason can still function in
certain dysfunctional ways when it is 'covered up'.
31
Cf. Moss, Apparent Good, 112 ff.
32
Aristotle explains such phenomena by contrasting the discriminations of the
controlling capacity (to kurion) with the capacity in virtue of which phantasmata
arise (46ob 16-17).
184 Giles Pearson
grip of the emotion, and reason and perception were functioning
normally.
How does this help with the question of whether Aristotle would
allow that humans can form emotions in response to phantasiai^
One might suggest that since emotion is said to be one of the states
that can obscure reason in this way, those emotions that obscure
reason will not themselves be manifestations of rational capacities—
they are, after all, obscuring such capacities. But in fact this does
not follow. For there is no reason to think that the coward's fear
or the lover's amorous desires (which then obscure reason and so
cause their respective misconstruals) cannot themselves be groun-
ded in beliefs. Indeed, the coward will standardly believe that he is
in constant danger, the lover that his beloved is the best thing since
sliced bread, and their emotions will standardly be based on such
beliefs.
None the less, the DA 3. 3 passage does suggest that agents could
form emotions in response to phantasiai (where phantasia is under-
stood as contrasting with belief and judgement). For if, as the pas-
sage in 3. 3 explicitly asserts, owing to states such as emotion or
disease they can be moved to act in accordance with phantasiai,
why should they not be moved to experience emotions in accor-
dance with phantasiai in such cases too? In the case where a (per-
haps belief-based) emotion obscures the agent's rational capacities,
we would have to have a situation in which an agent's reason can be
obscured by an emotion in such a way that phantasia can then bring
about another emotion in the agent. There is a passage elsewhere
in De anima that might fit this sort of phenomenon. In DA i. i
Aristotle supports his contention that emotions involve the body
with the following consideration: 'sometimes when severe and ma-
nifest sufferings befall us we are not provoked to exasperation or
fear, while at other times we are moved by small and imperceptible
sufferings when the body is aroused and is as it is when it is in anger'
(403*19-22). If by 'when the body is aroused and is as it is when it is
in anger' Aristotle means to refer to a full case of anger, rather than
just some kind of bodily condition, it would seem that he has in
mind cases in which the aroused and excited nature of anger might
make us more prone to irrational fears—anger, we might say, can
make us more jumpy.
In any event, to generate the required set of cases we can more
simply appeal to the illness/disease case that Aristotle mentioned.
In De insomn. 2 he claims that those in the delirium of fever some-
times take themselves to see animals moving on their bedroom walls
when all that is actually there are a few patterns (46o b n-i3), and
Aristotle notes that if the illness is very severe, the person may be
moved accordingly (46o b i5—16). (Notice again that this does not
necessitate the total cessation of thought, just that the agent's re-
sponses are ultimately at the behest of his phantasiai.) In such a
scenario, it seems no less probable that the phantasmata in question
would prompt emotional responses. Indeed, it is likely that it would
bephantasiai-prompted emotions and desires that would trigger the
corresponding action. The obscuring of reason (but not the total
suspension of all thought-based attitudes), effected by the illness,
would make the agent tend to take the objects of his phantasiai (his
phantasmata) at face value. The general underlying point is that if
the rational capacities of humans can be obscured so that they then
act in accordance with their phantasiai, there seems little reason to
think that they could not also form emotions in accordance with
such phantasiai in such circumstances.
The upshot thus far, then, is that we should resist the belief-based
reading of Aristotle's account of the emotions for at least the follow-
ing reasons: (i) he thinks that non-rational animals can have emo-
tions even though they do not have the capacity for belief; (ii) the
parallel with desires suggests that rational animals can form phan-
to/a-based emotions against their knowledge (DA 3.10, 433*9-12);
(iii) he holds that the rational capacities of humans can be obscured
in such a way that they can act in accordance with their phantasiai
(DA 3 . 3 , 429^-8), and so there seems little reason to think that
in such circumstances they could not also form emotional states in
accordance with such phantasiai.
7. Belief-based emotions in Aristotle
Now that we have undermined the belief-based reading of Aris-

totle by arguing that emotions, animal or human, can be grounded
in phantasia in the way we have specified, let us turn to the phan-
to/<2-based view. I shall undermine this in similar fashion, arguing
that we have good reason to think that Aristotle accepts that emo-
tions can be grounded in beliefs.
Let me first briefly return to the dispute about the meaning of
186 Giles Pearson
phantasia and cognates in the Rhetoric. Moss (see Section 4 above) is
surely right that the technical account (in which phantasia is under-
stood as contrasting with belief or judgement) is in play in some
passages, but this evidently does not entail that it is always in play
And given that Aristotle clearly uses phainomenon in a non-technical
way in certain contexts in the Rhetoric, I see little reason to think
that he might not also be doing so in many cases in his accounts of
emotions in the same work. To see the plausibility of this, first con-
sider a passage from book i, in which Aristotle uses phainomenon
in a way that is evidently not tied to the technical account of phan-
tasia (i.e. in which phantasia is distinguished from judgement and
belief):
In the case of persuasion through proving or what appears to [phainesthai]

prove something, just as in dialectic there is on the one hand induction
[epagoge] and on the other deduction [sullogismos] or apparent deduction
[phainomenos sullogismos], so the situation is similar in rhetoric. For the
paradeigma ['example'] is an induction, the enthymeme a deduction, and
the apparent enthymeme [to phainomenon enthumema] is an apparent de-
duction [phainomenos sullogismos]', for I call a rhetorical deduction an en-
thymeme, and a rhetorical induction a paradeigma. (i. 2, I356a35~b6)33
As Dow claimed, it would be very odd to insist that phainomenon

and phainesthai in such passages are being used in a technical sense
corresponding to DA 3.3. Phainomenon and phainesthai, in this pas-
sage, surely do not refer to quasi-sensory appearances that might
conflict with the agent's judgements. Instead, they presumably in-
dicate that we are concerned with how the agent takes things to be,
and are marking the fact that what the agent takes to prove some-
thing, or takes to be a deduction or enthymeme, may not in fact be
such.
But now juxtapose the above passage with some of Aristotle's de-
finitions of emotions in Rhetoric book 2. Consider, for example, the
following:
Let pity [eleos] be [defined as] a certain pain at an apparent [epi phainome-
noi] destructive or painful evil happening to one who does not deserve it
and which a person might expect himself or one of his own to suffer, and
this when it seems [phainesthai] close at hand. (2. 8, I385 b i2-i6)
33
Translations of the Rhetoric are based on those in G. A. Kennedy, Aristotle:
On Rhetoric. A Theory of Civil Discourse (Oxford, 1991), with the occasional modi-
fication.
. . . envy [phthonos] is [denned as] a certain kind of distress at apparent
success [epi eupragiai phainomenei] on the part of one's peers in attaining
the good things that have been mentioned, not that a person may get any-
thing for himself but because of those who have it. The kind of people
who feel envy are those who have, or seem [phainesthai] [to themselves] to
have, [more fortunate acquaintances among] those like themselves. (2. 10,
i387b23-6)
. . . emulation [zelos] is [denned as] a kind of distress at the apparent pre-
sence [epi phainomenei parousiai] among others like him by nature, of good
things highly honoured and possible for a person to acquire, [with the dis-
tress arising] not from the fact that another has them but from the fact that
the emulator does not. (2. 11, 1388*32-5)
I submit that, given the usage of phainomenon in the book i pas-

sage above, we have a natural presumption to think that Aristotle's
usage is exactly parallel here. If so, Aristotle would not, in these
passages, be referring to quasi-sensory appearances (that are dis-
tinct from one's judgements), but to how the agent takes things to
be. He would be marking the fact that what the agent takes to be a
destructive or painful evil (happening to one who does not deserve
it), or a success (on the part of one's peers), or honourable goods (in
another like one by nature) may not in fact be such.
Is 'taking something to be the case' straightforwardly equivalent
to 'belief? In fact, contra Dow (see e.g. 'Feeling Fantastic', 147-
8), it is not. For non-rational animals presumably take things to
be the way their perceptual phantasiai present them to them (as-
sent to their phantasiai is automatic since there is nothing in them
that can undermine the appearance (cf. De insomn. 2, 46i b 3~7, and
see Moss, Apparent Good, § 4.7), and when reason is obscured in
rational creatures (along the lines considered in the last section),
they too will take things to be the way their perceptual phantasiai
present them. But even though we cannot just equate 'taking to be
the case' with belief in general, the equation does seem reasonable
in this context. For neither of the scenarios just mentioned is in
play in Rhetoric book 2. First, we are obviously considering human
emotions, not the emotions of non-rational creatures. Second, it is
highly implausible to suggest that in each case of emotion formation
in Rhetoric book 2 Aristotle actually envisaged the agent's rational
capacities to have been obscured in the way we considered in the last
section. The primary function of Aristotle's discussion of the emo-
tions in the Rhetoric is to supply the practising orator with the abi-
188 Giles Pearson
lity to engender (empoiein: 2. i, 1378*26; engignetai: 2. n, I388b29)
or abate (dialuetai: 2. n, I388b29) emotions in his audience, so as
to be able to affect their discriminations (kriseis: 2. i, 1378*19-20).
The orator is thus not addressing people whose rational capacities
have been obscured, but people whose discriminations he wishes
to affect by altering their emotional states. And he achieves this by
making them (through persuasion) take it to be the case that some
set of circumstances (in line with the focal properties of the various
emotions) obtains. But then 'taking to be the case' would seem to be
equivalent to belief in this context: it involves the orator making his
audience take something to be the case on the basis of persuasion
(for the connection between belief and persuasion, see especially
DA 3. 3, 428*19-24).
Given, then, that we appear to have a usage of cognates ofphanta-
sia that amounts to belief (rather than one which contrasts with be-
lief) in the discussions of emotions in the Rhetoric, it is surely at the
very least up for grabs in any particular instance whether Aristotle
intends the terminology to be as the phantasia-based reading sug-
gests or not. The terminological point that Moss appeals to, then,
is unpersuasive.34
Now let me turn to Moss's key move: to insist that whenever we
find Aristotle tying emotions to beliefs (or thoughts or judgements)
we should treat the belief as 'epiphenomenaP (Apparent Good, 66
n. 35), as a belief that is merely consequential on the agent assenting
to a phantasia, the phantasia itself being all that is in fact essential
to the emotional state. Moss concedes that Aristotle nowhere ex-
plicitly asserts this, but she insists that it is the only reading that
'lets us respect both the non-rationality of the passions and their
alignment with evaluative belief (Apparent Good, 98). As we shall
see, I do not think that the non-rationality of the passions (which I
accept) has the implication that Moss thinks it does, but let me first
address the suggestion independently of that consideration.
Moss provides the following example of how she thinks Aris-
totle's view works:
34
What about the uses of phantasia in the accounts of fear and shame (see the
quotations in sect, i)? Here too I see little reason to think that the usage of phanta-
sia in which it contrasts with belief is in play. And, in fact, the only clear-cut case
where we have the technical notion of phantasia in play that Moss cites from Rhet. 2
(i378 b io: see sect. 4 above) fits the idea that this usage is not generally in play. I will
explain how I think that passage should be understood in sect. 8 below.
If it appears to you that the spear in your enemy's hand is both long (a visual
appearance) and terrible (an evaluative one), you will normally on that basis
acquire both the belief that the spear is long (a vision-based belief) and the
belief that it is terrible (an evaluative one) . . . the evaluative appearance will
trigger a passion, fear; therefore it follows that fear is normally accompa-
nied by a belief that the feared object is frightening. (Apparent Good, 97-8)
As we have noted (see Section 4 above), Moss thinks that thephan-

tasia that is constitutive of any given emotion will 'in standard cases'
lead to a corresponding evaluative belief. This is because in general
'the phantasia as of p automatically triggers a belief that py (Appar-
ent Good, 97) and emotions follow this general pattern.
In defending this account Moss appeals to the fact that Aristotle
holds that phantasia is necessary for thought (Apparent Good, 95-
6). But, although Aristotle clearly holds this view (see e.g. DA 3. 7,
43 1 a i 6-1 7; 3. 8, 432*3-14, and the passage from De memo ri a quoted
below), it is far from clear that the point will support Moss's read-
ing. This is because thoughts generally do not, on Aristotle's view,
have precisely the same content as the phantasiai they depend on.
This is clear from Aristotle's most extended discussion of the point
in De memoria:
An account has already been given of phantasia in the discussion of the soul,
and it is not possible to think without aphantasma. For the same effect oc-
curs in thinking as in drawing a diagram. For in the latter case, though we
do not make any use of the fact that the size of the triangle is determinate,
we none the less draw it with determinate size. And similarly someone who
is thinking, even if he is not thinking of something with a size, places some-
thing with a size before his eyes, but thinks of it not as having a size. If its
nature is that of things which have a size, but not a determinate one, he
places before his eyes something with a determinate size, but thinks of it
simply as having size, ( i , 44
Suppose I draw the triangle shown in Figure 2, and ask you to cal-
culate x. We know that *:2 = 3 2 +4 2 , so ^ = ^25 = 5. But evidently it does
not matter that the triangle I have depicted could not plausibly have
sides that are 3, 4, and 5 (3 is half the size of 4 in my diagram). As
Aristotle notes above, with such diagrams one does not make any
use of the fact that the triangle has a determinate size, but none the
less the triangle I drew does, as it happens, have a determinate size.
35
Translation after R. Sorabji, Aristotle on Memory (London, 1972; 2nd edn.
2004), 48-9.
190 Giles Pearson
FIGURE 2
Aristotle claims that the same sort of effect occurs in thinking. But,
if so, then the phantasiai that Aristotle thinks underlie thoughts will
not standardly have the same content as the thoughts that supervene
on them. (As Aristotle claims, even if, for example, we are not think-
ing of something with size, we place something with size before our
eyes (but think of it not as having a size).) So the fact that phanta-
siai underlie thoughts is not going to support Moss's view that all
thoughts bound up with emotions are epiphenomenal. Just as one
is not going to arrive at the desired truths about triangles simply
by assenting to the image of the triangle in Figure 2, so, given the
parallel, there is no reason to think that the thoughts involved in
emotions are going to be explicable simply in terms of the agent as-
senting to the phantasmata that underlie them. Thus the fact that
thoughts require phantasmata is irrelevant to the truth or otherwise
of Moss's view.
For all that, it could still be the case that Aristotle thinks that
each thought that he associates with an emotion is itself triggered
by the agent assenting to a phantasia. It would just have to be the
case that such thoughts are standardly triggered by other phantasiai
than those that underlie the thoughts.
Yet in the absence of a prior preference for the view that Aristotle
thinks that all emotions must be grounded in phantasiai, there is
little reason to think that this is what he envisaged. Let us consider
a few cases in which Aristotle ties emotions to thoughts in the Rhe-
toric. In 2. 3 he writes:
. . . [people become calm] if they think [oiesthai] they have themselves

done wrong and suffered justly; for anger does not arise against justice nor
against what people think \nomizeiri\ they have appropriately suffered. (2. 3,
I38o b i6-i8)
In this case, a thought (that it is appropriate for me to suffer) seems

to be sufficient for an emotion (anger) not to occur. Other cases sug-
gest a positive sufficient condition; for example:
. . . people who think [oiomenoi] they might suffer something are in fear.
(2. 5,I382 b 33)
. . . people are themselves confident when they have the following states of
mind: if they think [oiesthai] they have often succeeded and not suffered or
if they have often come into dangers and have escaped. (2. 6, 1383*25-8)
Now clearly neither the fact that anger does not occur if people
have certain thoughts, nor the fact that fear or confidence do oc-
cur if people have certain thoughts, is directly incompatible with
Moss's reading. For these correlations are compatible with the view
that phantasia is necessary for the emotion, since it could be that
thoughts are sufficient for the absence or occurrence of a given emo-
tion only in so far as they are themselves the products of assents
to phantasiai with the same content. But in the absence of a prior
presumption in favour of Moss's view, this is not a natural read-
ing. Aristotle is most naturally taken as meaning exactly what he
claims, viz. that the thoughts in question are themselves sufficient
for the arousal or absence of the emotions in question, not mere epi-
phenomenal accompaniments of phantasiai that are actually doing
all the work.
And, in fact, it is notable that not all passages are obviously com-
patible with Moss's account. In Rhet. 2. 8 Aristotle claims:
. . . it is clear that it is necessary for the one who is going to feel pity to
think [oiesthai] that some evil is present of the sort that he or one of his
own might suffer. (2. 8, I385 b i6-i8)
This passage is actually hard for Moss to explain. For surely, on

her reading, it cannot be necessary for pity for the agent to think that
some evil is present of the sort that he or one of his own might suffer.
Instead, it could only be necessary for the agent to have a phanta-
sia with this content, and any thought with that content would be
a contingent addition. If we take the passage at face value, it would
mean that pity will be based around the agent's beliefs, rather than
her phantasiai^ (which is not to say that there could not be some
epiphenomenal phantasiai present as well).
36
This would mean that non-rational animals could not undergo pity, but in fact
if Aristotle ties pity to moral evaluations, he may have reason for thinking this; for
some discussion see Sihvola, 'Emotional Animals', 121, 141—2.
192 Giles Pearson
In any event, there is key evidence outside the Rhetoric that Aris-
totle thinks that emotions can be triggered by reason no less than
phantasia. First, there is the De anima passage (3. 3, 427b2i~4)
that Dow cited, quoted in Section 3, which I shall return to again
shortly Second, there is a crucial passage in NE 7. 6, where Aris-
totle claims that epithumia and thumos (which, recall, count as desi-
derative emotions: see Section 5 above) can be triggered by reason.
Aristotle writes:
For reason [logos] or phantasia informs us that we have been insulted or
slighted, and thumos, reasoning as it were [hosper sullogisamenos] that any-
thing like this must be fought against, boils up straightway; while epithu-
mia, if reason [logos] or perception merely says that an object is pleasant,
springs to the enjoyment of it. (i I49a32-bi)37
Moss points to this passage merely as providing a bit of evidence

that passions 'correlate' with evaluative beliefs (Apparent Good, 94—
5) (and hence explicable in line with her reading). But it does rather
more than that. Here, 'reason', which seems equivalent to thought
or belief, is contrasted with phantasia and perception, and so is
treated as a distinct capacity alongside them.38 And yet Aristotle
explicitly states that reason, when directly contrasted with phan-
tasia and perception in this way, can grasp the cognitive content
involved in these desiderative emotions (slights/insults, pleasure),
no less than phantasia or perception can. It would be very odd in-
deed for Aristotle to place perception, phantasia, and reason side
by side as states that grasp such content, if he actually thought that
when reason does this, it does so only epiphenomenally by means of
& phantasia that actually grasped the content in question and which
the agent is now assenting to.39
This passage also serves to undermine Moss's view that emotions,
in belonging to the non-rational part of the soul, cannot involve ex-
ercises of reason. Epithumia and thumos are explicitly claimed to
belong to the non-rational part of the soul (see e.g. DA 3. 9, 432b5~
6; NE 3. i, in i b i; 3.2, 111 i b i2-i3; Rhet. i. 10, 1369*1-4 (thumos
picking up orge at 1369*7)), and yet, as NE 7. 6 makes clear, they can
be triggered by reason. This means that the non-rationality of these
37
Translation modified from W. D. Ross, Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics
(Oxford, 1925), loc. cit.
38
Cf. also the passage from MA 7 quoted in n. 22 above.
39
For another passage that suggests epithumiai can form in response to beliefs,
seeNEj. 3, H47 a 3i- b 3.
desires is not to be accounted for in the way that Moss presumes
(i.e. owing to their only employing non-rational forms of cognition).
How, then, is it to be accounted for? In a recent book (Desire, ch. 7)
I argued that the most plausible account of why Aristotle thinks that
these desires are non-rational (even though he thinks that instances
of them can be beyond the capacities of non-rational animals in so
far as they involve rational capacities) is as follows. A desire counts
as non-rational if its most basic or general end is one that we share
with non-rational creatures, and this holds even if rational creatures
can have specific instances of those desires that are beyond the ca-
pacity of non-rational creatures. So an epithumia that was triggered
by reason would be beyond the capacity of non-rational creatures,
but it would still count as non-rational, on this account, in so far
as it was for a basic end (pleasure) that we share with non-rational
creatures.40
Now it seems to me that the key idea here will naturally extend
40
Likewise an epithumia for a specific pleasure that may be beyond the capacity
of non-rational creatures to desire (say owing to the complexity of the value in ques-
tion) could still count as non-rational owing to the fact that ultimately it is pleasure
that we seek, and this basic value is one we share with non-rational creatures. In the
book (Desire, 194-5) I pointed out that there is a parallel to be drawn between the
notion that it is the basic end of a desire that determines its rational or non-rational
status and a move that Aristotle makes in the ergon ('function') argument in NE i. 7.
There, in seeking the ergon of man, Aristotle excludes as possible candidates the life
of nutrition and growth, on the basis that this is common even to plants, and the
life of sensation, on the ground that this is common to the horse and the ox, and in-
deed every other animal (iO97 b 33-iO98 a 3). Apparently, the fact that humans share
these capacities with non-rational creatures means that such capacities cannot form
the human function, not even part of it. But of course it seems possible that a life of
sensation for humans could involve an interest in objects that non-rational animals
could not partake of. A person might, for example, devote his or her life to drinking
a particular type of wine or eating a certain sort of luxury food. In such a scenario,
the agent's life would be a life of sensation, i.e. oriented towards drinking some par-
ticular type of wine or eating a certain luxury food, but in so far as it was based on
beliefs about the quality of a particular wine or luxury food, would seem beyond
the capacity of non-rational animals. Nevertheless, a life of sensation is ruled out by
Aristotle as a candidate for the human ergon on the ground that we share the capa-
city for sensation with lower animals. Aristotle would say, I suggest, that although
such an agent's life is one that only a rational creature could have, still it is a life
of sensation, and this we share with non-rational creatures. Similarly, the current
proposal is that the fact that we share epithumiai with non-rational creatures means
that there will always remain something non-rational about each occurrence of such
a desire even in the more complex human manifestations of it. Since the capacity to
be motivated by pleasure first arises in the hierarchy of capacities at a very low level,
i.e. among non-rational creatures (see DA 2. 3, 4i4 a 32~4i4 b 6), and all epithumiai are
pleasure-based, any epithumia, on Aristotle's view, will retain a non-rational com-
ponent just in virtue of being directed at the root value of pleasure.
194 Giles Pearson
to the non-rationality of the passions more generally. In his general
specification in Rhet. 2. i, Aristotle characterizes emotions as states
which 'are accompanied by [or follow upon: hepesthai] pain and
pleasure' (1378*20-1), and this characterization is repeated in Aris-
totle's ethical writings (NE 2. 3, iiO4 b i4-i5; 2. 5, no5 b 23; EE 2. 2,
i22O b i3—14; 2. 4, I22i b 36—7). The precise way in which emotions
are related to pleasure and pain, on Aristotle's account, obviously
needs careful consideration, but this is not crucial for us now.41 For,
whatever way the connection should ultimately be spelt out, the
fact that emotions are essentially tied to pleasure and pain, and that
pleasure and pain are basic values that we share with non-rational
animals, could be what accounts for their non-rational status. On
this view, an emotion will still count as non-rational even if speci-
fic instances of it can be beyond the capacity of non-rational ani-
mals. Indeed, it could even be the case that every instance of some
particular emotion is beyond the capacity of non-rational animals
(because, say, it essentially involves construing circumstances in a
way that is beyond the capacity of non-rational creatures; see n. 36
above), but, none the less, in so far as it essentially involves mani-
festing some kind of pleasure or pain—very basic values we share
with non-rational animals—the emotion counts as non-rational. If
so, the non-rationality of the emotions would be perfectly compa-
tible with emotions being triggered by reason or being formed in
response to beliefs. But, if that is so, Moss's account loses its im-
petus. For it is no longer supported by the motivation to do justice
to the non-rationality of the passions.
Furthermore, without the assumption, unjustified as I see it, that
Aristotle must think that there is one and only one cognitive state
that grasps the cognitive content involved in emotions, another
problem evaporates as well. Recall, in DA 3. 3, Aristotle claims
41
Hepesthai can mean either 'accompanies' or 'follows upon'. The former may
suggest that Aristotle is inclined, as the Stoics later did, to think of pleasure and
pain as genera of the emotions (the Stoics adding epithumia and phobos) (cf. Striker,
'Emotions', 292). A passage in the Topics (4. 5, I25 b 28 ff.) may incline one towards
the 'follows upon' interpretation, but this seems hard to square with the definitions
given in the Rhetoric (which are standardly couched in terms of pleasure and pain).
For further considerations see e.g. D. Frede, 'Mixed Feelings in Aristotle's Rhe-
toric' , in Rorty (ed.), Essays Rhet., 268-83; Leighton, Aristotle and the Emotions',
pt. n; Cooper, 'Emotions', 244-6; and Dow, 'Theory of Emotions'. There is also
an important discussion by Aspasius in his commentary on the Ethics (In EN 42.
27-47. 2 Heylbut). Dow, 'Theory of Emotions', 49-50, argues that Aristotle's usage
of hepesthai in the Rhetoric provides us with a strong presumption at least for con-
currence.
that when we believe that something is terrible or alarming we are
immediately affected correspondingly, whereas in the case of phan-
tasia it is just as if we saw the terrible thing in a picture (427bzi-4,
quoted in Section 3 above).42 As we saw, Dow claims that this
passage, in conjunction with Aristotle's general awareness of the
fact that emotions are sensitive to changes in an agent's beliefs,
'strongly suggests' that Aristotle thinks that belief is necessary for
emotion ('Feeling Fantastic', 164). But this account did not fit with
the fact that Aristotle allows that non-rational animals can have
emotions, even though they lack beliefs; nor with the notion that
humans too can have phantasia-based emotions, in the way we saw
in the previous section. By contrast, Moss thinks that 4.2^21-4.
should not be taken as a general claim about phantasia, but as
pertaining to just one kind of phantasia, namely, those that are
'up to us', which Aristotle had just referred to in the immediately
preceding passage ( 3 . 3 , 427b 17-20). But, even so, this still leaves
her with the headache of attempting to explain why this passage
claims that 'one can be subject to the appearance without feeling
fear', since on her view being subject to an appearance of something
as terrible 'will always entail . . . fear' (Apparent Good, 94).
The difficulties evaporate at once if we give up the unwarranted
assumption that Aristotle thinks that every occurrence of emotion
must be formed through the very same cognitive capacity. For if
he does not assume this, he can easily hold both (i) that when we
believe that something is terrible or alarming we are immediately
affected correspondingly, whereas in the case of phantasia it is just
as if we saw the terrible thing in a picture; and also (ii) that when
reason is obscured we form emotions and act on them on the basis of
phantasiai. In the first case, the agent's reason is not obscured and
so he forms emotions in response to his beliefs first and foremost;
in the second case, his reason is prevented from functioning pro-
perly, and so there should be no expectation that the agent would
respond as he would were it working normally. Without the pre-
sumption that Aristotle must think that every occurrence of emo-
tion is formed by way of the very same cognitive capacity, there is
no difficulty whatsoever in accommodating both these ideas.
These textual considerations relate to a more general, philoso-
phical, one. Given that we are considering a notion of phantasia
42
This does not itself entail that phantasia cannot generate an emotion in such a
scenario. I shall come back to this in sect. 10 below.
196 Giles Pearson
in which phantasia and belief are distinct states, there seems little
reason to think that when they come apart in emotional contexts,
the emotion would track the phantasia rather than the belief. Gran-
ted that the phobic might form the emotion of fear on the basis of a
snake's appearing dangerous (even though he believes it harmless),
it none the less seems likely that the opposite kind of case might also
occur. A tiny spider or little toad, for example, may appear harm-
less, but we may come to believe that one or the other is deadly
(e.g. if instructed by an expert). And if we then encounter such a
creature on a country walk, we may well be prone to experience ex-
treme fear, but on the basis of our belief rather than on the basis of
the way the thing appears.43
8. How pervasive are belief-based emotions

in rational creatures, on Aristotle's view?
If Aristotle thinks that emotions can be formed not only in response

to phantasiai but also in response to beliefs, then he thinks that at
least two cognitive states can grasp the cognitive content involved in
any given emotion. The question that next arises is: how pervasive
are belief-based emotions in rational creatures? In what contexts
will emotions be formed in response to belief, and in what contexts
phantasia? The answer to this question is inevitably going to end
up being somewhat speculative, but I would like to propose the fol-
lowing account, which I provide in a series of numbered points.
1. There is no reason to believe that Aristotle thinks that if an
emotion is formed in response to a belief, the agent must also pos-
sess aphantasia with precisely the same content. The agent can have
a belief-based emotion without any accompanying phantasia with
precisely that content. None the less, given Aristotle's general view
that thoughts require phantasiai, it must be the case that belief-
based emotions do have an accompanying phantasia, but this will
standardly not have precisely the same content as the belief itself.
(See Section 7.)
2. However, if an agent has a belief-based emotion, he or she may
also have some accompanying phantasmata that correspond to the
43
A further difficulty for Moss's view is that, like previous phantasia-based views,
it leaves it unclear how we are to explain the irrationality of recalcitrant emotions. I
turn to recalcitrant emotions in sect. 9 below.
emotional state in question. Those in the grip of a fear, for example,

may imagine certain things in a quasi-perceptual manner.
This, on my view, is the correct way to understand the passage
from the Rhetoric that Moss appealed to as employing the technical
notion of phantasia (see the beginning of Section 4 above). In his
discussion of anger, Aristotle refers to the phantasia stemming
from thoughts about retaliating as producing pleasure, just as the
phantasia does that occurs in dreams (i378 b io). Thoughts about
retaliating, we might say, can generate quasi-perceptual fantasies of
retaliation (which can then themselves seem pleasurable to enter-
tain).
3. If an agent is functioning well and normally, a phantasia of
something will provide a prima facie reason to form a belief with
parallel content. And if there is no ground for rejecting the corres-
ponding belief, the agent will then form a belief with the same con-
tent as the phantasia (cf. De insomn. 3, 46i b 3—7). The water appears
hot as steam is coming off; hence we form the belief that the water is
hot. Similarly in emotional cases: someone might appear angry ow-
ing to her red face and clenched fist, hence we form the belief that
she is angry. In such cases, there seems little reason to think that the
two cognitions (phantasia-based and belief-based) could not per-
sist side by side, such that the cognitive content of any resulting
emotion would then be grasped simultaneously by phantasia and
belief.44
4. If an agent is functioning well and normally, and she forms a
phantasia that conflicts with her beliefs, then her beliefs will trump
(so to speak) the phantasia, and any emotions that result will form
in accordance with her beliefs rather than the phantasia', or (equi-
valently) if her phantasiai prompt an emotion not in line with her
beliefs, she will not form the emotion prompted by the phantasia.
In De insomniis Aristotle writes:
In every case, it [a phainomenon] appears [phainesthai], but the thing that

appears [to phainomenon] is not in every case believed [dokeiri], unless the
determining capacity [to epikrinon] is inhibited, or does not move with its
proper movement. (3, 46i b 5~7)
44
Phantasiai that trigger an emotion may, as Moss suggests, naturally trigger cor-
responding beliefs. But on my view they will often trigger correspondingly belief-
based emotions, not merely beliefs that correspond to the content of the emotion.
Indeed, the belief may then 'take over' the emotional state, and the emotion be sub-
ject to belief rather than the initial phantasiai that triggered it.
198 Giles Pearson
Likewise, if the agent's rational capacities are not impeded and are
moving with their proper movement, then any conflicting phan-
tasma will appear as a mere phantasm.45
5. Sometimes when phantasia conflicts with belief, the agent may
experience some involuntary physical affects in accordance with the
phantasia (even if the agent is not misled). Hence, in MA 11 Aris-
totle writes:
By involuntary [movements], I mean such movements as those of the heart
and the penis; for often these are moved when something appears \pollakis
garphanentos tinos], but without the command of thought [nous]. (7O3b5~8;
cf.DA 3. 9,432 b 30-433 a i)
6. If an agent's rational capacities are obscured, and so prevented
from functioning normally, she may form emotions in accordance
with her phantasiai (see Section 6).46
More controversially, Aristotle might also allow:
7. If an agent's rational capacities are not obscured, and are still

functioning normally in and of themselves, the agent may still none
the less react irrationally. She may form phantasiai that are not in
line with her beliefs, and those phantasiai may fail to abate in the
light of the beliefs. And she may then form an emotion in line with
those phantasiai, in spite of the fact that she possesses beliefs that
contradict those phantasiai. In such a situation, the agent's emotion
would be irrational and would count as recalcitrant.
I will now turn to consider such emotions. Whether or not Aris-
totle explicitly allows them, I shall argue that his account can ex-
45
In MA 7 (7oi b i6-i9) Aristotle claims that phantasia and thought have 'the
power of actual things' (and so can themselves initiate movement — as can percep-
tion, which itself involves an 'alteration' (alloiosis), 7oi b i7-i8). Although the pas-
sage clearly implies that each of these capacities can move us, it does not specifically
address the conditions under which they will do so, nor what would happen if they
provided conflicting information. Phantasia, as I see it, will only 'have the power of
actual things' with respect to generating emotions (a) in the case of non-rational ani-
mals, (b) in the case in which the agent's rational capacities are obscured, (c) in the
case in which the agent is reacting irrationally, and (d) when the agent has a phan-
tasia-based emotion in response to fiction (where beliefs about the existence of the
thing are temporarily bracketed for the sake of entertaining the fictional scenario).
(d) and (b) have been discussed in sects. 5 and 6 respectively, (c) and (d) will be dis-
cussed in sects. 9 and 10 respectively.
46
Contra Moss (Apparent Good, ch. 5), I do not think that we should model Aris-
totle's account of akrasia on cases in which the agent's rational capacities are ob-
scured along the lines of the DA 3. 3 passage considered in sect. 6, but arguing for
this is beyond the scope of the current paper.
plain such emotions, and can do so in quite an interesting way. In
addition, there is also another special case of emotion formation that
Aristotle does explicitly allow, and which does not neatly fit into
any of the above categories. I shall consider this in the final section
(Section 10).
9. Recalcitrant emotions
Agents have recalcitrant emotions when their emotions directly

conflict with their beliefs. For example, an agent could be afraid
even though he believes that there is nothing to be afraid of. Dow
denies that Aristotle explicitly considers such emotions. But even
if this is right, we can still ask what sort of understanding of such
emotions Aristotle's account would naturally invite. Indeed, Dow
attempts just this for the view he ascribes to Aristotle. In advocat-
ing his belief-based reading of Aristotle's account, Dow attempts
to deal with the problem that recalcitrant emotions appear to pose
for such an account. He writes (equating taking-something-to-be-
the-case with belief):47
Perhaps having an emotion is a different way of taking something to be the

case from forming and regulating beliefs dispassionately. If so, there seems
nothing impossible about the occurrence of recalcitrant emotions. And this
might also suggest that such states, while still irrational, do not exhibit the
same irrationality as knowingly affirming a contradiction. ('Feeling Fan-
tastic', 147-8)
But this seems problematic. Must the phobic, who fears the snake
that he none the less fully believes to be harmless, take it to be
the case that the snake is (say) dangerous at all, even 'passionately'
(whatever that means, precisely)? Why could not such an agent fear
a snake that he knows full well is harmless simply on the basis of
its perceptual appearance, without taking it to be the case that the
snake is dangerous in any sensed If this seems possible, the agent's
emotion would presumably stem simply from how things merely
appear to him, rather than from how he takes things to be the case,
whether passionately or dispassionately. Indeed, this was precisely
what was attractive about the original phantasia-based reading of
Aristotle's account of emotions and Roberts's construal account of
47
This equation is dubious for the reasons I provided in sect. 7. But this is not
crucial for me now.
200 Giles Pearson
emotions: those accounts could explain how agents could possess
emotions that directly conflict with their beliefs.48
It seems to me that the only reason to reject this understand-
ing of the phobic (or at least some phobics)49 is Dow's objection
mentioned earlier (see Section 3 above): how can such a reading
of the phobic account for the irrationality of the phobic's fear? As
Dow noted, 'conflicts between how appearances stand and how the
same subject takes things to be involve no irrationality whatsoever'
('Feeling Fantastic', 147). Why should an agent be charged with
irrationality simply owing to the fact that things appear to him a
certain way?
Let us investigate this further. Contrast the phobic with a case
in which all would agree we have an appearance in conflict with a
belief but no irrationality. Aristotle provides a case of this sort with
his famous sun example: the sun appears about the size of football,
even though we know it to be bigger than the known world (DA
2. 3, 428b2~4; cf. De insomn. 2, 46ob 18-22). Plato gives another ex-
ample: a stick appearing broken as it passes through water (Rep. 10,
602 c). We have a perceptual appearance of the stick as breaking at
the point of entry, but we do not believe that the stick breaks at the
point of entry. In such cases, I take it, no one is inclined to say that
it is irrational to see the thing in question that way. The percep-
tual experience of the stick as breaking at the point of entry is just
how things appear to us, and this can persist alongside our belief
that the stick is not in fact broken because we do not feel that the
tension between the appearance and the belief needs to be resolved
in this circumstance. It is not as if we think, for example, that we
should, were we to count as fully rational, train ourselves to stop
seeing the stick as breaking at the point it enters water.
These considerations might appear to support Dow's contention
that mere appearances cannot be irrational simply in virtue of con-
flicting with one's belief. In fact, that does indeed seem to be cor-
rect: one is not irrational simply in virtue of having a perceptual
appearance that conflicts with one's belief. And, in the phobic case,
just as in the stick example, we appear to have a perceptual con-
48
Cf. also D. Charles, 'Emotion, Cognition and Action', in J. Hyman and H.
Steward (eds.), Agency and Action (Royal Institute of Philosophy, suppl. 55; Cam-
bridge, 2004), 105-36 at 117-31.
49
It could perhaps also be the case that some recalcitrant emotions involve
non-belief-inducing thoughts, rather than perceptual phantasiai, racing through the
agent's head.
strual that conflicts with our belief: the snake appears dangerous
even though the agent does not take it to be dangerous. This sug-
gests, that if taking-the-snake-to-be-dangerous were the full spe-
cification of the emotion, Dow would be right: seeing the snake as
dangerous would be no more irrational than seeing the stick as bent.
Matters can certainly seem a certain way without being taken to
be that way, and for many people the snake will appear dangerous
even if they do not take it to be so. (Indeed, why should not some
things have a dangerous appearance, even though they are not in
fact dangerous, such that registering their dangerous appearance is
appropriate?) This means that we cannot isolate the irrationality of
the phobic's fear simply in terms of that agent's having a percep-
tual construal of the snake as dangerous. For, such a construal is no
more irrational, it seems, than having a perceptual construal of the
stick as breaking at the point it enters the water.
However, there is none the less a key difference between fearing
the snake and it appearing to one that the stick breaks on entering
the water. Fear, on Aristotle's account, does not merely require cog-
nizing danger, it requires being pained or distressed by the prospect
of danger.50 As we have noted (Section 7), Aristotle characterizes
emotions as states which are accompanied by (hepesthai) pain and
pleasure (Rhet. 2. i, 1378^0-1; NE 2. 3, i iO4 b i4-i5; 2. 5, no5 b 23;
EE 2. 2, I220 b i3-i4; 2. 4, i22i b 36-7). Even without investigating
this relation in detail, we can see that this feature of his account
would generate the required space to draw the relevant distinctions
to isolate the phobic's irrationality. He could say that there is no
irrationality in it merely appearing to the phobic that the snake is
dangerous, just as there is no irrationality in it merely appearing to
one that the stick breaks at the point of entering the water. What
is irrational is being pained or distressed by the way the snake ap-
pears when one knows full well that the snake is harmless. Fear-
ing the snake involves being distressed or pained by the snake's
50
Roberts's construal account has a parallel feature along these lines. Roberts
thinks that only certain sorts of construals are emotions, namely, those that are 'im-
bued, flavoured, coloured, drenched, suffused, laden, informed, or permeated with
concern' (Emotions, 79). He explains as follows: '[t]o be angry is not just to see a
person as having culpably offended; the construal must be based on a concern about
some dimension of the offense, and possibly a concern about some dimension of the
offender. To be afraid of heights is not just to see them as a danger to something or
other; it requires that something the subject holds dear appear to him threatened.
Grief is not just a construal of something as irrevocably lost; the something lost must
be of great importance to the griever' (ibid.).
2O2 Giles Pearson
appearance in a way that seems inappropriate given that the snake
is actually believed to be harmless. But, significantly, this does not
seem to require taking the snake to be dangerous; all it requires is
being distressed by the snake's dangerous appearance—distress at the
dangerous-looking snake. What Aristotle would be judging irra-
tional, then, is not the perceptual construal itself, but the evalua-
tive distress/concern.51
At this point, one might ask why feeling distress at the appearance
of the snake should be any more irrational than having a perceptual
appearance of the snake as dangerous. It is true that this extra fea-
ture will not make the phobic's fear irrational in the same way that
believing a contradiction would be irrational (e.g. believing that the
stick is both broken and not broken when it enters the water) (cf.
Dow 'Feeling Fantastic', 148). There is nothing contradictory about
being distressed by the snake's appearing dangerous, while believ-
ing that the perceptual appearance does not in fact reflect reality.
However, the extra feature of the distress does bring the emotion
directly in line with other cases of practical irrationality. The irra-
tionality of such emotions, it seems, is to be accounted for much in
the same way that irrational actions are. When agents act akratic-
ally, we standardly say that they act irrationally. Akratic agents act
intentionally against their better judgements. Suppose an akratic
agent judges that he should not have another pint because he has
already had five and has a lot of work to do tomorrow. But sup-
pose that he also has a pleasure-based desire for another beer and
succumbs to this. The agent does not in such a case believe a con-
tradiction. It can be perfectly true that he both believes that he
should not have another pint because drinking another pint will
result in a hangover and make his work less efficient, and also be-
lieves that drinking another pint would be pleasurable. 52 Rather,
what makes the act irrational is that the agent acts against (what
he takes to be) his better judgement. Likewise, I want to suggest,
51
Cf. Roberts, Emotions, 91-3. Note that the pleasure/pain aspect of Aristotle's
account of the emotions will also allow him to account for the phenomenon associ-
ated with Roberts's second ground against the judgement view (see sect. 2 above),
viz. that the very same judgement that is supposed to be identical with the emotion
in question can sometimes be made in the absence of the emotion. If emotions essen-
tially involve pleasure or pain, the same judgement may sometimes be accompanied
by the emotion in question (i.e. when it is appropriately related to the relevant plea-
sure/pain) and sometimes not (when it is not).
52 Seeesp.7V£7. 3, ii 4 7 a 3 i- b 3.
what makes the phobic's emotion irrational is that he is emotion-
ally affected, i.e. distressed, by something that he does not take to
be the case. Although there seems to be nothing irrational about
registering that something looks a certain way to you—that is just
registering the perceptual appearance of the thing—there is some-
thing odd about getting distressed ('worked up', we might say) by
such a perceptual appearance when you at the same time hold that
the way the perceptual appearance reports things to be is not in fact
how they are.53
If this is along the right lines, it suggests, contra Dow, that Aris-
totle could explain the irrationality of recalcitrant emotions formed
in response to phantasiai. Furthermore, given that we have deve-
loped this account by appealing to features of Aristotle's own view,
it would be a natural way for him to understand these emotions
and explain their irrationality. After all, Aristotle allows that phan-
tasiai can persist in the light of a contrary belief (he does not, for
example, maintain that one ceases to have the sun appear to one as
a foot across as soon as one forms the belief that the sun is bigger
than the known world), so there seems to be no reason in principle
that he could not accept that certain emotions can form in response
to such phantasiai, even when the agent has a contradictory belief,
and even when his reason is not obscured (i.e. in the way we con-
sidered in Section 6). If so, he would endorse point 7 at the end of
Section 8 in addition to the other points mentioned there.
10. Emotional responses to fiction
Recalcitrant emotions are emotions agents form irrationally. But

does it follow that if an agent only forms emotions rationally, she
will only experience emotions in line with what she takes to be the
case? Emotions we form in response to fictional characters, events,
or scenarios provide an interesting challenge in this respect.
We usually know full well that the characters and circumstances
we encounter in fiction do not exist, but we can still be emotion-
ally engaged by them. We can fear Daleks, zombies, or imaginary
53
Since writing this paper, I have discovered that construing recalcitrant emo-
tions along the lines of akratic actions has recently been explored by H. Benbaji,
'How is Recalcitrant Emotion Possible?', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 91.3
(2013), 577-99-
204 Giles Pearson
murderers (like Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, who

scares the wits out of me); we can pity Anna Karenina or Desde-
mona; we can hate or detest lago; be disgusted by Gollum; and
envy Superman or other superheroes their superpowers. So too,
it is crucial for Aristotle that we can form emotions in response to
fictional scenarios. Otherwise his whole account of tragedy in the
Poetics as generating the emotions of pity and fear (Poet. 6, I449b27;
13, I452 b 32—1453^; 14, i453 b i fT.) through the process of imitation
(mimesis) would not make sense. Aristotle notes that although tragic
fear and pity may be aroused by the spectacle, the better way they
are aroused, the way that shows the better poet, is by the very struc-
ture and incidents of the play (Poet. 14, i453 b i-3). 54 But evidently
Aristotle does not think that in order to be emotionally affected by
tragedy (or comedy) we must take it to be the case that the incidents
depicted in the plays really did occur.
The challenge explaining such emotions presents can be clearly
brought out by considering what is called (in contemporary litera-
ture in aesthetics) 'the paradox of fiction'. The paradox can be set
out as follows:
(Pi) Readers or audiences often experience genuine emotions

such as fear, pity, and admiration toward objects they know
to be fictional, e.g. fictional characters.
(Pz) A necessary condition for agents to form emotions ration-
ally is that they take the objects of their emotions to exist.
(?3) Readers or audiences who know that the objects of their
emotions are fictional do not take those objects to exist, nor
need they be reacting irrationally.
Since (Pi), (Pz), and (?3) form an incompatible set, (at least) one of
them must be denied. Which should it be? In the secondary litera-
ture, each proposition has been denied by different scholars. Kend-
all Walton is an example of someone who denies (Pi), maintaining
that readers/audiences form quasi-emotions in response to quasi-
beliefs. Peter Lamarque is an example of someone who denies (Pz),
maintaining that readers/audiences can form genuine emotions to-
wards 'thought-contents' about fictional objects without believing
or taking those fictional entities to exist. And Colin Radford, who
54
And he notes that even when we simply hear the story of Oedipus, we can be
moved to tearful pity (Poet. 14, I454b3~7).
first set out the problem clearly, famously denied (Ps), maintaining
that our responses to fiction are, in fact, irrational. 55
How would Aristotle solve the paradox? There is no reason to
think that he would deny (Pi), since he nowhere suggests that
the emotions we experience in response to fictional portrayals of
tragedy are anything less than fully fledged. Equally, there is some
reason to think that he would endorse (?3), at least for the emo-
tions formed in response to depictions of tragedy. On a traditional
reading, at least, he claims that the purpose of tragedy in arousing
pity and fear is to accomplish a 'catharsis' of such emotions (6,
i449b27-8).56 This would evidently make it appropriate in his eyes
to experience such emotions in this context. And it would do so
not because we hold that there actually are people undergoing the
tragic events in question (we need not be deceived), but because
of the effect experiencing these tragic emotions (in a controlled
environment) has on us. And that seems a reasonable place to start
55
K. L. Walton, 'Fearing Fictions', Journal of Philosophy, 75 (1978), 5-27; P.
Lamarque, 'How Can We Fear and Pity Fictions?', British Journal of Aesthetics, 21
(1981), 291—304; and C. Radford, 'How Can We be Moved by the Fate of Anna
Karenina?', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. 69 (1975), 67-80, and
'Paradoxes of Emotion and Fiction', Philosophical Review, 110 (2001), 617-20. Dow
attempts to deal with the problem posed by emotions formed in response to fiction
for his belief-based account by suggesting that in fictional cases one, for example,
takes it to be the case in the tragedy that Cassandra is suffering undeservedly ('Feel-
ing Fantastic', 165 n. 69). However, this will not help us since it equivocates on the
sense of 'taking something to be the case' that we have been employing. The idea
was that one's emotion stems from what one takes to be real or currently obtain-
ing. (When Dow claimed that Aristotle thinks that the fearful person 'takes it that
harm threatens' ('Feeling Fantastic', 155, emphasis original), he surely meant that
the fearful person takes himself to be threatened with harm, not that the fearful per-
son takes harm to be represented or portrayed in some way (knowing full well that
he is not actually in harm's way).) But although one takes the play one is watching
to be real (the play is actually occurring), one does not take the events depicted in
it to be real (unless of course they are meant to be 'a true story') and yet one can be
emotionally affected none the less.
56
This reading has been challenged, with a number of scholars arguing that
katharsis should be stripped from Aristotle's definition of tragedy; see e.g. M. D.
Petrusevski, 'Pathematon Katharsin ou bien Pragmaton SystasinT, Ziva antika/
Antiquite vivante (Skopje) (1954), 209-50 [in Macedonian and French]; G. Scott,
'Purging the Poetics', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 25 (2003), 233-63; and
C. W Veloso, Aristotle's Poetics without Katharsis, Fear, or Pity', Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy, 33 (2007), 255-84. Of course, even when katharsis was accepted
as part of the definition, it was disputed what it amounted to; for some discussion
see e.g. J. Lear, 'Katharsis', Phronesis, 33.3 (1988), 297—326. Depending on the
outcome of these debates, and on the significance of the absence of katharsis from
the definition (if absent it is), Aristotle's acceptance of (?3) may be more or less
questionable.
206 Giles Pearson
to explain why it is appropriate to experience such emotions. If this
is right, it would suggest that if Aristotle had faced the paradox,
he would have been committed to resolving it by denying (Pz).
He would hold, that is (in answer to the question posed at the
beginning of this section), that it is not necessary for agents who
form emotions rationality to take the objects of their emotions to
exist.57
Now reconsider the passage from DA 3. 3 that Dow cited in fa-
vour of his belief-based reading. Aristotle writes:
when we believe [doxazein] that something is terrible or alarming we are
immediately affected correspondingly, and similarly if it is something en-
couraging; but in the case of phantasia we are just as if we saw the terrible
or encouraging things in a picture. (427^21-4)
I have already pointed out (Section 7) that this passage is compatible

with the notion that we can form emotions in response to phanta-
siai. For if our rational capacities are 'obscured' in the way Aristotle
suggests they can be at the end of DA 3.3, then our belief-forming
capacities will be jeopardized, and there will be no reason to think
that what is presented through phantasia will then seem anything
other than real to us. But our discussion in this section reveals that
we may still form emotions in response to phantasia even if our ra-
tional capacities have not been obscured. Although it may well be
the case, in such scenarios, that it is just as if we saw the terrible or
encouraging things in a picture, we can none the less be emotionally
affected by such occurrences, as the emotions we form in response
to fiction reveal. But then if we look closely at the passage we see
that it does not in fact say anything that conflicts with this: Aris-
totle does not say that we cannot experience emotions in response
to such phantasiai.
Given this, and if Aristotle would endorse my account of recal-
citrant emotions as presented in the last section, we not only end
up with a number of different psychological states that are capable
of grasping the cognitive content in emotions (phantasia, belief), we
also end up with two sorts of case where even 'taking-something-to-
be-the-case' is not requisite for the formation of emotions. Recall
(see Section 7), 'taking-something-to-be-the-case' is not straight-
forwardly equivalent to believing it to be the case. Since non-rational
57
For a contemporary account supporting the view that emotional responses to
fiction can be rational see B. Gaut, Art, Emotion and Ethics (Oxford, 2007), 216—26.
animals lack rational capacities, they most likely will take things to
be as they appear, i.e. as their perceptualphantasiai present them to
them; equally, as we have seen, Aristotle would allow that humans
can form emotions in response to phantasiai when their reason is
obscured (see Section 6): since reason is prevented from function-
ing properly, the agent takes things to be as phantasiai present them.
But even when we restrict ourselves to rational creatures (i.e. in con-
trast to non-rational ones), and to those rational creatures whose ra-
tional capacities are functioning properly in and of themselves (i.e.
when reason is not obscured in them), it is not the case that such
creatures must only form emotions in line with what they take to be
the case. First, they could form emotions, grounded in phantasiai,
which conflict with their beliefs. These would be the irrational, re-
calcitrant emotions we considered in the last section. Second, they
could form emotions in response to their thoughts or phantasiai
about what is happening in some fictional scenario. Here too, if the
thoughts or phantasiai are bound up with the appropriate pleasures
or pains in the relevant way, the agent can experience emotions.58
The difference between these emotions and recalcitrant emotions
is that the former can be rational to form.
Conclusion
Even taking into account recalcitrant emotions and emotions

formed in response to fiction, there is still some cognitive content
that is necessary for emotions, on Aristotle's view. In all cases,
one has to cognize the person or situation in question under the
guise of the focal property of the emotion. These focal properties
are the cognitive contents that Aristotle attempts to specify in his
definitions of emotions in the Rhetoric. Fear (phobos), he thinks,
involves cognizing some destructive or painful evil in the future
(2. 5, I382 a 22), pity (eleos) that some evil, destructive or painful,
has befallen one who does not deserve it (2. 8, I385 b i3-i4), shame
(aischune) that we have been brought into disgrace (2. 6, I383 b i3),
and so on.59 Although fictional cases do not involve us being duped
58
'The relevant way' needs specifying, as I have mentioned. See Dow, 'Theory of
Emotions', for a very interesting discussion. I do not think that Dow is quite right to
identify emotions with intentional pleasures and pains, as I hope to show on another
occasion.
59
Aristotle's characterizations of the focal properties obviously might not be cor-
zo8 Giles Pearson
into taking something to be the case that is not in fact the case, they
do involve, for example, cognizing Oedipus or Anna Karenina as
having suffered some undeserved misfortune, or Anton and zom-
bies as dangerous, and so on. One has to take the focal property of
the emotion in question to truly apply to the fictional entity (within
the scope of the fiction) in order to be emotionally affected. If one
thought that Anna truly deserved her fate, it would be hard to pity
her.60 Similarly with the phobic: even if the phobic believes that
the snake is harmless, if it did not even look dangerous to him,
there would seem to be no way he could fear it. If this is right,
a necessary condition for the occurrence of an emotion, even of
irrational emotions or emotions formed in response to fiction, is
that the agent cognize the circumstance, state of affairs, or person
in a way that fits the focal property of the emotion in question.
If cognizing such content is necessary for the emotion in ques-
tion, it none the less does not seem sufficient. Not everyone forms
an irrational fear when something appears dangerous to them even
though they do not believe it to be so. And we are not all moved in
the same way by fiction. Also necessary, on Aristotle's account, is
the pleasure or pain component of emotions. Only when someone
is pained or distressed by something's dangerous appearance will he
or she count as fearing it.
In allowing a variety of psychological states to grasp the cogni-
tive content involved in emotions, Aristotle's view possesses a cer-
tain flexibility that other mono-state views lack. Of course, with
additional flexibility comes the threat of a loss of explanatory unity
or parsimony. However, as mentioned, Aristotle still has a certain
unity to his account through the notion that emotions essentially
pertain to pleasures and pains. The link between the cognitive con-
tent involved in emotions and pleasure and pain clearly requires fur-
ther investigation. But there is every reason to think that Aristotle
is right to put flexibility in the cognitive component of emotions.
Often the appropriate model for emotions seems to fit a belief-
based model. If we cease to believe that we are in danger, we stop
feeling afraid; if we suddenly realize that the person did not ac-
tually slight us after all, we cease to feel angry; if we find out the
rect, or need not be correct of what we mean by the English words we use to translate
his Greek terms, but that clearly does not affect the point at hand.
60
Unless, that is, one's emotion was irrational. But the idea is that that would still
involve cognizing Anna as having suffered some misfortune in some sense.
person did deserve the misfortune, we cease to feel pity, and so

on. Aristotle can take this correlation at face value: these are cases
where we form and regulate our emotions in the light of our be-
liefs. However, because belief is not necessary for emotions—as the
emotions of non-rational animals and the emotions we form when
our rational capacities are malfunctioning reveal—it is possible for
us to form emotions even against our beliefs, as with irrational
emotions formed in response to occurrent perceptual encounters.
Again, since Aristotle does not tie emotions to any particular cog-
nitive state, he can take this at face value: such irrational emotions,
he can allow, can be formed in response to the way things appear to
us, i.e. in accordance with our phantasiai, even if that goes against
our better judgement or our beliefs. In allowing that the cognitive
content of emotions can be provided by a variety of cognitive states,
Aristotle's account thus possesses a certain flexibility that other ac-
counts wishing to isolate one specific cognitive capacity for emo-
tions lack.
There is thus every reason to think, as I claimed at the beginning
of this paper, not only that Aristotle thinks that a variety of psycho-
logical states can grasp the cognitive content involved in emotions,
but also that he is right to think so.
University of Bristol
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FEELING FANTASTIC AGAIN:
PASSIONS, APPEARANCES,
AND BELIEFS IN ARISTOTLE
JAMIE DOW
i. Introduction
T H I S paper is concerned with Aristotle's view of human passions

such as anger, pity, fear, and shame, and specifically how he char-
acterized the representational aspect of those passions.
Consider the following remarks about pity (eleos):
Let pity be a pain at apparent harm that is destructive or painful befalling
one who does not deserve it, and which one could foresee being suffered
by oneself or one of one's own, and where this appears near. (Rhet. 2. 8,
I 3 8 5 b i 3 -i6)
In thinking about the representational aspect of Aristotelian pas-

sions, we might distinguish a number of questions:
(1) Through the exercise of what psychological faculty do pas-

sions have their representational contents?
(2) What type of attitude towards their representational contents
do passions themselves involve (for the subject herself, for a
part of her soul)?
(3) If passions involve phantasia, to what extent can Aristotle's
views on the correct regulation of the passions be explained
by reference to the role of (evaluative and non-evaluative)
phantasia in the psychology of humans and other animals?
(4) What kinds of conflict between passions and beliefs does
Aristotle recognize, and what resources does he have for
explaining these?
© Jamie Dow 2014
I am grateful to Amber Carpenter, Malcolm Heath, and Rachana Kamtekar, and to
audiences at St Andrews, Cambridge, Oxford, at the Yorkshire Ancient Philosophy
Network, and at the Eastern APA (2011) for comments on earlier drafts, and par-
ticularly to Jessica Moss for her constructive persistence in criticism and challenge.
Thanks are also due to Brad Inwood for outstanding editorial comments and sug-
gestions. The piece is immeasurably improved as a result of all of these.
214 Jamie Dow
Addressing these questions involves engaging with a recent debate
about whether for Aristotle the representational state involved in
human passions is belief (doxa) or appearance (phantasia).l Dis-
tinguishing these questions, however, already represents significant
progress towards resolving this disagreement.2
I have changed my mind on the role of phantasia in Aristotelian
passions, and now defend the following view. According to Aris-
totle, being in a passionate state constitutes an affirmation by the
1
For the view that Aristotelian passions involve phantasia see e.g. J. M. Cooper,
'An Aristotelian Theory of the Emotions' ['Theory'], in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays
on Aristotle's Rhetoric [Essays Rhet.] (Berkeley, 1996), 238-57; J. Sihvola, 'Emo-
tional Animals: Do Aristotelian Emotions Require Beliefs?', Apeiron, 29.2 (1996),
105-44; G. Striker, 'Emotions in Context: Aristotle's Treatment of the Passions in
the Rhetoric and his Moral Psychology', in Rorty (ed.), Essays Rhet., 286-302; P.
Nieuwenburg, 'Emotion and Perception in Aristotle's Rhetoric' ['Emotion and Per-
ception'], Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 80. i (2002), 86-100; A. Price, 'Emo-
tions in Plato and Aristotle' ['Emotions'], in P. Goldie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook
of Philosophy of Emotion (Oxford, 2009), 121-42; J. Moss, Aristotle on the Apparent
Good: Perception, Phantasia, Thought, and Desire [Apparent Good] (Oxford, 2012),
ch. 4. For arguments against the view that such passions can involve merely uncom-
mitted appearance see e.g. J. Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic? Emotions and Appearances
in Aristotle' ['Feeling Fantastic'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 37 (2009),
143-75; and for the view that they must involve doxa see e.g. M. C. Nussbaum, The
Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics [Therapy] (Princeton,
1994); W. W. Fortenbaugh, Aristotle on Emotion, 2nd edn. (London, 2002). Forten-
baugh's view is unusual in that he insists that it is not the passions themselves but
their causes that have representational content; cf. J. Dow, Aristotle's Theory of the
Emotions: Emotions as Pleasures and Pains' [Aristotle's Theory'], in M. Pakaluk
and G. Pearson (eds.), Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle [Moral Psy-
chology] (Oxford, 2011), 47-74 at 58-9, for criticism of this view.
2
They were not adequately distinguished in the conclusion of Dow, 'Feeling Fan-
tastic'. Many of those who canvass the involvement of appearances and phantasia
are principally concerned with identifying the psychological capacity involved (e.g.
Nieuwenburg, 'Emotion and Perception'; Price, 'Emotions'; Moss, Apparent Good),
whereas those who canvass the view that passions involve belief are concerned to
stress that the subject takes things to be as they are represented (e.g. Nussbaum,
Therapy; Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic')—thus these concerns need not conflict. The
issue is complicated, however, by arguments that link the two questions. Cooper
('Rhetoric, Dialectic, and the Passions' ['Passions'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Phi-
losophy, i i (1993), 175-98 at 191-2; 'Theory', 246-7; Reason and Emotion: Essays
on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory (Princeton, 1999), 416-17), Striker
('Emotions in Context', 291), and Sihvola ('Emotional Animals', 59-60) all sug-
gest that a central reason why Aristotle saw passions as involving phantasia was that
he wanted to allow for the possibility of passions completely unendorsed by their
subject (the suggestion is resisted in Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic'). In general, the dis-
tinction highlighted above is obscured by too close an association between the psy-
chological faculty of phantasia and cases of mere appearance to which the subject
gives no endorsement, such as the sun's appearing about a foot across when it is
known to be huge. These issues and the relevant passages in Aristotle are discussed
in greater detail below.
Feeling Fantastic Again 215
subject herself (not only by a part of her soul) of the way things are
represented as being the way things are, where the representations
involved are the result of exercising a capacity he calls phantasia
(roughly, 'appearances'). 3 Thus, it is part of feeling pity that the
subject affirm that the object of their pity is suffering undeservedly:
it is this suffering that makes them an object of their distress,4 and
pity typically gives the subject some inclination to behave in ways
that are appropriate only if these representations are true (perhaps
to alleviate the suffering).
I also contend that the phantasmata involved in the passions fall
within the scope of what Aristotle says should happen when phan-
tasia conflicts with another psychological faculty. For Aristotle, the
animal as a whole should affirm (or 'act according to') the way
things are represented by the more authoritative faculty. The kind
of phantasia relevant to the passions, where things are represented
as pleasant and painful, also falls within the purview of Aristotle's
insistence that the non-reasoning parts of the soul should listen to
reason, as to one's father or friend (NE i. 13, iiO2 b 25—33). That
is, that phantasmata of this kind should have their content regu-
lated by what correct reason affirms. Aristotle's explanations of
how passions can conflict with reasoned beliefs can thus draw on
his resources for explaining how in general appearances can di-
verge from beliefs, and specifically how pleasures and pains can
persist in conflict with what the subject believes is truly pleasant
or painful.
Aristotle seems to think that—except in highly unusual cases—
adult humans simply do not have persisting passions whose con-
tents they wholly repudiate. He thinks that in general human pas-
sions are aroused either where the subject's beliefs afford them some
support or where the subject's reasoning is disabled (for example,
through sleep or drunkenness). Of course, Aristotle's view that the
passions involve an exercise of phantasia opens up the possibility
of conflict with doxa (belief), but the kind of conflict he seems to
recognize as actually occurring is largely confined to cases where
reason endorses the passion as warranted, while rejecting it as an
overall response to the situation, i.e. cases such as Odysseus' anger
3
I defended a somewhat different view in Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic'. The kind of
'affirmation' intended in this claim will be specified further below.
4
Cf. e.g. Rhet. I385 b i3-i6, and Dow, 'Aristotle's Theory', for the view that pity
just is this distress.
2i6 Jamie Dow
against the servant girls in Odyssey 20 (cf. NE 7. 6, 1149*25-34),5

or pleasure-akrasia, where reason endorses phantasia's appraisal of
the object as pleasant, but repudiates its overall verdict on the ob-
ject's goodness and pleasantness (cf. DA 3. 10, 433 b 5-io). Where a
person believes that (say) fear is wholly unwarranted, i.e. that there
is nothing genuinely fearsome present, Aristotle seems to think they
will not feel fear, despite the presence of phantasmata representing
fearsome things: those appearances will leave them unmoved (DA
3. 3, 427b2i-4).
2. What is the significance of these claims?
This account of the representational aspects of Aristotelian pas-

sions, I contend, not only fits best with Aristotle's views on biology,
ethics, and rhetoric, but also gives him a philosophically attractive
position.
Firstly, the claim that the passions involve an exercise of the ca-
pacity phantasia makes possible for Aristotle a view in which the
passions of human adults, children, and non-human animals all
deploy the same kinds of processes. For children and most non-
human animals, certainly all of those Aristotle mentions as exper-
iencing passions,6 have representational capacities that are, in his
view, limited to aisthesis (sensation) and phantasia (sensory impres-
sions), and certainly do not include the capacities for belief (doxa),
supposition (hupolepsis), or conviction (pistis).7 If human and non-
human passions involve the same kinds of capacities, not merely
analagous capacities, then the former are continuous with (differ-
ing 'by the more and the less') the latter, as seems to be Aristotle's
view in History of Animals book 8.8 It is also plausible in its own
right. Passions very much like anger, fear, jealousy, and so on seem
to be experienced by creatures cognitively less complex than adult
humans, so it is a merit of one's biological and psychological views
5
This is distinct from the additional role for reason in thumos-akrasia that Aris-
totle recognizes at 1149^5-6, 33.
6
The evidence for Aristotle's attribution of passions to non-human animals is
presented and discussed in W. W. Fortenbaugh, Aristotle: Animals, Emotion and
Moral Virtue' [Animals'], Arethusa, 4 (1971), 137-65; R. Sorabji, Animal Minds
and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate (London, 1993), ch. 4; and
Sihvola, 'Emotional Animals'.
7
Cf. e.g. DA 3. 3, 427b7-8; b n-i4; 428*21-4. 8
HA 8. i, 588*18-30.
to have an account of such passions that is largely common across
adult humans, children, and non-human animals.
A second merit of the claim that passionate representations are
provided by phantasia is that it is consistent with the ethical works
about how the passions are independent from reason, are capable of
agreeing with reason (in virtuous cases) or disagreeing (in cases of
akrasia or enkrateia), and belong to the non-reasoning part of the
soul.9 Aristotle emphasizes that the part to which the passions be-
long 'heeds' reason (epipeithes logoi, NE i. 7, 1098^), is 'in a way
persuaded by reason' (NE i. 13, no2 b 33), by nature 'is persuaded
by', 'listens to', and 'follows' reason (EE 2. i, i2i9 b 3O-i; i22O a io-
11). Thus the passionate part is independent of the reasoning part,
does not itself undertake reasoning, but is representational and can
and should conform its evaluative representational content to that
endorsed by the reasoning part, though in reality it does not always
do so. This is confirmed by a comparison between the behaviour of
this part of the soul in the self-controlled person and its behaviour
in the virtuous: in the self-controlled, it submits to (peitharchei, NE
i. 13, iiO2 b 26) reason, whereas in the virtuous, it is 'more heedful
still' (eti euekooteron, b 27), for 'it agrees with reason in everything'
(panta gar homophonei toi logoi, b 28). 10
A third merit of the proposed interpretation is that it is consis-
tent with what Aristotle says about the use of emotion arousal in
rhetoric. On this view, Aristotelian passions can be felt precisely
because they are epistemically reasonable to feel in the light of the
agent's beliefs. If the agent then draws conclusions based on the
way things seem to him in his passionate state, it seems plausible
to suppose that those conclusions will inherit the epistemic creden-
tials of the passionate state that gave rise to them. 11 For example,
9
Cf. J. Moss, 'Akrasia and Perceptual Illusion' ['Akrasia'], Archiv fur Geschichte
der Philosophic, 91.2 (2009), 119-56; ead., Apparent Good; Price, 'Emotions'.
10
This last phrase confirms that we should think of the passionate part here as
exercising a representational capacity that can agree in content with the reasoning
part, and not merely as exercising a motivational capacity in ways that coincide with
the prescriptions of the rational part. Such a view is also suggested by the allusion
to akrasia in DA 3.10, 433 b 7~io, where it is suggested that nous and epithumia each
make assertions, which differ in the akratic case (because of epithumia's inability to
consider the future as nous can). Cf. J. D'Arms and D. Jacobson, 'The Moralistic
Fallacy: On the "Appropriateness" of Emotions', Philosophy and Phenonienological
Research, 61.1 (2000), 65-90; M. Salmela, 'True Emotions', Philosophical Quarterly,
56 (2006), 382-405, on standards of appropriateness and correctness for emotions.
11
This seems to me implied in the claim that the passionate part of the soul 'has
2i8 Jamie Dow
if I am justified in envying someone's undeserved prosperity, my

consequent disinclination to believe that they are the undeserving
victim of serious harm will also be justified. 12 In this way, arous-
ing the passions of an audience can be a way of giving them proper
grounds for conviction.13
By contrast, if passions do not involve any endorsement of their
representational contents, and the subject remains uncommitted to
them, then it is hard to see how they can provide a source of epi-
stemic justification for any conclusion inferred from them, just as
a premiss that is merely hypothesized can contribute no epistemic
merit to a conclusion inferred from it.
Thus, the proposed account fits well with Aristotle's views on
biology, ethics, and rhetoric. It also has considerable philosophi-
cal merits. Some of these can be seen by focusing on the question
'What kind of attitude towards their representational contents does
Aristotle think is involved in the passions?' In contemporary philo-
sophy and psychology, an important test of the merits of answers to
this question is how well they account for 'recalcitrant emotions',14
i.e. cases where the subject's emotion arises or persists despite be-
reason' in a way that is derived from the successful reasoning of the rational part
(NE i. 13, no2b3o-2).
12
Cf. Rhet 2. 9, 1387^*3—5; b i6—21; 2. 10, 1388^*27—30. The move from envying
someone (as enjoying prosperity) to being unable to pity them (as not suffering un-
deservedly) seems to be made inferentially
13
Cf. e.g. Rhet i. i, 1355*3-6; i. 2, 1356*1-4; 2. i, i377b2O~4; 1378*19-20. 'Proper
grounds for conviction' is a gloss on Aristotle's term TTLOTLS in the Rhetoric, and is
defended in J. Dow, 'Proof-Reading Aristotle's Rhetoric' ['Proof-Reading'], Archiv
fur Geschichte der Philosophic (forthcoming, 2014), and id., Passions and Persuasion
in Aristotle's Rhetoric [Passions and Persuasion} (Oxford, forthcoming, 2014).
14
The terminology is from M. S. Brady, 'Recalcitrant Emotions and Visual Il-
lusions' ['Emotions and Illusions'], American Philosophical Quarterly, 44.3 (2007),
273-84; id., 'The Irrationality of Recalcitrant Emotions' ['Recalcitrant Emotions'],
Philosophical Studies, 145.3 (2008), 413-30. In psychology, one might consider the
debate between Robert Zajonc (R. B. Zajonc, 'On the Primacy of Affect', Ameri-
can Psychologist, 39.2 (1984), 117-23) and Richard Lazarus (R. S. Lazarus, 'On the
Primacy of Cognition', ibid. 124-9). I n philosophy, examples include P. Greenspan,
Emotions and Reasons (New York, 1988); R. M. Gordon, The Structure of Emotions:
Investigations in Cognitive Philosophy (Cambridge, 1990); B. W. Helm, Emotional
Reason: Deliberation, Motivation and the Nature of Value (Cambridge, 2001); M. C.
Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge, 2001);
J. Prinz, Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (New York, 2004). A similar
strategy is also evident in T. S. Gendler, Alief and Belief, Journal of Philosophy,
105.10 (2008), 634-63, in defending a thesis that ranges considerably beyond the
emotions.
ing in recognized conflict with their better beliefs or knowledge. 15
Recalcitrant emotions present an interesting set of desiderata for
any account of the type of attitude towards their representational
content that emotions involve:16
(1) It should not render such cases impossible or exceptional.

(2) It should explain why emotions usually are responsive to the
subject's better beliefs.
(3) It should account for the conflict/inconsistency in which they
implicate the subject.
(4) It should account for the failing involved in having recalcit-
rant emotional responses.
(5) It should not overstate the failing involved in having recal-
citrant emotional responses.
The first and second desiderata require that the psychological sys-
tem that generates emotions be distinct from and (at least to some
extent) independent of the reasoning processes for forming and re-
gulating beliefs. The third desideratum goes beyond the observa-
tion that the representational content of a recalcitrant emotion is
inconsistent with what the subject believes. For there can be 'incon-
sistency' of that kind between imaginings and beliefs without any
sense that the subject is conflicted or holds inconsistent attitudes.17
A theory of emotion must provide (or allow for) an explanation of
the fact that the subject of recalcitrant emotions is in some sense
'pulled in different directions'. 18 The fourth and fifth desiderata to-
gether present the requirement both to explain how the subject of
15
Some have argued that Aristotle saw the passions as involving phantasia because
of how this enabled him to explain recalcitrant emotions on the model of visual illu-
sions. See e.g. Cooper, 'Theory'; Sihvola, 'Emotional Animals'; Striker, 'Emotions
in Context'; criticized in Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic'.
16
Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic', discusses the problems these present for judgement-
or perceptual appearance-based theories of emotion.
17
Helm, Emotional Reason, 41-6. Cf. also G. Pitcher, 'Emotion', Mind, 74 (1965),
324-46. Prinz, Gut Reactions, 237-40, attempts to address such concerns in response
to Pitcher, but fails to do so satisfactorily. See also S. Doring, 'Explaining Action by
Emotion' ['Explaining'], Philosophical Quarterly, 53 (2003), 214-30, and Salmela,
'True Emotions'.
18
This can, but need not, be understood as having conflicting practical motiva-
tions. Cf. J. Elster, Alchemies of the Mind (Cambridge, 1999); id., 'Emotions and
Rationality', in A. S. R. Manstead, N. Frijda, and A. Fischer (eds.), Feelings and
Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium (Cambridge, 2004), 30—48; C. S. Sripada and
S. Stich, 'Evolution, Culture and the Irrationality of the Emotions', in D. Evans and
P. Cruse (eds.), Emotion, Evolution and Rationality (New York, 2004), 133-58. This
approach seems to me unpromising, since it is obviously possible to experience emo-
22O Jamie Dow
recalcitrant emotions fails to comply with some norm of rationality
that is successfully met by the person whose fear of the spider is ex-
tinguished by better knowledge,19 and to avoid assimilating their ir-
rationality to that exhibited by someone who simultaneously judges
both something and that thing's negation.20
In the final section below (Section 7) I argue that, with respect
to these desiderata, the view I am attributing to Aristotle has con-
siderable merit as an account of the emotions. But we may note
immediately that if the passions involve an exercise of phantasia,
this obviously allows for the possibility of conflict with the sub-
ject's considered beliefs (which are an exercise of doxd).
First, however, I attempt to show that the proposed view is in-
deed Aristotle's.
3. Aristotelian passions involve exercising phantasia
Although it is the Rhetoric that contains Aristotle's most developed

treatment of the passions, his concerns there are primarily those
relevant to an orator wishing to arouse them. Thus, we do not find
careful and explicit answers to questions about how the passions
fit into Aristotle's wider views about the psychological capacities of
humans (and non-human animals). So we must look wider—mostly
to the De anima and the ethical works—for evidence of his views,
and then check the picture developed from this wider set of texts for
consistency with his remarks in the Rhetoric.21 My principal con-
cern in this section, then, is to argue that for Aristotle, the represen-
tational aspect of the passions is an exercise of phantasia—a capacity
to store and use sensory representations.22
tions that are clearly recalcitrant but where the motivations they generate happen to
be congruent with the agent's goals.
19
Cf. Brady, 'Emotions and Illusions' and 'Recalcitrant Emotions'; in line with a
tradition going back to Pascal (Pensees, 2. 82) and Hume (Treatise, ch. 26). Others
affirm these desiderata, but restrict their scope to those passions over which the sub-
ject has control, e.g. Doring, 'Explaining', 223; Prinz, Gut Reactions, 236-9; Salmela,
'True Emotions', 396; enlisting (implausibly, to my mind) Hume to their cause.
20
Cf. Greenspan, Emotions and Reasons, 17-20; Helm, Emotional Reason, 4.1-2;
Doring, 'Explaining', 223.
21
One cannot, of course, simply presuppose that Aristotle's views are consistent
across all his works. But it is appropriately charitable to seek a single consistent in-
terpretation; and if one can be found, it seems reasonable then to use one work to
elucidate another.
22
Cf. esp. S. Everson, Aristotle on Perception [Perception] (Oxford, 1999); V. Cas-
For some interpreters, notably John Cooper, the evidence is star-
ing us in the face, from the text of the Rhetoric itself. Aristotle,
throughout Rhetoric 2. 2-11, uses the terms phantasia (appearance)
and phainomenos (apparent) in his explanations of the distinctive
outlook, and hence the distinctive representational contents, in-
volved in each type of passion that he discusses. One example is the
definition of pity given above. Another is his account of anger:23
Let anger be a desire-cum-pain for apparent [âivo/xeV^s] revenge on ac-
count of an apparent [^cuvoêV^v] slight against oneself or one of one's own,
from someone with no business doing so. (Rhet. 2. 2, 1378*30—2)
These interpreters take this as Aristotle indicating that the psycho-

logical faculty involved in such passions is phantasia, or at least that
these texts create a presumption in favour of this view.24 This seems
to me mistaken, stemming from a failure to take seriously the con-
text (an explanation of rhetorical techniques) in which these texts
are found. I give my preferred interpretation of these texts below,
but mention them now to set them aside: I do not think they con-
stitute any evidence for the view that passions involve phantasia.
The most one should say is that the use of the words phantasia and
phainesthai as technical terms in the psychological works does not
present an obstacle to their use here, since Aristotle does in fact
think that the passions involve the capacity of phantasia.
Instead, I present two arguments—each convincing alone, but to-
gether certainly decisive—for the claim that the representational as-
pect of the passions is, for Aristotle, an exercise of phantasia.25
ton, 'Why Aristotle Needs Imagination', Phronesis, 41 (1996), 20-55; id., 'Aristotle
and the Problem of Intentionality', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 58.2
(1998), 249—98; Moss, Apparent Good and bibliography there.
23
Similar terminology is used in the definitions of calmness (i38o a io—12), fear
(i382 a 2i~5), confidence (i383 a i6-i9), shame and shamelessness (i383 b i2-i5), in-
dignation (1387*8—9), envy (i387 b 22~5), emulation (1388^*32-5), as well as elsewhere
in the detailed treatment of the various types of passion.
24
e.g. Cooper, 'Theory', 246-7; id., Reason and Emotion, 416-17; Nieuwenburg,
'Emotion and Perception'; more cautiously, Price, 'Emotions', 133-5; and now
Moss, Apparent Good, 70; I argue against this view in Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic',
I l
5 ~5-
25
My understanding here owes a considerable debt to Price, 'Emotions', and
Moss, Apparent Good, and to exchanges with these authors. I leave aside here some
other arguments from Nieuwenburg, 'Emotion and Perception', and Moss, Appar-
ent Good. The fact that the pleasures of anger are signalled as exercises of phantasia
(Rhet. 2. 2, I378b9-io) can be readily agreed by someone who denies that phantasia is
involved in the way the objects of the passions are represented. There is no inconsis-
222 Jamie Dow
(a) Passions and parts of the soul
The first argument is that for Aristotle the passions belong to a
'part' of the soul whose representational capacities include sensa-
tion and phantasia, but not reason or intellect. Since the represen-
tational content of most passions is not given by a current sensory
experience, in at least these cases (and arguably in all cases) the re-
presentational element of the passions must be an exercise of phan-
tasia.
Aristotle is often cautious about speaking of 'parts' of the soul.
His preferred approach involves identifying and distinguishing
psychological capacities.26 In De anima i he identifies some capa-
cities as clearly involving the body, and others as candidates for
involving the soul alone (i. i, 403^—10). Anger, confidence, ap-
petite, and perception are among the former ( a 7), to which shortly
afterwards he adds 'all the passions' ( a i6), whereas thinking is
an example of the latter ( a 8), though even thinking will require
the body if it turns out (as Aristotle thinks it does) that thinking
involves phantasia (a8-io). It is evident from this that he con-
siders phantasia to be a capacity whose exercise clearly involves
the body. Aristotle, then, thinks that passions involve the body,
but in addition, his account of anger at 403^6—7 suggests that he
thinks specifically that the representational aspects of the passions
are themselves instantiated in the bodily processes associated with
each passion. Thus, anger is the boiling of blood and hot stuff
around the heart, because of such-and-such, for the sake of such-
and-such. 27 The representation of revenge as an object of desire,
and probably also of the slight that occasioned the angry response,
are also here seen as bodily processes. If so, it is clear that these
aspects of the passions cannot be an exercise of thinking processes
that, at this stage in the De anima, Aristotle allows are possible
tency involved in supposing that anger requires believing one has been slighted, even
if it requires no more than imagining getting revenge. More promising is Rhet. 2. 8,
I386 a 29~ b i, in which Aristotle advocates various kinds of acting in order to make
misfortunes seem 'near' (pity's objects are represented as near, is85 b i5), but one
might still insist that these techniques work because they influence the audience's
be.liefs.
26
Cf. DA 2. 2, 4i3 b i3~32; 3. 9, 432a22-b7; 3. 10, 433 b i~4; NE i. 13, 1102^6-32;
EE 2. i, i2i9 b 32-6.
27
The general form of Aristotle's preferred account is given in a26~7, and the spe-
cific details for anger are fleshed out somewhat in a 3o- b i; cf. D. Charles, 'Desire in
Action: Aristotle's Move', in Pakaluk and Pearson (eds.), Moral Psychology, 75—93.
candidates for separation from the body. Of the body-involving
capacities listed in De anima i. i, there are two that are clearly
representational: sensation (aisthesis) and phantasia. If the passions
involve an exercise of one of these, it must be phantasia, since the
objects of passions are frequently not objects of current sensory
experience.28
The same view is evident in the ethical treatises. There he re-
cognizes a wholly non-reasoning part—the nutritive part, and two
other parts that 'have reason'—one that itself exercises reason,
i.e. engages in reasoning, and one that does not itself engage in
reasoning, but 'has reason' in the sense that it is able to be guided
by reason.29 Aristotle clearly locates the passions30 (and related
excellences)31 in this latter 'part' of the soul. But now the represen-
tational resources of this part of the soul do not extend to capacities
(such as doxa, or pistis) that involve reasoning,32 and seem to be
limited once again to aisthesis and phantasia, of which the latter is
the suitable candidate for involvement in the passions.33
28
Aristotle's prima facie puzzling implication at 4O3a7 that anger, confidence, and
appetite are species of perception can be read as confirming this conclusion. For
Aristotle thinks that phantasia is a particular type of exercise of the perceptual capa-
city (cf. De insomn. 459 a i6-i7; DA 3. 3, 428 b i 1-17; and note how at DA 3. 3, 428a9,
he is careful to reject only the possibility that phantasia and aisthesis are identical
'in actuality', which leaves open the possibility that the potentiality for phantasia
is identical with the potentiality for aisthesis); cf. discussion in Everson, Perception,
157-8; and J. E. Whiting, 'Locomotive Soul: The Parts of Soul in Aristotle's Sci-
entific Works', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 22 (2002), 141—200 at 154—63.
The claim that such an exercise of phantasia is not merely a part but the whole of a
passion is a stronger claim, but seems required by the most natural reading of 403^*7.
29
NE i. 13, Iio2 a 27-no3 a 3; EE 2. i, I2i9 b 26-i22o a 4.
30
EE 2. i, I22o a 8-i2; 2. 4, i22i b 27~34; NE i. 13, no3a3-8.
31
NE 2. 6, i io6 b i6-23; EE 2. 2, I22o b 5~i4; 2. 3, I22o b 34-i22i b i7; 2. 5, i222 b 4~
14; Pol. 1.5, I254 b 2~9, noting 'the passionate part' (ra> TraOyriKa) ôpiw, b8).
32
Cf. DA 3. 3,428 a i8-24.
33
If when Aristotle refers to the 'desiderative' part (TO opeKTiKov), his termino-
logy indicates (perhaps among other things) that this part is the seat of the passions
(as Moss suggests (Apparent Good, 72), plausibly, on the basis of EE I22i b 3i and
NE i io2 b 3o), then the conclusion above receives some confirmation from the appar-
ent reference to one and the same faculty as 'perceptive and desiderative' (EE 2. i,
I2i9 b 23), and from his assertion at DA 3. 7, 431^2-14, that the bearer of the capaci-
ties of desire and aversion is not a different thing (oi>x erepov) from the bearer of per-
ceptual capacities, though its being is different (dAAa TO eivai aAAo). Cf. also, relatedly,
Phys 7. 3, 246b2O-247ai9, discussed below. The proposal in Whiting, 'Locomotive
Soul', that practical vovs (e.g. DA 433a9, 14) also stands in the same relationship—
sameness in number, difference in being—to this perceptive/imaginative/appetitive/
passionate part would not undermine the argument above, at least in so far as it rests
on texts that make use of a contrast between reasoning and non-reasoning 'parts' of
224 Jamie Dow
Likewise, when Aristotle, in Rhetoric i. 10, distinguishes kinds of
motivation for human action, he identifies anger (op-yrj) and appetite
(eTTiQviiia) as kinds of non-reasoning desire (aAoyoi opefeis, 1369*4).
If he endorses this classification,34 he cannot think that these states
essentially involve the exercise of reasoning-based representationa
capacities, which seems once again to reduce the possible candidate
for the capacity involved to sensation and phantasia.
(b) Passions, pleasure, and pain

The second argument proceeds from the view that for Aristotle pas
sions essentially involve pleasure and pain.35 This seems clear from
a number of passages about the passions in general:
The passions are those on account of which we change and differ in our
judgements, and which are accompanied by pleasure and pain, for example,
anger, pity, fear, and others of this kind, and their opposites. (Rhet 2. i,
1378^9-22)
By passions I mean appetite, anger, fear, confidence, envy, joy, love, hatred,
yearning, emulation, pity, and in general the things that are accompanied
by pleasure or pain. (NE 2. 5, i iO5 b 2i-3)
By passions I mean such things as anger/spirit [dvpov], fear, shame, appe-
tite, and in general the things that in themselves are accompanied for the
most part by sensory pleasure or pain. (EE 2. 2, i22O b 12-14)
It is also clear from how Aristotle describes the particular kinds of
passions. His definition of pity is given above; equally typical is his
definition of fear:36
Let fear be a certain pain or disturbance from the appearance of destructive
or painful harm in the future. (Rhet. 2. 5, 1382*21-2)
the soul, and locate belief (So£a) in the former and perception, phantasia, and the
passions in the latter.
34
One might doubt this, on the basis that Rhet. i. 4-15 provides merely reput-
able materials for rhetorical arguments (cf. i. 2, I356 b 28— i357 a i; I359 a 26—9). But
that this particular section (i368 b 28-i369 b 29) represents (also) Aristotle's own views
is strongly suggested by a use of the first-person singular (i369 b 23), and a for-
ward reference to Rhet. 2. 2 for an account of anger—since he must think the lat-
ter not merely reputable but true, given its purpose of facilitating anger arousal (cf.
i378a22-6).
35
Cf. Dow, 'Aristotle's Theory', for the stronger claim that Aristotelian passions
are pleasures and pains.
36
In Aristotle's list of types of passion in Rhet. 2. 2-11 there are some that seem
to be exceptions to the claim that all passions involve pleasure or pain. These are
discussed in some detail in Dow, Aristotle's Theory', and I leave them aside here.
In the Rhetoric and elsewhere Aristotle takes pleasures and pains
to require, and perhaps simply to be, exercises of perception and
phantasia:37
Since feeling pleasure is in the perceiving of some condition, and phantasia

is a kind of weak perception, there would always be in the person remem-
bering or looking forward some phantasia of the thing he is remembering or
looking forward to. And if so, it is clear that as people remember and look
forward they will simultaneously also have pleasures, since perception too
is present. (Rhet. i. n, 1370*27-32)
So, Aristotle sees the passions as involving sensory pleasure and

pain, which itself involves an exercise of phantasia, itself a particu-
lar kind of exercise of the capacity for sensation (aisthesis).
That this reasoning is Aristotelian is confirmed by its appearance
at Physics 7. 3. He is defending the claim that virtues are not altera-
tions, but allows that their acquisition is accompanied by alterations
of the sensitive part. He explains that the virtues of the soul38 in-
volve being in a good condition with regard to its proper affections
(TrdOrj, Phys. 247a4), and acquiring them (therefore?) results from
alterations of the sensitive part (rov alaOrjTiKov jjuepovs, a6~7):
For all moral excellence is concerned with bodily pleasures and pains,
which again depend either upon acting or upon remembering or upon an-
ticipating. Now those that depend upon action are determined by sense-
perception, and are moved by something sensible; and those that depend
upon memory or anticipation are likewise to be traced to sense-perception.
Thus all pleasure of this kind must be produced by sensible things; and
since the presence of defect or excellence involves the presence of pleasure
or pain . . . and pleasures and pains are alterations of the sensitive part,
it is evident that the loss and acquisition of these states too [viz. charac-
ter virtues] must be the result of the alteration of something. (Phys. 7. 3,
247a7-i8)
Since Aristotle sees the passions as involving (sensory) pain and

pleasure, he sees them as involving an exercise of the sensitive part
of the soul in either aisthesis or phantasia.39
37
e.g. DA 3. 7, 43i a io-i i. Notice that \r\EE 2. 2, i22O b i4, Aristotle specifies that
it is sensory (ala6-r]TiKr)) pleasure and pain that is involved in the passions. In the re-
levant texts Aristotle ignores the pleasures of thought that he mentions in NE 10. 5,
i i75 a 2i-8.
38
He has in mind character virtues here, and moves on to intellectual virtues at
247 b i.
39
One might reasonably suppose that what is said about the pleasures and pains
226 Jamie Dow
(c) Arguments appealing to visual illusions
The view that, for Aristotle, the passions involve an exercise of
phantasia has been defended by appeal to a comparison between re-
calcitrant passions and visual illusions.40 For example, John Cooper
comments as follows on Aristotle's use of phantasia in the defini-
tions of the types of passion in Rhetoric 2. 2-1 1 :
It seems likely that Aristotle is using phantasia here to indicate the sort of
nonepistemic appearance to which he draws attention once in De anima 3. 3
(428b2~4), according to which something may appear to, or strike one, in
some way (say, as being insulting or belittling) even if one knows there is no
good reason for one to take it so. If so, Aristotle is alert to the crucial fact
about the emotions, that one can experience them simply on the basis of
how, despite what one knows or believes to be the case, things strike one—
how things look to one when, for one reason or another, one is disposed to
feel the emotion. Being unable to control an emotion is, partly, taking as a
ground of it something that you know was not one at all.41
Cooper invokes the comparison between recalcitrant passions and
visual illusions in a way that raises a number of other issues. He
here clearly claims or implies all of the following:
(1) that the term phantasia carries in Rhetoric book 2 the same
meaning as it does in De anima 3 . 3 ;
(2) that Aristotelian passions involve 'non-epistemic' appear-
ances;
(3) that Aristotelian emotions can be wholly repudiated by their
subject;
(4) that Aristotle's view that passions involve phantasia was de-
veloped partly in order to account for recalcitrant emotions
of this kind, analogously to visual illusions.
All except the second of these claims seem to me misguided in one
way or another. Against (i), I discuss in Section 4 below the sense
that accompany the acquisition of virtues in the Physics passage applies equally to the
pleasures and pains involved in the exercise of virtues. Cf. NE 2. i, i iO3 b i3-2i; 2. 3,
1105A13Ý63
40
The similarity between recalcitrant passions and perceptual illusions is en-
dorsed by Moss, but does not form part of her argument for the involvement of
phantasia in the passions (Moss, Apparent Good, 65 and ch. 5 passim).
41
Cooper, Reason and Emotion, 417. Similar lines of argument are presented in
Cooper, 'Passions', 191-2; Striker, 'Emotions in Context', 291; and Sihvola, 'Emo-
tional Animals', 59-60. These arguments, and particularly the appeal to DA 3 . 3 ,
are resisted in Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic'.
Feeling Fantastic Again 227 227.
42
of phantasia as it is used in Rhetoric book 2. Against claims (3)
and (4), I consider in Section 6 below the kinds of conflict between
passions and reasoned beliefs that Aristotle recognizes, and which
one might reasonably take to have shaped his views on the passions.
However, the second claim is our immediate concern, in which
Cooper characterizes the appearances involved in the passions as
'non-epistemic', since it is this that is central to the comparison with
visual illusions. How should we understand this claim?
(1) 'Non-epistemic' may here be simply a synonym for c non-

doxastic', such that Cooper's claim is just that passionate ap-
pearances do not involve beliefs.
(2) Claiming that passionate appearances are 'non-epistemic'
may be a claim that they are not apt targets of epistemic
evaluation, or that the subject is not liable to epistemic
evaluation as a result of this kind of passionate experience.
This kind of exemption from epistemic evaluation is typical
of states in which the subject is uncommitted to the truth of
their representational contents (e.g. supposing, imagining,
and—crucially—having a perceptual appearance).
If the latter is what Cooper intended, the issues raised are those dis-
cussed in Sections 4 and 5 below. I set aside that possibility here,
and will take Cooper to be proposing that Aristotle's view of the
role of phantasia (rather than doxa) in the passions arose from a
comparison between recalcitrant passions and visual illusions.
If Aristotle thought about such a comparison,43 then he might
have considered it good grounds for supposing that passions and
beliefs involve different faculties of the soul. Consider the follow-
ing passage from De insomniis:
And these [viz. appearances as of animals on the walls, experienced by
fevered persons] sometimes combine with their condition in such a way
that, if they are not excessively ill, it does not escape their notice that here
is something false, but if their condition is more severe, they even move
towards them. The explanation for these things' coming about is that the
42
This builds on the earlier discussion in Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic', 151-5.
43
Jessica Moss ('Akrasia') argues that he saw weakness of will as analogous to be-
ing taken in by what one knows is a visual illusion. That weakness of will involves
the kind of conflict we are considering here, i.e. between, on the one hand, the re-
presentation involved in the appetitive or spirited state and, on the other, the agent's
considered belief, is strongly suggested by passages such as DA 3. 10, 433 b 5~io, and
NE 7. 6, i 149*29-34.
228 Jamie Dow
cognitions [TO Kpivtiv] of the controlling part and the one that produces
the appearances [TO, âvraaâra] do not involve the same faculty [Swa/xtv].
(46o b is-i8)
Aristotle's view seems to be that certain kinds of psychological

conflict demand explanation in terms of distinct psychological
capacities or faculties. In the moderately fevered person, neither
the appearances nor their considered beliefs are incoherent, as
they would be if just one capacity were being exercised. Rather,
the appearances are of animals on the wall, and their beliefs are
that there are no animals, merely patterns (cracks, blemishes, or
shapes?). Furthermore, the pattern of conflict may provide addi-
tional grounds for concluding that two capacities are involved. For
Aristotle observes that in the more severe case, where presumably
the reason-involving capacity for forming or using considered
beliefs is disabled, the appearances are not thereby disabled. It is
just so with the passions when they conflict with considered beliefs:
fear involves representing the spider as threatening some harm,
but the subject has a coherent belief to the contrary. And when
a person's reason-involving capacity for exercising (and acting in
accordance with) knowledge is disabled, in ways akin to sleep,
this does not thereby disable their passions.44 It looks as though
the reasoning that led Aristotle to suppose that conflicts between
sensory appearances and considered beliefs should be explained
in terms of distinct psychological capacities could have led him to
conclude that the passions involve the exercise of a capacity distinct
from those involved in considered beliefs.
Immediately after the passage quoted above, Aristotle presents
the example of the sun's appearing a foot across, when we know it
is much larger (De insomn. 46ob 18-20), as further evidence for (OTJ-
jjieiop, b i8) the claim that appearances result from the exercise of
a capacity distinct from that responsible for our considered judge-
ments. He uses this example here simply to argue from the conflict-
ing representations to the distinctness of the capacities involved.
These passages suggest that Aristotle would have explained the
possibility of conflict between a person's passions and their consi-
dered beliefs by reference to the fact that beliefs and passions in-
44
Cf. NE 7. 3, H47 a io-i8, b6~9. Moss, Akrasia', plausibly argues for the view
that in these passages it is the passions and appetites themselves that play a role in
disabling reason, a possibility that Aristotle himself clearly recognizes in DA 3 . 3 ,
429a7.
volve distinct psychological capacities. We should also agree that
phantasia is responsible both for the appearance of the sun as about
a foot across and for the representational contents of the passions.
However, there are important differences between the exercises of
phantasia involved in the small visual appearance of the sun, and
those involved in the passions. For when the latter persist in the
face of conflicting beliefs, Aristotle will want to say the subject is
implicated in inconsistency in the case of recalcitrant passions in
a way that he supposes does not occur in the case of recognized
visual illusions.45 This is most evident in his treatments of akrasia
and enkrateia, where it is clear (whatever else may not be) that he
sees their subject as having passions that persist directly in conflict
with the deliverances of their reasoning.46 And it is equally clear
that this renders the subjects themselves conflicted.47 This is in sig-
nificant measure why virtue is better than enkrateia.
The inconsistency in which the subject of recalcitrant passions is
implicated is, I claim, the result of a quite general feature of Aris-
totelian passions, viz. that having a passion constitutes a kind of af-
firmation by the subject that things are the way they are represented
in their passionate experience. It is this feature of the passions that
means that where the contents of a person's passions are inconsis-
tent with the contents of their beliefs, that person holds (to that
extent) inconsistent attitudes about how things are in the world. In
the following section I defend the attribution of this view to Aris-
totle.
45
Cf. Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic', 155-63: I argue there that the argument of DA
3 . 3 , 428a2—9, turns on Aristotle's plausible observation that the subject of a recog-
nized visual illusion is not thereby implicated in inconsistency. There is a difficulty
faced by perceptual theories of emotion generally in accounting for the inconsistency
involved in having recalcitrant emotions; cf. above, pp. 219—20 and n. 17.
46
Cf. for appetitive akrasia: NE 7. 3, H47 a 3i- b 3, noting evavrias ( b i ) and evav-
ria ( b 3); for akrasia from spirit/anger: 7. 6, 1149^*29-34, noting that the conclusion
of dvij.6s that Set ra> TOIOVTCO -rroXe/jieiv (a33~4) is clearly supposed to be in conflict
with reason's eV/rayâ ( a 3 i); for conflict between reason and the appetites: DA 3.10,
433b5~6, b 7~io, noting evavriai ( b 5, 6), and 433 a io-n, 22-9, where the conflict is
attributed to the production of conflicting evaluative representations. That the ac-
counts of akrasia in DA 3.10 and NE 7. 3 are consistent, and indeed complementary,
is defended in Moss, Akrasia'. For evidence that epithumia is for Aristotle a type of
passion see DA i. i, 4O3a7; Rhet. 2. i, 1378^-5.
47
NE 7. 2, i I46 a 9~i6; 7. 9, i i5i b 32-i i52 a 3.
23° Jamie Dow
4. What kind of attitude do Aristotelian passions

involve towards their representational contents?
We should suppose, then, that the representational aspect of the

passions involved, for Aristotle, 'appearances' presented by phan-
tasia. Several scholars have suggested that Aristotle saw similarities
between visual illusions and conflicts between passion and reason,
and this might be taken to imply that Aristotelian passions need in-
volve no inclination to take their contents as being the way things
are (recall Cooper's characterization of the passions as involving
'non-epistemic appearances'). In this section I claim that the exer-
cises of phantasia involved in Aristotelian passions constitute a kind
of affirmation by their subject of their representational contents.
(a) Affirming the representational contents o/phantasia

It is important to clarify what is meant in this context by 'affirming'
these representational contents. This is best elucidated by consider-
ing two passages. One is the end of De anima 3 . 3 .
Because they [viz. exercises of phantasia] remain within and are similar
to sensations, animals perform many actions in accordance with them, in
some cases, such as brutes, because they do not have thinking [vows], and in
others, such as humans, because their thinking is sometimes covered over
by passion or by diseases or by sleep. (429^-8)
Aristotle here thinks of brutes and some humans as 'acting accord-

ing to phantasia', by which he presumably means that they treat
phantasia as representing the way things actually are. The implied
contrast is with fully functioning human adults, who do not act ac-
cording to phantasia, but presumably act according to nous. Such
humans may often have states of phantasia whose contents differ
from the contents of their nous-derived beliefs, but it is the contents
of their beliefs, not their phantasmata, that guide both how they
act and also what further beliefs they might be inclined to form by
making inferences. I shall say that such fully functioning humans
'affirm' the contents of their beliefs, but do not 'affirm' the contents
of their phantasmata, whereas the brutes and the diseased or sleepy
(or drunk, or immature) humans do 'affirm' the contents of their
phantasmata. I do not intend this use of 'affirm' to imply that there
is some further psychological activity (the activity of affirming) over
and above the exercises of phantasia and nous taking place in any
of the animals Aristotle is considering. Rather, animals are simply
disposed to treat the representational contents of phantasia as giv-
ing the way things are, unless nous is operating effectively, in which
case it is the beliefs generated by nous that are taken to give the way
things are. Whether the contents of phantasia are affirmed is thus
a relational matter—a matter of whether something else within the
animal's psychology takes on the role they would otherwise play.48
The second passage brings to light two possible ways in which the
contents of sensation or phantasia might be 'affirmed'. They are, in
a sense, 'affirmed' by the capacity (or part of the soul) that presents
them. But they may also be 'affirmed' by the person as a whole. The
claim defended here is that, in virtue of being in a passionate state,
the subject of the passions affirms the representational contents of
their passions in this latter way. The issue is thus not about whether
these contents are affirmed by the capacity for phantasia itself, but
whether they are affirmed by the person whose capacity it is. For
Aristotle sometimes writes as though there is a kind of conversa-
tion going on internally between the various capacities:
. . . it is due to touch announcing [eicrayyeAAeiv] two movements that we be-
lieve one thing is two. For, in general, the origin affirms [(/yrjaiv] what comes
from each sense, unless another more authoritative [sense] [KVpicorepa] con-
tradicts [avTifif)]. (De insomn. 3, 46^2-5)
Aristotle is discussing how a single object touched with crossed fin-

gers feels like two objects (46ob2O-z).49 He is happy to say that the
senses themselves can 'announce' and 'contradict', and to that ex-
tent there is something within the agent that affirms the content of
the illusion. But he takes it as obvious that if we are aware of the
illusion, we are not tempted actually to believe there are two ob-
jects. Indeed, he is explicit at 46obzi that 'we do not affirm two',
and he offers the explanation recapitulated in the passage above
48
Moss, Apparent Good, 92-3, similarly highlights what is in common between
beliefs in normally functioning adult humans and exercises of phantasia in those that
lack the functioning of vovs—her preferred term is 'acceptance'. Her account and
mine differ in that hers addresses only the question of what should be said about
subpersonal parts (rational or non-rational), whereas I address, and take there to be
Aristotelian material relevant to, the further question of what should be said about
the subject as a whole.
49
He describes a similar case later in the same work, where a single object ap-
pears visually to be two if the observer presses under their eyeball with their finger
(46i 30-462a2).
b
232 Jamie Dow
that 'sight is more authoritative [Kvpicordpa] than touch' ( b 2i-z). So,
the subject of these sensory experiences is—I suggest—completely
uncommitted to the sensory representations provided by touch50
in this example, indeed the subject explicitly rejects them as false.
The crossed-fingers case from De insomniis thus clarifies the precise
sense in which subjects (as contrasted with their subpersonal capa-
cities) can affirm or be uncommitted to the contents of phantasia.
Two qualifications should be noted. The claim that the subject
of a passionate state thereby affirms its representational contents
should not be understood to preclude that same subject's affirm-
ing, perhaps by having a reasoned belief, something else simultane-
ously. If the contents of the belief and the representations involved
in the passion are inconsistent, the subject in such a case would be
conflicted. Recalcitrant passions will be of this kind—the subject
is conflicted because she simultaneously affirms (albeit with differ-
ent psychological capacities) inconsistent assessments of (say) the
danger posed by the spider. Secondly, in such a case, the influ-
ence of passions and reasoned beliefs on the subject's behaviour
and thinking may not be equal. I discuss below (Section 5) evi-
dence that Aristotle thought a person's reason could be inhibited
to varying degrees. If so, the extent to which their behaviour was
determined by what was affirmed by the non-reasoning part of the
soul would also vary.
The remainder of this section is concerned with showing that for
Aristotle, the subject of the passions affirms, in the sense just iden-
tified, the representational contents of their passions.
(b) Aristotle's use of phantasia and phainesthai in the Rhetoric

The most important evidence for this claim is the use of cognates
of phainesthai ('to appear', esp. phainomenos and phantasia) in Rhe-
toric 2. 2-11.5I In context, these do not—as Cooper and others have
50
Aristotle clearly takes this to generalize to phantasia, since in this part of the De
insomniis he is explaining, using these sensory examples, why typically dreams—for
Aristotle, exercises of phantasia—are convincing to us when asleep, but not when we
are aware that they are mere dreams.
51
We may ignore the suggestion that these mean 'conspicuous' or 'manifest'. Cf.
Fortenbaugh, Aristotle on Emotion, 97-100; pace E. M. Cope, Commentary on the
Rhetoric of Aristotle (Cambridge, 1877), on Rhet. 2. 2, 1378^*30— i, who is followed
by translators W. R. Roberts (in J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle:
The Revised Oxford Translation (Princeton, 1984)) and G. A. Kennedy, Aristotle:
On Rhetoric. A Theory of Civic Discourse (New York, 1991).
52
supposed —signal that the psychological capacity involved in the
passions is phantasia, rather they indicate that this is how—in hav-
ing a passion of the type under discussion—the subject of the pas-
sion takes things to be.53 Phantasia and cognates are important words
in the Rhetoric as a whole, and are used to indicate how the listener
takes things to be, which—of course—may be incorrect. A good
illustrative example is Aristotle's phrase phainomenon enthymema
(i356 b z—3), which means something that a listener thinks is a piece
of good rhetorical reasoning (lit. 'apparent enthymeme'), even if it
is not.
This view of terms such as phantasia in Rhetoric 2. 2-11 receives
confirmation from their context. They occur within a set of instruc-
tions about how a speaker might arouse passions of various types as
part of convincing an audience. Against this background, the dir-
ections Aristotle gives for how to arouse each type of passion can be
plausibly understood only on the view that passions involve their
subject affirming that things are the way they are represented. Aris-
totle indicates his approach as follows:
For each passion, we should make a division into three, I mean, for ex-
ample, with anger how we are disposed when we get angry, at whom we
tend to get angry, and on what grounds. If we were to have one or two of
these, and not all three, it would be impossible to arouse anger. (Rhet. 2. i,
I 3 78 a i2-i 4 )
This sets the context for the accounts of the various types of pas-
sion that follow:
Let anger be a desire-cum-pain for apparent revenge on account of an ap-
parent insult to oneself or one of one's own from one who should not have
insulted. (Rhet. 2. 2, 1378*30-2)
Let calmness be the settling and abating of anger. If people are angry at
those who insult them, and insulting is voluntary, it is clear that they are
calm towards those who do none of these things or do them involuntarily
or appear to be of this kind. (Rhet. 2. 3, 1380^-12)
What things we fear, and whom and in what condition, will be clear as fol-
52
Cooper, Reason and Emotion, 416-17; Sihvola, 'Emotional Animals', 59-68, 70-
i; Striker, 'Emotions in Context', 291; Nieuwenburg, 'Emotion and Perception',
esp. 89-94. Moss, Apparent Good, ch. 4, is more cautious.
53
The argument is made in more detail at Dow, 'Feeling Fantastic', 151—5, and
is broadly in line with Fortenbaugh (Aristotle on Emotion, 95-100) and Nussbaum
(Therapy, ch. 3; and ead., 'Aristotle on Emotions and Rational Persuasion' [Aris-
totle on Emotions'], in Rorty (ed.), Essays Rhet., 303—23) on this point.
234 Jamie Dow
lows. Let fear be some kind of pain or disturbance from the appearance of
future harm that is damaging or painful. (Rhet. 2. 5, 1382*20-2)
It seems obvious that the representational state involved in these

passions (signalled by phantasia and cognates, translated 'appar-
ent' or 'appearance' above) must be one in which the way things
are represented is affirmed as the way things are. For it is extremely
implausible to suppose that Aristotle intends here to allow for the
possibility that you could produce anger in your audience merely by
bringing about the (potentially uncommitted) appearance of insult,
or by getting your audience to entertain the thought of someone's in-
sulting them. An uncommitted phantasia is clearly inadequate for
the job that Aristotle is recommending to the orator. The case is
even clearer with calmness, where Aristotle describes how to soothe
the anger of an audience. He says that people calm down from anger
towards those who did not do what they were originally thought
to have done, or towards those who did involuntarily what they
had been thought to have done deliberately, or (crucially) people
who appear thus (i38oa 10—12). Can Aristotle really be supposing
that people's anger can abate merely by entertaining the thought of
someone's innocence, without endorsing that? Surely not. Anger
abates precisely by the subject's affirming either that the original
accusation was false, or that the deed was done involuntarily. What
is the force of 'apparent' in such cases? It is to emphasize that when
a person calms down because the object of their anger appears now
to be innocent after all, they may not be correct.54 A false belief in
someone's innocence is as effective as a true belief in causing anger
to abate. But an unendorsed thought or appearance is obviously not,
and it is outlandish to suppose that Aristotle would have thought so.
Correctly interpreted, then, Aristotle's 'appearances' termino-
logy in the Rhetoric constitutes a powerful reason for thinking that
Aristotelian passions involve the subject's affirming their represen-
tational content. Paradoxically perhaps,55 by using phantasia and
cognates in his accounts of the passions, Aristotle explicitly asserts
54
Cf. Nussbaum, Therapy, 83-6; pace e.g. Cooper, 'Theory', 247; Striker, 'Emo-
tions in Context' 291.
55
Of course, this is only paradoxical to us. Since, as has been argued above, Aris-
totle thinks that these representations involve an exercise of a capacity for which his
technical term is fiavraaia, the fact that the word might have carried this connota-
tion to some of his audience merely means that this presented no obstacle to its use
to signify that passions involve taking things (whether truly or falsely) to be a certain
way.
that having a given passion involves things appearing to be (i.e. be-
ing affirmed to be) a certain way.
(c) Phantasia, passions, and paintings in De anima j. j

Further support for this claim may be found in De anima 3.3:
That it [phantasia] is not the same [type of thinking] as judgement [hu-
polepsis] is obvious. For this condition is up to us whenever we wish (it
is possible to put something before the eyes, as do those who use images
as an aide-memoire), whereas believing [doxazein] is not up to us—of ne-
cessity we either do so falsely or truly. Furthermore, whenever we believe
something terrible or fearsome, we immediately experience a passion, and
likewise if it is something encouraging. Whereas with phantasia we are as
if we were looking at terrible or encouraging things in a painting. (DA 3.3,
427bi6-24)
This passage does not rule out the possibility that passions them-
selves involve phantasia. Its purpose is to establish that phantasia
and hupolepsis are not identical. All Aristotle needs to show is that
some cases of phantasia are not cases of hupolepsis: he invites the
comparison between uncommitted exercises of phantasia (what we
call 'imagination') and believing to show this.
His claims in this passage are that (a) believing, doxazein, is suffi-
cient to cause passions, but (b) uncommitted phantasia is not. These
claims suggest the view that passions are responses to certain sup-
posed features of the world (things that are pitiful, fearsome, etc.),
and hence lend support to the claim that the subject affirms the
representational contents of their passions as the way things are.
This is because supposing that passions involve affirming their re-
presentational contents provides a ready explanation of Aristotle's
claims, whereas supposing that passions can be entirely uncommit-
ted leaves unexplained and rather puzzling the facts to which Aris-
totle adverts, i.e. that passions are reliably caused by beliefs but are
not by mere imaginings. To believe that there is (say) something ter-
rible or fearful ( b 2i-2) is to be in a state in which, from that person's
perspective, there is something terrible or fearful. It is obvious why
such a situation would tend to bring about a further, passionate,
response from the subject of a kind that involves recognizing that
here is something terrible or fearful. However, merely to entertain
the thought of something terrible or fearful (in a way that is uncom-
mitted as to whether it is actually the case) is not thereby to be in a
236 Jamie Dow
state in which, from the subject's perspective, there is some object
or state of affairs that calls for passionate response. Clearly, if the
passions involve affirming their contents, they are responses that
the subject makes to (supposed) objects or states of affairs actually
obtaining. And this readily explains why beliefs but not imaginings
would typically give rise to passions. Whereas if passions can in-
volve merely uncommitted representations of objects or states of
affairs, it is unclear why beliefs should be any more potent to bring
them about than imaginings, since both involve presenting the sub-
ject with relevant representational content.
This passage, thus, provides a second argument in support of the
view that Aristotelian passions involve their subject taking things
to be the way they are represented.
5. Phantasia and the regulation of the passions
I now seek to trace some implications for the regulation of the pas-
sions of Aristotle's view that they involve an exercise of phantasia.
I briefly highlight two features of phantasia, before applying them
to the passions. One is the way in which the proper role of phanta-
smata within the organism depends on the presence or absence of
more authoritative information from other psychological faculties.
The other is the way in which evaluative phantasia, where things
appear good or bad in some way, involves pleasure and pain, and
has motivational consequences.
(a) Two features of phantasia

The first feature concerns the role of the representations presented
by phantasia. On almost any view of the role of phantasia in an Aris-
totelian subject, 56 there are exercises of phantasia whose contents
are affirmed, others towards whose contents the subject is entirely
uncommitted, and still others where the subject is conflicted in re-
lation to them.
56
e.g. M. C. Nussbaum, Aristotle's De motu animalium [De motu] (Princeton,
1978); M. Schofield, 'Aristotle on the Imagination', in M. C. Nussbaum and A. O.
Rorty (eds.), Essays on Aristotle's De anima (Oxford, 1978), 249-77; M. V. Wedin,
Mind and Imagination in Aristotle (New Haven, 1988); Everson, Perception; H.
Lorenz, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle (Oxford, 2006);
and Moss, Apparent Good.
The crossed-fingers case from De insomniis, discussed above,
provides a clear example of uncommitted phantasia. An even
clearer example is the following:
For this condition [phantasia] is up to us whenever we wish (it is possible
to put something before the eyes, as do those who use images as an aide-
memoire) . . . (DA 3.3, 427bi7-2o)
Conversely, there are clearly some exercises of phantasia that are
affirmed by the subject. At the end of De anima's chapter on phan-
tasia Aristotle says:
Animals perform many actions in accordance with phantasia, in some cases
because they do not possess thinking, e.g. in brutes, and in others because
thinking is covered over sometimes by passion or disease or sleep, e.g. in
humans. (DA 3.3, 429^-8)
Aristotle thinks that in animals, and in some human behaviour, ac-
tion is guided by phantasia.57 This passage also highlights what I
take to be, in Aristotle's view, the correct and normal functioning
of animals, such that the role of phantasia (i.e. whether what it re
presents is 'affirmed' by the subject such that they 'perform actions
in accordance with' it) is determined by whether some more au-
thoritative faculty is present and active.58 In properly functioning
adult humans, where their reasoned thinking (vovs) is active, it is
the deliverances of the latter, rather than of phantasia, that are 'af-
firmed' and guide action.
The second feature of phantasia to highlight is that evaluative ap-
pearances have motivational consequences. This appears to hold re-
gardless of any conflict with reasoned beliefs:
Now the origin of motion is, as we have said, the object of pursuit or avoid-
ance in the sphere of action. Of necessity the thought and phantasia of these
57
Phantasia can seemingly do so by providing (to put the point in terms of Aris-
totle's distinction from MA 7, 7oi b 23~5) the premiss of the possible, e.g. MA 7,
701 a32-3, and cf. M. Schofield, 'Phantasia in De motu animaliwri, in Pakaluk and
Pearson (eds.), Moral Psychology, 119-34; or the premiss of the good, e.g. DA 3.10,
433a26~9, and arguably MA 8, 7O2 a i8-i9; cf. Moss, Apparent Good, ch. 3.
58
The explanation of why the contents of some phantasmata are affirmed and
others not is much more difficult on Lorenz's view that phantasia can present an
animal with 'prospects' to be realized (The Brute Within, esp. ch. 9). On this view,
non-rational animals regularly have phantasmata whose contents are not affirmed,
as well as phantasmata whose contents are affirmed. The explanation above for why
some are not affirmed, that makes reference to more authoritative capacities, is not
applicable to the 'prospects' cases, and so leaves puzzlingly unexplained why the
contents of some phantasmata are affirmed and others not.
238 Jamie Dow
are accompanied by heating and chilling. For the painful is avoided and
the pleasant pursued, and the painful and the pleasant are nearly always
accompanied by chilling and heating (although we do not notice this when
it happens in a small part). (MA 8, 7oib33-7O2a2)59
Since Aristotle has already explained (7, 7oi b 2—17) that it is by in-
ternal heating and chilling that locomotion is initiated, the passage
above effectively indicates that evaluative phantasmata of the plea-
sant and the painful are 'necessarily' accompanied by the kind of
(motivational) states that give rise to locomotion.60 The intriguing
implication is that the activity of a more authoritative psychologi-
cal capacity is insufficient to prevent some level of influence on the
subject's behaviour in the case where phantasia is of the pleasant
and the painful. The phantasmata involved in the passions are of
course of just this kind.
(b) The 'covering over3 of reason

These observations about phantasia have implications for the regu-
lation of the passions. In the properly functioning adult human, rea-
soning capacities (vovs) should be active and determine the subject's
actions. This might include endorsing certain passionate responses.
But where reasoned beliefs are in conflict with how things are re-
presented by passionate phantasia, it should be the former that de-
termine how the subject behaves. We see this normative picture ex-
pressed in Aristotle's explanation of various ways in which humans
may fail to function correctly.
We might recall that reason can be 'covered over' or disabled (DA
3 . 3 , 429^), allowing passionate phantasia to exert greater influence
over the subject's behaviour than it should, if it is at odds with their
reasoned beliefs. However this comes about (e.g. through sleep,
drink, or disease), this constitutes a disabling of the proper func-
tioning of the person.
However, we should also notice that the passions themselves can
disable reason from performing its proper role. Aristotle describes
in De insomniis how reason can be disabled by fevers. The lines pre-
59
Text and translation are from Nussbaum, De motu, omitting from the transla-
tion Nussbaum's explanatory interpolation.
60
This conclusion may need to be tempered in the light of the caveat 'nearly al-
ways' ( a i), although Moraux's transposition of the parentheses to where they appear
above, if correct, has Aristotle back-pedalling on this caveat, reinstating the neces-
sity claim of b34. Cf. Nussbaum, De motu, ad loc., and Moss, Apparent Good, 24—5.
ceding this passage, in which he describes some (related) ways in
which passions can distort cognition, suggest that he thinks strong
passions too can have this effect:
This is why sometimes also to those with a fever animals appear on the
walls, from a slight similarity of the markings combined together. And
these sometimes combine with their condition [tois pathesin] in such a way
that, if they are not excessively ill, it does not escape their notice that it is
something false, but if their condition is more severe, they even move to-
wards them. (De insomn. 2, 46obi i—16)
De anima 3 . 3 , 429*5-8 (discussed above), confirms explicitly that

passions are among the things that can 'cover over' reason in this
way.61 When reason is thus disabled, appearances (phantasmata)
that would normally be treated in an uncommitted way, because
of the more authoritative deliverances of reason, are now affirmed
by the subject. And they act accordingly.
Of course, we need not suppose that the covering-over of reason is
an all-or-nothing affair, such that Aristotle would hold implausibly
that individuals experiencing passions were either uncommitted to
the way their passionate phantasia represented things or wholly un-
able to exercise their capacities of reason. The De insomniis passage
above clearly presents the disabling of reason by disease as a mat-
ter of degree ('if they are not excessively ill ... if their condition is
more severe . . .', 46o b i4-i5), and it is natural to think that Aris-
totle would have seen the effects of passions similarly.62 Depending
on their strength, Aristotelian passions can impede reason's proper
functioning to different degrees, and so persist when they should be
extinguished, and generate motivational conflict where there should
be none, despite the subject's recognition that they involve a mis-
representation of how things are.
(c) Phantasia and 'listening to reason*

The second feature of passion-related phantasia highlighted above,
that it has motivational effects, even when the subject has reasoned
beliefs in conflict with it, may explain a further feature of Aristotle's
views about the proper regulation of the passions. As noted in Sec-
tion 2 above, Aristotle thinks that, when it comes to the kind of
61
Cf. also De sensu 447^4-17, and for a defence of the view that this is what ac-
counts for akrasia in NE 7. 3, see Moss, 'Akrasia'.
62
Cf. Moss, Apparent Good, 126—7 and references there.
24° Jamie Dow
phantasia that is pleasurable or painful, i.e. to the kind of appear-
ances involved in the passions, phantasia can and should represent
things as being the way that correct reason says they are, though in
reality it may sometimes fail to do so. It is a mark of virtue that these
evaluative appearances 'completely concur with reason' (NE i. 13,
i iO2 b z8), at least in the case when reason is getting things right. It is
noteworthy that Aristotle recognizes no corresponding requirement
for non-evaluative phantasia (e.g. that involved in memory, ima-
gining, dreams, sensory appearances) to be conformed to what cor-
rect reason says. The explanation for why evaluative phantasmata
are subject to this kind of regulation is, I suggest, that unlike their
non-evaluative counterparts they will exert a degree of motivational
influence on the subject regardless of the presence of more authori-
tative reasoned beliefs.63
The way evaluative phantasia should listen to reason seems to
me nicely illustrated by the passage from De anima 3. 3 (427 b 2i—
4) about how imagining terrible or frightening things leaves us un-
moved, as we would be if we had seen such things in a painting. The
passage has puzzled interpreters, on two grounds. 64 Firstly, it has
seemed puzzling that Aristotle would suppose we are left unmoved
by the arts, especially given how central he thinks the arousal of pity
and fear is to tragedy. Secondly, it seems puzzling how one could
represent things as terrible or frightening with the non-reasoning
part of the soul and not ipso facto be distressed—surely for Aris-
totle no more is needed for the non-reasoning part to be distressed
than for it to represent something as terrible or frightening? Both
puzzles are dispelled if we see this as a case where evaluative phan-
tasia concurs (as Aristotle thinks it should) with reason. The result
is very specific:
We are in the same condition as we would be if we were looking at terrible
or encouraging things in a painting. (427b23~4)
The comparison with painting is, I suggest, not making some im-
plausible point about how we are left emotionally unmoved by the
arts in general. Rather it draws on a point made specifically about
painters in Republic 10, 596 D—E. 65 In a way, the painter makes the
63
See further sect. 6 below.
64
e.g. E. S. Belfiore, Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion (Princeton,
1992), 242-5; R. Polansky, Aristotle's De anima: A Critical Commentary (Cam-
bridge, 2007), 412; Moss, Apparent Good, 90-1.
65
This does not acquit Aristotle of claiming that we are (sometimes) left emo-
objects he depicts, but strictly speaking, he only makes the appear-
ances of them. Aristotle's claim here, I suggest, is that when we
know that these representations are merely imagined, we do not
mistake them for the real thing. In a way what phantasia represents
is terrible or encouraging things, but strictly what is represented
is 'what terrible or encouraging things look like'. There is a subtle
change in the representational contents of phantasia, akin to recog-
nizing the images in a painting as images. As such, I suggest, this is
a case where phantasia has successfully concurred with reason.66
6. Resources for explaining conflict between passions and reason

I have claimed that an Aristotelian passion involves an exercise
of phantasia whose representational contents are affirmed by its
subject. I have also claimed that in correctly functioning humans,
firstly evaluative phantasmata will have representational contents
that concur with what their reason concludes, but secondly—if any
evaluative phantasmata did persist that are at odds with reason's
verdicts—although their contents would be affirmed by the sub-
ject, the person would act in accordance with what correct reason
says, affirming reason's verdicts, reflecting the greater authority of
reason in comparison with phantasia.
Correspondingly, Aristotle thinks that, in adult humans, recalcit-
rant passions, i.e. passions that persist in recognized conflict with
the subject's considered beliefs, involve some defect or failure of cor-
rect functioning. And this, I argued in Section 2, is a strength, not
a weakness, of a view of the passions—it meets one of the desiderata
for a theory of emotions that emerged from reflection on recalcit-
rant emotions.
Specifically, on an Aristotelian view, there are two malfunctions
involved in recalcitrant passions. Firstly, the way these passions
tionally unmoved by paintings. Presumably he has in mind vase paintings. If—
charitably—he may be taken not to be denying that we can ever be moved by paint-
ings, but to be asserting that sometimes (often, perhaps) the recognition that this is
a painting and not the real thing so distances us from what is depicted that we do
not respond to it emotionally, then his point seems to me not at all implausible.
66
Conversely, it seems Aristotle's view is that passionate responses to the right
kind of tragic plot and to certain kinds of music can be endorsed by reason—as
though reason's verdict is that here is something worthy of fear, pity, anger, and
so on. Cf. Poet. 13 and 14, esp. i452 b 3O-i453 a 5; Pol. 8. 5, esp. I34oai4-b7. The is-
sues involved are complex and cannot be explored here.
242 Jamie Dow
represent their objects as pleasant and painful is not determined
by what reason correctly prescribes. Secondly, if that fails and the
subject has passionate appearances persisting in conflict with their
reasoned beliefs, the subject's actions and inclinations should be
wholly determined by their reasoned beliefs, and they should be
comparatively uncommitted to the contents of phantasia (reflect-
ing belief's proper status as the more 'authoritative' psychological
faculty), just as usually subjects are uncommitted to sensory ap-
pearances they know to be false (the appearance of the sun as about
a foot across, or of one object as two in the finger and eyeball ex-
periments described above). The second failure in the recalcitrant
case, then, is that the phantasma involved in the passion, despite
its being less 'authoritative' than the reasoned beliefs with which
it is in conflict, nevertheless remains affirmed by the subject as re-
presenting the way things are, and continues to exert motivational
pressure on the subject to act accordingly. This is a failure of proper
psychological functioning, according to which reason should deter-
mine the content of the subject's evaluative phantasmata, and the
deliverances of more authoritative faculties should trump those of
other, less authoritative faculties.
If we think that recalcitrant passions are a reasonably com-
monplace occurrence, we might be puzzled at the implication
of this view that humans so frequently suffer the malfunctions
just described, and suppose that this requires some explanation.
This should start from the kinds of conflict between passions and
reasoned beliefs that Aristotle himself recognizes.
In some ways the clearest cases are those discussed in NE 7. 6,
H49 a 2i— b z6, involving conflict between anger/spirit (Ovôs) and
reason. On Aristotle's diagnosis, the conflict arises not from any
disagreement about whether a slight (oXiycopia) has occurred, but
over whether one should fight for vengeance. Aristotle may have
in mind Odysseus' anger against the servant girls in Odyssey 20,
where reason neither repudiates the anger itself nor denies the
correctness of having some impulse towards vengeance.67 Reason
simply disagrees with anger's verdict that 'one should fight such
a thing' (a33~4), on the grounds that—all things considered—it
is better to do something else. The kind of akrasia from anger
that Aristotle considers here is where the person acts from anger,
67
Horn. Od. 20. 9-24, an incident that Plato had used to illustrate the motiva-
tional conflict between spirit and reason (Rep. 4, 440 £—441 B).
against his reasoned judgement: the conflict is not over whether
anger represents its objects correctly.
Similar is the type of case analysed in DA 3. 10, of conflict
between appetite and reason, where appetite's verdict on its object,
that it is 'unqualifiedly pleasant and unqualifiedly good' (433 b 9),
conflicts with reason's verdict. Aristotle is talking here about cases
where immediate pleasure should be sacrificed because of greater
longer-term benefits ( b 5—10): so, reason does not wholly repudiate
the representation (by phantasid) of appetite's object as pleasant
and good, in the ways to which appetite is sensitive. Rather, reason
sets these against competing longer-term goods, and judges that,
all things considered, it is better to forgo the immediate pleasure.
Because appetite's verdict does not distinguish between pro tanto
and all-things-considered pleasantness or goodness, it is opposed
by reason to the extent that it motivates its subject to act as though
its object were not merely pro tanto pleasant and good, but unqua-
lifiedly so.68
The key point for us is that, in both of these cases, the way the
passions in question represent their objects is not contradicted di-
rectly by reason. Rather, reason recognizes the passionate response
as a correct but partial response to features of the subject's circum-
stances.
In De memoria 2, 453*26-8, Aristotle recognizes that anger and
fear do not subside (or 'settle down', KaOiaravTai), despite the
subject's efforts to extinguish them. The passage is not altogether
clear—perhaps he envisages that the angry or fearful person con-
tinues to represent their object as meriting anger or fear despite
being convinced that there are no grounds for these passions. But
I think it more likely, given the context, that he is simply high-
lighting that the bodily processes involved in the passions are not
immediately halted when one comes to see that the passions are not
called for.
A final passage69 to consider in this context is De anima i. i,
68
Understanding the conflict between reason and appetite in NE 7. 3 is compli-
cated by Aristotle's diagnosis of ignorance, but for a defence of the view that the
conflict is similar to that in DA 3.10, followed by a disabling of reason by the pas-
sions, see Moss's justly celebrated article Akrasia'.
69
I set aside MA n, 7O3b5~8, and DA 3. 9, 432b29~433a3. As examples of the
accidental arousal of the passions by activities of reason, they show the passions'
independence from reason. Still, they are not examples of passions in conflict with
244 Jamie Dow
403*19-25, in a series of arguments to the conclusion that the affec-
tions (TO, TraflTy) of the soul are enmattered accounts (Aoyoi evvXoi):
This is suggested by the fact that sometimes when serious and conspicuous
sufferings are taking place people feel no distress or fear, whereas at other
times they are stirred by small and feeble stimulations, whenever the body
is angry, i.e. is in the condition it is in when a person is angry. And here
is an even clearer case: when nothing fearsome is happening people find
themselves with the feelings of the person who is frightened.
Aristotle's principal aim is to establish that the passions involve the
body. His examples are best understood as cases where the subject's
passions are at odds with how they take things to be, as a result
of some bodily condition. In some of these cases we can speculate
plausibly about what might produce this result: the person who is
physically exhausted may be unable to feel pity or fear at what they
recognize as meriting such responses. The person whose body is
in the aftermath of one frightening experience may be prone to a
stronger fearful reaction to some subsequent stimulus than is sug-
gested even by their own assessment of how much fear that stimu-
lus merits. It is less easy to guess what Aristotle has in mind in his
last 'still clearer' case.70 But in all cases there seems no obstacle to
supposing that he is describing divergences from the proper func-
tioning of a human adult. Aristotle takes such cases to be familiar
but unusual cases that demand an explanation such as the one he
provides. On the view defended here, these are unusual because
they are deviations from the normal successful functioning of adult
humans, in which passions occur and persist only in the absence
of conflict with the more authoritative psychological capacity for
reasoned beliefs.
Having surveyed the kinds of conflict that Aristotle recognizes
between reasoned beliefs and the passions, let us return to the ques-
tion of why humans seem prone to reasonably frequent failures of
proper psychological functioning in these ways. Many of these cases
involve a significant endorsement by reason of the contents ofphan-
tasia: that is to say that experiencing some passion of that kind, e.g.
experiencing some anger, does not represent a failure. Where there
beliefs. Indeed, in the former case, there is some doubt whether they are passions at
all; cf. Nussbaum, De motu, ad loc.
70
Could it be that he is thinking of the emotional effects of music? If so, perhaps
the suggestion is that the effect on the soul of music and poetry there is such as to
mimic standard cases of fear. Cf. Pol. 8. 5-7, esp. 134(^14-28.
is a failure, it may consist in an inability, familiar from the ethi-
cal works, of non-virtuous people to take pleasure (and experience
pain) in all and only the things that reason correctly affirms as good
(or bad), and to the degree that reason so affirms them. Proneness
to such failures is partially explained in De anima 3. 10 as stemming
from the cognitive limitations of phantasia, and an inability to 'see
the future'. But it will also be explained in significant measure by
defects in upbringing and moral education.71 The failure might also
result from the disabling or 'covering over' of reason as a side effect
of the subject's passions.
Some challenges for the view canvassed here remain. There is
a puzzle about why for Aristotle human phantasia ought to 'agree
with' 72 correct reason when those contents are evaluative (and the
phantasma would be pleasurable or painful), whereas—as with the
apparent size of the sun—he clearly does not think that it is generally
true of phantasia that its contents ought to follow what reason says,
where the two conflict. I speculated above that this is best explained
by the fact that evaluative phantasia has necessary motivational con-
sequences, whereas non-evaluative phantasia does not. But to be
fully satisfying within Aristotle's framework, we would wish this
explanation to be accompanied by some story about why (it is good
that) evaluative and non-evaluative phantasiai are different in this
way. Relatedly, the account presented here raises a challenge to ex-
plain why seemingly humans more reliably withhold affirmation
from non-evaluative than from evaluative phantasmata when they
conflict with better-grounded beliefs. Why, one might justifiably
wonder, does a structural feature of human psychology (preferring
more authoritative rational beliefs over non-rational appearances,
when the two conflict) operate more successfully if the content is
non-evaluative, despite the fact that the conflict is between phan-
tasia and doxa in both cases? Perhaps Aristotle's recognition of the
power of passionate states to disable reason goes some way towards
explaining this. But here again, there remains a substantial chal-
lenge to turn this into a convincing explanation of how phobic re-
sponses to dogs or heights, so prevalent in the contemporary litera-
ture on the philosophy of emotions, can arise or persist in the face of
71
NE 2. 3, i iO4 b 3~i io5 a i6; 2. 6, i io6b36-i io7 a 2, and cf. still M. F. Burnyeat,
'Aristotle on Learning to be Good', in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics
(Berkeley, 1980), 69-92.
72
See above, sect. 2, for discussion of the passages in which Aristotle expresses
this view.
246 Jamie Dow
73
conflicting better beliefs. For, on the face of things, the reasoning
faculties of such phobics seem unimpaired.
Of course, the fact that challenges remain in understanding fully
the contours of Aristotle's evaluative psychology need not obscure
the progress that it is possible to make. If the proposed account is
correct, Aristotle has powerful resources for explaining human pas-
sions, including the conflicts he recognizes between passions and
beliefs.
7. Some philosophical merits of Aristotle's view
The view of the passions that I have ascribed to Aristotle here seems
to me to have considerable merits as a view of the emotions. In par-
ticular, it has some interesting strengths in how it accounts for re-
calcitrant emotions.
On Aristotle's view, recalcitrant emotions are possible because
the representational capacity involved in the emotions is distinct
from that involved in considered beliefs.
Assuming that there is more reason for affirming the way things
are represented in the subject's considered beliefs than the way they
are represented in their passions, there will be a failing involved in
persisting in having the passion once the conflict between these is
recognized.
We have focused on Aristotle's treatment of (typical?) cases where
reasoned beliefs are epistemically better than mere appearances,
but this need not always be so. Our emotional responses may, on
some occasions, be more sensitive to the balance of relevant evi-
dence than our reasoned beliefs. Consider the kind of situation in
which one might correctly feel suspicious of a plausible-sounding
stranger, on the basis of subtle behavioural cues that betray his
fraudulent intentions, without one's being aware that one is re-
sponding to those cues, and without one's being able reflectively
to identify adequate grounds for such suspicion. Aristotle's view, of
course, is that the passions should be conformed to what correct rea-
son prescribes (NE 1107*1-2). Recalcitrant passions will thus nor-
mally involve a failing, since normally the subject's reasoned beliefs
will be a better response to the balance of evidence available. But
73
Cf. Moss, Apparent Good, 112-18 and 126-7, for some intriguing suggestions
about how such an explanation might work.
b
Aristotle seems aware (NE i i 5 i 17-22) that sometimes the repre-
sentations involved in the passions may constitute a better response
to the available evidence than that person's reasoned beliefs, and if
so, it is a merit that they persist in spite of their conflict with those
beliefs.
Aristotle thus has a plausible account of the failing involved in re-
calcitrant emotions, and also avoids overstating this failing.74 When
a person's considered judgement and their passions are in conflict,
the person endorses conflicting appraisals of their situation. If it
is the reasoning part that is responding correctly to the balance of
considerations available, Aristotle's diagnosis is that the passionate
part has failed to discharge its function properly, and listen properly
to the reasoning part. The subject's reason has also failed to exer-
cise its authority. For the subject experiences motivational conflict,
and is in other ways inclined to affirm representational contents that
have been contradicted by a more authoritative faculty. But these
failings are less significant than the fact that their reasoning has
reached the correct judgement on whether emotion is warranted,
and if it is this considered judgement that determines the subject's
further inferences, judgements, and actions, the reasoning part has
largely succeeded in functioning as it should. Certainly, the failing
involved in having recalcitrant emotions is not as serious as per-
sisting with beliefs or judgements that are inconsistent with one's
better beliefs or knowledge. This is because the reasoning part has
a supervisory or 'ruling' role in the person, such that it is more im-
portant for exercises of this part to be regulated by the person's
assessment of the balance of evidential considerations than it is for
subordinate parts to be so regulated. The subordination Aristotle
recognizes of the non-reasoning to the reasoning part gives him re-
sources for an account of the passions which meets the desiderata of
making recalcitrant emotions a failing but one that is not too severe.
The explanation of why the passions of adult humans generally
are successfully regulated by beliefs is provided in part by suppos-
ing (as Aristotle seems to have done) simply that adult humans in
general function tolerably well. Having located the passions in the
non-reasoning part of the soul, he can appeal to the cognitive limi-
74
We here leave aside the case where passions completely disable the subject's
ability to reason, and to control their beliefs and actions in the light of their beliefs.
Aristotle would presumably see such a loss of control by reason as a serious failure
of psychological functioning.
248 Jamie Dow
tations of this part to account for the particular kinds of conflict
between passions and beliefs (those involved in weak-willed beha-
viour) to which humans are particularly prone.
8. Conclusion
Aristotle's position, I think, is this. The passions involve exercises

of the capacity phantasia with evaluative representational contents
that constitute an affirmation by the subject that things are the way
they are represented as being. This explains why the passions can be
used, and legitimately used, in rhetoric. It also explains why it is im-
portant for fully virtuous agents to have the right passions—they are
thereby able to make an unconnected affirmation of the correct view
of what the situation demands. Virtue is better than self-control
on precisely this point, since the self-controlled person—as well as
having a correct appraisal in virtue of the activity of their reasoning
part—also has an incorrect appraisal in virtue of their passionate
responses. Although their reasoning part exercises, in the end, the
control it should over action, they also have a dissenting voice that
does not construe the situation as it should. And that is a failing.
University of Leeds
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The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion (Oxford, 2009), 121—42.
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Salmela, M., 'True Emotions', Philosophical Quarterly, 56 (2006),
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Schofield, M., Aristotle on the Imagination', in M. C. Nussbaum and
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'Phantasia in De motu animalium', in Pakaluk and Pearson (eds.),
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(1984), 117-23-
THE S T R U C T U R E OF
STOIC METAPHYSICS
D. T. J. B A I L E Y
All things that are, are equally removed from being nothing.
QOHN DONNE, Sermon 21)
(PLUTARCH, Adv. Col. 1116 B-C)

For they [the Stoics] deprived many important things of the
title of being: void, time, place, and generally the class of say-
ables, which contains all the truths. They said these beings are
not, but are something, treating them as subsisting and obtain-
ing, both in the conduct of their lives and in their philosophy.1
IN this paper I offer a new interpretation of Stoic ontology. I aim

to explain the nature of, and relations between, (i) the fundamental
items of their physics, bodies; (ii) the incorporeal items about which
they theorized no less; and (iii) universals, towards which the Stoic
attitude seems to be a bizarre mixture of realism and anti-realism.
In the first half of the paper I provide a new model to explain the
relationship between those items in (i) and (ii). This model clears
up several problems in Stoicism and gives a precise answer to the
© D. T. J. Bailey 2014
I am very grateful for the encouragement and written comments of Hugh Benson,
Nicholas Denyer, Tyler Huismann, Brad Inwood, Kathrin Koslicki, Mi-Kyoung
Lee, M. M. McCabe, Graham Oddie, David Sedley, Christopher Shields, and
Gisela Striker. I owe thanks of another kind to Amber Arnold, Chad McKonly,
George Fairbanks, Andromache Karanika, Dimos Dimaragonas, Amy Geddes,
Tom Geddes, Anne-Marie Sinay, David Twombly, and Noel Sugimura.
1
My translation, which I defend in the main text. Normally I shall be using the
translations of A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers [LS] (Cam-
bridge, 1987), but frequently with modifications. I also adopt the practice of refer-
ring, wherever possible, both to LS and to the standard scholarly collection of Stoic
fragments and testimonia, von Arnim's Stoicorum veterum fragmenta [SVF]).
254 D. T. J. Bailey
question of how bodies and incorporeals differ in their mode of be-
ing. The second half of the paper considers the vexed issue of the
status of those items in (hi), Stoic universals. 2
i. Introduction
Stoicism is in one sense materialistic: the Stoics held that the cos-
mos is comprised exhaustively of bodies, the only things among
which causal interactions can take place.3 The Stoics therefore had
a mania for analysing all manner of entities as corporeal. Some ex-
amples: the soul;4 virtue, knowledge, and mental states in general;5
anything of which one can correctly predicate goodness;6 night and
day;7 even the truth itself.8
Yet Stoicism is in another sense non-materialistic: the Stoics
spent a good deal of their time theorizing about items that they
admit to be both immaterial and free from any causal networking.
The Stoics therefore had a mania for analysing all manner of enti-
ties as incorporeal. Some examples: for them, the effects of causal
interactions are predicates, not as we might think facts or events,
much less corporeal individuals; 9 the objects of intentions gener-
2
Throughout the paper, by 'Stoicism' and 'the Stoics' I mean the canonical school
from Zeno to Chrysippus. It is outside the scope of this paper to consider what
happened to the school's ontology in the Roman and Christian eras. I do mention
several times Seneca's contribution to my topic, but for the purposes of my conclu-
sions very little turns on exactly how his Epistle 58 is to be understood.
3
In what follows I shall only be discussing the status of Stoic bodies as causally
networked, and not also their status as in some sense living items imbued with soul
and rationality (see. e.g. D.L. 7. 138, 139 (=LS 4.70 = 8VF'n. 634)). That Stoic bodies
differ to this extent from the extended, mechanically entrenched but thoroughly
intentionality-free bodies of early modern natural philosophy is not relevant to the
thesis of this paper. For Stoic definitions of body as just that which is extended in
three dimensions, or so extended together with being resistant, see D.L. 7. 135 (= LS
^$E = SVF iii Apollodorus 6) and Galen, Qualit. incorp. xix. 483. 8-15 Kiihn (=SVF
ii. 381). Some have entertained the possibility that this text is not authentic Galen
(see e.g. J. Westenberger, Galeni qui fertur de qualitatibus incorporeis libellus (diss.
Marburg, 1906)). I follow the judgement of R. J. Hankinson, Galen: On the Thera-
peutic Method, Books I and II (Oxford, 1991) Appendix 2, 246, who accepts the
authenticity of Quod qualitates incorporeae sint.
4
See e.g. Nemes. Nat. horn. 78. 7-79. 2; Si. 6-10 Morani (=LS 450, D = SVF i.
518, ii. 790).
5
See e.g. Act. Plac. 4. n. 1-4 (=LS ^()E = SVF ii. 83); Plut. Comm. not. 1084 F—
6
1085 A (=LS wF = SVF ii. 847). Sen. Ep. 117. 2 (=LS 6oS).
7
Plut. Comm. not. 10840 (=LS $\G = SVF ii. 665).
8
S.E. P# 2.81-3 (=LS 3 3 P).
9
See e.g. S.E. M. 9. 211 (=LS 55R = SVF ii. 341).
The Structure of Stoic Metaphysics 25 5
ally, especially those of desire and knowledge, are also predicates;10
and such things as places, times, and the bearers of truth-values
must be likewise immaterial. In general they postulated at least
four kinds of incorporeal: place, time, void, and 'sayables' or c ex-
pressibles', their semantic items.
How is this disparity to be best understood? What approach to
our sources will make sense of the strange contrast between the
Stoics' appetite for corporealizing all manner of entities, and their
simultaneous tolerance of so many different immaterial items?
There is an approach to metaphysics, currently in vogue among
contemporary analytic metaphysicians, which provides a new and
better answer to this question than those currently available in the
literature on the Stoics.11
According to this approach, fruitful metaphysics is not primar-
ily the attempt to answer the question 'What exists?' in the manner
in which Quine approached this issue.12 Rather, metaphysics seeks
to give an articulated order to the classes of things over which we
quantify, all of which may be said to exist without this latter claim
having settled anything interesting. Put another way, anything you
like exists: the task of metaphysics is to say how it does so. Typic-
10
See e.g. Stob. 2. 97. 15-98. 6 (=LS ^] = SVF iii. 91). For the former streak of
immaterialism see S. Bobzien, 'Chrysippus' Theory of Causes', in K. lerodiakonou,
Topics in Stoic Philosophy (Oxford, 1999), 196—242; Determinism and Freedom in
Stoic Philosophy [Determinism] (Oxford, 1998). For the latter see J. Brunschwig, 'On
a Stoic Way of Not Being', in id., Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1994),
158-69.
11
See e.g. J. Schaffer, 'On What Grounds What' ['Grounds'], in D. Chalmers,
D. Manley, and R. Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics (Oxford, 2009), 347-83; K.
Fine, 'Ontological Dependence', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 95 (1995),
269-90. For a relevant historical perspective on ontological dependence see espe-
cially P. Corkum, 'Aristotle on Ontological Dependence', Phronesis, 53 (2008), 65-
92. Schaffer, Fine, and others openly acknowledge the influence of Aristotle.
12
See W V. O. Quine, 'On What There Is', in id., From a Logical Point of
View: 9 Logico-Philosophical Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), 1-19 at i: A curious
thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-
Saxon monosyllables: "What is there?" It can be answered, moreover, in a word—
"Everything"—and everyone will accept this answer as true.' The new metaphysics
accepts Quine's answer, but infers from its ease and triviality that it is not the central
question of ontology. In relation to the thesis of this paper, Quine's concept is per-
haps more helpfully expressed by P. van Inwagen, who dubs it the 'thin' conception
of being, in his Ontology, Identity and Modality: Essays in Metaphysics (Cambridge,
2001), 4: 'The thin conception of being is this: the concept of being is closely allied
with the concept of number: to say that there are Xs is to say that the number of Xs
is one or more—and to say nothing more profound, nothing more interesting, nothing
more* (my emphasis).
256 D. T. J. Bailey
ally, doing so will involve analysing what kinds of thing are depen-
dent^ for their being on other kinds of thing; or, to describe the
relation in the other direction, it tries to say something about what
grounds what.
This characterization arguably suits those metaphysical sys-
tems in ancient philosophy more familiar to modern readers than
Stoicism. For example, Plato held that Forms are the fundamental
constituents of reality; and that their participants, sensible parti-
culars, are in some sense ontologically dependent on them; and
hence that Platonic Forms ground the sensible world, to the extent
that the latter is intelligible at all. Aristotle inverted this scheme,
grounding his forms, universals, in the particular substances that
enjoy them. In both cases, we have philosophers in substantial
agreement about what exists: both Aristotle and Plato hold that
sensible particulars exist (Plato was no eliminativist about the
sensible world); 14 and also that immaterial beings worthy in some
sense of being called 'forms' exist (Aristotle was no eliminativist
about the immaterial). Their celebrated disagreement is not about
what exists but about how those things exist. For Plato, the Forms
are fundamental, existing separately from and grounding the being
of a dependent sensible world. For Aristotle, primary substances
are fundamental, existing separately from and grounding the being
of everything else, including the non-separable forms they enjoy.
This paper argues that Stoicism manifests the same philosophi-
cal project; and that in particular, the metaphysics of grounding
and dependence can clear up the perplexing fact that the Stoics are
prepared both to say that in some sense only bodies are, but then re-
peatedly to quantify over the non-bodily. That Stoicism holds that
bodies are in some sense fundamental or prior to other items they
countenance is hardly news: the centrality of physics to any account
of their curriculum entails at least this. But the way in which bodies
ground other items, and the details of the mode of being these latter
13
On this issue I am encouraged in my view by B. Inwood and L. Gerson, The
Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia [Stoics] (Indianapolis, 2008), glos-
sary, s.v. 'subsist': 'In Stoicism, the term indicates the dependent mode of existenc
that characterizes incorporeals' (my emphasis). The devil is as usual in the details,
though, which I attempt to provide below.
14
I grant that Plato sometimes puts the Form/sensible contrast in terms of the be-
ing/becoming contrast; and that he adds that that which is always becoming, namely
the sensible world, never is (see. e.g. Tim. 27 D 5-28 A 6). But few scholars woul.
understand even this much as amounting to the claim that the sensible world does
not exist.
items enjoy, have yet, I think, to be fully appreciated. And in this
paper I aim to achieve an appreciation of just this without hence-
forth using the expressions 'exists' and 'existence' in my transla-
tions, and by modifying those of others. Talk of existence in this
context has been a source of much confusion, no doubt in part be-
cause of the ingrained Quinean interpretation of the word, and the
accompanying perplexity about how there might be different ways
to be.15 It is time to see if we can grasp the significance of Stoic meta-
physics without it.16
2. Stoic corporealism
Numerous texts tell us that the Stoic cosmos is comprised only of

bodies. It seems that the Stoics inferred their materialism from the
view that being causally networked is the hallmark of the real; and
that only bodies are causally networked. 17 Here are two among the
relevant passages, from Cicero and Aristocles respectively:
(C) Discrepabat etiam ab iisdem quod nullo modo arbitrabatur quidquam
effici posse ab ea [sc. natura], quae expers esset corporis—nee vero aut
quod efficeret aliquid aut quod efficeretur, posse esse non corpus. (Cic.
Acad. i. 39 (=LS 4$A=SVF i. 90))
15
As I argue in the main text, I also reject the strategy of Victor Caston, who uses
'existence' for the putatively 'ontologically marked' uses of efvcu and its forms. See V.
Caston, 'Something and Nothing: The Stoics on Concepts and Universals', Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 17(1999), 145-213 at 150-1. Such a strategy assumes
that we can detect independently of our translations what counts as an ontologic-
ally marked use of efvai; and also that there is something less contradictory-sounding
about a claim such as 'There are some things that do not exist* than such a claim as
'There are some things that are not\ For good or ill, the pervasiveness of Quine's
influence makes me doubt the latter; and that is yet another reason to do without the
word 'existence' so far as possible when approaching the Stoics' views on being.
16
The wisdom of this tactic is also urged by the persuasive conclusions of C. H.
Kahn, 'Why Existence Does Not Emerge as a Distinct Concept in Greek Philo-
sophy', in id., Essays on Being (Oxford, 2009), 62-74. Kahn holds that 'existence in
the modern sense becomes a central concept in philosophy only in the period when
Greek ontology is radically revised in the light of a metaphysics of creation; that is to
say, under the influence of biblical religion'. According to him, having the concept
of existence leads straightaway to temptation: temptation towards the metaphysi-
cal optimism of Anselm's ontological argument, and towards the epistemic despair
of Cartesian scepticism, temptations to which philosophers in antiquity were sup-
posedly not susceptible (although for a related discussion, ultimately coherent in its
conclusion with Kahn's view, see J. Brunschwig, 'Did Diogenes of Babylon invent
the Ontological Argument?', in id., Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy, 170-89).
17
LS 27 and 45 contain many of the relevant texts here. See also Sen. Ep. 65. 2
(=LS 5 5E).
258 D.T.J. Bailey
Zeno also differed from the same philosophers [i.e. Platonists and Peri-
patetics] in thinking that it was totally impossible that something in-
corporeal . . . should be the agent of anything; and that only a body
was capable of acting or of being acted upon, (trans. Long and Sedley)
(A)
(Euseb. PE 15. 14. i (=LS 4sG = SVF i. 98))

He [Zeno] says that fire is the element of beings, like Heraclitus, and
that fire has as its principles matter and god, like Plato. But Zeno says
that they are both bodies, both that which acts and that which is ac-
ted upon, whereas Plato says that the first active cause is incorporeal,
(trans. Long and Sedley, modified)
In identifying the fundamentally real as the bodily, the Stoics were

adopting some version of the Eleatic Principle formulated by Plato
at Soph. 247 D 8-E 4 (the Eleatic Stranger is speaking).18 They did
so with the conscious intention of turning this principle against its
own author, by using it to ratify their distinctively anti-Platonist
materialism:
(EP)
I mean that a thing really is if it has any capacity at all, either by

nature to do something to something else, or to have even the smal-
lest thing done to it, even by the most trivial thing, and even if only
once. I'll take it as a definition that beings [TO, OVTO] are nothing other
than [those things with] capacity.19
We may infer from such passages as (C) and (A) that according
to the Stoics, all and only beings (la onto) pass the test of (EP).
Hence all and only beings are bodies. In other words, unlike Plato,
18
J. Brehier, La Theorie des incorporels dans Vancien stotcisme [Incorporels] (Paris,
1928), 7, plausibly suggests that the Stoics were inspired in their anti-Platonizing
use of the (EP) by Antisthenes, who was also their forerunner in the theory of know-
ledge and some aspects of their ethics.
19
For a demonstration that the Stoics took the (EP) as their criterion of the corpo-
real and thereby turned it against Plato, see J. Brunschwig's magisterial 'The Stoic
Theory of the Supreme Genus and Platonic Ontology' ['Supreme Genus'], in id.,
Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1994), 92-157. See also K. Vogt, 'Sons
of the Earth: Are the Stoics Metaphysical Brutes?' ['Sons'], Phronesis, 54 (2009),
136-54-
the Stoics took the (EP) as a criterion only of corporeality. By con-
trast Plato held that such non-bodily beings as Forms passed the
(EP), either because they are possible objects of thought, or pos
sible causes (in some non-efficient sense) of our thinking.20 But the
Stoics held that anything incorporeal must be causally inert, as (C)
affirms.21 Hence anything incorporeal is in some sense not among
nature's beings (ta onto).
But now contrast the following passage:
(DLz)
. (D. L. "J. 83 (= LS ^lC = SVF
ii. 130))
Of the two linguistic practices which do come within the province
of his virtue, one studies what each of the beings is [CKGLOTOV ecm rwv
OVTCDV], and the other what it is called, (trans. Long and Sedley,
modified, my emphasis)
The practice Diogenes here ascribes to the Stoics certainly involved

them in theorizing about the four incorporeals: time, place, void,
and sayables. But this should seem strange: for strictly speaking
such things cannot be beings (onto), because they do not satisfy
the Stoic construal of the (EP). 22 We have other texts repeating
the point that strictly speaking the only beings are bodies;23 and
yet other texts in which actual Stoics predicate being of the non-
bodily.24 And surely the Stoics' practice of dialectic was not restric-
ted only to corporeal items as its subject-matter.
Perhaps there is no need to be puzzled by this contrast, and not
20
For a discussion of Plato's use of the (EP) see L. Brown, 'Innovation and Con-
tinuity: The Battle of Gods and Giants, Sophist 245-249', in J. Gentzler (ed.),
Method in Ancient Philosophy (Oxford, 1998), 181-207.
21
For the same claim see S.E. M. 8. 263 (=LS Ê = SVF ii. 363).
22
Similar remarks apply to the quotation with which this paper begins, Plut.
Adv. Colot. i n 6 B — c . In explicitly referring to the four incorporeals of Stoicism
as ravra . . . ovra, we need not take Plutarch to be sneering at the Stoics, for all that
he frequently does just that. They may well, as suggested by (DLz), have referred to
such things as ovra when the context did not require them to be careful and explicit
about the mode(s) of being peculiar to the incorporeals. And in this they would have
been following Plato's practice.
23
See e.g. Alexander of Aphrodisias, who affirms that 'they [the Stoics] would es-
cape [some difficulty] by legislating for themselves that "being" is said only of bodies
[TO ov Kara awârwv ôvwv Aeyeaflai]' (from Alex. Aphr. In Top. 301. 19-25 Wallies
(LS 2j'B = SVF ii. 329, trans. Long and Sedley, modified)).
24
For example, a fragment of Chrysippus' treatise Quaestiones logicae contains a
sentence beginning 'Since such sayables are. . .' (ovrwv 8e Kal TOIOVTWV XeKrojv) (=SVF
ii. 298a, col. xvm, 1. 16).
260 D. T. J. Bailey
simply because we need not expect a writer as slipshod as Diogenes
to adhere to a terminological precision that perhaps even cautious
practising Stoics did not always manage. For after all, the Stoics had
a significant philosophical precedent for the practice of officially re-
stricting 'being' (to on) to a special class of thing, but then using the
expression and related others for all manner of things falling out-
side that class. Plato several times restricts 'being' to the unchan-
ging, but then almost immediately goes on to use the expression as
the humble copula, and more besides, in discussing items subject
to change.25 Perhaps something similar is happening in Stoicism.26
But just as Plato's work constantly invites questions about the pre-
cise nature of the relation between the changeless intelligible real on
the one hand, and mutable sensibles on the other, so the question
arises what is the relation between Stoic bodies and those incor-
poreal items that figure in their dialectic without passing the (EP).
Explaining that is the task of the next section.
3. Stoic incorporealism
Sen. Ep. 65. i i provides a helpful initial view of the incorporeals.

He suggests a reductive understanding of these items: they figure
in mere necessary conditions for the interactions between causes
proper, bodies, to take place. Only bodies can causally interact with
one another, but whenever they interact they must do so at some
time and in some place (cf. S.E. M. 10. 121 (=LS 5oF)); the Stoics
must therefore tolerate such items as times and places, even if they
deny them causal power on account of their incorporeality.
25
See esp. Rep. 5, 477 B i, 478 E 4; Tim. 28 B 8; Theaet. 152 D 9.
26
Perhaps too the Stoic view altered somewhat from the canonical views of Zeno:
this might explain Seneca's decision, in Epistle 58, to offer a Platonizing taxonomy
according to which the supreme genus is 'being' (quod est), of which the first two spe-
cies are corporeal and incorporeal items; and to then speak of an alternative taxonomy
according to which the supreme genus is 'something', and hence includes 'things
which are not', but where examples of the latter are not any of the standard four
incorporeals, but rather fictional entities such as centaurs and giants. For the view
that Seneca is here distancing himself from canonical Stoicism but without taking
himself to be straying too far (and indeed is on the verge of giving in turn a suitably
Stoicized taxonomy of Platonic ontology), see D. N. Sedley, 'Stoic Metaphysics at
Rome', in R. Salles (ed.), Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics: Themes from the Work of
Richard Sorabji (Oxford, 2005), 117—42. The position I argue for in this paper is
one way of explaining why Seneca should write here as he does: for clearly, Seneca
appreciates that the canonical Stoic position from which he is distancing himself is
not tantamount to the claim that such things as the incorporeals do not exist.
But there is more to the incorporeals than merely figuring in con-
ditions necessary for material changes.27 If that were all there was to
them, we would still hanker after an explanation of why the Stoics
go so far as to insist that they must have a different mode of being
from bodies. Modern physics makes some admission that space-
time of a sort is required for causal interactions to take place. But it
does not go so far as arguing that space—time must have a mode of
being different from that of the matter capable of occupying it.28
In fact a satisfactory account of Stoic metaphysics requires some
story about three ways to be. There is the way enjoyed by bodies,
typified by but not, as we saw above, always literally restricted to
or by the Greek verb to be (einai), which I here translate as 'being'
(again avoiding that ruined English word 'exist'). Then there is the
quite different way enjoyed by the incorporeals, usually translated
as 'subsisting' (huphistanai). Finally there is a third way, enjoyed
by the incorporeals when they bear some special actualizing rela-
tion to bodies, which I shall translate as 'obtaining' (huparchein).29
27
As we shall see, stating this requires some care. Compare my account with the
observation of J. Brunschwig, 'Stoic Metaphysics' ['Metaphysics'], in B. Inwood
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge, 2003), 206-32 at 213: 'this
list [of place, void, time, and "sayables"] apparently is not homogeneous (the first
three items, roughly, are conditions for physical processes, whereas the fourth one
seems rather to be connected to the philosophy of language'. But the incorporeals
are homogeneous when it comes to being, or at least figuring in, conditions neces-
sary for material processes. The cosmos will move about, and expand outwards at
eKTTvpwais before coming to be again, only if there is void. Physical process P will
occur only if there is a place and time in which P can occur. And finally, physical
process P will occur only if some sayable^), whose content expresses the proposition
that P will occur, is true. The last of these differs from the former cases at least in so
far as the sayable is or figures in conditions necessary and sufficient for P: for P will
occur if and only if p is true.
28
Indeed, one can go so far as to affirm that there is some priority relation hold-
ing between, for example, times and the things that take place during them, without
bothering to say anything about how time exists in some way distinct from ordinary
material things. See e.g. P. T. Geach, God and the Soul (New York, 1969), 34-41,
who argues that thoughts neither take some time to think, nor are they thought in-
stantaneously, and that we should therefore reject those beliefs about the priority of
time to what takes place in it that make us think that the activity of thinking must
either take some time or be instantaneous. In rejecting the priority of time relative
to the events it orders, Geach makes no claims about the way time is.
29
So I am here following, with a view to extending, the achievements on this
score of M. Schofield, 'The Retrenchable Present' ['Present'], in J. Barnes and M.
Mignucci (eds.), Matter and Metaphysics: Fourth Symposium Hellenisticum (Naples,
1988), 329—74. In particular I applaud Schofield's insistence, against A. C. Lloyd
(351), that even if the Stoics do not always use these expressions with technical force,
it is overwhelmingly likely that in the passages that concern us on the incorporeals
vfiiardvai and vTrdpxeiv are indeed being used as terms of art.
262 D. T. J. Bailey
Bodies are\ incorporeals as such subsist', and when the former are
configured in such-and-such ways, as we shall see, the latter can be
said to obtain.30 Effectively, these three ways to be are the Stoics'
radical alternative to Aristotle's matter/form metaphysics, and the
receptacle/Form-participation view of Plato's Timaeus.
I shall shortly give a good number of Stoic illustrations of these
ways of being. Before doing so, I provide a model from some much
more recent philosophy that is helpfully isomorphic with the Stoic
position. For it too seeks to answer a number of fundamental ques-
tions about reality by distinguishing between three ways of being.
Let me here introduce the concept of a role or office.31 At its
simplest, a role or office is something for a thing to be: a thing can
be the President of the United States, or a statue of David, or my
watch, or a golden mountain, where these italicized expressions refer
to things particulars might be. A human being might come to be
the President of the United States', a lump of marble might come to
be a statue of David', a hunk of metal might come to be my watch,
and so forth.
More precisely, an office is an immaterial object that sustains the
same mode of being regardless of whether or not it is occupied, and
regardless of which material object occupies or does not occupy it.
So in (i) 'My watch was made in Switzerland', the expression 'my
watch' refers, not, as you might think, to a piece of metal, but to an
30
See Brunschwig, 'Metaphysics', 215 n. 26: 'This third ontological verb (hup-
archein) seems not to coincide either with einai or huphistanai. Usually, as here, it ex-
presses a comparatively higher ontological status than huphistanai] but it still seems
to be distinct from einai, in the sense that it is apposite to use it when speaking not
of objects (bodies), but rather of actual states of affairs, or of predicates assertible of
their subjects in a true proposition.' My interpretation accords with that of P. Hadot,
'Zur Vorgeschichte des Begriffs "Existenz": vTrdpxeiv bei den Stoikern', Archiv fur
Begriffsgeschichte, 13 (1969), 115-27, where he writes that 'das Wort [v-rrapxeiv] inner-
halb der Stoa eine Seinsweise bezeichnet' (my emphasis). But it diverges from that
of V. Goldschmidt, 'vTrdpxew et vîaravai dans la philosophic stoicienne', Revue des
etudes grecques, 85 (1972), 33 1-44, where he speaks of 'ce dernier terme [sc. v-rrapxeiv]
exprimant le mode d'existence propre aux incorporels' (my emphasis).
31
I shall prefer the latter locution. The concept is due to Pavel Tichy, descended
from work by Carnap. See especially Tichy's 'Einzeldinge als Amtsinhaber' ['Ein-
zeldinge'], Zeitschrift fur Semiotik, 9 (1987), 13-50. The topic receives a brisker but
more accessible treatment in his 'Existence and God', Journal of Philosophy, 8 (1976),
403-20. It is by now common to cite, in unpicking the Stoics' complicated posi-
tions in ontology, the work of Brentano and such descendants of his as Meinong,
Twardowski, and Mally: see Brunschwig, 'Supreme Genus'; Caston, 'Something
and Nothing'. One aim of this paper is to show that the right model for the Stoics
from the achievements in the philosophy of intentionality of the last two centuries
comes from a later strand of this tradition.
immaterial office, a role for something to be, filled by some piece of
metal. If you doubt this, and insist that the expression 'my watch'
must surely refer to that very piece of wrist-bound metal itself, con-
sider what happens if it becomes true that (ii) 'Tomorrow I lose my
watch and buy a new one'. If that happens, then a distinct piece of
metal from the one currently on my wrist will tomorrow become
my watch. But that is not at all to say that tomorrow the piece of
metal currently on my wrist will become a distinct piece of metal.
That is impossible: pieces of matter cannot exchange their identi-
ties in such a fashion. Therefore the expression 'my watch' hardly
refers to any piece of material. 32
So my having a watch is simply a matter of the office of my watch,
an immaterial object, being filled by a concrete body, in this case a
hunk of metal. Now were I watchless, or in possession of more than
one watch, there would still be that immaterial office to which the
expression 'my watch' actually refers; it is just that no body would
occupy it. Similarly, there is no such thing as the golden moun-
tain, or the King of France; but that is just a matter of the offices
referred to by the relevant expressions being vacant, unoccupied
by any matter. 'The President of the United States' is an expres-
sion for an office that has been occupied continuously since 1789,
albeit by as many as forty-four different bodies. Meanwhile 'The
King of France' is an expression for an office that has been vacant
continuously since 1848. That the offices designated by these ex-
pressions are ontologically on a par should be strongly urged by the
fact that the difference between the current occupation of the one,
and constitutional vacancy of the other, is a matter of mere histori-
cal contingency. For things might quite easily have been otherwise.
Had Louis-Philippe and George III acted differently, both coun-
tries might still be monarchies.
I take it that some offices are vacant in all possible worlds, such as
the office of the non-self-identical being. Meanwhile, other offices
32
See Tichy, 'Einzeldinge', for many further persuasive arguments designed to
allay the fears of those horrified by the prospect of all definite descriptions referring,
ultimately, to immaterial objects, and by a correspondingly large ontology of func-
tions entering into all manner of humdrum facts. Note that horror at the claim that
'my watch' really refers to an immaterial object is identical to the horror with which
their critics greeted Stoic doctrines about the incorporeal: in particular, their claim,
reported in a passage at S.E. M. 8. 11-12 (=LS ^Ê = SVF ii. 166), that the 'thing
signified' by vocal sounds is something immaterial, an incorporeal sayable. See also
Ammon. In Int. 17. 28 Busse ad i6 a 3.
264 D. T. J. Bailey
are filled in all possible worlds, such as the empty set.33 But in any
event, offices themselves, and the objects capable of filling them, are
what are common to all possible worlds. They do not vary in num-
ber or nature according to circumstance; all that varies is whether
and what material objects occupy them. Difference in this respect
is all the variation there is between different possible worlds and
times. Offices therefore constitute what Wittgenstein called (with
not entirely dissimilar items in mind) the 'unalterable form' of the
world. 34
(a) Incorporeah
Stoic incorporeals are best understood as offices capable of being
now occupied, now vacated by the fundamentally real, i.e. just those
bodies passing the (EP). 35
As in the case of immaterial offices, there is something shadowy
about Stoic incorporeals: they fail the (EP). Yet that does not make
incorporeals nothing at all, much as offices, regardless of whether
they are occupied, are not nothing at all, and are importantly on-
tologically distinct from their occupiers.36 As we shall now see, the
33
Note that this is a second-order office, whose sole occupant, on many accounts
of set theory, is something like the first-order office that is bound to be vacant in
all worlds, namely the non-self-identical being. I doubt that any first-order offices are
occupied in all possible worlds, because presumably some possible worlds are empty
in so far as they lack material objects or any other concreta capable of occupying such
offices.
34
See L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D. Pears and B.
McGuinness (London, 1961), 2.014-2.023.
35
Note that office theory provides an excellent response to those who cavil at using
'obtaining' for inrapxeiv, and think that the verb is just a variant of eivai, since both
can reliably be translated as 'exist' (LS passim). For that is just what the analogy
with offices predicts. According to office theory, existence just is (=) offices being
occupied. To exist is to occupy some office or other. The cavil about the intimate
connection between efvai and vTrdpxeiv is quite right; and nothing less than a meta-
physical story that so intimately associates, while still distinguishing between, the
mode of being proper to material things, and of that which they occupy when they
are, will do.
36
The Stoics have to admit that their incorporeals do not have any properties,
in the sense in which that English word translates TroioT^res-. For as Brehier, Incor-
porels, 8, reminds us, all Stoic properties in this sense are bodies and hence cannot be
enjoyed by incorporeals. Something similar is true of offices: they do not have any
properties, at least not any interesting or natural properties. The office currently oc-
cupied by Obama but previously occupied by Bush and Clinton has no mass, colour,
location, and so forth. Nor is it male or female, black or white, tall or short. It does
have requisites—that is, occupation of such an office requires the occupant to have
various properties, such as having been born in the United States, being a US Citi-
sorts of relations Stoic bodies bear to incorporeals is sufficiently
similar to the relation of office-occupying, in the rough sense intro-
duced, to make my analogy clearly worthwhile.
(b) Time
It will be easiest to start with the case of time. Here is a report of
Chrysippus' view from Stobaeus:
(T)
516, part = SVF ii. 509))

He also says that only the present obtains; the past and the future subsist
but obtain in no way, just as only predicates which are [actual] attri-
butes are said to obtain, for instance, walking around obtains at me37
when I am walking around, but it does not obtain when I am lying
down or sitting, (trans. Long and Sedley, modified)
The idea here seems to be that time qua time, like the rest of the
incorporeals, has subsistence as its mode of being; but that neverthe-
less time can be occupied in some special actualizing way, namely
by present events, in virtue of which the present is the only time
which goes beyond merely subsisting all the way to obtaining. Time
is the temporal office, always subsisting, but only actually occu-
pied by present motions.38 The Stoics had good reason for making
this special claim on behalf of the present: for they held that time
is the dimension of the world's motion. 39 And like many of their
zen, and occupying the office for no more than two terms. But the requisites of the
office of the President are not properties of it in the way in which being a US citizen
etc. are properties had by Obama, Bush, and Clinton.
37
This italicized expression is my modification of Long and Sedley's translation.
Note how natural such locutions are to Greek philosophy since Aristotle formulated
his theory of the syllogism. The syllogistic jargon for the premiss 'A is B', 'inrapxei
TO B TO) A, is literally translated as 'B belongs to A or 'B holds of A. On this matter
see C. H. Kahn, 'On the Terminology for Copula and Existence', in id., Essays on
Being, 41-61 at 44.
38
See also Plut. Comm. not. 1081 F 3-6 (=LS 5iC $ = SVF ii. 518), where Chry-
sippus is again reported to have held that past and future do not obtain but merely
subsist (TO Trapcox^pevov TOV -^povov KCLI TO peXXov oi>x vrrapxeiv dAA' vfieaTrjKevai (f>r]ai),
while the present alone actually obtains (piovov 8' inrapxîv TO eveaTrjKos). My phrase
'time is the temporal office' captures Tichy's intentions exactly.
39
Seee.g. Simpl./n Categ.ô. 15-16 Kalbfleisch (=LS 51 A = SVFn. 510); Philo,
Aet. 52 (=LS 52A).
266 D. T. J. Bailey
philosophical ancestors, they held that motion can occur only in
the present. So it was natural for them to think of time in general
as a subsistent office, occupied in the present by all and only pre-
sent motions, in virtue of which the present is the sole obtaining
Stoic tense. The past and future are equally office-like: the former
is the once occupied but forever vacated temporal office, the latter
the vacant but due-to-be-filled temporal office.40 Stoic coming-to-
be is just a matter of successive portions of the dimension of the
world's motion obtaining—that is, becoming occupied by present
motions.41
(c) Sayables
Something importantly similar is true of Stoic propositions, which
according to their school are complete truth-evaluable sayables. At
M. 8. 10 Sextus characterizes them thus:
(SAY)
(S.E. M. 8. 10)
True is that which obtains and is contradictory to something,
and false is that which does not obtain and is contradictory to
something.42 (my translation)
40
I here leave aside complications associated with the Stoic commitment to the
doctrine of everlasting recurrence. For an insightful discussion of how this thesis
relates to Stoic views on the logic of tense see N. Denyer, 'Stoicism and Token-
Reflexivity' ['Stoicism'], in Barnes and Mignucci (eds.), Matter and Metaphysics,
375—96. J. Barnes, 'The Same Again: The Stoics and Eternal Recurrence' ['Same
Again'], in M. Bonelli (ed.), Matter and Metaphysics: Essays in Ancient Philosophy, i
(Oxford, 2011), 412-28 at 427, asserts that 'Much about the Stoic incorporeals is ob-
scure, but it may seem clear that insofar as time is incorporeal, times—moments or
stretches of time—can only be individuated by the events that take place at or during
them.' I doubt this, and not merely because it anachronistically neglects the Stoics'
interest in tensed truths and appetite for token-reflexivity in favour of the tense-less
dates of events. For the future tense of all future events will be individuated, not by
them (for they do not yet obtain), but by the obtaining truth that if they take place
at all they will obtain only after my writing this sentence, an event which is not now
future but obtaining in the present (and subsisting in the past for the current reader).
41
This and other remarks in this section are meant to be nothing more than alter-
native ways of expressing the judgement of Barnes, 'Same Again', 418: 'The events
which constitute the history of a world are nothing but successive arrangements of
the matter of the world.'
42
I here avoid the confusing practice of translating the verb vTrapx^ as 'subsists'
(for which see e.g. Bobzien, Determinism, 25 n. 38, 64—5; Vogt, 'Sons', 146 n. 36).
Instead I use the English verb 'obtains', as I did for the Stobaeus passage on time,
reserving 'subsists' for the verb vîaravai. My practice avoids giving readers the mis-
taken impression that false complete sayables do not even enjoy the characteristic
As in the case of time, treating such incorporeals as subsisting of-
fices nicely captures Stoic intentions. Here the office is semantic
rather than temporal; but like time, the subsisting office is capable
of some special actualization whenever it is occupied. For example,
when (and only when) it is day, the sayable expressed by the English
sentence 'It is day' is true. That sayable is, as it were, a subsistent
office that has become occupied by a body.43 And in being occupied
it is said to obtain; just as time is a subsistent office, obtaining at
just those portions of its continuum occupied by present events.44
mode of being of Stoic incorporeals, subsistence. If they thought that false proposi-
tions do not even subsist when they are false, then they were tempted by the scepticism
about falsehood suffered by their pre-Platonic predecessors. But they were under no
such delusion (and not merely because they were careful readers of Plato's Sophist,
as is persuasively argued at length by Brunschwig, 'Supreme Genus'). Perhaps just
as bad: translating tmapxoj as 'subsists' makes a nonsense of the Stoic doctrine, for
which we have much evidence, that cataleptic impressions, their ideal mental states,
are only ever OLTTO VTTOLPXOVTOS. That the best kind of mental state should only ever be
of what obtains makes sense. If, however, the Stoics merely thought that cataleptic
impressions are only ever of what subsists, and false sayables subsist, then they have
not blocked off the possibility of some cataleptic impression being from a falsehood,
i.e. itself being false.
43
I demur from identifying precisely which body. One candidate is the day it-
self, which Chrysippus identified as a body according to Plut. Comm. not. 10840
(=LS $iG = SVF ii. 665). (For an alternative reading of this passage see Brunschwig,
'Metaphysics', 216.) Alternatively, perhaps the body that occupies the sayable ex-
pressed by 'It is day' whenever it is day is just some portion of the truth, which is
an avowedly corporeal object according to Stoic doctrine (see S.E. PH 2. 81-3 (=LS
33?)). The idea seems perverse until one remembers that the Stoics mean by this
something like the following: the truth is just that cognitive state that would be en-
joyed by the material mind of an omniscient, infallible being. (The Stoics would not
of course have used quite this terminology, but it captures their idea.) Their materi-
alism about the referent of 'the truth' is really nothing other than their materialism
about the mind, a position that hardly sounds so perverse today. False propositions,
then, would be all and only those subsisting complete sayables not currently occu-
pied by any portions of such an ideal being's material mind.
44
My approach to Stoic incorporeals thus leaves me wholly out of sympathy with
those who see a similarity between the Stoic theory of propositions and those mo-
dern views that seek to identify true propositions with facts. The truth-making state
of affairs that occurs at a time when 'It is day' is true is some body or composite of
bodies; it is, let us say, a matter of the sun and the earth standing to one another
in a certain relation. That this composite should at that time be identical with the
incorporeal subsisting sayable expressed by 'It is day' seems absurd. Even if an in-
corporeal sayable somehow obtains when it becomes true, it cannot be that it becomes
identical to any composite of bodies: if it did, it would come to enjoy the mode of
being had only by bodies, and thereby be causally networked, which is wholly wrong
from the Stoic point of view. These remarks hold true, mutatis mutandis, if the oc-
cupiers of true Stoic propositions are not facts but truths or aspects of the body known
as 'the truth'. I acknowledge that there are sophisticated views in metaphysics ac-
cording to which something can be contingently material at a time, and immaterial at
268 D. T. J. Bailey
But the office itself does not fizzle out into nothingness once day
ends and night begins, any more than past and future times endure
the darkness of utter non-being by comparison with the obtaining
present. On the contrary, the sayable expressed by 'It is day' sub-
sists throughout the night (thereby making meaningful (if false) any
utterances of 'It is day' incorrectly tokened at night-time). 45 Simi-
larly the past and future subsist, as formerly or due-to-be occupied
offices, for all and only those events that either were or will be.46
The appeal of the analogy with offices should by now be fully ap-
parent. For only something of its like will account for the fact that
in Stoicism we have three different ways to be: (i) being (einai),
(ii) subsisting (huphistanai), and (iii) obtaining (huparchein).^ Only
other times: see e.g. T. Williamson, 'Necessary Existents', in A. O'Hear (ed.), Logic,
Thought and Language (Royal Institute of Philosophy, suppl. 51; Cambridge, 2002),
2
33~5 I - Such views indeed relate interestingly to Tichy's; but I can find no place
for them in Stoicism. Even so comparatively informal a Stoic as Marcus Aurelius
manifests understanding that the intimate relation between bodies, and the offices
they occupy, falls short of identity: hence his remark that 'beings stand fittingly in
relation to all obtaining things' (TO, Se ye ovra Trpos ra vTrdpxovra Trdvra oiKeiws e'xei)
(Marc. Aur. Med. 9. i. 2).
45
Hence I am in agreement with Jonathan Barnes, Truth, etc. [Truth] (Oxford,
2007), 68, when he says 'if something holds, it does not follow that it is opposed
to something; and if something is opposed to something, it does not follow that it
holds'. Barnes correctly thinks that the latter claim is true because a false complete
sayable will be opposed to something, its negation, without holding. He then says
that he 'cannot invent any plausible reason' for the former claim in Sextus' account,
before going on to invent just such a plausible reason. For as he correctly observes,
inrdpxîv is a predicate of both complete and incomplete sayables. More precisely,
the complete sayable expressed by 'Socrates sits' holds or obtains (i.e. is true) when
and only when the incomplete sayable expressed by the predicate '-sits' holds of, or
obtains at, Socrates. But of these, only the former, the complete sayable, is opposed
to something (avTiKeipevov TLVL). For as Barnes notes (69), according to the Stoics 'two
items are opposites . . . if and only if one of them says that so-and-so and the other
says that it is not the case that so-and-so'. Therefore even if there is some sort of in-
consistency between the incomplete sayables expressed by '-sits' and '-does not sit',
these sayables are not opposed to one another: for even though either might obtain
at Socrates at different times, neither by itself says that anything is the case or not.
Only complete sayables say anything at all.
46
Let me suggest a qualification that deepens the symmetry between time and
complete sayables. Some events will never happen. It will never be both day and not
light. Therefore the time at which that happens, if there is such a thing, always sub-
sists, never obtains. Other events are always happening: it is always either day or not
day, hence the time at which it is day or not day always obtains. Correspondingly,
the sayable expressed by 'It is both day and not light' always subsists but never ob-
tains, being necessarily false. And the sayable expressed by 'It is either day or not
day' always both subsists and obtains, being necessarily true.
47
In the terminology of modern metaphysicians, the distinctions among these
some story as logically complex as this will do, giving us as it does
(i) potential occupants of (ii) various offices, and (iii) their occupy-
ing or vacating those offices.48
(d) Place and Void**

That places subsist but are contingently actualized whenever oc-
cupied seems a natural inference to make, given what we have said
three ways to be show that Stoic ontology is sorted. It will be the task of the next
section to show in what way Stoic ontology, like Tichy's, is not merely sorted but
ordered. See Schaffer, 'Grounds'.
48
Consequently I see the analogy between Stoic incorporeals and offices as be-
ing (i) considerably less fanciful than the otherwise sober and useful comparison
between, say, Stoic tensile motion and force fields in modern physics (S. Sambursky,
The Physical World oj'the Greeks (London, 1959), 164); or between the non-evident
causes of Stoic determinism and modern chaos theory (M. White, 'Stoic Natural
Philosophy', in Inwood (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, 124-52 at
140); and (ii) considerably more helpful than the more common comparison between
Stoic metaphysics and Meinong's Gegenstandstheorie, for which see Caston, 'Some-
thing and Nothing', 152 ff.
In general I sympathize with the alarm many readers will feel on encountering
the doctrines of a school beginning in the late 4th cent. BCE compared with highly
sophisticated developments in 2Oth-cent. analytic philosophy. Jerry Fodor refers to
this as the 'If only he'd tried a bit harder, Aristotle might have been Quine' school
of historiography. But in fact if we are to understand the Stoics, there is nothing
else to which to turn. Let me give a single example independent of the topic of this
paper. Recall that we are here dealing with a school whose theory of causation is
much more highly developed than its ontology, and is the coping stone of many of
its most important doctrines (in physics, ethics, philosophy of mind, etc.). But that
theory insists that the effects of causation are predicates; that is, that what causes
are causes of are a class of sayables, i.e. immaterial objects (see Bobzien, Determ-
inism, passim). I know of no other resource besides the revived metaphysics of the
second half of 2Oth-cent. analytic philosophy that could even begin to make such
an outlandish claim plausible. At any rate, one need not know much about Stoicism
to sense impending disaster from e.g. Brehier, Incorporels, 12, who, unable fully to
stomach the Stoics' views about the immateriality of effects, proposes that instead
they are talking about 'what we today would call facts or events' ('ce que nous ap-
pellerions aujourd'hui des faits ou des evenements'), items that are neither genuine
substances nor any of their properties. Any invitation to see the Stoics as theoriz-
ing that causes bring about logical fictions or constructions must be resisted at all
costs.
49
As with every interesting analogy, my analogues are not identical, and have im-
portant differences (it should not need saying but it does). Some incorporeals, place
and void, are no doubt spatially extended. (Although even this requires a qualifica-
tion: Chrysippus and his successors were clear on the point that void, being incor-
poreal, has neither up nor down, nor front nor rear, nor right nor left, nor centre,
these directions being properties only of bodies; see Plut. Stoic, repugn. 1054 B-D
(=SVF ii. 551, 550); Cleom. Gael. i. i. 150-3.) Arguably, in so far as offices are un-
located, none of them is extended. Barack Obama always has to be somewhere. But
the Presidential office he currently occupies is not located anywhere (not even in the
270 D. T. J. Bailey
50
about time and sayables. Occupied places correspond to present
times and true propositions. In each case, the incorporeal obtains
because something distinct from it, a Stoic body, occupies it; and
it carries on enjoying its characteristic mode of being even when
the body occupying it (temporally, truth-conditionally, spatially)
moves on.
It is therefore dangerously tempting to infer something like
the following. Presently occupied places obtain in something like
the way the present time, and presently true propositions, obtain.
Meanwhile, just as there are merely subsisting times (the past and
future) and merely subsisting complete sayables (the presently false
ones), so likewise there are merely subsisting, unobtaining places,
namely the unoccupied ones.
Sadly, things are not quite so simple. For instead the Stoic doc-
trine of places identifies them as those incorporeal spatial extensions
that can be and actually are occupied by some body. Meanwhile for
them void is that incorporeal spatial extension that can be occupied
by a body but actually is not.51 In other words, for the Stoics, strictly
speaking there are no empty places. All place properly so called is
filled; all empty space properly so called is not place but void. There
is no place in the void outside the material cosmos, just as there is
no empty space among the places of the material cosmos.
Therefore place is not something that can ever fail to obtain by
being unoccupied. No places merely subsist in the way that past and
future times do, or in the way that false complete sayables do. And
the void never obtains in the way the present time does. There is a
helpful analogy here with complete sayables. Places are like tautolo-
gies, just as bound to be filled by some body or other as tautologies
are bound to be true. Void is like a contradiction, just as bound to
be empty of any body as contradictions are bound to be false. Note
Oval Office), and to that extent it seems an unlikely candidate for being extended,
as place and void no doubt are.
But even if there is some disanalogy here, matters are not quite so simple, and tell
in favour of my argument. See e.g. G. Oddie, 'Scrumptious Functions', Grazer phi-
losophische Studien, 62 (2001), 137-56, which defends the identification of all manner
of features of the perceptible world, including features even more dramatically per-
ceptible than extension (such as flavour), with some immaterial functions.
50
For an explicit ascription of a form of the verb vîaravai to place see Simpl. In
Phys. 571. 22 Diels (=SVF ii. 507, TrapvîaTarai TOLS acofjiacnv 6 TOTTOS)', to void, see
Stob. I. 161. 8—26 (=LS 4-()A = SVF ii. 503, Kara yap rr]v avrov VTroaraaiv aTreipov eari).
51
See e.g. S.E. M. 10. 3-4 (=LS ^gE = SVF ii. 505).
that contradictions, while never true, are not nothing at all. There
really is something that I express when I say something of the form
T&~P', just not anything that is ever true. Likewise, void is some-
thing no less than place, even though it is never occupied, with an
important qualification I make below.
Consider the place currently occupied by my piano. It must be
something distinct from my piano because it is incorporeal, while
my piano is very much a body. What happens to that place when I
move my piano? It cannot become an empty place. As we saw above,
there are strictly speaking no such things. When a place ceases to
be occupied, it ceases also to be a place, and becomes void. But the
Stoics insist that there is no void within the cosmos, only outside
it.52 Nor can the place previously occupied by my piano have turned
into a body: an incorporeal cannot become a body (any more than an
office can itself become material). The only option left is that the
place has been filled anew by something else, some other body. The
extended office previously occupied by my piano must be occupied
by something else the moment my piano vacates it.
You might think that there is a further possibility: that the place
of my piano is just wherever my piano is at any moment, and hence
that, far from being occupied by some other body when my piano
moves, the place of my piano moves with it. But this cannot be right.
For according to Chrysippus' definitions of place as we have them
in Stobaeus' record of Arius Didymus (Stob. i. 161. 8 (=LS 49A =
SVF ii. 503), a text to which I shall return below), it is possible for
some place to be occupied either by one body, or by more than one
body, at one and the same time. Suppose (i) A alone occupies place
X; then (ii) both A and B occupy X simultaneously (where A^B);
and then at a third time, (iii) B withdraws, leaving A just where
it was, at place X. Chrysippus' second definition of place seems
designed to allow for just such a possibility. And yet the scenario
would not be possible if B had to take its own place with it on with-
drawing. Given that it is at X in (ii), it cannot both withdraw and
take its own place with it while leaving A at X as in (iii). Therefore
bodies cannot generally, if ever, go around taking their erstwhile
locations with them.
We thereby get a deep sense of that and why Stoic physics is
so through-and-through material, that goes well beyond anything
52
See. e.g. Stob. i. 161. 8-26 (=LS Â = SVF ii. 503); Galen, Qualit. incorp. xix.
464. 10—14 Kiihn (=LS 4-C)TL = SVF ii. 502).
272 D. T. J. Bailey
like the (EP), the insistence that the fundamentally real be causally
networked. For them, even the smallest movement must count as
the displacement of one body by another. Furthermore, we can use
the analogy between incorporeals and offices to construct an office-
analogue of place that helps to clarify its logical nature. Place is like
the office referred to by (P):
(P) = The extension of matter in the world.
(P) is an office occupied by whatever bodies there are currently in

the world in much the same way as the President of the United
States is an office currently occupied by Obama. 53 (P) always has
some quantity of matter as its value, just as constitutionally the US
always has a President: for not even a conflagration is the overture
to some body-less future. But it is not always the same matter that
occupies (P), as it is not always the same person who is President of
the US. The occupant value of (P) can alter in its mass, its volume,
its density, and its overall shape. Stoic places are just like (P). They
are offices always occupied by bodies in every possible world. But
what bodies occupy them and when is a contingent matter. As the
contents of the world shift about, places are occupied now by one
thing, now by another; but never by nothing at all.
We can construct a helpful office-analogue of void too. For void
presents us with something of a problem. The Stoic motivation for
affirming that there is void outside the material cosmos was to have
something for the corporeal world to expand into at the end of each
world cycle, and into which something new could come to be at the
beginning of another. Therefore for them void has to be 'capable of
receiving body', as they realized.54 And yet look again at the defi-
nition of void: void is extension that can be occupied but actually
is not. It seems to follow that the extension occupied by the entire
corporeal world within 'the all' is itself not strictly speaking void
(for it is actually occupied). 55 Similar considerations make it seem
53
(P) is therefore not quite the same as the concept of extension Inwood plausibly
attributes to Chrysippus along with place and void; see his 'Chrysippus on Extension
and the Void' ['Extension'], Revue Internationale de philosophie, 178 (1991), 245-66
at 246 ff.; I return to this in nn. 55 and 63 below.
54
See e.g. Cleom. Cael. 10. 24-12. 5 (=LS ^H = SVFii. 540). For the distinction
between the world (the material cosmos) and 'the all' (the material cosmos taken to-
gether with the incorporeal void) see S.E. M. 9. 332 (=LS Â = SVF ii. 524).
55
That intuitively there is such a thing—the extension that is the world's place
within the all, distinct from the void by virtue of being occupied and yet other-
puzzling how the void could be the sort of thing into which a new
world cycle of bodies, whatever continuant survives from the last
one, could move at conflagration. 56
The solution is simple once one sees that Stoic void is relevantly
similar to a second-order office, the kind of office whose occupants
are themselves offices. More precisely, void is like a second-order
office whose identity at a time is dependent upon what occupies
first-order offices; that is, what counts as void is dependent upon
what counts as place. Secondly, and crucially, void is like an of-
fice that cannot be occupied by the sort of thing that can occupy
first-order offices. Bodies can occupy places, but they cannot oc-
cupy void. Void is therefore similar to the office (V):
(V) The office of all and only the contingently occupied offices.
(V) is a second-order office whose identity is fixed by which first-

order offices are occupied, at a time or world. 57 If having been
watchless for a while, I buy a new one, a first-order office thereby
becomes contingently occupied by a certain piece of metal, and
therefore itself contributes to the identity of (V)'s extension. But
that piece of metal does not come to occupy the office (V). Equally,
had Romney won in 2012 instead of Obama, Romney would
thereby have made a difference to (V)'s extension. But in coming
himself to occupy the office of the President, he would not thereby
come to occupy (V). For he is not himself an office.
The precision afforded us by the analogy with (V) gives us a bet-
ter insight into Stoic void than we might otherwise have. Clearly,
wise undistinguished from it—is I think further grounds for being persuaded by
Inwood's attribution of extension besides place and void to Chrysippus. See In-
wood, 'Extension'.
56
That is not to say that the Stoic account of void is inconsistent. There is noth-
ing necessarily false about affirming that there is some space that can be occupied by
a body, but never actually is or will be. Plato affirms something of the same logical
form. In the Timaeus (41 A 3-6 6) he speaks of the world as destructible although
it will never in fact be destroyed. But in the Platonic case, there is an explanation
for why we have an instance of 'possibly p but never actually py: the world was put
together out of various stuffs; anything with such a nature can be in principle disas-
sembled; yet the Demiurge will never have a morally sufficient reason for undoing
his sublime handiwork. No such explanation is so readily available for the nature of
Stoic void, which hence cries out for something of the like. I try to provide one in the
main text. For a good discussion of the Stoics' attitude to whether or not something
might be possibly the case even though it neither is nor ever will be, see K. Algra,
Concepts of Space in Greek Thought [Space} (Leiden, 1995), 291 ff.
57
I am here taking '(V)' rigidly.
274 D. T. J. Bailey
(V) is not an office that might be occupied by a hunk of metal such as
that which contingently occupies the office 'my watch', and which
will vacate that office if I lose it and buy another. Similarly, void
is not something that can be occupied by a body Bodies can oc-
cupy only places. Places may be said to occupy regions of the void,
but here the verb 'occupy' is obviously not to be understood in that
transitive sense that would allow bodies to occupy regions of the
void. I shall shortly illustrate this with an example.
Nothing less than this sort of distinction will do to make sense of a
problem in the single most important source we have for the Stoic
theory of place, a scrap of Arius Didymus preserved by Stobaeus
(=L&S 4.gA = SVF ii. 503). A full consideration of this complicated
passage lies outside the scope of this paper.58 I here note only the fol-
lowing requirement on making satisfactory sense of it. After telling
us that void as such is empty, 'for we speak of void on the analogy of
empty vessels',59 Arius goes on to write as if nevertheless void can
be filled. For void, he says, is 'by its own nature infinite; but it is
being limited when it is filled up\^° If we are not to fear incoherence
in the Stoic position on void we must attribute to them some sort of
conceptual distinction between different kinds of occupation. Only
then will it make sense to speak of regions of the void, as Arius here
does, becoming places in virtue of being occupied.61 I conclude this
section with an analogy designed to illustrate the Stoic position on
this score.62
My Department Office contains, as I imagine most other De-
partment Offices do, a large wooden structure containing individual
mailboxes for each member of the Department. Curiously, such
structures do not themselves have a clear proper name; so let me
just call it the MB, after 'Mailbox'. The MB contains lots of spaces,
58
See primarily, for detailed assessments, Brehier, Incorporels, 37-60; Inwood,
'Extension', passim; Algra, Space, 263 ff.
59
60
61
So my distinction among orders of office is really just the technical truth re-
quired by such claims as e.g. Inwood, 'Extension', 265, that 'Void is the possible
place of a body' (my emphasis).
62
I cannot enter into the details here, but I believe this analysis also makes con-
sistent the standard reports telling us that void as such is unoccupied (e.g. Arius
Didymus (LS Â = SVF ii. 503); S.E. M. 10. 3-4 (=LS Ê = SVF ii. 505)) with a.
later claim from the Stoic astronomer Cleomedes (Gael, i. i. 23, not in LS or SVF),
which informs us that void 'is able to receive body and to be occupied' (ol'av T' av ovaav
8exea6ai acoâ KCLI icaTeêaâi). For a discussion of this latter text see Algra, Space,
266 ff.
one for each Department member. Such spaces are seldom empty;
even the most diligent at clearing out their mailboxes are likely to
find a new flyer or essay there on any given day Let us suppose
that in fact the mailboxes are never empty That is, let us suppose
that for each and every Department member, there is some mail-
box, and there is always something or other in it. So each space for
a Department member is like a Stoic place.
In this analogy the MB itself corresponds to void (although see
n. 63); each individual mailbox to some place. There is always
something occupying each mailbox, but not always the same thing;
in fact there is constant change in the visual image one has sur-
veying all the mailboxes in the MB, with some filling up while
others almost (but never quite) empty. Now in some sense, the
extension of the MB is occupied by the mailboxes constituting it;
and in something like that fashion, places can occupy the void. But
the sense in which flyers, essays, books, and all the other things
that come to Department mailboxes can occupy those mailboxes
is obviously quite different from the sense in which each mailbox
occupies a portion of the MB. A student's essay can be 'in' my
mailbox; and that mailbox can be 'in' the MB; but we do not here
have the same sense of the word 'in', as we do not in 'There's a
hole in my bucket' and 'There's some water in my bucket'. My
students' essays occupy my mailbox; it does not follow that they
occupy the MB in any sense.
So void is occupiable only by places, not by the bodies which can
occupy those places. And to that extent at least, Stoic void is not as
such problematic. It is occupied by places; those places are them-
selves always occupied by bodies; but we need not infer that void is
therefore itself ever occupied by bodies. It is in this sense, I suggest,
that Stoic void is 'capable of receiving body' without itself ever be-
ing actually occupied by some body 63
63
One may also take the MB to represent, not place or void, but a third spatial
concept mentioned by Arius Didymus in our key passage. There he speaks of some-
thing capable of occupation by bodies, but where part of it is occupied and part not.
Such an extension—and Inwood is surely right to so name it (Inwood, 'Extension',
248)—will be neither place nor void as such but 'a different something that has no
name' (erepov 8e n OVK wvoâafjievov). Inwood goes on to argue that this unnamed ex-
tension is fundamental to the more familiar Stoic spatial concepts of place and void;
and that Chrysippus was the first to recognize this.
I cannot here enter into Inwood's arguments in detail, nor into the very compli-
cated issue of exactly where Chrysippus differed from other Stoics on the meaning
of the term x<^Pa (on which see Algra, Space, 278). Suffice it to say that the same
276 D. T. J. Bailey
I am therefore in disagreement with a popular conception of what
happens to Stoic void when there is cosmic movement. Long and
Sedley write (LS, 296): 'When filled, the void ceases to exist as such,
and becomes a place.' They therefore rest content with the idea that
cosmic motion can be suitably described as 'occupied' regions of
void being successively destroyed by the world's movement.64 The
analogies with (V) and the MB help us to see that one need not go
nearly so far. Neither (V) nor the MB 'ceases to exist as such' when
there is some alteration in the occupants of first-order offices, or
in individual mailboxes. And neither (V) nor the MB can be filled
by those things otherwise capable of filling such items as first-order
offices and individual mailboxes. There is no inconsistency what-
soever here.
4. Stoic ontological dependence
Thus Stoic bodies and incorporeals belong to the universe to the

same extent; what is important is that the former are the mutable
agents of causation and change, while the latter are the offices that
bodies occupy and vacate precisely in being causally active and
changing. Bodies' fulfilling their careers as agents and patients of
change just is their occupying and vacating incorporeal offices over
time.
However, whatever success is enjoyed by the previous section
threatens the conclusion at which I am aiming: that incorporeals are
ontologically dependent on bodies, and hence grounded by them.
The interpretation I have so far offered of the incorporeals, as of-
fices, is in a sense a Platonizing one. It is one of the leading aims of
passage of Arius reports the possibility of the void itself being filled and hence limi-
ted by something, and that this, rather than extension generally, is what I am trying
to get at with the MB. I have no objection to the reader refocusing my analogy to ex-
press something about extension in this sense, which I take to be an office of higher
order just like void. Such parallax is fine by me. But that will not be inconsistent with
otherwise taking the MB to represent extra-cosmic void instead. Indeed, the finite
size of any actual MB well supports Inwood's further conclusion that the infinity of
the extra-cosmic void is merely potential and not actual—a position I find plausible
despite the doubts of Algra, Space, 324 n. 168, 328 n. 181.
64
See also Brunschwig, 'Metaphysics', 213: 'void is incorporeal, and even the in-
corporeal par excellence: capable of being occupied by body, but ceasing to be void
when it is actually occupied (hence destroyed as such, not just acted upon and altered
by the entering body)'.
this paper to show that the Stoics, for all their turning of the (EP)
against its very author, were more sympathetic to Platonism than
has so far been appreciated. But surely we have here gone too far,
for the following reasons.
For the more office-like the incorporeals are, the less they seem
grounded by, or dependent on, anything, let alone bodies.65 One
of the most powerful reasons for likening incorporeals to offices is
that the former are still in some sense clearly there even when va-
cant. The mode of being characteristic of incorporeals, subsistence,
is enjoyed by times other than the present, propositions other than
the presently true ones, and such necessarily unoccupied extensions
of 'the all' as void. The being of those incorporeals does not depend
on their material occupants, for they can carry on in their own sub-
sistent way without being occupied. How therefore can their being
in some sense depend on the kind of thing that can occupy them,
bodies? The point has intuitive force even without a satisfactory
model for the incorporeals as a class: for we do not generally sup-
pose that the time in which something takes place depends for its
being on that event, or on any other; nor do we suppose that the
place in which something is depends for its being on that thing or
any other of its like; and finally, we think that there being some-
thing expressible alike by 'It's raining', 'II pleut', and c Es regnet'
does not depend at all on how the weather is, or any other matter
of contingent fact. On the contrary, times, places, and propositions
are the way they are independently of what the bodies of the cosmos
are doing. And this intuition is reinforced considerably once we see
the incorporeals as kinds of office.
There is the clear case of the dependence on bodies had by places:
necessarily for any place, there is some body occupying it, so any
place requires the accompaniment of some body or other, even
if there is no body such that some place requires just that one.66
Yet consideration of the most important kind of incorporeal, com-
plete sayables, will show us that in fact the Stoics are committed
65
The point can be put more formally. For Tichy at least, offices are functions.
But of course functions are not generally, if ever, ontologically dependent on either
their arguments or their values. The functions represented by such expressions as
'+2' or '37 = 200' or '-is identical to the golden mountain' would have had whatever
mode of being they have even if there had been no bodies at all.
66
Note that the same structural dependence holds in the other direction. Neces-
sarily for any body you like, there is some space it occupies, even if there is no place
such that some body requires just that one.
278 D.T.J. Bailey
to a much stronger, richer dependence relation than that holding
between individual places and the class of bodies as a whole.
Intuitively there is some sort of priority among the incorporeals
enjoyed by complete sayables. For only complete sayables stand in
a certain asymmetric relation to the other kinds of incorporeal. All
the incorporeals bring with them sayables, automatically. If there
are times, places, and the void, then there are true and false pro-
positions about times, places, and the void. And complete sayables
themselves bring more of their own kind in their train: if there are
true and false propositions, then there are true and false proposi-
tions about those propositions.67 And yet this relation is asymmet-
ric: for considered as such, complete sayables do not bring times,
places, or void with them automatically.68
How will the priority of complete sayables among the incorpor-
eals help to anchor incorporeals in their bodily possible occupants,
as this paper aims to show? That consequence follows from two
further details of the Stoic theory of sayables: their analysis of the
truth-conditions of indefinite statements; and their commitment to
the relation between demonstrative reference and bodies. I will here
deploy these facts to show that Stoic incorporeals are ontologic-
ally dependent on bodies. The same texts will later on tell us much
about the Stoic attitude to universals.
(a) Stoic quantification and demonstration

In the following passage Sextus reports the Stoic account of what
we now call existentially quantified propositions, but which the
Stoics referred to as 'indefinite' propositions:
(Q)
67
It strikes me as possible that the priority of sayables among the incorporeals
is also suggested by their absence from the list mentioned in the following report
from Stobaeus, where the remaining three kinds of incorporeal are likened to bodies:
'Chrysippus said that bodies are divided to infinity, and likewise things comparable
to bodies, such as surface, line, place, void, and time' (Stob. i. 142 (=LS i5oA =
SVF ii. 482), trans. Long and Sedley). The passage suggests to me that the sayables
are the incorporeals par excellence; not, as Brunschwig suggests, the void ('Metaphy-
sics', 213): for they alone among the incorporeals are so far from being bodies as not
even to be comparable to bodies.
68
For a different, beautifully constructed argument demonstrating the priority of
v-rrapxei as belonging to sayables in relation to its belonging to the present time, see
Schofield, 'Present', 356-8.
(S.E. M. 8. 98 (=LS 34H = SVF ii. 205))

The indefinite 'Someone walks' or 'Someone sits' is true whenever the
definite 'This man sits' or 'This man walks' is found to be true; for if
none of the particulars is sitting, the indefinite 'Someone sits' cannot
be true, (my translation)
In other words, predications involving the indefinite 'something'

are true if and only if corresponding formulae containing demon-
strative, indexical expressions are true; expressions, that is, that
pick out individuals or particulars deictically.
This invites the question: what then are the truth-conditions of
the indexical propositions the Stoics say are essentially involved in
the truth-conditions of indefinite propositions? Sextus addresses
the matter a few lines later:
(I)
(S.E. M. 8. IOO (=LS 34! =

SVFii. 205))
And the definite proposition e.g. 'This one sits' or 'This one walks' is
said to obtain truly whenever the thing indicated falls under the predi-
cate, such as 'sits' or 'walks', (my translation)69
In other words, the fundamental truth-conditions of the simplest

kind of proposition consist in the obtaining (or failure to obtain) of
a predicate at an individual, in the sense given in the last section;
that individual being the sort of thing at which one might point.
That there is such a relevant demonstrable item is necessary for
the truth of such less fundamental propositions as the indefinite
ones. Put in modern terms: such general propositions as the exis-
tentially quantified ones require, in order to be true, the truth of
atomic propositions. Such atomic propositions, if they are to give
the truth-conditions for the existentially quantified ones, must es-
sentially contain indexicals.
We have so far been dealing only with a symmetrical relation, that
of material equivalence: indefinite propositions are true iff definite
69
For an importantly related discussion see Alex. Aphr. In An. Pr. 402. 15-18
Wallies, where we are told that according to the Aristotelian tradition, if there is no
such person as Callias then 'Callias does not walk' is just as false as 'Callias walks',
there being the presupposition expressed by both, that 'there is someone, Callias,
and either walking or not walking obtains at him' (eWi TIS KaXXias, TOVTW 8e v-rrapxei
rj TO TrepnraTeiv rj TO fjirj TrepnraTeiv}.
280 D. T. J. Bailey
ones are; and definite ones are true iff the relevant predicate ob-
tains at the object indicated. The symmetry of this relation means
it falls short of dependence: for dependence is non-symmetric. 70 We
get dependence entering the subject once we reflect on the relation
between complete definite sayables, and the availability of the items
indicated by the demonstratives in those definite sayables.
For one of the most exotic features of Stoic prepositional logic
is their view that things—and crucially the only examples we have
of such things are corporeal—can be referred to by demonstratives
only while those things are in some sense available, even if they can
be referred to by proper names at other times.
While Dion is alive, the body referred to by 'Dion' does not oc-
cupy the incorporeal predicate expressed by 'is dead'. Hence in such
circumstances no portion of the truth occupies the subsistent false
proposition expressed by 'Dion is dead'. Exactly the same consi-
derations apply to the subsistent false proposition I express if I
point at the animate Dion and say 'This one is dead'.
But now suppose Dion has died. In those circumstances, I ex-
press a true proposition if I say 'Dion is dead', since the predicate
'is dead' now obtains at Dion; equally some portion of the truth oc-
cupies the prepositional office expressed by 'Dion is dead'. But if in
these circumstances I say instead 'This one is dead', hoping to pick
out the late Dion demonstratively, I do not manage to express any
proposition. For according to the Stoics, Dion's death has voided all
those true or false sayables that formed the content of any sentences
containing demonstrative reference to him. One may still speak of
him, and speak truly, using his name. But one cannot succeed in
expressing anything true or false of him by making use of a would-
be deictic way of referring to him.71
Our source for this claim is Alexander:
70
Dependence cannot be asymmetric, for intuitively everything depends for its
being (of whatever mode) on itself. Nor can it be symmetric, given the abundance
of cases in which the dependence relation clearly holds in only one direction: the
Cheshire Cat's smile depends on there being the Cheshire Cat; but there being the
Cheshire Cat does not depend on whether or not he is smiling. Therefore depen-
dence, whatever else may be said of it, is a non-symmetric relation like supervenience.
71
'Voided' in this paragraph does not mean 'made false'. The d^/cuâ expressed in
English by 'If it is day, it is not light' does not express a possibility; hence it is not
possibly true; hence it is necessarily false. But it is for all that a genuine subsisting
dîcD/jia among the sayables. Even though it can never obtain, it neither has been,
nor could be, destroyed ((^deipeadai). In particular it could not be destroyed by such
changes among bodies as those that remove indexical propositions about Dion from
the realm of the sayables once he has perished.
(DD)
In An. Pr. 177. 25-178. i Wallies (=LS 3%F = SVF ii. 2O2a))
[Chrysippus] says that in the conditional 'If Dion is dead, this one
is dead', which is true when Dion is being demonstratively referred
to, the antecedent 'Dion is dead' is possible, since it can one day be-
come true that Dion is dead; but 'This one is dead' is impossible. For
when Dion has died the proposition 'This one is dead' is destroyed,
the object of the demonstrative reference is no longer a being. For
demonstrative reference is appropriate to, and said of, a living thing,
(trans. Long and Sedley, modified)
Alexander reports Chrysippus as holding that when Dion is dead,

the proposition 'This one is dead' becomes 'impossible'; and this
amounts to it being 'destroyed'. These claims entail that Chrysip-
pus must have meant that in such circumstances such propositions
cease even to subsist. In such circumstances, they lose even that mode
of being enjoyed by meaningful but false propositions, such as that
expressed by an utterance of Tt is day' incorrectly tokened at night-
time.
Chrysippus cannot mean anything less than that. He cannot be
saying that 'This is one is dead', said of Dion, is true once Dion
is dead, for he would not then speak of that proposition's impos-
sibility or destruction. He cannot be saying instead that 'This one
is dead', said of Dion, is false once Dion is dead. For Tt is night'
said during the daytime is false without thereby being destroyed.
Nor can he be saying that 'This one is dead', said of Dion, is forever
false once Dion is dead. For Tt will be night forever' said at any time
you like is forever false without thereby being destroyed: it subsists
falsely for all of time. But by bivalence there is no third possibility
for such a would-be proposition as the one expressed by 'This one
is dead'.72 Therefore there is not even a subsisting proposition here,
or any other proposition that would make demonstrative reference
to such erstwhile beings as the late Dion.
There is therefore a contrast and comparison to be made between
72
For the rigid Stoic commitment to bivalence see Cic. Defato 21-5 (=LS 2oE);
3 8(=LS 3 4C).
282 D.T.J. Bailey
the weak dependence of Stoic places on bodies, and the kinds of de-
pendence Stoic indefinite and definite propositions enjoy in relation
to bodies. Propositions expressible by such forms as 'This man is
such-and-such' depend for their very subsistence on their intended
corporeal referents: for any such proposition, if it so much as sub-
sists, its corresponding body must be an actual being, and only that
body will do. Here contrast places: for any place you like there must
be some body occupying it, but any body will do, and for any place
we need not always have the same body occupying it. Places are
like, not definite Stoic propositions, but the indefinite ones, those
general propositions expressible by such forms as 'Someone is such-
and-such', which require for their truth—for their obtaining—the
truth, and hence subsistence of indexical propositions; but it does
not matter exactly which bodies the indexicals refer to.73 The point
is obviously one of scope. According to the Stoic theory of place,
(Vx)(3y) (x is a place-+y occupies x). According to their semantics
(3x)(Vy) (y subsists in relation to x^x is demonstrable).
We have just seen how Stoic indefinite propositions depend for
their very mode of being on the availability of demonstrable bodies.
But the dependence of complete sayables on the material extends
even further. For the Stoics were inclined to analyse universally
quantified propositions as expressing indefinite propositions within
the scope of conditionals. That is, they were inclined to think that
such generalizations as 'Man is mortal', by which we express the
universally quantified truth that all men are mortal, are just con-
venient ways of expressing such conditionals as 'If something is a
man, then that thing [e/cetvo] is mortal'. 74 If such conditionals mean
73
Are the fundamental units of Stoic ontology, bodies, the only demonstrable
things? No; one can so indicate incorporeals as well, and this had better be so
if the incorporeals are to belong to the widest genus of Stoicism, Something. For
surely it is true that (i) 'Something is the predicate expressed by "-is a piano'". And
surely it is true that (ii) 'Something is the place currently occupied by my piano',
that (iii) 'Something is the time at which my piano was manufactured', and finally
(iv) 'Something is the unoccupied space known as "void" into which the cosmos will
expand at conflagration'. But for these propositions to be true, by (Q), it must be true
that all of an incomplete sayable predicate, an occupied place, an unobtaining time
(for my piano was manufactured in the past), and an unoccupied region are deict-
ically demonstrable. If (i)-(iv) are true then Stoic incorporeals, however shadowy
their innocence of causality might make them, must nevertheless be no less demon-
strable than the living body Dion. But that Stoic incorporeals must be demonstrable
no less than bodies does not, I think, affect the asymmetry I am trying to argue for
as far as their being is concerned.
74
See e.g. S.E. M. 11. 8-11 (=LS 30! (=SVF ii. 224)). Sextus says that the con-
the same as universally quantified propositions, and the subsist-
ence of the antecedents of those conditionals depends on the availa-
bility of various bodies, then it follows that all Stoic propositions
(save perhaps, somehow, those using proper names, or other sorts
of quantifier such as 'many', 'most', 'few') depend for their being
on bodies.75 Put another way: most contentful statements in Stoic
dialectic (by 'contentful' I mean those that are true and have true
antecedents, by contrast with those that are true merely because
they have false antecedents) require, for both their truth and their
very subsistence, the relevant bodies.76
Let us now put (Q), (I), and (DD) together. One obtains the key
claim of Stoic Ontological Dependence (SOD):
(SOD) ['Something is F' is true^'This thing is F' is true (=Q +
I)] A ['This thing is F' subsists^ the referent of 'This thing'
is available (=DD)]. 77
ditional 'says the same thing in meaning' as the universally quantified proposition
'although it is verbally different' (rfj ^€v Swaêi TO avro Xeyei, rfj 8e (/HMVTJ Sia</>opov).
Caston, 'Something and Nothing', 196—9, very plausibly attributes the innovation
to Chrysippus.
75
You might think that generalizations with false antecedents count as an ex-
ception to this claim. That is, you might think that, since (U), 'Every unicorn is
mono-horned', would get the Chrysippean analysis 'If something is a unicorn, then
it is mono-horned', then since nothing is a unicorn, 'Something is a unicorn' is false,
and therefore (U) as a whole is true; and true without requiring some fantastical
body of a certain nature. But there is a problem about this. By (Q), 'Something is a
unicorn' is true iff 'This thing here is a unicorn' is true. Therefore, by (Q) together
with bivalence, 'Something is a unicorn' will be false iff 'This thing here is a unicorn'
is false. But by (DD), 'This thing here is a unicorn' is not false at all, for there is no
sayable it expresses; and if there is no demonstrative reference to the dead, as (DD)
affirms, there is definitely no demonstrative reference to the altogether fictional. But
if 'This thing here is a unicorn' is not false, then 'Something is a unicorn' will not be
false either, by (Q). And if it is not false, then (U) cannot be true in virtue of its being
false. In fact it must be that the expression 'Something is a unicorn' expresses no
say able at all.
76
Some further mopping up: suppose every human perished. Then there would
be no sayable expressed by tokens of 'This one has died'. What would therefore be-
come of the intuitively true sayable expressed by 'Someone has died'? It could not
be true, for it is true only if some relevant instance of 'This one has died' is true.
But it could not be false either: for if it were then it would be true that 'No one has
died'. (Another reason: 'Something is F' is false iff every instance of 'This thing is
not F' is true.) But in the imagined case there are not any subsisting items expressed
by tokens of 'This thing is not dead'. So such indefinite sayables are not true, nor
are they false. But bivalence is unrestrictedly true according to the Stoics. There-
fore the sayable expressed by 'Someone has died' must have been destroyed in these
circumstances, no less than the ones containing indexicals.
77
I would be happy for the second conjunct here to be a biconditional; but since
all I need for my dependence claims is that it be a conditional, I leave things as I do.
284 D. T. J. Bailey
I take it that by the transitivity o f ' ++' and ' -»', the correctness of any
indefinite proposition ultimately requires there to be some body at
the bottom of a chain of semantic and ontological requirements. But
as we have just seen, the Stoics are prepared to analyse universally
quantified propositions as conditionals containing indefinite pro-
positions as their antecedents. Therefore the truth of all quantified
propositions (with the marginal exceptions just mentioned) is, for
the Stoics, dependent on bodies. It is in this way at least that sub-
sistence depends on corporeality, and is grounded by it.
We therefore have an answer to the worry with which this section
began: if Stoic incorporeals are as relevantly office-like as I have
attempted to show, why are they not prior to bodies? If Stoic meta-
physics is grounded at all, why is it not grounded in subsisting in-
corporeals, with the bodies of Stoic physics coming only in their
train? The answer is that complete sayables, the prior class among
the incorporeals, ultimately depend, for their very mode of being,
on the deictically demonstrable; that is, on bodies.
This paper therefore does justice to the surprising contrast with
which we began. We can appreciate the priority of bodies within
the Stoic Universe without having to suppose that they therefore
denied the existence of, but then repeatedly quantified over, the in-
corporeals. Instead, alongside their materialism is a doctrine about
other kinds of being, the offices required in order for bodies to alter
in time and space, and thereby verify and falsify all manner of pro-
positions. But conjoined to this theory of the incorporeals are some
semantic commitments that nevertheless result in the non-material
ultimately depending on, and to that extent being grounded by, the
material.
It is now time to repeat a disanalogy between offices and Stoic
incorporeals with which this section began. Offices do not bring
their occupants with them, ontologically speaking: their number
is fixed regardless of whether and what occupies them. But Stoic
metaphysics does not keep its complete sayables fixed in number.
They vary in quantity according to the fates of the bodies within
the cosmos. The dependence of Stoic incorporeals on Stoic bodies
is therefore hyperintensional: bodies and incorporeals stand to one
another much as, in the familiar example, Socrates stands to his
singleton set, Socrates. You will never get one without the other,
for all that the concrete former is prior to, and stands in a ground-
ing relation to, the immaterial latter. But I do not see this as a defect
in my analogy. Far from it. The work accomplished so far, if it is
on the right track, enables us to see both how sympathetic to some
sort of Platonism the Stoics are obliged to be, but also just how
fundamental their materialism really is. Any model that helps us
appreciate both of these contrasting features of their scheme at the
same time, and renders it coherent, has much to be said for it. It
is the task of the remainder of this paper to show how the model
developed so far explains what happens when the Stoics confront
the Platonists' immaterial objects, universals, directly.
5. Stoic universals
There is a grave problem with the reports we have about the Stoic
attitude towards universals: their theory stands accused of per-
versity at best, downright incoherence at worst. That is a matter
of history. But correlatively, there is a problem with one theory of
universals, conceptualism, which seems to be the best candidate
for what the Stoics intended.78 That is a matter of philosophy. I
now try to account for and defend the Stoic attitude that gives us
the historical problem, in the hope that this will shed some light on
the philosophical one.
Stoicism is in some sense realistic about universals.79 For the
78
This interpretation, for which I here offer new arguments, is that of D. N. Sed-
ley, 'The Stoic Theory of Universals' ['Universals'], Southern Journal of Philosophy,
23 (1985), 87-92.
79
In what follows, I speak of 'universals' in the main text, but of 'concepts' in
my translations. In English, the latter word is irritatingly ambiguous between a per-
son's mental particular ('Gavin's concept of fish means he thinks whales are fish')
and, by contrast, an immaterial mind-independent object with an extension ('Be-
cause whales fall under the concept mammal, they are not really fish'). Indeed, there
are other uses. For example, see G. Bealer, Quality and Concept (Oxford, 1982),
10, who uses the expression for neither a genuine universal nor a mental particular:
'Consider the example of green and grue . . . Whereas green is a genuine quality . . .
grue is only a concept (i.e. the concept expressed in English by the expression "green
if examined before t and blue otherwise"). As such, grue plays no primary role in
the objective, non-arbitrary categorization and identification of individuals' (my em-
phasis). The Stoics marked the difference by using eWoia for the mental particular
and evvoy/jia for the non-mental entity with the extension: that is, for the thing that
objectively and non-arbitrarily collects together all and only individuals of a certain
kind. Translators usually respect the difference by using 'conception' and 'concept'
respectively. I shall nevertheless avoid the use of 'concept', in my own text at least, as
286 D. T. J. Bailey
Stoics, universals are species and genera such as man, horse, ani-
mal?0 To the extent that Stoic universals are identified with such
items, they are as objective and mind-independent as species and
genera. Consider, for example:
(SGi)
(D.L. 7. 60-1 (=LS soC, part))

A genus is a collection of a plurality of inseparable concepts, such
as animal. . . . A species is that which is contained within a genus,
as man is contained within animal, (trans. Long and Sedley)
If, on the one hand, they [sc. the Stoics] assert that genera and spe-
cies are concepts, then the criticisms of the ruling faculty and the
imagination overthrow them. If instead they ascribe to them their
own subsistence, how will they respond to the following question?
(my translation)81
Yet Stoicism is in another sense profoundly anti-realistic about uni-

versals. According to some texts, universals are figments of the ima-
gination: mere mind-made fictions. Some of those texts go even
further in distancing universals from the real and objective. Accord-
dangerous given the ambiguity just mentioned, and speak of evvorj/jiara as universals
rather than concepts. For whatever else is true of Stoic evvorjâra, they are immater-
ial individuals with extensions. To just that extent, I take myself to be justified in
calling evvorj/jiara universals, while stopping short of using the English expression as
a translation.
80
In what follows I adopt the typographical conventions of e.g. J. Fodor, Con-
cepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong (Oxford, 1998), xii. That is, I use italics
for properties, i.e. universals: so man is just the property of being a man; and I re-
serve capitalizations for the mental particulars: so MAN is just a mental representa-
tion of man. The distinction is meant to map that between, respectively, evvo^â and
evvoia.
81
This text presents a serious challenge to the interpretation of Caston, 'Some-
thing and Nothing'. For it conversationally implies, if it does not outright entail, that
even if the Stoics had different opinions about the ontological status of universals,
there was never any possibility of ascribing them the ontological status enjoyed by
the incorporeals, subsistence. For what Sextus here offers the Stoics is presumably
meant to be an exclusive dilemma: either species and genera will be universals (evvo-
rj/jiara)', or they will have subsistence (vTroaraais) as their mode of being; but not both.
If the Stoics were as realistic about universals as Caston rightly takes them to be,
then they did not think of them as subsisting: for species and genera to be identified
with universals is sufficient for them not to subsist.
ing to them, universals do not even belong to their widest genus,
Something?2 Paradoxical as it sounds, any universal you like does
not even count as something, according to these attestations of the
Stoic position. Consider, for example:
(NSi)
(Stob. i. 136. 21 ff. (=LSsoA=SFî. 65))

(Zeno's doctrine) They say that concepts are neither somethings
nor qualified, but figments83 of the soul which are quasi-somethings
and quasi-qualified. These, they say, are what the old philosophers
called Ideas. For the Ideas are of the things which are classified
under the concepts, such as men, horses, and in general all the ani-
mals and other things of which they say there are Ideas. The Stoic
philosophers say that they [sc. the Ideas] are unobtaining, and that
what we 'participate in' is the concepts, while what we 'bear' is those
cases that they call 'appellatives', (trans. Long and Sedley, modi-
fied)
(NS2)
(Simpl. In
Categ. 105. 9-11 Kalbfleisch (=LS 3oE = SVFn. 278))
One must also take into account the usage of the Stoics about gener-
ically qualified things . . . how in their school the common things
[i.e. universals] are called 'not-somethings' . . . (trans. Long and
Sedley, modified)84
82
For the claim that Something is the widest genus in Stoic ontology see Sen. Ep.
58. 13-15 (=LS 2jA = SVF ii. 332); Alex. Aphr. In Top. 301. 19-25 Wallies (=LS
276 = SVF ii. 329). I should add, although there is not space here to address, the
fact that in the sentence immediately following those quoted as (SG) Diogenes says
something inconsistent with this claim, namely that 'most generic is that which is a
genus but has no genus—being" (yeviKcorarov Se eariv o yevos ov yevos OVK eêi, °ôv
TO ov).
83
I here accept Long and Sedley's translation offiavraaiJiaas 'figment' while ac-
knowledging Caston's concerns that the English is too pejorative, and 'apparition'
is to be preferred (Caston, 'Something and Nothing', 172 n. 58). I prefer 'figment'
to 'apparition', for of the two, only one sounds to me to be clearly a mental, mind-
dependent phenomenon, which is what all parties must agree a (âvraaâ to be. If
ghosts are apparitions, and there are ghosts, then some apparitions at least are not
merely mental.
4 See also Origen, In I oh. 2. 13. 93: KCLI coorrep (EXXrjvwv rives fiaaiv, eivai TWV ov
288 D. T. J. Bailey
(NS 3 )
(D. L. 7. 61 (=LSsoC))
A concept is a figment of thought, which is neither some being, nor
a qualified thing, but it is as if it were some being and as if a qua-
lified thing; in the way that an image of a horse arises even when
none is present, (trans. Long and Sedley, modified)85
Stoic universals are therefore strange creatures indeed. They are in
some sense comfortingly real and objective, in so far as they are spe-
cies and genera, the mind-independent kinds to which individuals
belong, the items of which any Stoic will speak whenever engaged
in the characteristic practices of Stoic dialectic, definition, and di-
vision. They are in another sense disconcertingly unfamiliar and
mind-dependent, perhaps even weirdly private, in so far as they are
somehow mental while not themselves being any kind of individual.
They are at best phantoms of the mind, at worst incoherent, some
things that are not even somethings.
In what follows, I seek to explain firstly why the Stoics think of
universals as 'not-somethings', and secondly how they can think
of them both as being mental entities and as having an extension.
Both tasks will oblige me to engage with Victor Caston's magnifi-
cent paper on this topic.
As (NSi)-(NS3) suggest, the Stoics sought to give universals
some obscure status on the very fringes of their ontology. The stan-
dard interpretation of these texts has the Stoics admitting that there
are such things as universals, but denying them the status of Some-
thing, and thereby excluding them from their widest genus. Ca-
ston finds the claim that there is something that is not-something
scarcely intelligible, and charitably reinterprets the Stoics as hold-
ing that each and every universal is indeed itself something, but
('and just as some of the
Greeks say, genera and species are not-somethings, for example animal and man'
(my translation)). Note that once again here we have efvai predicated, not just of the
non-bodily, but of the paradigmatic ally non-bodily.
85
My modification of Long and Sedley here expresses the agnosticism of this pa-
per about translating efvai. Caston, 'Something and Nothing', 169, translates Dio-
genes as saying initially 'A concept is an apparition of thinking, which is neither
something existent . . .'. But given the (EP) as a criterion for existence, Diogenes
would here be reporting the Stoics simply as saying no more and no less than that
some figment of the imagination is not a body. And yet, as I shall argue in the main
text, Diogenes is here attributing something much more radical and dramatic to the
Stoic doctrine of universals.
nevertheless does not belong to the realm of the real (where this
claim obviously amounts to more than affirming that universals are
not fundamental, i.e. corporeal). If I am to present the view for
which I argue later, I must first say something about this issue.
Could the Stoics really have thought that there are universals, but
still excluded them from their widest genus? My answer is yes, and
requires a detailed treatment of Caston's contrary views.
Caston's objections to the intelligibility of 'not-somethings' are
as follows:
1. Several sources indicate that, against Aristotle (Metaph.
ioo4 b 9— 14; Post. An. ioo b i— 3), the Stoics maintained that there
is in fact a highest genus, a genus that includes absolutely every-
thing, namely the genus Something. If there are such things as
not-somethings, they must lie outside this highest genus. In that
case, then either (a) there is a further genus that encompasses both
somethings and not-somethings, or (b) there is not. The former
option (a) is unpalatable because no sources indicate, and neither
can we easily guess, what the genus containing both somethings
and not-somethings might be. The latter option (b) is unpalatable
because then 'the status of being the highest genus is much less
significant ontologically: it does not tell us about all there is'.86
Therefore, we should avoid attributing to the Stoics a doctrine of
not-somethings if we possibly can.
2. To say that there are not-somethings is tantamount to affirm-
ing that 'something is not-something'; and that is a straightforward
contradiction. Any attempt to defang the contradiction with alter-
native formulations will, according to Caston, be mere wordplay
at best.
3. Sextus Empiricus affirms that:
(NS4)
i 7 ( = L S 2 7 C = SFîi. 330))
If something is taught, it will be taught either through somethings
or through not-somethings. But it cannot be taught through not-
somethings, for these have no subsistence in thought [avvTroorara
rfi Stavota], according to the Stoics, (trans. Long and Sedley, modi-
fied)
86
Caston, 'Something and Nothing', 163.
290 D. T. J. Bailey
Caston translates avvTroarara rfj Siavoia as 'non-subsistent for

thought', which he understands as meaning 'unavailable to thought'.
In other words, he here has Sextus reporting that not-somethings,
whatever they are, cannot even enter our thoughts. If Sextus is here
correctly reporting a Stoic thesis about not-somethings, it would be
most uncharitable to attribute to them also the view that universals
are not-somethings. For that would be to attribute to them the view
that universals cannot even enter our thoughts. But what is the
use of any doctrine of universals that is (i) not straightforwardly
eliminativist but which (ii) affirms that universals are unavailable
to thought? Surely conceptualism about universals is not in so dire
a position as this. On the contrary, conceptualism about universals
aims to capture whatever middle ground is involved in (i) while
denying precisely (ii): far from being unavailable to thought, uni-
versals are the useful creations of thought, and hence very much
available to it. Caston takes the untenability of (i) and (ii) to be
the most decisive of his three objections to the intelligibility of
not-somethings. And he surely has a good point: there is something
deeply weird, if not self-refuting, about the claim 'There are these
objective categories in the world; but they cannot so much as enter
anyone's thoughts.'
REPLIES
In what follows I reply explicitly only to Caston's i and 3; the re-

sponse to his i in particular should make it clear that and why I
reject his 2.
i'. The Stoics did hold that Something is the highest genus, but
with an important qualification: they held that Something is the
highest genus of individuals,87 It contains all and only individu-
als, be they material bodies or incorporeals. But universals are not
individuals, nor are they offices for individuals. Rather they are
quasi, as-if individuals, as Stobaeus and Diogenes report; and this
property marks their ontological difference from both bodies (ac-
87
For this claim see D. N. Sedley, 'Hellenistic Physics and Metaphysics', in K.
Algra, J. Barnes, J. Mansfeld, and M. Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of
Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1999), 353~4i i at 410-11. See also Brunschwig,
'Metaphysics', 220: 'To be something is to be some thing; that is, some particular
thing . . .'. Brunschwig later advances (226) his own reasons for thinking that 'It
is probably unfair to demand from the Stoics that they introduce some supreme
genus other than "something", which would be common to somethings and not-
somethings.'
88
tual individuals) and incorporeals (offices for individuals). Since
Stoic universals are neither bodies nor their offices, they are not
even somethings: they lie so far away, ontologically speaking, from
bodies that they do not even count as somethings. Conversely, if
they were somethings, they would be bodies or their offices, and
hence they would not be universals. The status of the highest genus
Something is not made 'much less significant ontologically' because
there are suitable subjects of quantification lying outside it. Rather,
that status is clarified: Something is the highest genus of individu-
als and their offices, and anything that is not something is thereby
neither an individual nor an office for one, whatever else may be
true of its metaphysical status.
An office is itself a kind of individual. Or at any rate, whatever
ontological differences there are between offices and the bodies cap-
able of occupying them, they are not remotely captured by speaking
of quasi-individuals. The hunk of metal on my wrist is an indivi-
dual. It is numerically distinct from the office of my watch, for the
reasons given earlier. But that is not to say that my watch is a quasi-
individual. Equally, the office of the President of the United States
is distinct from whatever living organism occupies it at any time.
But it is not thereby made a quasi-individual. It is an individual tout
court, just not any material one. Equally, the MB is an individual,
just not one belonging to any faculty member, and quite unlike the
individual bits of paper and periodicals etc. that can occupy indivi-
dual mailboxes.
In fact, I am inclined to think the foregoing considerations from
(Q) and (I) can be used to construct a simple reductio proof against
Caston's i; a proof showing that if the Stoics thought that there
is any sense in which there are universals, as they surely did, and
also affirmed that Something is the highest genus, then they ought
to have put universals outside it. Call the principle that one cannot
deictically pick out either fictions or figments (and Stoic universals
are figments by (NS3)) the deixis principle:
88
This fact again speaks in favour of the analogy between incorporeals and offices.
For there is no temptation whatsoever to think of an office as a quasi-individual. No
one thinks that the office currently held by Barack Obama, and previously held by
Clinton and Bush, is some fourth thing that is a bit like those three human substances
but somehow more shadowy than they. That office is not a quasi-human in the way
that a decoy duck is a quasi-duck. On the contrary, it is itself clearly an individual,
but of a quite different kind. The Stoics were right not to be remotely tempted to
think of incorporeals in the way they think of universals.
292 D. T. J. Bailey
1. Man is something Assumption
2. Something is Man A, Conversion.
3. This thing is Man 2, (Q)
4. Man may be picked out 3, (I)
5. But Man may not be picked out deixis89
6. -(This thing is Man) 5, (I)
7. -.(Something is Man) 6, (Q)
8. -^(Man is something) 7, Conversion
9. Man is not something 8, i RAA9°
Now, I argued earlier that, since Stoic incorporeals lie within

their broadest genus—since, that is, each is something—it follows
by (Q) and (I) that Stoic incorporeals must be demonstrable. There
is a beautiful example of what such demonstrating might amount to
in the literature on this topic: 'Mistaken. That is what you are if you
doubt that I here demonstrate an immaterial something, the predi-
cate of being mistaken.' 91 But you might threaten the case I am here
building, and undermine the power of the reductio just formulated,
by trying a similar trick with Stoic universals. Imagine something
like: 'Man is what you are thinking about when you think of that
thing had in common by all and only human beings.' The trouble
here is that it will not be clear whether you and I are thinking of
the same thing when we each think of Man: for as we are told in
89
Note that this application of the deixis principle is just another way of stating the
conclusion of the 'No one' argument the Stoics used against Platonic Forms (Simpl.
In Cat. 105. 7—20 Kalbfleisch; D.L. 7. 187). This paper does not address that argu-
ment; but it is treated at length in Brunschwig, 'Supreme Genus', 130-1; Caston,
'Something and Nothing', 200-5; and Sedley, 'Universals', 87-8.
90
I concede that one might reasonably have some qualms about the inferences
in this reductio from i to 2, and from 7 to 8; that is, can one pass from avOpwrros
TIS eari to TIS av6pw7Tos earl? I do not mean the qualm that some equivocation is
going on: read aright, none is. I mean the qualm of so readily converting terms in
Stoic logic. Such inferences are not merely tolerated but encouraged by Aristotle's
syllogistic and its core commitment to the thesis of interchangeability, with few ex-
ceptions (for the latter see P. T. Geach, 'History of the Corruptions of Logic', in
id., Logic Matters (Oxford, 1972), 44-61 at 47-9). But Stoic logic is a propositional
logic, not a term logic, and one in which indefinite statements such as 'Something
is a man' count as simple propositions (see in particular D.L. 7. 69-70, and LS 34
in general). And as there is no monkeying around to be done inside the simple 'It
is day', perhaps there is no getting the simple 'Something is Man' from the distinct
but related 'Man is something'. On the other hand, perhaps the very simplicity of 2
is a reason for getting it from i. You would only resist the inference if you had some
developed theory of something-said-of-something that resisted it, which the Stoics,
to their credit, lack. On this issue see Barnes, Truth, 104-5.
91
Denyer, 'Stoicism', 382.
(NSi) and (NS3), this universal is in some sense a figment of the
mind. If you and I both form a mental image of, to switch the ex-
ample, a horse, there will not in general be a fact of the matter about
whether we are thinking of the same horse. There may be a fact
of the matter about whether we think of the same thing when we
each think of a fully fledged individual, be it a body or an incor-
poreal office for one; but not when the object of our thought is a
mere quasi-individual. Therefore there will not in general be any
horse that is the shared object of our mental images.92 And if there
is no such horse, there is no such deictically demonstrable horse, not
even in the way in which I just picked out the predicate expressed
by '-is mistaken'. Therefore when we think of universals, the thing
about which we think, not being deictically demonstrable, will not
be something either. Therefore if it is anything at all (as indeed it is,
for it is a quasi-individual), it will be a not-something.93
That an item cannot be picked out demonstrably also allows us
to clear up the status of fictional beings in the Stoic scheme. In his
seminal paper on the topic, Jacques Brunschwig goes to impres-
sive lengths to persuade us that fictional entities such as centaurs
and giants are, like Stoic concepts, not-somethings.94 But this truth
follows much more straightforwardly from the truth that whatever
fictions are, they are indemonstrable, for much the same reason that
figments are indemonstrable offered in the last paragraph. Since
there is no picking out of the mythical, there is therefore no proper
quantification over them as somethings in the sense required by (Q).
Even if it is true that 'Pegasus is a winged horse' is an instance of the
general 'Something is a winged horse', it cannot be by Stoic lights
that the former entails the latter. Put yet another way: since Pegasus
92
Even if our respective tokens of HORSE are of precisely the same type, finely in-
dividuated.
93
Hence there is considerable temptation to ascribe to the Stoics some crude ver-
sion of some distinction between content and object, and have their theory of univer-
sals make them a composite of the two: so that when I think of Horse, the content
of my thought—my HORSE—is a mental image peculiar to me, and not thinkable by
you, while its object is just the species, the objective collection containing all and
only the horses: that is, the referent of 'Horse'. In the main text I shall later argue
for something like this.
94
See Brunschwig, 'Supreme Genus', 99-103. His argument puts him in dis-
agreement with the interpretation of Long and Sedley, who hold, largely on the
basis of Sen. Ep. 58. 13-15 (=LS 2*jA = SVF ii. 322), that fictional entities belong in
side the genus Something, but for all that are neither corporeal nor incorporeal, and
hence that the last two properties do not exhaust the contents of Something. See LS,
163-4.
294 D. T. J. Bailey
is a fiction, there can be no definite Stoic proposition (axioma) men-
tioning him; and for this reason there cannot be any indefinite way
of quantifying over such things either.
3'. Caston takes the observation he makes in 3 to be the master ar-
gument among his triumvirate. The key idea is that in (NS4) Sextus
reports the Stoics as holding that not-somethings are not subsistent
to thought (anupostata tei dianoiai}. They are therefore, he infers,
unavailable to thought. They therefore cannot be concepts, however
you understand that term; and we need to ask again, with much sus-
picion this time, whether the Stoics really thought that universals
are not-somethings.
The appeal to non-subsistence, to (for, in) thought or otherwise,
hardly seems to make a case against attributing to the Stoics an
analysis of universals as not-somethings.95 There are several texts
saying they held universals to be not-somethings; and if they are
not-somethings, above, beyond, but otherwise absent from the
Stoic highest genus Something, it will straightforwardly follow that
they do not subsist. For according to our sources only somethings
subsist. One cannot be a subsistent and a not-something.96 If Stoic
universals are not-somethings, then they do not subsist. And if
they do not subsist, it is hardly news to be told that they do not
subsist to, for, or in, thought: that follows a fortiori from their not
subsisting at all. It is quite compatible with this, as the traditional
interpretation has it, that Stoic universals' being fit subjects for
quantification is a matter of their being, in some sense, products of
thought, and hence to be sure available to it.97
95
Brunschwig, 'Metaphysics', 226-7, would agree; but not, I think, for quite my
reasons.
96
I think only somethings subsist. But it might be that all and only somethings
subsist. A. Ju, 'The Stoic Ontology of Geometrical Limits', Phronesis, 54 (2009),
371—89, argues persuasively that in fact corporeal being is itself a species of subsis-
tence. According to her construction of the Stoic scheme, with Seneca's Epistle 58
taken into account, all somethings, with the exception of fictional entities, subsist;
and subsistence splits into two species, the existent (bodies) and the incorporeals.
Bodies do not merely subsist; they make it all the way to the fullest kind of being
there is, that of the causally networked, while their dependents, place, times, and
meanings, are the mere subsistents. Ju's paper, into whose intricacies I cannot enter
here, is a further reminder of the wisdom of dispensing with existence talk when
approaching the Stoics. For if she is right, then it is really subsistence that corres-
ponds to the Quinean concept of existence. And that will be even more reason to be
horrified by those interpretations of Stoicism imputing to them the view that 'the
incorporeals do not exist'.
97
According to Seneca's report of the Stoics in Epistle 58, such fictions as centaurs
and giants lack subsistence ('non habeat substantiam'), arrived at as they are by some
Therefore, this lone text of Sextus' seems to carry much less
weight than Caston gives it. Certainly it cannot be a master
argument against the idea that the Stoics had a doctrine of not-
somethings. Instead, it looks like something one finds Sextus doing
all the time: taking something the Stoics did say (that universals,
being not-somethings, do not (even) subsist); stretching their point
reasonably (that since not-somethings do not subsist, they do not
subsist to (for, in) thought); and then adding his own opinion (not-
somethings cannot therefore be used to teach anyone anything) in
order to attack the Stoics. His doing so should not make us any
the less persuaded that the Stoics did indeed analyse universals as
not-somethings. The arguments of this section, especially those
deploying (Q) and (I), tell us that in fact they had every reason to
do so.
(a) Why universals could not be offices

I earlier tried to analyse Stoic incorporeals as offices. I now redeploy
that analysis to answer the question of why universals could not be
among the incorporeals for the Stoics; and why neither could any
of the incorporeals do the job of universals in their scheme.
Let us turn briefly to Sextus' report of yet another reason why
Stoic universals must have the queer status they do. Sextus' point
is that Stoic species and genera (which are universals by (SG)) can
be no more than (at best) quasi-individuals, for if they were proper
individuals then they would violate the Stoic commitment to bi-
valence:
(GEN)
(S.E. M. 7. 246 (=LS 3oF = SVF

ii. 361))
For of things whose species are of this kind or that kind, the genera
are neither of this nor of that kind. For example, of men some are
Greeks, others barbarians; but the generic man is neither Greek
(since then all specific men would be Greek) nor barbarian (for the
same reason), (trans. Long and Sedley)
The idea, suitably generalized, is as follows. Imagine the individual

sort of false thinking ('falsa cogitatione formatum'). But we should not infer from
this that Seneca is reporting the Stoics as thinking that fictions are unthinkable.
296 D. T. J. Bailey
one might get from reifying a genus: say the genus of the Fs. This
would be, in appropriately Platonic language, The F. And suppose
that the genus of the Fs divides into exclusive and exhaustive spe-
cies, the Fs that are G, and the Fs that are un-G.9§ Every F is either
G or un-G; no F is both. Now what about the product of our rein-
cation, The F itself: is it G or un-G? It cannot be G, for then every
member of the genus from which we reined The F would have to
be G. But some Fs are un-G. The same reasoning shows that The
F is not un-G either. So The F is neither G, nor un-G. But that
violates the Stoic commitment to bivalence. If The F itself is not
G, then 'The F itself is G' is not true; but it cannot be false either,
for then 'The F is un-G' would be true. Therefore, as Sextus is here
reporting, the Stoic commitment to bivalence is inconsistent with
reifying genera—that is, universals—in anything like the fashion in
which Plato did."
This argument demonstrates decisively why there could not be
a reined Stoic universal, the generic man. It shows why, of neces-
sity, 'Man' does not designate some office occupiable by some body,
which when occupied would yield some individual man.100 For any-
thing to count as a man, he must be either Greek or non-Greek. But
by the argument above, Man cannot be either, on pain of either all
men being Greek, or no men at all being Greek. That is why the
universal Man is not an office for any individual. That is why it,
and all other universals, belongs to a class outside that of the four
incorporeals.101
98
The assumption of exhaustiveness is not necessary to make the point; but it
helps to make it more vivid.
99
For a more detailed treatment of this argument see Caston, 'Something and
Nothing', 187-92.
100 rj^g •cjea - g easiiy missed: see Caston, 'Something and Nothing', 188: 'To think
of man generically—or as the Stoics also seem willing to say, of "the generic man" . . .
is not to think of an average man so much as an arbitrary man: it is a way of focusing
on all and only those characteristics that every man has . . .'. But this is not right. To
think of an arbitrary man is to think of some individual man. But no individual man
enjoys only those properties enjoyed by all men. Therefore to think of an arbitrary
man is not to think of something with all and only those characteristics that every
man has.
101 That is also why, as I tried to express in my modification of Long and Sedley,
the crucial report of Stobaeus (=(NSi)) tells us that according to the Stoics, Platonic
Ideas 'are unobtaining' (avwirapKTovs}. They are unobtaining because Man is not an
office occupiable by an individual: as it were, no man could be Man. According to
my interpretation, participating in a universal is not a matter of occupying an of-
fice, which is part of the reason why Stoic universals are not-somethings (and also
part of the reason why, unlike the incorporeals at various times, Stoic universals are
Perhaps the point is best put by contrast with universals. No body
could be the generic man, because any genuine man will bring with
him properties that do not belong to all men. It is for a quite op-
posite reason that no body could be Sherlock Holmes, if we were
to assume that being Sherlock is just a matter of satisfying all and
only the claims Conan Doyle makes of Sherlock. For no such be-
ing would be a man: no such being would have enough properties,
since any man is required to have properties besides those, no mat-
ter how intricate, that Conan Doyle ascribes to Sherlock Holmes. If
instead we specify that anything must at least have all those proper-
ties needed to be a man in order to be identical to Sherlock, then
once again there are too many candidates; once again, Sherlock is
not an office occupiable by any individual. 102 Once again, we see
the kinship between those two not-somethings of Stoic ontology,
universals and fictions.
It is hence quite natural that the Stoics speak as frequently as
they do of universals as being phantasms or mental images.103 For
again, these are not like offices or the things that occupy them, for
by nature unobtaining (dvvTrdpKTovs)). Meanwhile, bearing a case is a matter of oc-

cupying an office. When some body is a particular human being, she occupies the
predicable (an incomplete sayable) expressed by '-is a human'. I think it is this that
Stobaeus is here conveying with his report of ''dvvTrdpKTovs', rather than the rather
different point, understood by Caston, 'Something and Nothing', 176—9, that ac-
cording to the Stoics Platonic Forms are nothing at all. However, I am otherwise
fully persuaded by Caston's excellent argument that the Stoics meant, not to identify
or reduce Platonic Forms to evvorj/jiara, but to eliminate the former altogether in fa-
vour of the latter as they understood them.
102 por Sucj1 arguments in a modern context see S. A. Kripke, Naming and Ne-
cessity (Oxford, 1981), 66-7; C. A. McGinn, Logical Properties: Identity, Existence,
Predication, Necessity, Truth (Oxford, 2000), 41. Similar ideas, albeit ones motivated
less clearly by considerations that TIS is always an expression for an individual hav-
ing determinates of determinables, are suggested by Brunschwig, 'Supreme Genus',
99. I lack the space to develop these points in connection with the Stoic theory of
categories, but for what it is worth I hold that the arguments of this section give us a
better way of understanding the italicized expressions in Diogenes' report (=(NS3))
that A concept is a phantasm of thought, which is neither some being, nor a qualified
thing, but it is as if it were some being and as if a qualified thing'. Man and Sherlock
Holmes are not individuals; and part of the reason for this is that necessarily they do
not enjoy, and hence are not qualified by, the sorts of determinates of determinables
typically enjoyed by individuals.
103
I agree with Brunschwig, 'Supreme Genus', 101, that mental images can be
of not-somethings without being of universals: that is, the objects of some mental
images may be quasi-particular, fictional voovêva without being of evvorj/jiara. I give
an example in my closing paragraph. If I dream of a tiger, there is not generally
some real particular tiger of which I dream. But nor is the object of my dream the
universal Tiger.
298 D. T. J. Bailey
they come without relevant determinates. If anything is to occupy
the offices of 'my watch' or 'The President of the United States',
such things must have all sorts of precise determinates, of mass, ex-
tension, colour, etc. But mental images not only do not, but cannot
have such determinates. I did indeed dream of a tiger last night, and
it did indeed have stripes; but there is no such thing as the number
of stripes had by the tiger I dreamt of last night. And to this extent
at least the tiger of which I dreamt is quite unlike any real tiger.
(b) Stoic conceptualism

So much for my reasons for continuing to think that the Stoics held
that universals are not-somethings. I now turn to the issue of the
Stoics' conceptualism.
According to Caston's interpretation, Stoic universals have only
two features:
(i) Universals have extensions.104 (See e.g. (SG))

(ii) Universals are entirely intentional objects.105 (See e.g. (NSi)
and (NS 3 ))
But this gives us a problem. How can any object be both entirely in-
tentional and mind-independent enough to have anything worthy
of the name 'extension'? If something has an extension, it is part
of the furniture of the universe. But if it is that, it is not a mere fig-
ment of the mind. Io6 I know of no better way to put the point for this
context than a remark of Elizabeth Anscombe's. She is expounding
104
Caston, 'Something and Nothing', 159-60.
105
Ibid. 185: 'Concepts are merely intentional objects—they are completely
without being and so cannot provide the explanantia the Platonist seeks.' For
whatever it is worth, the locution 'they are completely without being" sounds as bad
to my ears as 'there are not-somethings^'. Obviously, I deny that the Stoics held that
universals are completely without being. On the view of metaphysics this paper has
tried to use to shed light on the Stoics, nothing is completely without being, not
even contradictory objects such as round squares: the latter are just necessarily
unoccupied offices.
106 j agree with Caston, 'Something and Nothing', 173, that '[a </>avTaCT|U,a] is not a
mental state, but an intentional object towards which certain mental states are direc-
ted'. He must here be right, for if the (f)avrda/jiara with which Diogenes here identifies
evvoij/Aara were mental states, then evvoij/Aara would be eWoiai. That would be bad
enough. But worse, evvoij/Aara would then be bodies, for Stoic mental states gener-
ally are corporeal qualifications of the corporeal soul (see e.g. Plut. Comm. not. 1084 A
(=LS 28A); Calcid. In Tim. 220 (=LS ^G = SVF ii. 879); Nemes. Nat. horn. 291.
1-6 Morani (=LS $3O = SVF ii. 991). But in that case, Stoic universals would be not
just something, but real beings, bodies passing the (EP).
Aristotle (and echoing Wittgenstein): 'if they are not marked out
by anything, we cannot mark them out: if we do, they are marked
out'. 107
The point can be put more historically Plato had already argued,
in a text no doubt known to the Stoics (Farm. 1326—0), that his
Forms cannot be identified with thoughts. For that will invite the
question what these thoughts are thoughts of: and whatever ends
up appearing to the right of that preposition in some satisfying an-
swer will itself have a better claim to be the Form in question than
the thought itself.108 For Plato is well aware that nothing can do the
job required of Forms while still belonging only to the mind: and as
Socrates admits, that is just where thoughts belong (132 B 4-5).I09
Caston's own illuminating illustration of the pure intentionality
of Stoic universals reveals the problem sharply. Stoic universals are,
he tells us, like Macbeth's dagger. Macbeth's dagger is indeed an
excellent example of something entirely intentional. (Which parti-
cular, individual dagger was Macbeth hallucinating? None of them
of course.) But to just that extent it is hard to see how anything so
insufficiently objective could have anything as mind-independent
as an extension.110 Put another way: Macbeth's dagger is in no way
objective; it is a figment of his guilt-addled mind. It therefore lacks
extension altogether; it could only be a joke to say that it is some-
thing under which all and only daggers fall. 111 But Stoic universals
107
G. E. M. Anscombe, 'The Principle of Individuation', in ead., Collected Phi-
losophical Papers, i. From Parmenides to Wittgenstein (Oxford, 1991), 57-65 at 60.
108
As is acknowledged, without, I think, the sort of explanation I seek to provide,
by Sedley, 'Universals', 88.
109
dAAa, fidvai, d) UappevL^r], TOV Z^WKparr], pr] TOJV elSwv eKaarov fj TOVTWV vo^pa,
KCLI ovSafjiov avrw TrpoarjKrj eyyiyveaOcni aXXo6i rj ev ifjvâis.
110
See Brunschwig, 'Supreme Genus', 113 n. 52, for the crucial observation that
according to (NSi), 'even if X is quasi Y, X still is not Y'. Brunschwig uses this to
protest against Seneca's attempt, in Epistle 58, to argue against the Stoic view that
the supreme genus is quid rather than quod est. Caston, 'Something and Nothing',
173, helpfully observes here: 'Still, this shows that concepts bear some sort of in-
ternal relation to the qualities in question: what makes a concept the concept of F,
say, and not of G, is that it is as if it were F, but not as if it were G. The relevant
qualities determine the nature of their respective concepts, even though they are not
literally exemplified by them.' But again, this observation, while correct, seems to
me to undermine Caston's comparison between Stoic universals and Macbeth's dag-
ger in particular; and to again call into question the reductivism about universals he
sees in them in general. If universals are determined by extra-mental qualities, then
they are not purely intentional entities; nor are they usefully thought of as useful
fictions, since there is something quite un-fictional about them, namely the relation
they bear to their objective, mind-independent extensions.
111
Note that even if you followed Meinong and supposed that Macbeth's dagger
300 D. T. J. Bailey
are species and genera, and hence to at least that extent objective.
They carve the beast of reality at its joints; nothing doing that job,
though, can also be relevantly like Macbeth's dagger.112
The point can be made more precise by relating it directly to one
of our most important texts in this context, (NSi). One principle
we can surely extract from the last sentence of (NSi) is the follow-
ing:
(NS i') X participates in the universal Man iff X bears the appella-
tive 'Man'; put another way, X participates in the universal
Man iff the say able expressed by '-is a man' obtains at X.
Again, (NSi') surely tells us that whatever Stoic universals are they
are not merely intentional entities. A merely intentional entity such
as Macbeth's dagger is whatever the person entertaining it thinks it
is and nothing else besides. If my fever gives me the hallucination
that before me is something that is both a hawk and a handsaw, then
what I hallucinate is a hawk, and a handsaw. But no such thing can
ever be true of Stoic universals if (NSi') is right. For they come
bearing hard and fast logical relations to sayables, which, as I have
had to be part of the furniture of the universe in some sense, just because he man-
ages to refer to it, and with a demonstrative to boot ('Is this a dagger which I see
before me?'), that would still not be sufficient for Macbeth's hallucination to have an
extension. Caston perhaps misses this problem because his sights are set on an aspect
of realism about universals evinced by Plato that he rightly takes the Stoics to be
rejecting, and as forming no part of whatever realism they are prepared to tolerate.
I mean the idea that universals are causes of or explanations for the way sensible par-
ticulars are. I have said little about this topic in this paper because Caston's insights
on the matter seem so decisive. But observing that the Stoics reject this feature of
Platonism, and might be right to have done so while still being realists of a sort, is
not by itself sufficient to show their position to be coherent. Even once we have ad-
mitted that universals lack causal powers of any sort, the question remains how they
can be both mind-made and objective.
112
This crucial point seems to elude Brunschwig, 'Supreme Genus', 103, shortly
after he notes its very importance: 'Universal Man, a phantom-object created in our
imagination by our noetic activity, is a chimaera just as much and for the same rea-
sons as the universal centaur is' (my emphasis). This overlooks the crucial difference
between them that Brunschwig has earlier noted: the Universal Man has actual in-
dividuals in its extension; the universal Centaur has either nothing at all, or merely
quasi-individuals, in its extension. And this metaphysical difference between the two
will not be explained merely by citing, as Brunschwig does, the facts of the philo-
sophy of mind in connection with each of these intentional items, namely that our
conception (eWoia) of the one is formed from our direct experience of actual men,
while our conception of the other is formed from some method of mediation or trans-
ference in the manner suggested by D.L. 7. 53 (=LS ^()D = SVF ii. 87).
argued, are as objective and mind-independent features of reality
as the very bodies that ground them.
Precisely this tension had already been noticed in the literature
on Stoic universals, and a solution proposed, by David Sedley At
the conclusion of his paper, aware of the apparent tension between
the fact that Stoic universals both have extensions and are described
as mental fictions, Sedley asks: 'Is this a real contradiction?' I have
thus far suggested that it is. Sedley continues: 'I doubt it. The lo-
gical and metaphysical outlawing of concepts [i.e. their being ban-
ished beyond the realm even of the incorporeals, to the status of
not-somethings] is not a denial of their epistemological value. It is
a warning to us not to follow Plato's path of hypostatizing them.' 113
The trouble is that this response alone does not do anything more
to resolve the tension than Caston does. Granted, the Stoics do not
reify universals as Plato did: their observation in (GEN) is sufficient
to dissuade them from that. But even Plato probably realized that
his own middle-period attempt at reifying universals was seriously
mistaken: such is a very plausible way of taking the Third Man Ar-
gument and other puzzles from the Parmenides. But equally, few
deny that Plato continued to be a realist about Forms, or think that
he ever took seriously the idea that they could be reduced to, or eli-
minated in favour of, mental entities. The trouble is that in this the
Stoics followed Plato, in having universals as objective species and
genera.
(c) The solution

We have already seen one piece of the metaphysical machinery de-
ployed in this paper—offices—contribute to our understanding of
why the Stoics put universals even further away from bodies than
they placed the incorporeals. For incorporeals are offices for bodies,
while as (GEN) makes clear, universals could not be. I now use
the other piece of machinery, the metaphysics of ontological depen-
dence, to reconcile the intentionality of Stoic universals with their
enjoyment of extensions.
It is frequently the case in metaphysics that while the options of
being a realist about Fs and being an anti-realist about Fs are clearly
exclusive, they are not clearly exhaustive; there is some via media.
This is what conceptualism about universals tries to do. It tries to
113
Sedley, 'Universals', 89.
302 D. T. J. Bailey
say that realism about universals is correct, but in a way that should
not upset nominalists.114 But it is a deeply unattractive position. For
to say 'There are Fs, but only in people's minds' is to give some-
thing with one hand and immediately withdraw it with the other.115
For after all, saying 'The Fs are only in your mind' is one of many
ways to say: there are not any Fs. To say that X is a figment of your
imagination is to say that there is no X. 116
If we are to save Stoic conceptualism from this charge, then there
will have to be some distinction in their theory, as there is not in the
crude conceptualism just outlined, which yields some coherent al-
ternative to realism and anti-realism about universals. Fortunately
there is such a distinction. It is just that between the kinds of object
Stoic universals are, and those things of which they are the objects.
Let us take more seriously the oft-used metaphor of the shadow
in this context: conceptualism is the view that universals are sha-
114
'Conceptualism holds that there are Universals, but they are mind-made . . .
nominalists . . . object to admitting abstract entities at all, even in the restrained sense
of mind-made entities' (Quine, 'On What There Is', 14-15). Quine here writes as
if conceptualism is an alternative to nominalism, one which makes concessions to
realism that nominalists cannot tolerate. But on the very same page Quine speaks of
'the old opposition between realism and conceptualism' (my emphasis). That is, after
characterizing realism and conceptualism about universals, he implies that the two
cannot both be true together (and in his opinion they are both false). Put another way,
it seems that one cannot consistently say that there are universals, but then say that
they are mind-made. But that is just the problem we find in Stoicism.
115
The self-cancelling that results from each aspect of conceptualism is no mere
verbal slip. For a mere verbal slip see C. S. Peirce's formulation of the type/token
distinction: 'There will ordinarily be about twenty the's on a page, and of course
they count as twenty words. In another sense of the word "word", however, there
is but one word "the" in the English language; and it is impossible that this word
should lie visibly on a page or be heard in any voice, for the reason that it is not a
Single thing or a Single event. It does not exist; it only determines things that do
exist. Such a definitely significant Form, I propose to term a Type' (Collected Pa-
pers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), iv. 537, underlining
mine). It really is not the case that some of the contradictory-sounding things the
Stoics said about items on the margins of their ontology manifest any peculiarly an-
tique flavour.
116
The point is made beautifully by Arthur Prior: 'to say that there are centaurs
in some person's mind is to say that that person thinks or imagines that there are cen-
taurs. . . . in general, to say that X is the case in some non-real world is to say that
X is the case with some modifying prefix like "Greek myth-makers have said that",
"Jones imagines that", or "It could be that". But to say that X is the case in the real
or the actual world, or that it is really or actually or in fact the case, is just to say that
it is the case—flat, and without any prefix whatever . . . There is, if you like, no other
place than the real world for God or centaurs to exist in ... for God or centaurs to
exist in the real world . . . is just for God or centaurs to exist' (A. N. Prior, 'The
Notion of the Present', Studium generale, 23 (1970), 245—8 at 246).
dows cast by our minds. As such, shadows are ontologically depen-
dent on the things of which they are shadows, namely corporeal
objects capable of blotting out rays of light. And yet shadows are
in a sense robustly objective: they are public, measurable objects
with a determinate size and shape that is simply not up to those
whose shadows they are. There may be no fact of the matter about
how many stripes the tiger I dreamt of last night had, or how heavy
he was; or those facts may be up to me alone, as it is up to Conan
Doyle alone whether Sherlock Holmes had an illegitimate child.
But there is a fact of the matter about how large my shadow is, and
of just what shape it is: and these things will vary objectively and
determinately relative to my position in relation to the light source
and the medium for the shadow. To sum up: if we were not here,
neither would our shadows be; but for all that, our shadows have
spatial extensions that are not up to us or controllable by anything
like individual voluntary acts of the imagination. 117
If Stoic universals are like shadows, what are the objects that cast
them? The answer should already have been suggested by the whole
thrust of this paper: something from the realm of the fundamental
entities, bodies. And in fact that is just what we read: Stoic uni-
versals are the intentional objects of conceptions, mental states (en-
noiai). Here is not the place to go into the Stoic theory of mental
states, a far more developed matter as far as our surviving sources
go than their theory of universals. 118 Suffice it to say that such men-
tal states are unquestionably corporeal according to the Stoics: the
point was made right at the start of this paper. 119
Can we find anything like the shadow model in our texts? Fortu-
nately we can, this time from the doxographer Aetius (first/second
century AD): 120
117
Hence my insistence on the inexhaustiveness of various realisms and anti-
realisms. It would not be right to be anti-realistic about shadows: for they are not like
unicorns and ghosts. But that is not an argument in favour of realism about shadows:
for such realism might not contain the crucial issue of their ontological dependency
on corporeal objects.
118
See for this issue H. Dyson, Prolepsis and Ennoia in the Early Stoa (Berlin and
New York, 2009).
119
And for the view that Stoic bodily impressions are the primary bearers of in-
tentionality, see e.g. D.L. 7. 43. 5-44. i (=LS 31 A) and S.E. M. 8. 70 (=LS 33C =
SVFn. 187).
120 rj^g texts either side of these sentences are mentioned by Brunschwig, 'Su-
preme Genus', 101 n. 18, 102 nn. 19, 22, 127 n. 82, and Caston, 'Something and
Nothing', 172, for what they tell us about the Stoic attitude to eWoicu and fiavra-
304 D. T. J. Bailey
(M)
(Aet./ps.-Plut. Plac. 4. 11. 4-5/900 c

4-D 14 (=SVF ii. 83, part))
And a concept is a figment of the intellect of a rational animal; for
when a figment occurs in a rational soul, then it is called a 'concept'
[eVvoTâ], taking its name from 'intellect' [vows]. Therefore those that
strike irrational animals are mere figments; but those that occur in the
gods and in us are both figments, according to genus, and conceptions,
according to species; just as denarii and staters are, considered in them-
selves, just denarii and staters, but when they are given as fare on a ship,
then they are called cship fare' in addition to denarii, (trans. Inwood and
Gerson, modified)
No single report of the Stoic attitude to universals makes quite so

clear the problem we have been dwelling on: that they are at the
same time intentional objects, but with some sort of objective cor-
relate in the world, which makes them different from mere figments
of the sort that even non-rational animals can enjoy, or from fic-
tions. And no single text gives us a more helpful model for how
such a thing might be possible. (Shadows are mentioned later on in
CT/CU. But what these sentences have to tell us about Stoic evvoij/Aara has not, I think,
so far been adequately appreciated. This is partly no doubt because Long and Sedley
refrain from translating them in their volume i, demoting them instead to an appear-
ance labelled only by a lower-case letter (30)) in their volume ii. Their reasoning is as
follows: 'This text is completely out of step with all the other evidence on evvorj/jiara.
It represents them as any figments of a rational mind, implicitly including fictional
individuals like Pegasus.' But there is nothing here to suggest that the source is pur-
porting to give a rigorous, exceptionless definition of an ewmâ. Long and Sedley
never say why the source here cannot be giving a correct description of evvor/paTa that
falls short of an exceptionless definition. (The title of this section of Placita philoso-
phorum is Uws yiverai 77 aiaOyais KCLI r] evvoia KCLI 6 Kara evSidOeaiv Aoyos", 'How per-
ception, conception, and internal speech [evSidOeaiv] come about'. (Long and Sedley
use 'internal speech' for evSiaderw as it occurs at S.E. M. 8. 275 (LS $i >T = SVF ii.
223).) Such a title should not lead anyone to think that only strict definitions will
follow.) If I were to say, correctly, that water is a stuff, I should think myself much
mistreated if you replied that this is not right because Coca-Cola is a stuff too, but
not a natural kind, while water is a natural kind. Besides: by such reasoning, how
many other texts that make it all the way to English versions in volume i should be
relegated to their original, and awarded a lower-case letter to boot, in volume ii? I
therefore applaud the decision of Inwood and Gerson to include a translation of this
vital text in Stoics, 48 Text 21.
The Structure of Stoic Metaphysics 30 305
this passage, but not I think quite in the way I deployed them just
now.) For the italicized passage about money, denarii and staters,
gives us an excellent example of how something can be in a way de-
pendent on the free creation of human rational thought, but at the
same time tied down to objective facts that are not dependent on
the whims of creating minds.
That certain tokens have such-and-such a value is something de-
pendent on us, much as it is up to me, when I think of a horse,
whether to think of a bay or a chestnut. But once I am trying to
use these tokens when their value has been so fixed, to buy pas-
sage aboard a ship, their value is no longer something dependent on
either my imagination or anyone else's. Rather, I am at the mercy
of the extension of their value, and if I do not have enough when
embarking then hard luck: neither I nor anyone else can change the
value of these tokens in that context, in anything like the way I can
think of a tiger with four legs and then one with only three.121
This passage strongly suggests to me that the Stoics were aware of
the difficulty of reconciling the double-faceted nature of their uni-
versals; and that they came up with at least one promising model
for solving the difficulty. If they sought to avoid both Platonism
and outright anti-realism about universals, with anything like the
idea that universals are, to use the cliched expression, 'useful fic-
tions', then the comparison here reported with money was apposite
indeed. But it is especially useful in reminding us that here the ad-
jective 'useful' must be attributive, not predicative.122 If universals
are to be useful at all, they must carve at the joints; but then they
will not be fictional simpliciter. Fortunately it is possible for some-
thing to be like that. Money is like that.
121
Aristotle grapples with the issue of money's being both somehow mind-
dependent and also objective in book 5 of the Nicomachean Ethics. He insists that
money does not come into being naturally, but only by convention, and that its
being changed or rendered useless is up to us (e'</>' rjplv, NE H33 a 3i). He must,
though, surely have realized that altering the value of money or rendering its tokens
useless is not something that is up to us individually, but only collectively: its
subjectivity is at best political, not individual. And in the following pages he tells us
much about those entirely objective relations between goods that money measures,
and which we did not therefore invent: 'There must therefore be one standard . . . for
this one standard makes all things commensurable, since all things can be measured
by money' (NE i i33b2O-2). That this is so is surely not so e'</>' rjîv.
122
I here adopt the terminology of P. T. Geach, 'Good and Evil', in P. Foot (ed.),
Theories of Ethics (Oxford, 1967), 64-73.
306 D. T. J. Bailey
6. Conclusion
I am therefore inclined to think that Stoic metaphysics is consi-

derably more coherent and thought through than has so far been
seen.The insight that the incorporeals are offices accounts both for
how their being differs from that of bodies, and yet for how they are
such vital (if of course not fundamental) constituents of the Stoic
system: this much the Stoics have to concede to Plato and Aris-
totle by way of admitting the immaterial. It also explains, given
our texts, why universals could not be among the incorporeals: they
must be immaterial items of a different order, even further from the
fundamental. Meanwhile, the ontological dependence of sayables
on bodies served to show just how deep Stoic materialism runs,
whatever they conceded to Plato and Aristotle. And the ontologi-
cal dependence of universals on those mental impressions of which
they are the intentional objects serves to make attractive sense of a
conceptualism that would otherwise seem a desperate compromise
between Platonism and nominalism. What strikes me as most as-
tonishing about this system is how much the Stoics achieve and ac-
count for while being so radically different from their predecessors.
In terms of metaphysics, Plato was a bold new departure from Par-
menides, and Aristotle from Plato. But neither competes with the
strides the Stoics make in breaking with their predecessors while
still accounting for the phenomena.
University of Colorado, Boulder
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ON ARISTOTLE'S WORLD
TANELI KUKKONEN
i. Introduction
S I M P L I C I U S OF C i LI CIA opens his monumental commentary on

Aristotle's On the Heavens, the only full commentary extant from
antiquity, with the words: 'Alexander [of Aphrodisias] says that the
subject matter [skopos] of Aristotle's treatise On the Heavens has to
do with the world [peri kosmou].'1 The statement is surprising for a
couple of reasons. First and most importantly, the term kosmos does
not appear anywhere in the first chapter of Aristotle's work, which
to the late antique commentator will have been the first place to look
when it came to discerning Aristotle's intentions. In De caelo i. i
Aristotle speaks of 'the all' (to pan), of everything (ta panto), and of
that which is complete and in that sense perfect (to teleiori)\ in the
third chapter the uppermost region (to anotaton) and the outermost
heaven (ho eschatos ouranos) are added to the mix, signalling that
the immediate discussion has to do with the celestial region. The
word kosmos occurs for the first time only in the eighth chapter; it is
evoked in conjunction with the universe's uniqueness (i. 8-9) and
its ungenerated nature (i. 10, z8oa22). Overall, despite the tendency
on the part of modern commentators to side with Alexander and to
call Aristotle's On the Heavens his cosmology, the term kosmos does
© Taneli Kukkonen 2014

I thank audiences at the University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia,
the University of Western Ontario, the University of Dayton, and New York Uni-
versity for comments and feedback, as well as an anonymous reviewer subsequently
revealed to be Peter Adamson. The research for this article was supported by Euro-
pean Research Council project No. 203767, SSALT.
1
In De caelo i. 2-3 Heiberg; cf. 366. 25 ff. All references to the Greek commen-
tators on Aristotle are to the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (editors' names
are given at first occurrence). For clarity's sake, in this article kosmos is always trans-
lated as 'world', while to pan is rendered as 'the All', to holon as 'the whole', and
ouranos variably as 'heaven' or 'the heavens' according to context. This leaves 'the
universe' as a neutral descriptor for miscellaneous purposes. In this article I have
sometimes made use of existing English translations from the Ancient Commenta-
tors on Aristotle series; if so, the technical terminology has been rendered uniform
where necessary without separate notice.
312 Taneli Kukkonen
not appear to have any special significance in Aristotle's exposition

in this particular treatise.2
Nor does the term kosmos figure in the summary of natural philo-
sophy given at the outset of Aristotle's Meteorology, a fact to which
Simplicius draws the reader's attention (In De caelo 3. 30-4. 2; 4.
16-25). This matters, because the Meteorology's opening account of
the parts of natural philosophy—a list Simplicius supplements with
zoology, for reasons that will be made clear—could be, and often
was, taken as a guide to what Aristotle's intentions were in framing
the study of nature the way he did. 3 So for Aristotle to have tackled
the kosmos in On the Heavens, one would expect to see the term ap-
pear there, rather than the mere mention of the orderly character of
the astral motions (phoran diakekosmemenon astron). But such is not
the case.
Nor again is there any evidence that the original Greek title of
Aristotle's On the Heavens would have included the term kosmos.4
The compound Latin title De caelo et mundo, which became com-
monplace in medieval Latin scholasticism and which thence found
its way into conventional listings of Aristotle's works, evidently
was either an Arabic innovation or else based on an earlier Syr-
iac model. 5 It is worth noting in this connection how in the Arabic
translations of Aristotle cdlam, or 'world', is substituted a few times
where the Greek original has ouranos, which means that the Near
Eastern translators very probably introduced the two-part title in
pleonastic imitation of the way ouranos and kosmos are equated in
De caelo i. 9, 2j8b19-20.6
Yet a further reason to regard Simplicius' report of Alexander as
odd is that a separate work, bearing the very title On the World (Peri
kosmou), did circulate under Aristotle's name: Alexander of Aph-
2
Or indeed anywhere else: see H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus, 2nd edn. (Berlin,
1870), s.v. kosmos, and see sect. 4 below.
3
See e.g. Olymp. In Meteor. 7. 1—9. 16 Stiive.
4
Indeed, the title Peri ouranou is of later provenance: see D. J. Allan, 'On the
Manuscripts of the De caelo of Aristotle', Classical Quarterly, 30 (1936), 16-21; P.
Moraux, Aristote: Du del (Paris, 1965), 13; D. J. Allan, Aristotelis De coelo libri quat-
tuor (Oxford, 1936), p. iii.
5
See Ibn al-Nadlm, Kitab al-fihrist, ed. G. Fliigel, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1872), 250-
i; further G. Endress, Die arabischen Ubersetzungen von Aristoteles' Schrift De caelo
[Ubersetzungen] (diss. Ph.D., Frankfurt a.M., 1966), 58-9, 87-8. (Alexander's lost
commentary is, however, according to Ibn al-Nadlm's testimony, supposed to have
been simply on Aristotle's treatise 'On the Heavens' [Fi al-sama^].)
6
This follows the example set by Plato, Tim. 28 B; cf. also De caelo i. 10, 28oa22.
rodisias was probably familiar with it and may have used it as an
(uncredited) aide in constructing his own treatise On the Principles
of the All, now lost in the original Greek but extant in an Arabic
translation. 7 Any desire on Alexander's part to frame On the Hea-
vens as a work on the kosmos thus seems to put the two works in
direct contention.
But the most puzzling aspect in all of this is that Simplicius sees
fit to open with a citation from Alexander's lost commentary (for
that is certainly what we must take the reference to be8) in the first
place. Notwithstanding Alexander's high standing among the com-
mentators in Simplicius' eyes, the former is brought up in this in-
stance only in order to be refuted. 9 Following a detailed rundown
of the previous positions that had been taken with respect to the
scope of Aristotle's study, Simplicius concludes that On the Hea-
vens, far from harbouring cosmological ambitions, instead func-
tions merely as an account of the simple bodies—first aether or first
body, then the four sublunary elements.10 The suggestion seems
plausible enough on the face of it. 11 Yet precisely because of this, it
is unclear why Alexander's conflicting opinion would assume such
prominence at the outset. The detail is all the more puzzling since
Simplicius' problematization of the skopos of On the Heavens was
not the norm even in his own time. From among Simplicius' fellow
trainees under Ammonius, John Philoponus in his introduction to
Aristotle's natural philosophy casually refers to On the Heavens as
the treatise in which correlates to eternal things (idia tois aidiois) are
discussed,12 while Olympiodorus, commenting on Aristotle's insis-
7
See Alexander of Aphrodisias, On the Cosmos [Mabacti^], ed. C. Genequand
(Leiden, 2001), 2 and 17-19; regarding Alexander's supposed use of De mundo, I.
Kupreeva sounds a cautionary note in her review of Genequand, in Ancient Philo-
sophy, 23 (2003), 482-6 at 483-4.
8
See the discussion in A. Rescigno, Alessandro di Afrodisia: Commentario al De
caelo di Aristotele. Frammenti delprimo libra (Amsterdam, 2004), 145-58.
9
H. Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Com-
mentator [Philosophy and Exegesis] (London, 2008), 117—18, raises the question of
why Alexander is so prominent in this passage, but does not give an answer beyond
the trust Simplicius regularly puts in Alexander when it comes to setting the scene
for any given investigation—which in this case is no explanation at all, given that
Simplicius' attitude towards Alexander in the present context is expressly critical.
10
In De caelo 4. 25-31; 5. 35-7; 201. 26-202. i; 365. 3 ff.; 551. 2-21.
11
Simplicius' basic position is accepted explicitly, although on the basis of Jae-
gerian arguments, by A. P. Bos, On the Elements: Aristotle's Early Cosmology (As-
sen, 1973); it is adopted silently by e.g. F. Solmsen, Aristotle's System of the Physical
World (Ithaca, NY, 1960), 253.
12
Philop. In Phys. i. 23—4 Vitelli. The contrast is with On Coming-to-Be and
314 Taneli Kukkonen
tence on the overall immutability of even the sublunary order in
the Meteorology (i. 14, 352*17 ff.)> happily takes on Alexander's de-
scription of De caelo as concerning the kosmos (In Meteor. 120. 13-
17 Hayduck).
I do not have a ready answer as to why Alexander would have
claimed that Aristotle's On the Heavens takes the world as its sub-
ject matter. The claim is puzzling from a Peripatetic standpoint, for
reasons that will become clear presently. But I think a thing or two
can be said about why Simplicius held the statement up to scrutiny
and why he rejected its implications. The discussion neatly high-
lights certain developments that pertain to the demands made of an
account (logos) concerning the kosmos in later Greek philosophy, at
the same time that it reveals the pressures faced by Peripatetic phi-
losophy in meeting these expectations.13
2. The (well-)hidden unity of On the Heavens
We may begin from an observation that is largely uncontroversial

from a modern standpoint but would surely have offended Simpli-
cius (and perhaps Alexander). This is that the overall impression
given by On the Heavens is one of a range of loosely related discus-
sions collected under one banner—'something of a rag-bag', as R. J.
Hankinson puts it.14 As is the case with many of the Aristotelian
works presented to us as integral treatises, On the Heavens appears
to have originated as a set of separate studies strung together due to
a certain family resemblance. Tensions between certain aspects of
the treatise—above all, the question of whether the heavens should
be regarded as animate or not, and the related issue of whether a se-
parate immaterial mover is responsible for the celestial rotations—
have moreover led some contemporary scholars to believe that De
caelo is a patchwork effort, with elements stemming from different
points in Aristotle's career, and that the treatise's internal consis-
tency and coherence are questionable at best.15
Passing-Away, which according to Philoponus treats of things proper to generable
and perishable substances; still, Philoponus' characterization of De caelo's remit
would be difficult to square with that given by Simplicius.
13
Note that kosmologia appears to be a neologism.
14
Simplicius, On Aristotle's On the Heavens 1.1-4, trans. R. J. Hankinson (Lon-
don and Ithaca, NY, 2002), 11.
15
See W. K. C. Guthrie, Aristotle: On the Heavens (Cambridge, Mass., 1939),
All this would have been utterly unacceptable to the late antique
commentator. Not only was the 'lesser harmony' of Aristotle with
himself an unquestioned postulate in Simplicius' act of comment-
ing on his works—across Aristotle's various treatises as well as, of
course, within—and not only was all this merely preliminary to
demonstrating the 'greater harmony' between Plato and Aristotle. 16
What was also inadmissible was the very notion that a work deriving
from one of the revered philosophers would have been composed
with anything less than perfect authorial control. The assumption
was that not only maximal internal coherence but also singularity
of intent underlay the writings of the sages: in the notion of skopos,
unity of aim matches perfectly the choice of topic, so that nothing
is rendered hostage to fortune and no loose ends are left dangling.
Accordingly, Simplicius, when introducing the question of what
Aristotle's On the Heavens might be about, baldly posits that 'each
treatise demands a single subject [skopos] dealing with one thing,
in relation to which it weaves together its individual parts' (In De
caelo 3. 15—16, trans. Hankinson). The implication is that this is
what Aristotle would have aspired to as well, and attained. 17
Armed with this assumption, Simplicius can develop his own
preferred interpretation, according to which On the Heavens treats
the simple bodies, these being the 'parts of the All' (mere tou pantos)
which it is appropriate to examine immediately after the Physics'
study of the principles of nature is complete.18 Simplicius in fact
intimates that an appeal to the simple bodies would have formed
the second half of Alexander's original characterization. Accord-
ing to this second formulation of Alexander's position, Aristotle's
pp. xv—xxv; L. Elders, Aristotle's Cosmology: A Commentary on the De caelo (Assen,

1966), posits that De caelo exhibits signs of at least four layers of additions and (im-
perfectly executed) editorial harmonization, which seems excessive.
16
For the former point see Baltussen, Philosophy and Exegesis, 36 n. 49; for the
latter see e.g. the useful set of translations in R. Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Com-
mentators 200-600 AD, 3 vols. (Ithaca, NY, 2005), i. 37-40, and chs. 6 and 14 in R
Sorabji (ed.), Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and their Influence
(London, 1990). I adopt the terms 'lesser harmony' and 'greater harmony' from Rob
Wisnovsky.
17
Compare Proclus on Plato's Parmenides, In Parm. 630 Cousin; for other ex-
amples in Proclus see J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena: Questions to be Settled before the
Study of an Author or a Text (Leiden, 1994), 30—8; for an anonymous Platonist ac-
count on how best to identify the skopos of a work see L. G. Westerink, Anonymous
Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, IX, 2nd edn. (Dilton Marsh, 2011), 38-45.
18
In De caelo 4. 25-31.
316 Taneli Kukkonen
intention was to treat the world and the simple bodies (In De caelo
i. 10-12; 3. 12-14).
But if this is so, then we should find all the more curious Simpli-
cius' decision to pick the more controversial first half of Alexander's
formulation for inspection and refutation, rather than focusing on
that aspect of it which was common ground. Simplicius' move
effectively creates a controversy where one could easily have been
suppressed. In the event, Simplicius seems vaguely apologetic
about the whole business, insisting that if Alexander had only
stuck to talk about the simple bodies and not brought the world
into it, then there would have been no cause for quarrel (In De
caelo 5. 4-6). It would also have been all right if Alexander had
spoken of the world in the sense of that term covering all the simple
bodies in the world (kath} hoson peri ton haplon panton ton en toi
kosmoi, In De caelo 5.7). Such an interpretation can be teased out
of lamblichus, if we are to believe Simplicius, and in essence it is
what a number of later Peripatetics ended up saying (see below).
Alas, Alexander can only be taken as having meant that Aristotle
treated of the world (as world) first, the simple bodies second. It is
the conjunctive kai that Simplicius objects to.
3. The Platonic kosmos
The puzzle can be put in yet more pointed terms. Why should an
account of the simple bodies alone not constitute a cosmology? In
other words, why would Alexander's second characterization ('the
simple bodies') not be equivalent to the first ('the world'), given
that the two end up being one and the same, extensionally speak-
ing? Why is an elemental physics not equivalent to a cosmology? Al
that the sensible world contains, after all, is composed of the simple
bodies, meaning that in at least one sense, when one has accounted
for the elements, nothing has been left out when it comes to describ-
ing the physical world. This seems to be the implication, innocent
on the face of it, of the way that Alexander handles Aristotle's intro-
duction to the Meteorology. According to Alexander, On the Hea-
vens treats the five simple bodies, since these are the elements of
the kosmos (tauta gar stoicheia tou kosmou, In Meteor, i. 21—2. i).
Aquinas hits upon much the same formulation when he attempts to
reconstruct an acceptable interpretation of Alexander on the basis
of what he reads in Simplicius' account (this is based on William
of Moerbeke's translation of Simplicius): On the Heavens looks at
the simple bodies, but it does so through the filter of seeing these
as the most elemental constituent parts of the universe, on the basis
of which a fuller scientific account of the more complex embodied
substances can be constructed. 19
To answer the question why this will not do, a brief look at the
general connotations of the word kosmos may prove helpful. As
has been noted many times, the Greek term originally appears to
have meant any beautiful and purposefully arranged whole.20 Thus,
Homer famously uses kosmos to describe a sleeping regiment whose
arms are so arranged that they are ready for battle at a moment's
notice (//. 10. 472); by contrast, a chaotic retreat is called 'acos-
mic' (2. 214). The assembly of clothes, jewellery, scents, and sandals
worn by the goddess Hera likewise constitutes a kosmos (14. 187),
indicating that the aesthetic connotations of the word were fore-
grounded early on.
In the philosophical tradition Pythagoras is said to have been the
first to call 'that which contains the whole' the kosmos on account of
the order which is in it (ek tes en autoi taxeos, Aet. Plac. 2. i. i). 21 If
we are to believe the doxographers, the Pythagorean philosopher
Philolaus, moreover, explicated the unity of the kosmos in terms
of all of its different parts exactly mirroring one another, with a
common centre and origin at the middle, which is to say the sun
(B 17 DK). Philolaus appears to have been engaged in an attempt
to apply mathematical reasoning to his peculiar brand of cosmo-
logical speculation, something for which Aristotle chides him—so
it appears, at any rate, although the criticism is anonymous—in
On the Heavens (2. 13, 293*17— b i6). 22 On the opposite side, a late
19
'de simplicibus corporibus determinatur in hoc libro secundum quod sunt par-
tes universi constitutivae' (Aquinas, In De caelo, prooemium).
20
M. R. Wright, Cosmology in Antiquity (London, 1995), i—10; W. Kranz, 'Kos-
mos', Archivfiir Begriffsgeschichte, 2 (1958), i-i 13 and 117-282.
21
Text and translation in J. Mansfeld and D. T. Runia, Aetiana: The Method
and Intellectual Context of a Doxographer, ii/2 (Leiden, 2009). For further ma-
terials see e.g. J. Kerchensteiner, Kosmos: Quellenkritische Untersuchungen zu den
Vorsokratikern (Munich, 1962); for an interpretation critical of the notion that the
Presocratic kosmos would designate anything like the world see A. Finkelberg, 'The
History of the Greek Kosmos', Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 98 (1998),
103-36.
22
See D. W. Graham (trans, and ed.), The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The
Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics, 2 vols. (Cam-
318 Taneli Kukkonen
materialist monist of the likes of Diogenes of Apollonia could be
said to 'construct the world' (kosmopoiei) in terms of air condens-
ing here while becoming rarefied there (A 6 DK), this leading to
infinite kosmoi forming in a boundless void (A i): and the principle
tying all this together, we are told by Aristotle and others, is that
everything is in some sense composed of the same stuff, given that
otherwise things within each world would be unable to affect one
another.23 While such lines of speculation can prove hard to grasp
with any precision, they serve to illustrate how even in early Greek
philosophy, questions regarding the kosmos addressed not only the
building blocks of the physical universe, so to speak (what the uni-
verse is made out of), but also what would tie them together and
make them a single whole.24 In other words, the question was how
to advance from the observation of all things (ta panto) to an under-
standing of the All (to pan).
But if this is the aim, then it is immediately clear how Aristotle's
work On the Heavens fails to accomplish much of anything. A com-
parison with Plato's Timaeus will prove particularly unflattering.
To cite Simplicius, Aristotle
clearly does not explain the world in this treatise as Plato did in the Ti-
maeus, where he treated both of the principles of natural objects, matter
and form, motion and time, and of the general composition of the world
[koinen sustasin tou kosmou], and gave a particular account both of the hea-
venly bodies and of those below the moon, in the latter case occupying
himself both with atmospheric phenomena and with the minerals, plants,
and animals on the earth up to and including the composition of man and
of his parts. Here, however, very little is said about the world as a whole
[tou kosmoupantos], and only such things as it has in common with the hea-
ven, i.e. that it is eternal, limited in size, and single, and that it has these
features because the heaven is eternal, limited in size, and single. (In De
caelo 3. 16-25, trans. Hankinson)
bridge, 2010), i. 496 ff.; Simpl. In De caelo 511. 3-512. 20 connects Aristotle's expo-
sition here with his lost treatise on Pythagoreanism.
23
A 7 DK=GC i. 6, 322 b i 1-18; the term kosmos is explicitly evoked in the famous
parallel passage B 2 DK.
24
D. W. Graham, Explaining the Cosmos (Princeton, 2006), calls the earliest at-
tempts at philosophical speculation instances of the Generating Substance Theory,
as opposed to material monism, in order to emphasize how they represent attempts
to provide 'Theories of Everything' in both the elemental and the generative senses
of the word. On Aristotle's terms, Graham's hypothesis would mean that, contrary
to Aristotle's exposition (Metaph. A 3, 984a 17-27), already the earliest Milesians
would have been investigating the moving cause as well as the material one.
The underlying note of protest sounded by Simplicius is that the
world as a whole does not figure as an object of investigation in Aris-
totle's account: but this can be taken in a number of ways. The
first and more mundane understanding is that Aristotle does not
truly take into account all kinds of physical beings. At most, Sim-
plicius ventures, he examines what the all-encompassing celestial
body must be like and then extends the analysis of features that per-
tain to it to fit the rest. (In De caelo 5. 26—32) This is indeed broadly
consistent with Aristotle's practice in the work On the Heavens and
with his third and last definition of 'heaven' as everything encom-
passed by the outermost sphere.25
Even assuming such a lowly goal, Simplicius says, Aristotle
falls well short of Plato, who in a single elegant treatise—the
Timaeus, a towering achievement in the eyes of the late antique
commentators—manages to recount the entire composition of the
world, from the heavens through the meteorological phenomena
and from the constitution of the mineral world all the way to
plants, animals, and human beings. Drawing an analogy that must
have seemed obvious to the late Platonist observer, Simplicius
suggests that those who would wish to inspect Aristotle's theory
of the world should therefore turn to all of Aristotle's works on
nature put together, because all in all they cover roughly the same
ground the Timaeus does (see In De caelo 2. 18-3. 8). This, it
now turns out, is why Simplicius earlier saw fit to include the
zoological treatises in an account that otherwise was based on the
Meteorology, the purpose is to make the analogy with the Timaeus
more complete. Simplicius even evokes as a witness the Augustan
Peripatetic Nicolaus of Damascus, who—so Simplicius says—had
produced a work entitled On the All in which he proceeded to write
on everything in the world species by species (peri panton ton en toi
kosmoi kat' eide\ In De caelo 3. 25—30).
However, this only serves to uncover a more fundamental flaw
in the Aristotelian approach to the kosmos. An account—any
account—that proceeds as Nicolaus is said to have done, merely
counting off species one by one, by definition fails to treat the world
25
De caelo i. 9, 278 b i9~22; see similarly Alex. Aphr. In Metaph. 196. 31-4 Hay-
duck (commenting on Metaph. B 2, 997b5~7); and cf. Averroes' gloss on Aristotle,
Metaph. A 7, io74 a 31— 8, which points to a similar elision between heaven in the sin-
gular and the world as all physical reality: In Metaph. A, comm. 49 = Abu l-Walld
Ibn Rushd, Tafsir ma bacd al-tabica [Tafstr], ed. M. Bouyges, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1938-
52), iii. 1684. 4-5.
32O Taneli Kukkonen
as an entity in its own right, as the world. A catalogue of natural
kinds, in other words, whether on the level of genera or species,
is not going to be enough to determine what the overall shape of
the sensible world is and what accounts for its unity—not for the
Platonist, at any rate. Alexander's claim to have found in Aristotle's
On the Heavens a treatment of the world as a whole (peri tou pantos
kosmou) is what really irks Simplicius: this is evident from his desire
to restate Alexander's position several times and from his need to
reiterate his disapproval as well (see In De caelo 11. 8; 201. 26—8).
The comparison, once again, is with the Timaeus. It will have
seemed sufficiently obvious to Simplicius for him to leave the mat-
ter implicit, given how forcefully wholeness and unity figure in
Proclus' famous commentary on Plato's work. 26 In discussing the
Demiurge's third gift to the world, which is its perfect unicity, Pro-
clus explains that the All is properly (kurios) said to be a whole: this
is because 'the All is wholly a whole, seeing as it is a whole made
out of wholes'.27 This sets up the way in which the Platonic mode
of exposition in describing the world is superior to all others. Pro-
clus claims that Timaeus (as well as the Timaeus) proceeds meth-
odically from wholes to parts and that, moreover, this top-down
model of explanation replicates the direction in which the kosmos
itself unfolds. 28 Such a mereological understanding of the act of ko-
smopoiesis may appear odd, but it accords well with the top-down,
deductive, and demonstrative method that Proclus claims for the
Platonic school. The world, and the very nature of nature itself, will
naturally appear as unitary objects of attention when the adopted
viewpoint is that of the supernal creative principles and their neces-
sary outcomes and the metaphysics of participation. One is still not
doing theology as such—that would be confusing the remits of the
Timaeus and the Parmenides, and Proclus' focus is still on nature,
phusis, even if in a roundabout manner 29 —but assuredly, the lar-
26
In Tim. i. 3. 33—4. i Diehl puts the matter succinctly: Plato, according to Pro-
clus, speaks both about encosmic things and the world in its entirety (peri enkosmion
dialexetai pragmaton kaiperi kosmou tou sumpantos}. The immediate contrast is with
any strictly theological account that would take the higher principles as its primary
object of study.
27
to men pan holon holikos estin} hos holon ex holon, In Tim. ii. 62. 3-4; cf. Plato,
Tim. 32 c.
28
See D. Baltzly's notes to his translation volume: Proclus: Commentary on Plato's
Timaeus, iii. Book 3, Part i: Proclus on the World's Body (Cambridge, 2007), 3 ff.
29
See Marije Martijn's comments against Lernould's theologizing interpretation:
M. Martijn, Proclus on Nature (Leiden, 2010), 5—7.
ger degree of unicity thought to prevail in transcendent reality is
allowed to guide the Platonist in the direction of viewing physical
reality, too, as a unity whose very parts can be shown to be groun-
ded in greater wholes.30
When Simplicius cites the failure of On the Heavens to address
the principles of natural objects (tas archas ton phusikon), this again
is in comparison with Plato, who had elegantly folded a discussion
of matter, form, motion, and time into the kosmopoiesis described by
Timaeus. These would be topics covered by the treatises of the Phy-
sics, of course: but then, the Platonist follow-up would be to say that
the immanent explanations offered by Aristotle still amount only to
ancillary causes (sunaitid) and never show how worldly events rely
on transcendent principles. 31 Proclus' judgement is characteristic-
ally harsh. According to Proclus, Aristotle, for all that he drew out
his discussion of nature over several treatises (itself a misguided
attempt at outshining Plato), only ever really attended to lowly ma-
terial explanations and rarely gained so much as a formal under-
standing of things, to say nothing of the higher causes (In Tim. i.
6. 22—7. 16). Whereas Aristotle along with the Presocratic phusikoi
speaks at best about the material and (immanent) formal causes,
Plato invokes the higher principles of productive, paradigmatic, and
final causation (In Tim. i. 2. 8-9), thus assembling a comprehensive
list of origins or archai.32
On Plato's own authority, the Timaeus was read as a treatise that
addresses the nature of the All (peri phuseos tou pantos, Tim. 27 A).
This kind of phusiologia appears to have been framed from at least
the days of Atticus as an exercise in working out the operations of
the divine within sensible reality. Such an interpretation effectively
fused the providentialist and physicalist perspectives when it came
to establishing the purpose of the dialogue.33 All of this is in evi-
dence in Proclus' Timaeus commentary, in a form, moreover, that
neatly highlights the significance of the terminology of kosmopoiesis
30
See Proclus, In Tim. i. i. 17-22.
31
C. Steel, 'Why Should We Prefer Plato's Timaeus to Aristotle's Physicsl Pro-
clus' Critique of Aristotle's Causal Explanation of the Physical World', in R. W
Sharpies and A. Sheppard (eds.), Ancient Approaches to Plato's Timaeus [Ancient
Approaches] (London, 2003), 175-87.
32
In Tim. i. i. 23-4; see i. 263. 19-264. 13, where the instrumental, i.e. the im-
manent moving cause, is added to the list of sunaitia.
33
See L. Siorvanes, 'Perceptions of the Timaeus: Thematization and Truth in the
Exegetical Tradition', in Sharpies and Sheppard (eds.), Ancient Approaches, 155-74
at 166-74 and esp. nn. 66-7.
322 Taneli Kukkonen
to the Neoplatonic philosopher. For Proclus, the Platonic phusiolo-
gia when taken comprehensively is a study of the nature of the All; at
the same time, the nature of the universe just is nature as such.34 In
itself this is something immanent, but a full account of it will lead to
a consideration of two transcendent causes, the Demiurge and the
goddess Rhea or Hecate.35 Accordingly, the Timaeus offers a theory
of the whole stretching from the origin all the way to the ultimate
end (ex arches eis telos, In Tim. i. i. 3). By this Proclus presumably
means to say that not only theprohodos but also the epistrophe is ac-
counted for. And, in line with this, we discover that the very names
'world' and 'heaven' carry a concealed import, referring as they do
to the different perspectives from which one may approach what is
essentially a single outcome (i.e. the sensible universe). Proclus puts
it to the reader that the Demiurge's creation is called the kosmos on
account of its place in the order of procession, the way it receives the
gifts of the higher realm; it receives the name ouranos for the way
it reverts back to its source; and a third, ineffable name is evoked
by Plato in honour of its remaining (mone) in the Father (In Tim. i.
272. 11—274. 3 1 )- Timaeus' supposed evocation of all three names
shows how his aim is to account for all three of the visible universe's
relations to what lies beyond it and what grounds it.36
All of this positions the world at a very precise juncture within
the order of reality, which in turn leads to a very peculiar defini-
tion for the kosmos as a whole. For the school of Athens, what is
constitutive of the kosmos is its mixed ontological stature, one that
combines change and immutability: as Proclus puts it concisely,
'the very being of the kosmos connotes becoming'.37 Simplicius con-
firms the same preoccupation in a lengthy meditation on Melissus'
views on change and being (In Phys. 107. 29—109. 28 Diels) and in
34
See M. Martijn, 'Theology, Naturally: Proclus on Science of Nature as Theo-
logy and the Aristotelian Principle of Metabasis', in M. Perkams and R.-M. Piccione
(eds.), Proklos: Methods, Seelenlehre, Metaphysik (Leiden, 2006), 49—70.
35
Martijn, Proclus on Nature, 19-65.
36
Cf. In Tim. i. 2. 29-3. 13. The difference between the Timaeus and the Parmeni-
des, meanwhile, is that the former relates things in the visible world to the Demiurge
while the latter relates all things equally to the Good: Proclus, In Parm. 641-3 (cf.
also In Tim. i. 12. 26-14. i); and the physical nature of the investigation is underlined
by the fact that the immanent form or logos and the material subject or hupokeimenon
are also given consideration (In Tim. i. 3. 16—20).
37
Proclus further specifies that the everlastingness of the kosmos is granted
through infinite temporality: he ousia tou kosmou genesin echei kai to aidion antes kata
ten apeirian esti ten chroniken (In Tim. i. 277. 33—278. 2).
a comment on Aristotle's On the Heavens, where he says that 'the
very being of the kosmos lies in some things remaining for ever and
throughout, while the generated and corruptible things change into
one another' (In De caelo 367. 15-17). Simplicius draws from his
definition the conclusion that sublunary existents should not pro-
perly speaking be called parts of the kosmos but instead its products,
as it were (hoion apotelesmata, In De caelo 367. 5). Minimally, this
reinforces the view that the Platonic kosmos has a being separate
from its constituent parts, at least the sublunary ones.38
Instructive, meanwhile, as regards the perceived gap in ambition
between Plato and Aristotle is a passage in the Timaeus com-
mentary where Proclus reprimands Theophrastus for the latter's
reluctance to pursue explanations past the postulation of a mover
of the outermost sphere. Theophrastus, along with 'all the Peripa-
tetics', had simply stopped there, denying that this level of reality
would admit of explanation any longer. By comparison, Plato had
recognized how even the movers of the All, 'whether these be called
souls or intellects', being something participated, 'have an order
far removed from that of the principles' (pollosten echei taxin apo
ton archon), such principles being those more exalted things which
are truly divine.39 Xenarchus of Seleucia, a Peripatetic of the first
century BCE, went even further according to the emperor Julian:
Xenarchus berated both Aristotle and Theophrastus for having
bothered with incorporeal or intelligible substance (asomaton ou-
sian . . . noeten) in the first place, seeing as the whole notion is vapid
and unhelpful in the light of the fact that the celestial rotations can
be explained solely by referring to natural principles.40 Though
the targets differ (Proclus takes aim at Theophrastus, Julian at
Xenarchus), we may notice that the overall point made by both
hostile Platonic witnesses is essentially the same. Symptomatic of
the Peripatetic style of investigation is to stop far short of the true
principles of being and those perspectives that would lead one to
a catholic understanding of reality.
38
See in this connection Philop. Act. 9. 333-5 Rabe on why the world is not a god,
which includes mereological materials similar to what one finds in Simplicius; and
342-4 on Theseus' ship in particular.
39 In Tim. ii. 120. 8-122. i7 = Theophr. fr. 159 FHS&G; cf. Theophr. Metaph. 8,
9biff.
40
Julian, Or. 8 (5). 3, 107. 7-108. i Rochefort =Theophr. fr. 158 FHS&G; see
the careful analysis in A. Falcon, Aristotelianism in the First Century BCE: Xenarchus
of Seleucia (Cambridge, 2012), 119-26.
324 Taneli Kukkonen
4. Aristotle's universe
In one sense, this is enough to situate Simplicius' comments on

Alexander. A comprehensive account of the kosmos as an 'intelligent
and ensouled god', as per Proclus' formulation, 41 was available in
the Timaeus, but for its pre-eminence to emerge with clarity, Alex-
ander's claims towards having uncovered an analogous Aristotelian
cosmology in On the Heavens had to be shown for the misguided
exaggerations they were. And this is what Simplicius sets out to do.
Simplicius' verdict, taken in conjunction with Proclus' put-
downs, hardly seems fair. There is no reason why Aristotle should
have aspired to meet the criteria set down by the Academy post-
Syrianus, or to think that Alexander ever set out to prove that he
did. It is more likely that Alexander's use of the phrase peri kosmou
in his commentary on De caelo reflects Stoic vocabulary.42 But even
if Simplicius misunderstood Alexander's intentions when it comes
to positioning the treatise On the Heavens, it is still worth inves-
tigating whether there is anything in the Aristotelian corpus that
could contribute to the construction of something cosmopoietic
in the late antique sense of the word. 43 Several candidates present
themselves; their relative standing tells us something about the
pressures faced by the Peripatetic school at various points in its
history.
First let it be stated that none of the preserved school treatises
treat the kosmos in any sustained fashion, nor do we know of any lost
treatise that would have carried that title. But an examination of iso-
lated mentions of the word kosmos in the school corpus reveals even
more, and this is a task best executed through a simple tally. I count
forty-eight references to kosmos in the authentic corpus in Bonitz's
Index, one to kosmika panta as referring to the universe, plus five
to kosmopoiein. Out of these instances, seven (all in a single passage
41
In Tim. i. 3. 21-4. 5, fusing Tim. 32 B-C with the description of the kosmos as a
'god-in-becoming' at Tim. 34 B.
42
See J. Mansfeld, 'Peri kosmou: A Note on the History of a Title' ['Peri kosmou'},
Vigiliae Christianae, 46 (1992), 391-411.
43
It bears noting that when a late antique philosopher of the likes of Proclus ap-
proaches the way in which a Presocratic thinker 'makes the world', he sees in it the
way in which that thinker sees the rational ordering of the universe as being laid out.
The implicit corrective applied here is that even what appear to be genuinely genetic
accounts of the world's genesis in early Greek philosophy are in fact to be taken as
historiai in the more timeless sense of that term.
On A ris to tie *s Wo rid 325
b b
in the Polities'. 2. 10, izji 4.1-1 zjz i i) in fact refer to the Cretan
magistrates (kosmoi) and can thus be dismissed out of hand, while
a further thirteen have nothing to do with the universe but instead
refer to some particular instance of positive ordering in the Homeric
sense. Fourteen further instances derive from citations of Preso-
cratic or Platonic usage (this also takes care of every example of
kosmopoiein and the kosmika panto), while eight in the Meteorology
refer to some part of the physical universe, either the 'lower world'
or the 'upper world' but never 'the world' as a whole. Similar an-
omalous uses are encountered also in Metaphysics K (1063*15) and
in the Nicomachean Ethics (6. 7, i i 4 i b i ) , once each.
This leaves only four instances in the entire corpus where Aris-
totle of his own initiative uses the term kosmos in anything like the
sense of the universe. Four! But there is more: none of these four in-
stances amounts to anything much at all in the philosophical sense.
In the Politics (7. 3, I325 b 29) Aristotle says that the gods and the
world have no external actions, only internal activities, which be-
cause of the parallelism and the political context can be taken to be
mere metaphor (see Section 6). In De caelo 2. 4, 287 b i5, Aristotle
avers that the kosmos is spherical, while at 2. 2, 285 b i2, he speaks
offhandedly about what is meant by transversing the kosmos (i.e. the
physical universe), neither a particularly pregnant statement. This
leaves only the principle stated at De caelo 2. 14, 296*33, that 'the
order of the world is eternal' (tou kosmou taxis aidios estin). This
is certainly a deeply felt Aristotelian sentiment, and one that finds
ample corroboration elsewhere. But standing on its own, stranded
in a less-appreciated chapter of a less-appreciated treatise (De caelo
2. 14 treats the position of the earth within the universe), it does not
yet amount to anything at all. Strictly in the terminological sense,
any impetus the Peripatetics may have had for talking about the ko-
smos they must have received from sources other than Aristotle.
I have excluded from the above tally the pseudepigraphic Eco-
nomics (which at I349a6 says nothing of significance) and the De
mundo (on which more below). But a word should be said about the
lost dialogue On Philosophy. In this exoteric work Aristotle, if we
are to believe reports, made more liberal use of the term kosmos. The
treatise appears to have included among its strands of argumenta-
tion an appeal to the essential goodness as well as imperishability of
the current world order.44 Given how the dialogue by all accounts
44
The principal testimony is found in Philo, Aet. 20—4 ff.; see B. Effe, Studien zur
326 Taneli Kukkonen
adopted a more popular tone and how it presented a more or less
unified front with the Platonic tradition, the evocation of the term
kosmos is perhaps not that surprising. However, as has been noted
by David Runia, when it comes to just these points, the vocabu-
lary we find in Philo's testimony in particular may have undergone
substantial revision. Consequently, Philo's work On the Indestruc-
tibility of the World forms a less than trustworthy guide to the pre-
cise preoccupations of Aristotle's original treatise.45 To say that On
Philosophy would have provided a substantial account of the kosmos
such as was missing from De caelo and the rest of the school trea-
tises, or even that it made copious reference to the concept, must
therefore remain an unsubstantiated conjecture.
Next comes the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise On the World (Peri
kosmou). This work, which most likely stems from the early im-
perial period—that is, more or less concurrently with Philo's
authorship—announces its concern with the kosmos in its very
title.46 And it is noticeable how the author everywhere seeks to
tease out, establish, and underscore the theological and ethical
implications of the Peripatetic philosophical school's natural phi-
losophy. There is talk here of harmonia (399^2, 399^7 fT.), of
theologizing (theologizein, 39i b 4), and of course of kosmos as op-
posed to akosmia (399 a i3-i4). The world is even defined explicitly
in terms of the ranking and ordering of the whole, by and through
god.47 It is plain that all this is said in competition with both the
Platonists and the Stoics, in an attempt to pre-empt any criticism
concerning a reputed insufficient piety in the Aristotelian world-
view. Still, the work provides no hint of its author perceiving
there to be any sort of gap when it comes to explaining (i) how
an immaterial Prime Mover is supposed to instigate motion in the
Kosmologie und Theologie der Aristotelischen Schrift 'Uber die Philosophie' (Munich,
1970).
45
D. T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Leiden, 1986),
I93-5-
46
Well attested in the manuscripts with minor variations: see W. L. Lorimer, Ari-
stotelis De mundo (Paris, 1933), 47, n. Titulus.
47
ton holon taxis te kai diakosmesis, hupo theou te kai dia theon, 3 9 i b i i — 1 3 . Of note
here is that another, more mundane definition of kosmos as consisting of the heaven
and the earth put together, along with the natures they contain (39i b 9-n), looks
like a good candidate for a predecessor and possible inspiration to the Arabic cus-
tom of calling Peri ouranou by the compound name Fi al-sama3 wa-l-cdlam (see n. 5
above)—presuming that calam there is to be construed in an equally mundane sense
as designating, roughly, 'earth'.
outermost sphere; (2) how exactly this single motion translates
into multiple motions throughout the kosmos\ and, most crucially,
(3) how it is that the many motions arising in the universe as a whole
amount to an ordered totality On the World also gives us little to
go on when it comes to unifying the efficient model of causality in
Physics 8 with the final causality of Metaphysics A\ moreover, its
author sees no problem in asserting that the Ruler of the All resides
in resplendent solitude, ignorant of much of what lies beneath its
dignity, and that perhaps individual events in the sublunary world
do not touch upon the divine majesty at all. On the World, in other
words, presumes much and promises more, but its flowing rhetoric
is not matched by corresponding explanatory power.
Moving past the Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian materials,
the next proper port of call is Alexander of Aphrodisias. 48 Alexan-
der's contributions form the focus of the next section. But before
this, it is worth taking a moment to consider just why the kosmos
does not figure more largely in Aristotle's esoteric corpus—why it
is relegated to the margins and the pseudepigrapha. Why do cosmo-
logical perspectives provide such an ill fit for the overall Aristotelian
pattern of explanation and understanding?
(a) The first and most fundamental stumbling block, I submit, is
that for Aristotle there simply is no world, conceived of as a single
object, such as would admit of a unified investigation. The phy-
sical universe just is not a single being; rather, it is a collection
of beings—a collection, moreover, that is divided into two highly
dissimilar groups, sublunary and celestial entities. While Aristotle
never defines kosmos anywhere—he would not, since he has scarcely
any need for the concept—the more conscientious Peripatetic philo-
sophers beginning with Alexander agree on this point, and many of
them address it directly.49 As Averroes records Alexander's authori-
tative statement on the matter, Aristotle never believed that 'the
All' (al-kull) would form a single continuous totality (jumla wahida
muttasila), nor—so the implication goes—should the faithful Aris-
totelian. The comment is made all the more revealing by emanat-
48
If anything, R. W. Sharpies, Peripatetic Philosophy 200 BC to AD 200: An
Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation (Cambridge, 2010), 196-210,
shows the paucity of reliable or truly informative materials beyond those relating to
either Aristotle, pseudo-Aristotle, or Alexander.
49
If we take the Arabic title of Alexander's Fi niabadi3 al-kull to reflect a Greek
original of the likes of Peri ton archon tou pantos, then Alexander will have been
mindful of the fact that kosmos is less of an Aristotelian term than is to pan.
328 Taneli Kukkonen
ing from Alexander's prooemium to Metaphysics A, the treatise in
which according to Alexander's estimation Aristotle's account of
the ultimate structure of reality culminates (see the next section).
Interpreting Averroes' testimony is complicated somewhat by the
fact that whereas Aristotle in the Greek talks about a hypothetical
treatment of the All as a whole (ei hos holon ti to pan, Metaph. A i,
io69 a i8), Averroes' Arabic for the same Metaphysics passage has
'the All as a totality', al-kull ka-l-jumla, which is not quite the same
thing. But whichever term one prefers, the fundamentally compo-
site nature of the All comes through with clarity.50
Later Peripatetics largely follow Alexander. For example, Abu
Nasr al-Farabi, a tenth-century Baghdad! philosopher, explains
in his Principles of Beings that the world (al-calam) is a collection
made up of six kinds of bodies in total (al-jumlat al-mujtamacat
min hadhihi l-ajnas al-sittat min al-ajsam): these are, in descending
order of nobility, (i) the celestial spheres, (2) the rational and
(3) irrational orders of animals, (4) plants, (5) minerals, and—on
the simplest level—(6) the four sublunary elements.51 In a piece of
polemic directed against John Philoponus, al-Farabi furthermore
claims that in his treatise On the Heavens Aristotle 'intended to
explain that the world is made up of bodies that possess different
substances and that the world is not a homogeneous thing'. 52 The
comment is occasioned by al-Farabi's desire to reiterate against
Philoponus how the celestial region follows a different set of rules
from the sublunary domain—by now, a familiar point—but the
broader lesson stands: the world is not any one thing, nor can it
be treated as such. Finally, in the Philosophy of Aristotle al-Farabl
straightforwardly states that what is meant by the world is the
totality of bodies. This last formulation is the same we find in Ibn
Sma's (the Latin Avicenna, 980—1037) Book of Definitions.53
50
In Metaph. A, comm. z=Tafsir, iii. 1408. 6-10. Averroes' testimony intimates
that Aristotelian categorical theory plays into the discussion of why all reality is not
of a piece: what is underlined is the primacy of substance, as befits an introduction
to Metaph. A i.
51
Abu Nasr al-Farabl, Al-siyasat al-madaniyyat al-mulaqqab bi-mabadi3 al-
mawjuddt, ed. F. Najjar, 2nd edn. (Beirut, 1993), 31. 6-7.
52
Arabic original in M. Mahdi, 'The Arabic Text of Alfarabi's Against John the
Grammarian', in S. A. Hanna (ed.), Medieval and Early Modern Studies in Honor
of Aziz Suryal Atiya (Leiden, 1972), 268—84 at 271—2; English translation in M.
Mahdi, Alfarabi against Philoponus', Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 26 (1967),
233-60 at 253.
53
Al-Farabl, Falsafat Aristutalis, ed. M. Mahdi (Beirut, 1961), 5, §§ 35-6; Abu
This usage is further echoed by Averroes in his Commentary on
the De caelo.54 Although Averroes' take on Aristotle differs some-
what from the other commentators—for him, De caelo treats ex-
tended body—he is clear on the point that there is no real sense
in which the world could be taken to be a single being.55 Extended
body as such is as if the genus (ka-l-jins) under which the simple
bodies fall: but after a preliminary treatment of some of the com-
mon features of such extension, one can only proceed to treat each of
them separately, since the nature of heavenly and sublunary body is
radically different. The very structure of On the Heavens, then—the
way it opens with several chapters charged with the task of estab-
lishing once and for all the utter dissimilarity of the celestial and
subcelestial regions—works against any desire to treat the universe
as a single whole.56
Centuries later, the Parisian Arts master Jean Buridan (d. 1358)
still makes much the same observation as al-Farabl does. In his
Questions on De caelo Buridan states several times that whenever
the term 'the world' (mundus) is evoked, it in fact supposits for an
aggregate of beings (aggregatum ex entibus). Abstracting from the
nominalist vocabulary, Buridan's point is fairly simple: 'the world'
is not a name for a single being, rather, it stands for some deter-
minate set of entities, either all beings universally (universitas om-
nium entiuni) or else everything physical, excepting from the picture
God and the separate substances.57 And this verdict seems correct
when it comes to Aristotle: even on the rare occasion when Aristotle
c
Ali Ibn Sina, Kitab al-hudud, in Tisc rasaîl (Constantinople, 1881), 91. Avicenna
interestingly adds that one speaks also about 'the world of nature', 'the world of soul',
and 'the world of intellect' in the sense that these are 'whole totalities'. The expla-
nation underlines how in this second sense of 'world', a fundamental homogeneity
is assumed regarding the things that make up a particular world.
54
See Ibn Rushd, In De caelo i, comms. 95-6 [96-7], in Averrois Commentaria
magna in Aristotelem: De celo et mundo [Commentarium magnum], ed. F. J. Carmody,
2 vols. (Leuven, 2003). The Arabic original for these comments is missing: see Ibn
Rushd, Commentary on Aristotle's Book on the Heaven and the Universe. Sharh kitdb
al-Samd3 wa-l-cdlam, facsimile of the manuscript produced by G. Endress (Frank-
furt a.M., 1994), 6.
55
Ibn Rushd, Commentarium magnum, comms. 1-2; Talkhis al-samd3 wa-l-cdlam,
ed. J. al-Dln al-cAlawT (Fez, 1984), 72-3.
56
This, of course, is the standard complaint against Aristotelian cosmology in
entry-level textbooks on the history of science to this day, although there the com-
parison is with early modern science.
57
Jean Buridan, Quaestiones super libris quattuor De caelo et mundo, ed. E. A.
Moody (Cambridge, Mass., 1942), bk. i, qq. i, 12, and 19.
33 o Taneli Kukkonen
speaks, for example, of the nature of the whole (ton holou phusis,
Metaph. A 10, 1075*12) or the being of the All (tou pantos ousia,
io76 a i), this is quickly brought back to the level of beings in the
plural (la onta, 1076*3).
In saying that Aristotle in this sense has no concept of a world—
that is, no robust belief in the physical universe as a single entity—I
am deliberately going against an argument made recently by Mo-
han Matthen and Jim Hankinson that aims to show how Aristotle
treats the whole physical universe precisely as a hylomorphic
compound. 58 Matthen and Hankinson base their claim on a subtle
interpretation of Aristotle's argument for the universe's complete-
ness in De caelo i. i and on the explanatory role played by natural
places in the motions of the four elements. This points in the
direction of a limited universal teleology which, however, Matthen
in a follow-up piece is careful to denude of any providential or
animist connotations. Matthen cautions against treating Aristotle's
world as anything akin to a single living being even as he advocates
recognition of certain holistic presuppositions in Aristotle's cos-
mology, as the title of his latter essay has it.59
Space does not permit a complete analysis of Matthen and
Hankinson's thesis, nor is it the purpose of this article to provide a
refutation. 60 In the present context, let it just be said that I share
Theophrastus' scepticism—which, it should be said, is conscien-
tiously recorded by Matthen and Hankinson 61 —when it comes to
whether even a weak teleological conception of a universal order
can be decoupled from the organicist metaphor, as Matthen wants
to do.62 Theophrastus in his Metaphysics picks out precisely the
doctrine of natural places for critical investigation when it comes
to probing the outer limits of teleological explanation within an
Aristotelian framework. According to Theophrastus, the reason it
makes sense to talk about natural places in the context of animal
organs and limbs is that each of these is conducive to the continued
58
M. Matthen and R. J. Hankinson, 'Aristotle's Universe: Its Matter and Form',
Synthese, 96 (1993), 413-35.
59
M. Matthen, 'The Holistic Presuppositions of Aristotle's Cosmology' ['Hol-
istic Presuppositions'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 20 (2001), 171-99.
60
Minimally, I should say that I find some of Matthen and Hankinson's textual
evidence unconvincing. The sunholon our anon at De caelo 3 . 1 , 296^1, for example,
seems to me a collective term, based both on the formulation itself and on the argu-
mentative context.
61
Matthen and Hankinson, Aristotle's Universe', 430-1.
62
See Matthen,'Holistic Presuppositions', 196-9.
life and well-being of the overall organism. In the case of animals,
it is also easy to see how the whole plays a determining, indeed
definitive, role with regard to the parts (see Arist. Metaph. Z 10,
!035b8-25; PA 2. i; etc.). However, in the case of the movements
of the elements it is more difficult to see how these would in any
way promote the 'being of all things taken together' (tou sumpantos
ousia). The overall impression is that there is no easy way even to
determine what the whole is whose life or flourishing the parts are
supposed to serve (Theophr. Metaph. 8a3~7). Despite Simplicius'
efforts to portray Theophrastus' ruminations in the light of a
Neoplatonic emanative hierarchy, and notwithstanding modern
suggestions of a reading of Theophrastus that would include an
organicist and indeed holistic cosmology,63 the staunchly aporetic
way in which he approaches the doctrine of natural places suffi-
ciently shows to my mind what the Peripatetic problem is with
any attempt to view the universe as a whole.64 Without a notion of
the universe being for the sake of something, it is hard to see how
the constituents that make up its set could ever be seen to form a
unity.65
(b) This ties in with my second, much less controversial thesis,
which is that the universe for Aristotle does not form a single te-
leologically oriented and ordered whole. Unlike Plato, who in the
Timaeus as well as in the Statesman (269 C-D) is happy to make use
of the image of the world as a single animal or organism—one with
a single soul and a shared life—Aristotle resists mightily the no-
tion that everything in the world would serve a single purpose. The
difference, famously, is reflected even in the Politics, where Aris-
totle roundly mocks the Republic's postulation of maximal unity as
a good for the state (Pol. 2. 2—3). But then, this is revealing also
63
Simpl. In Phys. 639. 10-645. J 9 Diels; M. van Raalte, 'The Idea of the Cos-
mos as an Organic Whole in Theophrastus' Metaphysics', in W. W. Fortenbaugh
and R. W. Sharpies (eds.), Theophrastean Studies on Natural Science, Physics and
Metaphysics, Ethics, Religion and Rhetoric [Theophrastean Studies] (New Brunswick,
1988), 189-215.
64
See R. Sorabji, 'Is Theophrastus a Significant Philosopher?', in J. M. van
Ophuijsen and M. van Raalte (eds.), Theophrastus: Reappraising the Sources (New
Brunswick and London, 1998), 203-21 at 209-11.
65
See further J. G. Lennox, 'Theophrastus on the Limits of Teleology', in W. W.
Fortenbaugh, R M. Huby, and A. A. Long (eds.), Theophrastus ofEresus: On his Life
and Work (New Brunswick, 1985), 143—63, repr. in Lennox, Aristotle's Philosophy of
Biology (Cambridge, 2001), 259-79; J- Ellis, 'The Aporematic Character of Theo-
phrastus' Metaphysics', in Fortenbaugh and Sharpies (eds.), Theophrastean Studies,
216-23.
332 Taneli Kukkonen
from a cosmological standpoint: underlying the Platonic ideal of
the Republic is the notion of a form of the Good, and for the sys-
tematizing Platonist this is what the Demiurge of the Timaeus also
acknowledges as a regulating principle when fashioning the visible
universe. Aristotle, by contrast, takes it as axiomatic that each na-
tural kind—really, each individual representative of each natural
kind—has its own good to pursue, which makes the term 'the good'
as multivalent as the term 'being'.66
The impasse itself hints at one last path left open for the Aristo-
telian to explore. Perhaps in Aristotle, the very notion of being—
more specifically, being as actuality, and in some sense fullness of
being—could be explanatory somehow of the very shape and con-
tents of the universe? Matthen has put forward a version of this
argument, albeit in elliptical form. 67 That it is such is not to my
mind coincidental: for while there are certainly hints to the effect
of such a belief lurking in the background of Aristotle's work, these
are so few and so loosely joined that one must bring a whole host of
outside assumptions to the school texts in order to make the con-
ception work.
Most famous in this regard is probably the chapter in On
Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away (2. 10) in which Aristotle posits
that perennial coming-to-be is the next best thing to true immor-
tality and that this is why the generation of the elements from one
another is organized the way that it is.68 What appeals about this
notion is that it joins an account of the make-up of the universe with
the notion of metaphysics as first philosophy. However, the assign-
ment of this arrangement—the interchange of the elements being
guided by the heavens and specifically by the sphere of the sun—to
'the god' (ho theos, 336 b 3z) is problematic to say the least, as there
is little indication as to which god could possibly be meant thereby.
66
NE i. 6, 1096*23-9. On the limits of Aristotelian teleology overall see M. R.
Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology (Oxford, 2005); on the issues surrounding universal
teleology in particular, ibid. 247-86.
67
Matthen, 'Holistic Presuppositions', 181-4.
68
The first book of the Meteorology can be viewed as a technical account of how
this might be thought to happen on the mechanical level (as per Solmsen), although
many of the details remain unclear. A few passages in Aristotle's biology argue ana-
logously to GC 2. 10 that the perpetuation of the species is the next best thing to
individual immortality: but in none of these does Aristotle discuss any implications
on the level of the kosmos; rather, the point seems to be simply that living beings seek
to extend the continuation of their own existence through procreation. See e.g. DA
2. 4, 4i5 a 25~ b 8; GA 2. i, 73i b 24~732 a 2.
The Prime Mover hardly acts intentionally and craftsman-like in
this manner, and no other candidates readily present themselves.
The majority of modern commentators have consequently passed
over the question with evident embarrassment. 69 Even Richard
Bodeiis, who takes an otherwise robust view of Aristotle's remarks
concerning the gods, ultimately explains away the reference to
divine world-fashioning in On Coming-to-Be and Passing-Away
in terms of a metaphorical transference, with 'god' standing in
for 'nature'. 70 As I hope will have become clear by now, I am not
satisfied that the move represents anything more than an evasive
manoeuvre. Phusis in Aristotle stands for the nature of an indi-
vidual thing, and unless we simply assume that the universe as
an individual—as kosmos—has its own phusis, then it is hard to
say what the nature is that is supposed to fashion one part of the
universe (the heavenly motions) in the light of the needs of another
(the sublunary existents). On the other side, to assume such a cos-
mic nature would beg the question, in addition to which we would
be forced to regard Aristotle's world as itself a divine entity genera-
tive of—more being? If such an inspirational view really were in
Aristotle's sights, one would rather expect him to spell it out.
Christopher Colmo in an otherwise often confounding study of
al-Farabi has some intriguing observations on the history of the
problem. He notes that al-Farabi, in a book entitled The Philo-
sophy of Aristotle, seems to advocate a pursuit of knowledge con-
cerning the purpose of the world as a whole, where reflection on
the whole would somehow disclose the purpose of the parts.71 Such
a universal teleology would certainly make of the universe a single
being (the word used by al-Farabl is al-kull, the All, which trans-
lates to pan), yet al-Farabl's treatment ends up looking vague and
far from conclusive. The Philosophy of Aristotle traces the line of
discussion about parts in service of the whole until we reach meta-
physics, which as the divine science would disclose the 'purpose of
the totality of the world': but Aristotle's Metaphysics makes only a
tentative start towards this, which is the reason al-Farabl famously
concludes The Philosophy of Aristotle on a despondent note, admit-
69
So both Joachim and Williams.
70
See R. Bodeiis, Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals (Albany, NY,
2000), 143-4 and J 62.
71
C. A. Colmo, Breaking with Athens: Alfarabi as Founder (Lanham, Md., 2005),
26-7.
334 Taneli Kukkonen
ting that 'we do not possess metaphysics'.72 But Colmo also points
to how Maimonides in the Guide of the Perplexed (3. 25) appears to
put forward one possible answer: Maimonides says that the world's
ultimate purpose is the actualization of all that is possible, and that
consequently the being and perfection of each [type of] existent is
constitutive of the world's perfection as a totality 73 These are bold
proclamations to make on the basis of Aristotle, and Colmo ex-
presses doubt that they are made entirely in earnest, or at least on
predominantly philosophical grounds. But the least we can say is
that this is at once a notion towards which an Aristotelian might
feel drawn, and at the same time one for which wholly insufficient
explicit evidence exists in the set of school texts we have.74
None of this is very new, of course. The whole line of thought
is already present in Theophrastus' Metaphysics, where Theo-
phrastus first hints that the issue of the Prime Mover might
connect somehow with how the parts of the universe cohere in one
whole (Metaph. io a i9—20), then hastens to add that the mechanics
by which this happens remain wholly unclear—this despite the
topic's evident centrality to the whole project of establishing first
principles (i2 a i—2). We may conclude that it is the hinted-at yet
never substantiated links between sublunary, superlunary, and
immaterial existence that are decisive of whether 'the world' in the
end is a coherent concept to use in the context of Aristotle, and
hence the demonstrability of such links that either makes or breaks
the prospects of a true Aristotelian cosmology. As we shall see from
the example of Alexander, the matter can prove hard to decide.
5. The principles of the All
As has already been mentioned, Alexander's most comprehensive

treatment of the questions surrounding the cosmic order is found
in his treatises On the Principles of the All, extant only in an Arabic
72
See al-Farabi, Falsafat Aristutalis, §§ 35, 63, 78; on al-Farabi and Aristotle
see further T.-A. Druart, Al-Farabl, Emanationism, and Metaphysics', in P.
Morewedge (ed.), Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought (Albany, NY, 1992), 127-48.
73
Colmo, Breaking with Athens, 30.
74
A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), provides
ample further testimony to the powerful draw of this idea, of course, and aptly points
out that the true philosophical engine driving its adoption by monotheist intellectu-
als is Platonic (Tim. 29 £—30 A) rather than Aristotelian.
3
translation as Fi mabddi al-kull. In addition to this, several minor
self-standing works address different aspects of the same proble-
matic, enough so that we may say that the God-world relationship
forms a running theme in Alexander's independent authorship. In
two interlocking articles, Bob Sharpies has provided a comprehen-
sive overview of Alexander's efforts to craft an effective Peripatetic
counterpart to the theologies of the Stoics and the Platonists.75 In
the present context, I shall content myself with remarks that have a
bearing on the notion of kosmos in these discussions.
To establish first what Alexander was up against, consider, for
example, the treatise on astronomical matters (either meteora or
kuklike theoria)76 by the Stoic Cleomedes, written around the time
Alexander took on the mantle of diadochos. Cleomedes in his intro-
duction maintains that the term kosmos is used in many senses; how-
ever, its most apposite meaning has to do with the orderly distribu-
tion (diakosmesis) of the universe's constituent parts. This could yet
be meant in a fairly mundane sense, but it becomes clear that Cleo-
medes has something grander in mind when in what follows he cites
the administering of order by Nature, adducing as evidence
the ordering of the parts within it; the orderly succession of what comes into
existence; the sympathy of the parts in it for one another; the fact that all
individual entities are created in relation to something else; and, finally, the
fact that everything in the cosmos renders very beneficial services. (Gael.
i. 11-15 Todd; trans. Bowen and Todd)
This designates Nature as a providential force and universal teleo-

logy as an ordering that benefits humanity most of all. Both are
crucial Stoic tenets, both illustrate the way in which the Helle-
nistic schools sought to exalt the visible cosmic order: both grasp
with both hands ideas for which at best meagre hints can be found
in Aristotle.77 Cleomedes' presentation closely echoes the way in
75
R. W. Sharpies, Aristotelian Theology after Aristotle', in D. Frede and A.
Laks (eds.), Traditions of Theology: Studies in Hellenistic Theology, its Background
and Aftermath (Leiden, 2002), 1-40; id., Alexander of Aphrodisias and the End of
Aristotelian Theology', in T. Kobusch and M. Erler (eds.), Metaphysik und Reli-
gion: Zur Signatur des spdtantiken Denkens (Leipzig, 2002), 1-21.
76
See R. B. Todd, 'The Title of Cleomedes' Treatise', Philologus, 129 (1985),
250-61.
77
For the notion that nature always goes for the optimum see De caelo i. 4, 271 a 32—
3; 2. 5, 288a2-i i; 2. 8, 29O a 3i- b i; 2. 11, 29i b i3; but in each of these cases the more
plausible interpretation is that the nature referenced is simply the nature of each
thing, seeking its peculiar perfection. Only De caelo 2. 9, 29^24—6, appears to inti-
336 Taneli Kukkonen
which Diogenes Laertius discusses Stoic definitions of the kosmos
(?• I37~8), together with the reasonableness and providential care
that it manifests (7. 138-40). Telling, I think, is the way Diogenes
claims the Stoics' first referent for kosmos to be god himself, or the
power permeating the universe, whence everything derives and into
which everything periodically reverts. This makes it relatively easy
to see what Calcidius (In Tim. ch. 293) might mean when he says
that the Stoics regarded the body of the world (corpus mundi) as
not only one and whole, but also a substance. To borrow Aristote-
lian terminology, the unity of the Stoic world issues from both the
material and the formal aspects of its being.78 A Stoic might even
go so far as to say that the world's parts only have their being as
parts of the whole.79 And even if Proclus would probably remain
unimpressed,80 such a Stoic perspective on the world could even be
reconciled with the Platonic: Marsilio Ficino says that the proper
subject matter of the Timaeus is that 'universal nature' which acts
as the seminal vivifying power of the whole world, subdued by the
world soul but presiding over matter. Seen in the light of the late
antique demand to have a single subject matter for a single treatise
Ficino's suggestion is rather ingenious: if there is a single kind of
thing that ties together the mundane and the supercosmic, then such
a logos, precisely asphusis, would be what the Timaeus investigates.81
But for an Aristotelian, none of this would work, since the pro-
ximate species and their natures are many and incommensurable,
mate that nature could have ordained the properties of higher things (the heavens)
for the sake of the lower (the stability of sublunary existence), but Aristotle's choice
of words is telling: it is as if (hosper) nature had foreseen this, which when read closer
appears to be a counter factual. For anthropocentrism in Aristotle the evidence is
even scantier, but see Pol. i. 8, i256 b 2i-2, and for a spirited defence, D. Sedley, 'Is
Aristotle's Teleology Anthropocentric?', Phronesis, 36 (1991), 179-96.
78
In Tim. ch. 293. For the Stoic view see P. Scade, 'Stoic Cosmological Limits
and their Platonic Background', in V. Harte, M. M. McCabe, R. W. Sharpies, and
A. Sheppard (eds.), Aristotle and the Stoics Reading Plato (London, 2010), 143-83.
79
to tou kosmou mere to pros to holon pos echein kai me kath' hauta einai: Chry-
sippus, as reported by Plut. Stoic, repugn. 1054 E-F; for comments see R. Sorabji,
Matter, Space and Motion: Theories in Antiquity and their Sequel (London, 1988),
213-14.
80
Proclus, In Tim. i. 413. 27-414. 17, points out that from a Platonic point of view
the Stoic philosopher—here, Chrysippus—fatally fails to distinguish between tran-
scendent and immanent causes and therefore remains unable to cover adequately all
the phenomena that an account of the kosmos must, from the world's intelligibility
to the workings of divine providence within it.
81
Ficino, Opera (Basel, 1576), intro., ch. i, ed. P. O. Kristeller, 2 vols. (Turin,
1962), ii. 1438.
as Aristotle's remarks against Melissus illustrate. The bottom line
for the student of nature, and indeed for the student of being, are
the many and disparate substances that inhabit the universe, of the
likes of horses and human beings, and these are not united in hav-
ing a single substantial form (Phys. 1 . 3 , i86 a i9—22). Nor will an
appeal to prime matter do when it comes to denning an overall sub-
ject that would unite natural philosophy, as Simplicius notes in his
comments ad loc. against the Eleatics (In Phys. 113. 23—114. 22).
Also, contrary to what On the World would like to suggest, Aris-
totle's manifest repudiation of a world soul (DA i. 5, 41 ia7-24) de-
prives the conscientious Peripatetic of any straightforward way of
presenting all worldly phenomena as issuing from a preordained
harmony such as was available either to the Platonist interpreter of
the Timaeus or to the Stoic philosopher endowed with the notion of
an all-pervasive logos.82 A Peripatetic of the likes of Critolaus will
not have helped the school's reputation with his argument that the
world is eternal due to it being the cause of its own existence.83 So
what was a Peripatetic philosopher to do when attempting to flesh
out an Aristotelian account of the kosmosl
Alexander's response in the Principles is instructive on several
levels.
(a) First of all, Alexander lays down as axiomatic that an Aris-
totelian investigation into first principles will proceed from effects
to causes, since demonstrative knowledge regarding the first prin-
ciples is unattainable (Mabddi3, § 2). The methodological principle
of course is of fundamental importance to Aristotelian science; in
commenting on Aristotle's second and third aporiai in Metaphy-
sics B, Alexander elaborates on its significance for the foundations
of metaphysics.84 But whatever the details of Alexander's concep-
82
See T. K. Johansen, 'From Plato's Timaeus to Aristotle's De caelo: The Case of
the Missing World-Soul', in A. C. Bowen and C. Wildberg (eds.), New Perspectives
on Aristotle's De caelo (Leiden, 2009), 9-28.
83
Philo, Aet. 70 = Critolaus, fr. 12 Wehrli. Critolaus' seeming equation of god with
both intellect and aether, meanwhile, brushes up uncomfortably close to Stoicism:
see Sharpies, Aristotelian Theology after Aristotle', 14. For the tangled interpre-
tation of Cicero's De natura deorum i. 13. 33, which similarly questions whether
Aristotle's god is intellect, the world, or the heaven, see A. P. Bos, Cosmic andMeta-
Cosmic Theology in Aristotle's Lost Dialogues (Leiden, 1989), 185 ff.
84
Alex. Aphr. In Metaph. 187. i 6 f f . In his comments on the first chapter of
the Metaphysics Alexander concludes that metaphysics aims at a non-demonstrative
knowledge of the first principles of everything, with the ultimate first principle be-
ing the good that is the final cause: In Metaph. 13. 1—15. 19.
338 Taneli Kukkonen
tion, his basic contention runs directly counter to the school of
Athens's approach and Proclus especially, to whom the deductive
and demonstrative mode of philosophizing provided by Plato and
a presumed Pythagorean tradition formed a point of pride.85 The
famous tradition according to which Aristotle tended to broach
questions in theology from the direction of nature (or metaphy-
sics from the direction of physics), whereas Plato talked even of
nature in a theological register (phusiologein theologikos), can in fact
be seen as a half-defensive way of acknowledging this methodo-
logical contrast.86 According to the more generous interpretation,
Plato preferred the top-down mode of examination because it better
concurred with the underlying structure of reality, while Aristotle's
bottom-up way of proceeding could be justified as being part and
parcel of the natural philosopher's normal viewpoint (and perhaps
something to which Aristotle had become unduly but none the less
excusably accustomed). Yet such an attempt at harmonization dis-
regards the bluntness of Alexander's testimony.
According to Alexander, apodeixis simply is not available for
first principles and, there being no higher method of enquiry for
the committed Peripatetic (Platonic dialectic manifestly does not
count), a bottom-up methodology by consequence really is the
best that any conscientious philosopher can hope for. It is in the
light of things better known to us that we move on to things better
known by nature, and only in so far as the explanation of physical
phenomena warrants that we postulate the existence of immaterial
entities. This already separates the Peripatetic approach to theo-
logy from the Platonist one in one important respect: Aristotelian
philosophy ventures onto theological terrain only where mundane
explanations are found to be insufficient, while the line of expla-
nation in the Platonic philosophy of Plotinus and Proclus may
advance freely from the direction of the intelligible and the supra-
intelligible principles towards the sensible. The implications of
this for cosmology are immediately apparent in the corresponding
dearth of references to the kosmos in the Peripatetic vocabulary.
85
Though of course this higher form of proof will be called Platonic dialectic: see
Martijn's comments in Proclus on Nature as well as D. J. O'Meara, Pythagoras Re-
vived (Oxford, 1989), 195-209.
86
The apologetic tone in Philop. In Phys. 5. 17—25 is quite evident. Simpl. In
Cat. 6. 27-30 Kalbfleisch talks about how for Plato, natural things participate in the
things above, while Aristotle by contrast considers even higher things with an eye
towards their relation to nature.
Lacking a god's-eye point of view, the Aristotelian philosopher will
only rarely, if at all, have occasion to view the world as a unitary
object of study 87
(b) Second, it is significant that Alexander, when it conies to
providing an Aristotelian account of the ordered universe to rival
that of the Stoics and the Platonists, reaches not for On the Heavens,
nor to the Physics, but to the Metaphysics, specifically the latter half
of book Lambda. It is as an object of desire and—an important Al-
exandrian innovation—imitation that the pure actuality of the First
Mover can provide a measure of order, actuality, and perfection to
all things. Accordingly, it is in Metaphysics A that Aristotle in Alex-
ander's and many subsequent Peripatetics' view establishes the way
the principles of the universe are reflected on every level of reality,
and in A 10 that the underlying unity of everything is put forward.
Tellingly, Alexander's use of the term calam (Arabic for kosmos),
which is largely absent from the first two-thirds of the treatise On
the Principles of the All, really picks up in a climactic finale that es-
sentially recasts A 10 in a conspicuously theological mould. 88 There
is providence aplenty in the Aristotelian universe, albeit that the
good world order is eternal and everlasting in its universal aspects:
For the make-up of this universe [sanca hadha l-kull] and the natural
bounty which the creator [al-khaliq]89 put into it, and the mutual agree-
ment, harmony, and conformity of its parts with one another according
to their relation with the whole, evince such an order and harmony that,
87
This of course applies only in so far as one writes solely as an Aristotelian philo-
sopher: the enduring popularity of the De aeternitate mundi literature in the Middle
Ages testifies to how outside concerns might still lead ostensible Peripatetics to ad-
opt the extra-Aristotelian practice of treating the world as if it were a unified object
of God's actions. But then this is part of my point: from the point of view of how
Aristotle constructs his philosophy, such questions would never really enter the pic-
ture, and the concept of kosmos would accordingly also be redundant, or nearly so.
88
Mabadi3, §§ 128 ff.; see the Glossary, s.v. c -L-M. The only other instances of
c
alam occur where Alexander defends the natural indestructibility of the present
world order, on the lines of what we find in On the Heavens i. 10-12 and On Philo-
sophy: see Mabadi3, §§57, 139-43 • The equivalence is so close that I take it Alexander
is consciously following Aristotle and his essentially polemical use of the term kos-
mos in these passages.
89
Genequand ad loc. remarks that this theological designator may derive from De
mundo, where genetor is used at 397 b 2i and 399a31; or it may represent a conflation
in the Arabic translation process with the Platonic Demiurge; or again it may be a
monotheist incursion. At any rate, given Alexander's insistence on the First Cause
only being a final cause (and certainly not a Neoplatonic aition poietikon), the locu-
tion sticks out somewhat.
340 Taneli Kukkonen
if you should assume one of them to be abolished by hypothesis,90 none
of the remaining things could possibly remain in its state. (Mabacfi0', § 81,
trans. Genequand)
Comparing the tone here with Cleomedes above is sufficient, I
think, to establish that the Principles was written in an explicit
effort to provide a Peripatetic counterpart to the Peri (tou) kosmou
literary genre established by the Stoics.
(c) Alexander has a fairly sophisticated account of how the vari-
ous celestial rotations recognized by A 8 play into all this. Essen-
tially, the purpose of the celestial mechanics is to put some dis-
tance between the First Mover and sublunary occurrences through
postulating a series of mediating mechanisms that allow for dif-
ferentiation in the make-up of the sublunary domain.91 Alexander
famously holds that the ultimate expression of divine providence
lies in the perpetuation of the sublunary species, which happens
through sublunary motions being regulated by the uniform celes-
tial rotations.92 It is in this connection also that On the Heavens is
allowed to make a minor contribution, since Aristotle argues in De
caelo 2. 3—in a fashion that is explicitly flagged up as uncertain
and tentative—for the view that some variation in the celestial mo-
tions is needed for there to be an interchange of sublunary elements.
This, indeed, is one of the few places where the extant fragments of
Alexander's lost commentary speak of the kosmos in a setting where
the corresponding vocabulary is missing in Aristotle (see Simpl. In
De caelo 404. 4-27). Simplicius commends Alexander for his manli-
ness in admitting the need to argue for a degree of divine governance
and ordering in this instance, instead of being content merely with
natural or material necessity, as was presumably usually the case.93
90
azhar-ta bi-bali-ka: this is an unusual translation choice for hupotithenai—
wahama bi-l-fard and cognate expressions were much more common—but
Genequand's English is undoubtedly correct none the less. On Simplicius'
differences with Alexander when it comes to reasoning per impossibile in this fashion
see Simplicius' testimony, In De caelo 404. 27-405. 4; further on the topic, see T.
Kukkonen, 'Alternatives to Alternatives: Approaches to Aristotle's Arguments per
impossibile', Vivarium, 40 (2002), 137-73.
91
See I. M. Bodnar, Alexander of Aphrodisias on Celestial Motions', Phronesis,
42 (1997), 190-205; S. Fazzo and H. Wiesner, Alexander of Aphrodisias in the
Kindl-Circle and in al-Kindl's Cosmology', Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 3
(!993)> H9-S3-
92
Mabadi3, § 61; see further the texts collected in Alexander of Aphrodisias, La
provvidenza. Questioni sulla provvidenza, ed. and trans. S. Fazzo and M. Zonta
(Milan, 1999).
93
andrizomenos . . . kata tina theian dioikesin te kai diataxin apologizesthai, In De
Mueller in his translation of the passage takes Simplicius' tone to
be sarcastic, but if I am right, then this is a notably gentle form
of sarcasm: it amounts to a compliment that may be slightly back-
handed, but is none the less genuine enough.94 The fact that, as far
as I can tell, both Simplicius and Alexander misread Aristotle's ori-
ginal argument in the same way only serves to underscore how both
are essentially in agreement here.95
(d) For all this, we may take account of how limited is the unity
achieved by the Aristotelian world on Alexander's telling. This is all
the more remarkable given how, on the face of it, Alexander grants
the Stoic party rather more than seems necessary. He calls the single
world (cdlam wdhid) a single body (jism wdhid), for instance, at the
same time that he underlines how it envelops and encompasses the
totality of things (jamic al-ashyd3). Alexander even describes the di-
vine potency that unites the world in distinctly Stoicizing terms, as
a spiritual power spread throughout all its parts (quwwa ruhdniyya
tasrifijamicajzd3i-hi\ Mabddi3, § 129). But the first characterization
immediately appears much less robust if we understand Alexander
in this context to use kosmos in the same sense in which Aristotle
evokes ouranos in De caelo i. 9, 278 b i2—13, as the outermost heaven,
as indeed the argument seems to require: the outermost heaven as
one perfectly uniform (and uniformly active) body bears the same
regulatory function to the rest of the universe as the single ruler
bears to the city. The second point, meanwhile, upon closer in-
spection merely acknowledges that all of physical reality as Aristotle
sees it is infused with potentiality striving towards actualization.96
According to Alexander, it is because the divine power is diffused
caelo 396. 3-9; cf. similarly In De caelo 467. 19-27, commenting on De caelo 2. 9,
29i a 24~6 (on which see above, n. 77).
94
Simplicius, On Aristotle's On the Heavens 2. j—9, trans. I. Mueller (London
and Ithaca, NY, 2004), 136 n. 164.
95
As I read the passage, De caelo 2. 3 makes no reference to providence; instead, it
treats both the existence of earth at the centre of the universe and the interchange of
the elements as brute facts and then proceeds to postulate a variation in the celestial
motions as the simplest explanation for these two phenomena. Alexander apparently
telescoped the change in the elements to the emergence of more complex forms of
actuality, pointedly including living beings, in his commentary, thus transforming
Aristotle's argument to one that conveys a belief in providence (understood in the
Alexandrian manner: see Simpl. In De caelo 404. 26-7): but this is projection on
Alexander's part.
96
Genequand translates tasn as 'penetrates': this is possible, but seems to me
needlessly Stoicizing, as the Arabic does not necessary imply any active agency on
the part of the spiritual power evoked, which is why I prefer 'spread across' or 'dis-
342 Taneli Kukkonen
throughout all the world's parts that they follow, turn towards,
and otherwise imitate the most noble of beings;97 what is more, 'all
things which share in it do so according to the state and position of
each one of them in relation to it' (Mabddi3, § 132). All this means
is that each thing, or else each natural kind, enjoys a unique rela-
tionship to the First Cause, and this because each approaches it in
its own way
The point about directionality is in fact crucial to Alexander. The
First Cause does not reach out to physical things in order to be in
contact with them; rather,
what is common to all things in the world and to the things which are ma-
nifestly distinct from one another is to aim at being in contact with this first
substance according to what is proper to each one of them in the nature ap-
propriate to it. This is the cause of their duration and permanence, and
of their remaining in the place proper to them. (Mabadi3, § 130, trans.
Genequand)
In other words, the things in the world reach out to the First Cause,
not the First Cause to them: their desire is for it (or its perfection,
or—to be yet more precise—that exact form of perfection which is
appropriate to a thing's nature), not its for them. But this also means
that there simply is no one world such that it would have a direct re-
lationship with the First Cause: rather, the god—world relationship,
such as it is (both terms should be used advisedly in an Aristotelian
context), consists of a series of one-on-one relations between indivi-
dual beings striving for whatever share they can have of perfection
per se, which is actuality as such, and the being which best exem-
plifies that perfection. To reiterate, then, the First Cause does not
persed throughout'. It is the term 'spiritual' itself (ruhani) which appears much more
irretractably Stoic, as ruh often stands for pneuma in the Graeco-Arabic vocabulary.
Genequand in the introduction to his translation (Mabadi3, 18) suggests that
ruhani is merely an alternative translation of theios, which is certainly possible, given
how theios becomes ruhani in the Arabic translations of On the Heavens. However,
the analogy is incomplete, since in the translations of De caelo what needed to be
suppressed was the notion that the heavenly body would be divine (see G. Endress,
Averroes' De caelo: Ibn Rushd's Cosmology in his Commentaries on Aristotle's On
the Heavens', Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 5 (1995), 9-49 at 14-15; likewise En-
dress, Ubersetzungen, 190-1), whereas the translator of the Principles will have had
no reason to downplay the divine nature of the providential force reaching all parts
of the universe.
97
The expression tanhu nahw afdal al-mawjudat is remarkably polyvalent:
Genequand in his translation has both 'follow' and 'turn towards', but nahd also
admits of 'imitate' as a translation, which certainly fits the context.
relate to the world in any way—indeed, there is no world to which
it could relate in this manner; rather, each of the universe's entities
relate to it, and out of this somehow a world (a kosmos, as an ordered
whole whose parts are mutually supportive) emerges.
Consequently, whatever bounty, harmony, and mutual agreement
one can discern in the orderly arrangement of the universe's parts,
to pick up on Alexander's vocabulary, the explication of these in
terms of the congruence of the heavenly motions is not immedi-
ately transparent. For one thing, one still needs to explain what
makes the various unmoved movers give rise to precisely that set
of celestial motions which results in an orderly and beneficial sub-
lunary system. What makes this puzzling is that in the whole cos-
mic system, all entities without exception look only upwards, as it
were, in their quest for individual perfection, and never down (that
is, nothing exercises providence intentionally and primarily). The
challenge is already laid down in Rose's purported fragment 17 of
On Philosophy, which appears, if nothing else, at least to adopt quite
effectively the open-ended and quizzical tone of many front-line
Peripatetics. (This observation should not be regarded as an en-
dorsement of the fragment as authentically Aristotelian.) The frag-
ment sets up a series of disjuncts that take Metaph. A 10 as their
starting point, but incorporate principles from the Physics as well.
A multiplicity of disordered principles would result not in a world
(mundus) but in chaos; but this cannot be, since plainly things [here
on the sublunary plane] do happen according to nature, either al-
ways or for the most part, rather than against it; therefore even the
assumption of multiple principles will implicitly include a presup-
position regarding their ordering; which in turn presupposes a first
principle, either among the ones just mentioned or outside their re-
cognized set. The end result is the recognition, wholly in line with
the closing words of Metaphysics /I, that there should be one ruler:
but the issue of what could account for the way its supreme state
is transferred onto the sensible plane is left wholly unanswered, as
indeed it remains in Alexander (and Aristotle).
Of the later Peripatetics, Averroes appears to have gone the fur-
thest in attempting to answer this question and to construct a viable
Aristotelian cosmology in the process. Averroes very clearly builds
on Alexander; but even here, a fair amount of work is needed to con-
nect the dots. In brief, it appears that Averroes' answer hinges on
the notion that each of the unmoved movers has an incomplete share
344 Taneli Kukkonen
in the intelligible content of the First and that this share translates
into a kind of kinetic code which is passed on to the celestial spheres,
making the comprehensive actuality of the First Cause into the (in-
direct) cause of everything coming to cohere that results from the
celestial motions inspired by the separate intelligences.98 But even
if we were to accept that in this fashion all the mechanical aspects
of the story can successfully be accounted for, one may still recall
Aetius' complaint (2. 3. 4) that in Aristotle's view the sublunary
domain is well ordered only by accident, not primarily (kata sum-
bebekos ou proegoumenos), and that consequently the world for Aris-
totle is neither ensouled, nor rational, nor intellective through and
through (holon di holori). To this criticism, which is essentially Pla-
tonist in character, I do not think that an Aristotelian would have
a ready answer.
(e) Coming back to Alexander, it is worth noting, finally, just
how deliberately Alexander positions his treatise in relation to the
foregone Peripatetic tradition. On the one hand, Alexander unhesi-
tatingly proclaims that the Principles constitutes a disclosure of his
own view (kashf ra3yi}\ on the other, he insists that everything he
puts forward is in accordance with Aristotle's outlook (bi-hasb ra°y
Aristutdlis: Mabadi3, § i). Alexander claims to have taken what he
took from the 'divine Aristotle'—an eyebrow-raising epithet, to be
sure—by way of principle and summary." This way of framing the
Principles signals that Alexander is well aware of a lacuna on the
subject of cosmic order in Aristotle's extant works, one that extends
roughly from an exposition of the nature of the First Cause (al-cillat
al-ula) to the effects it has on the sublunary domain. Moreover,
Alexander is careful to preface his exposition with some important
epistemic qualifiers. The Principles is an exercise in speculation, in
that it means to spell out what he (that is, Alexander) believes can
be said on these topics in accordance with Aristotle's stated views.
(Mabadi3, § 3)
Furthermore, even if we assume with Moraux, Genequand, and
others that Alexander was acquainted with On the World when he
98
See T. Kukkonen, Averroes and the Teleological Argument', Religious Stu-
dies, 40 (2002), 405-28; R. C. Taylor, Averroes on Psychology and the Principles of
Metaphysics', Journal of the History of Philosophy, 36 (1998), 507-23; for the physi-
cal side of things, see D. B. Twetten, Averroes' Prime Mover Argument', in J.-B.
Brenet (ed.), Averroes et les averrotsmes juif et latin (Turnhout, 2007), 9-75.
99
akhadhnd-hu can al-ildhiyy Aristutdlis cald tanq al-mabda3 wa-l-ikhtisdr.
Mabddi3, § 144.
crafted On the Principles of the All and that he made use of aspects
of that treatise when he fashioned his own Aristotelian response to
the theological and cosmological challenge issued by the Platonist
and Stoic parties—both suggestions which I find plausible—the fact
that Alexander never once refers to On the World testifies to his at
least entertaining doubts when it comes to the authenticity of that
treatise.100 We know from Proclus' testimony (In Tim. iii. 272. 20—
i) that concerns about De mundo's provenance were raised early on,
and we may assume the same conclusion negatively from the scant
use made of the treatise in antiquity (as compared to its popularity
in the Arabic and Latin Middle Ages). When Jaap Mansfeld drily
remarks regarding On the World that Alexander and his late Neo-
platonist fellow commentators, with Philoponus and David as ex-
ceptions of very minor importance, apparently preferred to say as
little as possible about it, or even nothing at all', this seems about
right. 101
6. Conclusion
In this article I have made the case that the concept of kosmos as
it was understood in Greek philosophy from Plato onwards ill fits
Aristotle's principal philosophical commitments and that it accord-
ingly occupies only a marginal place in his writings. But how much
does this matter, ultimately? Certainly I do not expect contempor-
ary scholars to cease talking about Aristotle's cosmology in a casual
way,102 nor is it my purpose to denigrate the efforts of later Aris-
totelians in coming up with a more satisfactory presentation (from
their point of view) of the Aristotelian kosmos as a whole or to rank
them according to some presumed scale of purity or orthodoxy. All
100
Based on Alexander's Quaestio 2. 3, Sharpies accepts Moraux's earlier hypo-
thesis that Alexander regarded De mundo as genuine: see Alexander of Aphrodisias,
Quaestiones i. 1-2. J5, trans. R. W. Sharpies (London and Ithaca, NY, 1992), 94
n. 307; but see the reference to Kupreeva in n. 7 above.
101
Mansfeld, 'Peri kosmou', 399. The very minor exceptions mentioned by Mans-
feld are Philop. Aet. 6 (174 and 179 Rabe) and David, In Cat. 113. 22-3 Busse, both
of which refer to On the World in incidental fashion: neither author postulates an
overarching Aristotelian cosmology on the basis of De mundo.
102
I mean here something like Tamar Rudavsky's characterization of cosmology
as 'that enterprise which describes what the universe looks like' (reported by Y. T.
Langermann in Arabic Cosmology', Early Science and Medicine, 2 (1997), 185-213
at 185).
346 Taneli Kukkonen
I have wanted to demonstrate is that from a certain point of time
onwards—perhaps as early as pseudo-Aristotle's and Alexander's
encounters with the Stoics, certainly by the heyday of the schools of
Athens and Alexandria—the more robustly theological and 'cosmic'
portrayals of the unity of physical reality that were put forward by
the Platonic and Stoic schools began to make it seem as though there
was something missing from the Aristotelian picture. The efforts
of various Peripatetics to meet this challenge are reflected in part in
their increased appeals to the concept of kosmos, just as the short-
comings of the source materials are reflected in their struggles to in-
corporate the notion into a framework that scarcely has a need for it.
There can be no doubt that the term kosmos possesses a signifi-
cance in Plato, and especially in the Timaeus, that far outstrips any-
thing found in Aristotle.103 The way in which the sensible universe
is a product, something generated by techne, coupled with the uni-
formity of what is aimed at in the act of creation, accounts for the
'Demiurge's monomania', to borrow James Lennox's phrase: that
is, it accounts for the way in which the Timaeus portrays the world
as a single creation.104 For Plato even the forms constitute a kosmos
(Rep. 500 c), which means that they must be studied as members of
a unified whole.105
Aristotle's use of kosmos, by comparison, is essentially dialectical
and opportunist. He is willing to evoke the concept, but he does so
mainly in contexts where this can serve as a useful reminder of the
conceptual commitments to which earlier thinkers are beholden, as
in a reference to those who hold spontaneity to be the cause of both
our heaven and 'all the worlds'. Io6 In such a context, an appeal to the
kosmos can help to point out how the presupposition of a beneficent
ordering pervades the thinking of even those thinkers supposedly
willing to entertain that there is no ordering on the macro (astrono-
mical) level at all. An intriguing citation in Philoponus from Alex-
ander's lost commentary on De caelo (Philop. Aet. 6, 213. 16-216.
23 Rabe) should be read in the same light, I think. According to
103
See G. Vlastos, Plato's Universe (Oxford, 1975).
104
See J. G. Lennox, 'Plato's Unnatural Teleology', in Aristotle's Philosophy of
Biology, 280-302 at 296.
105 por a history of the expression see D. T. Runia, 'A Brief History of the Term
kosmos noetos from Plato to Plotinus', in J. J. Cleary (ed.), Traditions of Platonisni:
Essays in Honour of John Dillon (Aldershot, 1999), 151-71.
106
tines hoi kai touranou toude kai ton kosmon panton aitiontai to automaton, Phys.
2. 4, I96a24~6.
Philoponus' testimony, Alexander frames Aristotle's investigation
of the world (peri tou kosmou), specifically its imperishable and un-
generated nature, by saying that Aristotle begins from the views of
his predecessors (tas doxas tas ton pro hautou), so that it is the Pla-
tonic and Presocratic usage of kosmos that is allowed to guide Aris-
totle's choice of terminology Yet another example comes from the
Politics, in which Aristotle points to the parallel cases of the intern-
ally organized activities of city, world, God, and virtuous person
in order to establish that it is not always necessary to have an out-
side partner in order to lead a full and eudaimonic life (Pol. 7. 3,
i325 b i7-33). There can be no doubt that kosmos is here used as a
synonym for to pan: it is in fact the only way for the argument to
make sense (the world does not look outside itself for something to
relate to, just because there is nothing outside). Still, apart from the
simple act of setting side by side individual, societal, universal, and
divine activity, there is no suggestion that these different-scale or-
derings would enjoy any sort of causal relation, on the lines of those
portrayed in the Republic and the Timaeus.107 All in all, one would
have to say that Aristotle appears reluctant even to evoke the term
kosmos, let alone to endow it with any real systematic import. 108
Even so, concepts are one thing, while conceptions are another.
What are we to say about Aristotle's cosmology at the end of the
day, understood now in the broader sense? I believe that Simplicius
has it fundamentally right. If by cosmology we mean simply an ac-
counting of all the kinds of things there are in the physical world,
and perhaps their positioning relative to one another, then this is
to be found in all of Aristotle's works on nature put together. And
if by such physical things are meant primarily the simplest kinds
of bodies into which embodied entities may break down, the units
whose relative positioning moreover gives us an approximate layout
of the physical universe, then we have arrived at what is essentially
Aquinas' take on On the Heavens.109 But if by cosmology is meant
107
Compare how Ficino in the preface to his synopsis of the Timaeus says that
the justification for ascending from the natural to the divine in this Pythagorizing
manner is found in the way that all natural things are, after all, effects and images
of divine things. It is because of this that the Timaeus treats of the world triply, as
it were: the divine, celestial, and human aspects all receive consideration when the
nature of the universe is related to the higher causes (Opera, ii. 1438-9).
108 The Index Aristotelicus lists only four instances of kosmopoiein and cognate ex-
pressions, all of which are related to reports of Presocratic cosmogonies.
109
On Aquinas see further J. A. Weisheipl, Nature and Motion in the Middle Ages
(Washington, 1985), 183-8.
348 Taneli Kukkonen
the more demanding enterprise of showing how all things in the
world—or all things equally—rely on higher causes, how certain
fundamental forces govern all of embodied reality, and what grants
the world a unity such that it becomes possible to speak of it as 'the
world', then it is hard to see what in the Aristotelian corpus would
satisfy this requirement. Metaphysics A is probably the closest Aris-
totle comes to providing this kind of unified theory of everything:
but the account is sketchy in the extreme and requires considerable
extrapolation on the basis of other materials in order to function
as a full-blown cosmology. I am, then, basically in sympathy with
Helen Lang's assessment that Metaphysics A aims at showing how
a discussion of substance will at the same time provide the best ac-
count of 'the All', as shown by Metaph. A i, 1069* 17-20; but I do
not share in her optimistic view that the treatise operates with 're-
markable efficiency', nor would I say that it 'may be offered as a
perfect example of an investigation of substance'. 110 The strenu-
ous efforts of the later commentators (including a borderline hos-
tile Theophrastus) testify to the seams that show and the lacunae
that remain in Aristotle's expressed views, and to the unavoidable
need for creative extrapolation. It is in these creative acts that the
true history of Aristotelian cosmology is told. 111
University of Otago
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander of Aphrodisias, La pro widens a. Questionisulla pro widens a, ed.
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110
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111
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APPARENT GOODS
A Discussion of Jessica Moss, Aristotle on the Apparent Good1
IAKOVOS VASILIOU
i. Introduction
O F T E N in Aristotle 'apparent good' refers to what someone be-

lieves or takes to be good and also, sometimes simultaneously, to
what merely seems to be good as opposed to what genuinely is. Of
course, what appears good to the virtuous person is genuinely good.
One of the primary aims of Jessica Moss's wide-ranging book is
to argue that 'apparent good' not only has the meanings just can-
vassed, but also is frequently meant 'literally' to refer to the good
as it appears to perception or to 'quasi-perception', i.e. phantasia.
Thus the title is more technical than it may at first seem: the book
is concerned with how the good appears to a person in the sense
of how a person's or animal's perception or phantasia presents the
good to her (or it), and, overall, how perception, phantasia, thought,
and desire are related in action.
Aristotle on the Apparent Good is largely constructed from ar-
ticles published from 2009 to 2012; two shorter chapters, 3 and 6,
as well as most of 4, are wholly new. Although much of the material
is available in article form, the monograph reveals connections that
otherwise would have remained hidden. Moss seeks to explain Aris-
totle's account of the apparent good in his ethical works by reference
to his account of phantasia in the psychological works, with exten-
sive discussions of passages from De motu animalium, De anima,
and Parva Naturalia. Further, she argues that all practical thought
is ultimately derived from perception of things as pleasurable or
painful, which is a necessary part of perceiving things as good or
bad. That goodness is an object of perception and phantasia, not
© lakovos Vasiliou 2014
I thank Matt Evans and the Editor for helpful comments.
1
Jessica Moss, Aristotle on the Apparent Good: Perception, Phantasia, Thought,
and Desire (Oxford, 2012), pp. xv+255.
354 lakovos Vasiliou
only for humans but also for non-rational animals, is the basis
for what Moss calls Aristotle's 'Practical Empiricism'. Practical
Empiricism is intended to parallel Aristotle's Theoretical Empiri-
cism as exemplified in Post. An. 2. 19 and Metaph. A i. Just as the
intellectual grasp that is nous in Aristotle's narrow sense ultimately
'derives' from perception of particulars, so thephronimos's grasp of
what is genuinely good and virtuous ultimately 'derives' from per-
ception of actions or objects as good, and so, as 'to be done' or 'to be
pursued' (46). The scope of Moss's book and the significance of the
topics it addresses make it an important work for anyone interested
in Aristotle's moral psychology, philosophy of action, or ethics.
The book is divided into three parts. In the first, Moss focuses on
establishing and explaining her claims about perception and phan-
tasia, most importantly including (i) that they are cognitive capa-
cities; (2) that they are evaluative and not merely instrumental: we
perceive and 'phantasize' things as worth going for, i.e. as good; and
(3) that their appearing to us this way is itself pleasurable and thus
an intrinsically motivating state. When I, being thirsty, perceive a
glass of cold water, I not only perceive something that is (would
be) pleasant for me, but my perceiving of that pleasant object is it-
self pleasurable. The two chapters (4 and 5) that constitute Part II
focus on 'non-rational motivation', considering, respectively, the
emotions (pathe] and incontinence (akrasid). They seek to show
that both emotion and incontinence depend on our evaluative per-
ception and quasi-perception. Finally, in Part III Moss turns to
rational motivation and, concentrating on interpreting the numer-
ous passages where Aristotle claims that it is virtue of character
that sets the end, while phronesis is concerned with 'the things to-
wards the end', she defends a view according to which it is the non-
rational part of the soul that supplies the content of our conception
of the good.
The most important claims about Aristotle's ethics concentrate
on this last point: the content of our beliefs about the good is deter-
mined, ultimately, by non-rational cognition. Moss draws an im-
portant distinction between the cognitive and the rational. Reason
is the exclusive province of human beings. Cognition, however, is
merely a matter of discrimination (krisis), and Aristotle claims we
have three faculties that are kritika (MA 7oob2O-i): perception,
phantasia, and thought (reason). In so far as perception and phan-
tasia give us information about how the world is (or, in the case
Apparent Goods 355
of phantasia, could be or will be), each deserves to be considered
cognitive, despite not being rational. The information and content
supplied by perception and phantasia, both to us and to the lower
creatures, is then for us manipulated and conceptualized in 'sophis-
ticated' ways by reason or intellect: 'Intellect merely makes explicit
what is already contained in the appearance, and thus in no way
affects what goal we pursue (although it makes all the difference
to how we pursue it)' (155). It is central to the primary argument
of Moss's book that the intellect does not contribute to the content
of the good; that is determined entirely by perception and appear-
ance (227).
At a general level, there are important, persuasive, and useful dis-
tinctions here. There is no question, to my mind, that Moss has es-
tablished that 'apparent good' is sometimes used to refer to a good
that appears to phantasia, as that faculty is understood in the psy-
chological works. Furthermore, Moss argues well that perception
and phantasia are both cognitive and evaluative. Each of them dis-
criminates things not only as what they are, but also as worth going
for. While these conclusions are not entirely original, as Moss her-
self acknowledges, the emphasis she gives them is well deserved.
Although Moss quotes and discusses many passages in detail, the
conclusions are established and made persuasive not so much on
the basis of the texts themselves as on the plausibility and attract-
iveness of her overall view. On numerous occasions, Moss claims
only that certain passages could be read as she construes them or
that they need not be read as her opponents do. Later I shall raise
some problems for the overall view, but I should say at the outset
that these problems most often arise not because of any particular
(mis)reading of some passage or passages, but because of what I
found to be inadequate textual support for the conclusions and/or
a lack of precision in the arguments.
Before examining Moss's claims in detail, though, I shall com-
ment briefly on a broader methodological issue.
2. Methodological note
In Aristotle on the Apparent Good there is little or no attempt to

think about Aristotle in some radically new way, to ask particularly
original questions about the topics addressed, or to draw surprising
connections with other Aristotelian works or authors. (I mean this

as a descriptive, not a critical, remark; as I discuss below, this may
be a good thing.) Rather, in a plausible and at least locally persuasive
way, Moss carves out her own position by taking sides in disputes
that are well established in the literature and then putting those
various positions together in a novel way. The topics treated and the
passages examined are well-traversed terrain, and Moss navigates
skilfully among the many positions in the secondary literature. As
she herself points out, other scholars have argued for almost all of
the specific positions that she defends; of course, she adds her own
arguments for those positions and sometimes cites new passages as
support. So, abstractly, the book proceeds by arguing that, on topic
X, scholars have been divided on whether A or B is the right inter-
pretation, and Moss argues for B. Then, on topic Y, the question is
whether reading C, D, or E is correct, and Moss defends and sides
with the backers of D, and so on.2 The book's contribution, there-
fore, lies in the uniqueness of the conjunction of positions it adopts
on disputed questions rather than on the originality of any of the
conjuncts.
Like the rest of us, Moss wants to get Aristotle right. Some work
in ancient philosophy, however, is excellent because it is fertile in
the sense that it inspires the reader by asking new, interesting ques-
tions or developing connections or attempting a novel approach that
had not occurred to the reader before. New approaches are pre-
sented and novel questions are asked not simply because of their
novelty, of course, but because the author believes that something
beneficial and philosophically valuable will arise by approaching the
matter from this new angle. Other work in ancient philosophy seeks
excellence by answering already established questions from an es-
tablished perspective, only this time getting the answers right as
compared with the author's predecessors. This sort of work seeks to
end a controversy, to settle a matter. The 'fertile' and 'established'
approaches to doing ancient philosophy, which are not mutually ex-
clusive, prompt a motivated reader to do more work in importantly
different ways. The former inspires a reader to engage with the is-
sues because of what the reader thinks the author got right', whereas
the latter prompts the reader to do so because of what the author got
2
See e.g. ch. 5, where the dispute concerns a 'phantastic' or doxastic reading of
the passions: Moss cites seven scholars who support the former, five for the latter;
she defends the former (69-70).
Apparent Goods 357
wrong. Aristotle on the Apparent Good falls squarely into the latter
category.
Finally, I am not claiming that the former, 'fertile' method is
superior—that would depend in part on what we think we are doing
in history of philosophy when we interpret a text (and how history
of philosophy differs from history of ideas). For if, as some in the
field think, we are making serious progress in establishing truths
about the philosophy of the ancients and a desirable sort of conver-
gence is occurring both in method and in result, then we ought to
expect and welcome the sort of book that Moss has written.
Now I turn to details. I shall discuss the volume's three parts in
turn, but focus most of my critical discussion on Parts I and III,
since these form the backbone of the book.
3. Part I: The Apparent Good
Chapter i begins by defending the idea that all motivation involves

some form of 'finding good', i.e. what Moss calls 'evaluative cog-
nition'. All motivation depends on the agent or animal finding the
desired object good via at least one of the three cognitive capaci-
ties: perception, phantasia, or thought (4). For Aristotle, there is no
distinction between motivated and unmotivated desires: all desires
depend on evaluative cognition (9). So even a worm is a cognizer,
since its sense of touch discriminates between hot and cold or wet
and dry. Moreover, according to Moss, since the worm acts and is
motivated to pursue some things and avoid others, it must engage
in a kind of 'finding good' or evaluative cognition, though only the
non-rational kind involved in perception (and perhaps phantasid).
This sounds a little crazy, as Moss recognizes. It seems, first
off, on some interpretations obviously false: there is no intensional
reading of 'apparent good', according to which the worm cognizes
its objects as good, that explains the motivations of the worm. The
worm feels objects as, say, wet or dry, or perhaps as pleasant or
unpleasant, and these objects may in fact be good (or bad) for the
worm, but that the objects are good or bad must be a purely ex-
tensional claim. On an 'extensionalist reading' (ER), by contrast,
the worm heads (mostly) towards what is really good because the
worm perceives it as something or other. (In the end Moss rejects
ER, but her argument for rejecting it is not complete until the end
of chapter 2.) It is natural teleology that helps to ensure that what

the worm finds pleasant turns out (mostly) to be good for it, but
that does not mean that it cognizes anything as good. Indeed, this
position captures what is close to orthodoxy: the difference between
rational and non-rational desire, between boulesis and epithumia, is
the difference between desiring the good and desiring the pleasant.
Only rational agents can pursue the good as good; the lower animals
and the non-rational desires of human beings pursue the pleasant,
which, if everything is as it should be, turns out to be good.
Moss then turns more explicitly to the question of whether non-
rational cognition is evaluative or merely instrumental. She argues
that Aristotle characterizes appetites not as brute desires or blind
urges towards, say, food or drink, but as appetites for these things
in so far as they are pleasant. Desire by itself does not set the end:
rather the creature's perception/phantasia makes an evaluation of
sorts by finding a certain object pleasant, which is itself motivating
and in itself pleasurable (cf. 14, 22). To cognize something as plea-
sant is to cognize it as something 'to be done' or 'to be gone for'.
So, thinking in the terms of the practical syllogism, even appetitive
desire has a correlate to the 'premiss of the good': cognition of an
object as being pleasant. Cognition is not merely relegated to deter-
mining the minor premiss, 'this is sweet', etc.
One might wonder whether Aristotle's view, then, is that moti-
vation begins with evaluative cognition, which generates a desire for
its object, or whether there is a standing, generalized desire for the
good (pleasant?), and then evaluative cognition—not in a purely in-
strumental role—makes a determination of a 'constituent means'
sort3 by cognizing some particular object as fulfilling that desire,
i.e. by cognizing it as 'good' (or pleasant) (19). In addressing this
interesting question, Moss concedes that Aristotle gives no clear
answer and that there is no evidence that he is aware of the prob-
lem. Moss thus leaves us with a deliberately vague formulation that
accommodates both alternatives: 'all motivation crucially involves
evaluation' (19, my emphasis).
By the end of chapter i the most that is established is that moti-
vation involves evaluative cognition in the extensionalist sense of
'finding good'. None of the texts cited requires us to understand
the worm as actually finding something as good, as opposed to find-
3
This will be very important later in the book when it turns to ethics and virtue;
see discussion of pt. in below.
Apparent Goods 359
ing something, which is good, as pleasant or wet or whatever; and
we might think this is good news for Aristotle.
Moss's goal, however, is to establish 'the intensional reading'
(IR):
I have argued that [A] Aristotle construes all desire as dependent on evalua-
tive cognition. This is the point of his claims that desire is for the 'apparent
good', [B] which we saw must be read intensionally; it is confirmed by his
most detailed discussions of the relations between cognition and desire in
the MA and de An. accounts of motivation. Thus we should take the point
as established. On Aristotle's view, all desires are for what the agent finds
good. . . . Appetites are for the pleasant, but they are for the pleasant be-
cause it appears good. (20, my [A] and [B])
Does this passage, which comes a page and a half before the end of
chapter i, take [A], [B], or both as the point that has been estab-
lished? I am persuaded by [A], subject to the above qualification
that we do not know where Aristotle stands on the priority of desire
to evaluative cognition. But the argument for [B] is at best incom-
plete at this point, as the end of the chapter itself emphasizes. Some
confusion arises for the reader because chapter i begins by setting
up its topic as the extensionalist vs. intensionalist reading of 'find-
ing good', with Moss defending the latter, but then turns primarily
to the question of whether cognition is merely instrumental rather
than also evaluative. On page 12 she had asked: 'Should we how-
ever read the claim that the object of desire is the good or appar-
ent good as intensional rather than merely extensional—as entail-
ing that practical intellect, phantasia or perception cognize things
as good?' She then offers MA 701*7—25 as evidence for IR, arguing
that this passage reads intellect as seeing the object of desire as good
intensionally, and so, by parallel reasoning, since non-rational cog-
nition 'holds the same place' as intellect (7oob 19-20), and the ap-
parent good 'holds the [same] place' as the good, we ought to under-
stand the intensionalist reading for non-rational cognition as well.
But non-rational cognition may 'hold the same place' as intellect
precisely by playing an evaluative role in cognizing things as attrac-
tive or pleasant, without that implying that the organism (e.g. the
worm) cognizes anything as good (i.e. without implying IR). Moss
then says (13), apparently grasping that her argument so far is at
least incomplete against ER, that she will give more evidence to
support IR in chapter 2. She then turns back to topic [A].
Before I consider the rest of the argument against ER in chapter 2,
I want to look more closely at the last page or so of chapter i. Moss
attempts to slip between what she sees as two extreme and unat-
tractive interpretations of 'appears good', one of which is labelled
'deflationary'. The first extreme collapses the distinction between
rational and non-rational desire altogether, making all cases of lx
appears good to S' based on an intellectual cognition of things as
good; this is obviously a non-starter. The other is a 'deflationary'
reading, characterized as follows:
. . . perhaps 'appears good' as a characterization of the object of desire

could be construed as mere metaphor, meaning nothing more than 'is at-
tractive', or 'is pleasant'. . . . And thus it may seem that we should cash out
the notion of appearing good, with respect to appetites, entirely in non-
cognitive terms—as a conative or affective state, or both, but not literally
a cognitive one. But this will not do either. For we have seen that Aris-
totle takes himself to be making a substantive, explanatory claim when he
says that appetites are for the pleasant because it appears good. Practical
perception and phantasia 'hold the same place' as practical intellect: they
evaluate objects, leading us to desire them. And these claims cannot stand
if we simply reduce the appearance of goodness to pleasure or to desire.
(20-1)
What exactly is the deflationary view that is being rejected and how
does it relate to the question of ER vs. IR and to the evaluative
vs. instrumental roles of cognition? Moss does not spell this out.
The problem, she says, is that the deflationary reading would cash
out 'appearing good' in entirely non-cognitive terms, as a conative
or affective state, which runs foul of Aristotle's claim that percep-
tion and phantasia 'evaluate objects, leading us to desire them'. So
the deflationary reading is incompatible with non-rational cogni-
tion's evaluative role. But why is there not a less deflationary read-
ing, which retains an evaluative role for non-rational cognition, but
is still to be understood as ER would have it? All it takes to be cog-
nitive according to Moss is to be discriminating, and so it would
seem to be a cognitive act to discriminate things as pleasant or
painful; it would not be simply a matter of being in some plea-
sant or painful conative or affective state; and this is compatible
with ER.
Before I turn to chapter 2, let me summarize four distinctions and
one thesis that Moss has in play by the end of chapter i:
Apparent Goods 361
1. Cognitive vs. Non-cognitive. This is the distinction between
discriminatory capacities and affective states. Moss argues that per-
ception and phantasia are cognitive.
2. Evaluative cognition vs. Instrumental cognition. These are two
species of 'practical cognition'. The former perceives/'phantasizes'
its object as worth going for in some way or other (e.g. as plea-
sant); the latter merely identifies it (e.g. perceiving 'this is drink',
which is then joined to a 'generalized desire' for drink to generate
action). Moss denies that perception and phantasia play merely in-
strumental roles and argues that all practical cognition crucially in-
volves evaluative cognition (though it may also involve instrumental
cognition) (19-20).
3. The Intensionalist Reading vs. the Extensionalist Reading.
On the former the creature perceives (or 'phantasizes') an object
as good', on the latter, the creature perceives (or 'phantasizes') the
object as something or other (e.g. pleasant), which may in fact be
good, although it does not appear as good to the creature (6-7);
4. 'Deflationary' vs. 'Non-Deflationary' reading of *x appears
good to S'. In chapter 2 there will be a 'mean' position, Moss's
own, described as 'just deflationary enough' (which is the title
of section 2.4). So, one extreme position is to eliminate any sort
of non-rational cognition by claiming that all cognitive acts of
perceiving and phantasia actually involve reason (this is the non-
starter). The other extreme position, more often labelled by Moss
'deflationary' or 'too deflationary', is to eliminate all non-rational
cognition by claiming that perception and phantasia are mere 'cona-
tive' or 'affective' states, mere urges or feelings. Moss rejects both
extreme positions.
She also defends the following thesis:
'Narrow Evaluative Cognition': Narrow Evaluative Cogni-

tion is not simply a discriminatory capacity (cognition) that
attaches a value (of some sort) to an object or action (what
we might call 'Broad Evaluative Cognition'), but cognition of
things as good, understood as on IR.
Moss herself does not explicitly discuss the relationship among

these distinctions. I am persuaded of the plausibility of i and 2.
Problems arise, however, among 3, 4, and the thesis regarding Nar-
row Evaluative Cognition. In chapter 2 Moss simply stipulates that
to see something as 'worth going for' or 'as pleasant' or 'as an end/
goal' just is to see it 'as good'. But (a) this is not the same as seeing
something 'as good' according to IR; (b) in this sort of cognition
there is no distinction between the good and the pleasant (as Moss
acknowledges on page 109); (c) there is no way for non-rational cog-
nition to determine whether or not the good that 'literally' appears
to it is a 'merely' apparent but not genuine good; and ( d ) , given
(b) and (c) (and inadequate textual support), there is insufficient
evidence that non-rational evaluative cognition sees the pleasant as
worth going for because it is good.
Finally, the deflationary reading that would be most relevant to
consider is the one that rejects IR but retains the ideas that percep-
tion and phantasia are cognitive and evaluative: 'Broad Evaluative
Cognition'. The only deflationary view (on one end of the spec-
trum) Moss considers is a straw man, according to which perception
and phantasia are mere feelings or urges. She does not consider in
chapter i the more serious rival to her position, a deflationary view
according to which perception and phantasia evaluate objects or ac-
tions as worth going for (i.e. pleasant) but not because the creature
sees them as good. If this position is adopted, there is no way for
non-rational cognition to distinguish between the pleasant and the
good, so that it would not be correct to say that the creature sees x as
pleasant because it is good. And now this position is very close to the
traditional orthodoxy: non-rational cognition aims at the pleasant
and only rational cognition aims at the good.
Chapter 2 begins with an insistence that evaluative cognition
should not be interpreted, as I just suggested, as 'Broad Evaluative
Cognition', but, as IR would have it, 'cognition through which
things appear good, or indeed are otherwise cognized as good'
(22). But then it returns immediately in 2.1 to consider yet more
evidence against understanding non-rational cognition as exclu-
sively instrumental (issue 2 above). By page 32 n. 18, however,
Moss still considers her argument against ER incomplete.4 She
4
This is potentially confusing for the reader, for Moss does speak earlier as though
she has already argued against ER, when she has really argued that cognition is evalu-
ative and motivating, not simply instrumental. But at the same time she also sees that
these claims do not help against ER, even if she sometimes seems to suggest that it
does (as at 28—9). At 14 n. 21 Moss thanks Terence Irwin for pointing out that there
is no need for a proponent of the extensionalist reading to deny that cognition plays
an evaluative role (a fact which opens up the possibility I labelled as 'Broad Evalua-
tive Cognition'). If a proponent of ER had to deny that cognition plays an evaluative
Apparent Goods 363
claims that IR is 'widespread' on the basis of quotations from

Simplicius, Philoponus, Zeller, and Grant. But the passages cited
seem either ambiguous between ER and IR, or else arguably to be
talking about the cognition only of rational agents; moreover, it is
nowhere argued that these commentators were drawing the IR/ER
distinction itself. The same issue arises immediately preceding
the longish final section of the chapter, devoted to clarifying the
meaning of 'good' and 'being active toward something as good',
in the culminating paragraph on page 33, after which Moss never
again refers to the IR/ER distinction:
[We seek] an account that is just deflationary enough, [avoiding on the one
hand collapsing the distinction between thought's grasp of the good and
perception's]. . . . But neither do we want an interpretation which main-
tains that difference at the cost of a purely extensional reading of perceiving
the good. Aristotle does clearly hold that creatures tend to feel pleasure in
objects that are in fact good for them but in this passage [DA 3. 7, 43i a 8-n]
he seems to be saying something more: that pleasure is an awareness of the
object as good. Moreover, only if this is what he means can he be reasonable
in claiming that we desire the pleasant because it appears good (EE VII. 2
I235 b 27, de An. 433b9, quoted in Chapter i). (33, emphases original)
This prompts three reactions. First, the initial part of this para-
graph seems to suggest what I proposed earlier in connection with
chapter i: that at least one version of a 'deflationary' reading—
Broad Evaluative Cognition—fits nicely with ER. Second, Moss
has already conceded that being 'perceptually active toward the wa-
ter as good' (DA 3. 7, 43i a 8—n) can be read extensionally (33), and
in the subsequent lengthy discussion of it (33—6) she never expli-
citly explains how it supports IR over ER. 5 Finally, and most im-
portantly, Moss repeats (for at least the third time) that Aristotle
believes that we desire the pleasant because it appears good, citing
role, then if it were shown that Aristotle holds that cognition does play an evaluative
role, it would thereby be shown that ER is false. Although Irwin apparently pointed
out that this is not so, the remnants of such an argument still seem to infect the first
two chapters.
5
There are actually two issues here that ought to be distinguished: one is whether
creatures without reason or concepts can do any 'perceiving as' at all, and the other is
whether they can perceive things as good (an affirmative response to the second issue
is, of course, IR). Moss accepts both, and I am raising objections to her argument
for the second. At points (e.g. 42), however, the argument seems to shift rather con-
fusingly towards the former issue, namely whether creatures without concepts can
engage in 'perceiving as' at all.
EE 7. 2, I235b27, and DA 3. 10, 433bQ. But these provide weak
support for 'something more' than ER as a general account of cog-
nition, for they are manifestly about human, not animal, perception,
appearance, and desire, as Moss herself apparently agrees since she
returns to these very passages later in the discussion of akrasia in
chapter 5 (104-6).
The remainder of chapter 2 (33-46) does not help with these
problems, arguing initially for a weaker thesis that to think of some-
thing as good is to cognize it as 'to-be-gone-for' (34) or 'to-be-
done'; thus, the cat sees the mouse as 'worth' pursuing, that is, as
'to be gone for' (35). The final conclusion, though, reaches for the
more ambitious position:
Thus the function of perceptual pleasure is to track the good—to dis-
criminate the beneficial from the neutral and the harmful—in order to
motivate pursuit. . . . Perceptual pleasure is discrimination of the good,
where this discrimination takes the form of awareness of something as to-
be-pursued. I have argued that Aristotle construes perceptual pleasure as
literal perception of goodness . . . (38—9, my emphasis)
Although it is not explicit, I take it that we are supposed to under-

stand 'literal perception of goodness' as IR would. Yet, as Moss
notes in this stretch of text (37 n. 33), Irwin, a proponent of ER,
presents the very same points about the role of teleology in Aris-
totle's theory of perception. It is frustrating throughout the chapter
to read conclusions that do not disambiguate between IR and ER
when, at least through page 33, there are repeated signals to the
reader that a primary overall goal is to defend IR against ER. See,
further:
Likewise, I have been arguing, if the baby or buffalo is parched then the
water has a certain relational property: being good for them. Through plea-
surably tasting the water, they are in perceptual contact with that relational
property—'perceptually active toward the water as good'. (42)
Again, as written, this conclusion is compatible with ER.

Later on in the book, Moss sums up the position defended here in
a way that further seems to muddle the distinction between IR and
ER: T argued in Chapter 2 that for the non-rational part of the soul,
to desire something as pleasant is for it to desire that thing as good:
this part of the soul cognizes the good only through pleasure, being
unable to discriminate between the two' (109). If the non-rational
Apparent Goods 365
part of the soul is unable to discriminate between the pleasant and
the good, in what sense does it perceive it as good? One can simply
stipulate that what is pleasant is what is good for the non-rational
soul, but that does not support IR.
I dwell on this issue at length, quoting several passages from the
book, because I found it confusing. Standing back a bit, however,
we might wonder what IR adds to the argument, especially since
Moss concedes that most texts are ambiguous and some texts, most
notably Pol. 1253^—18, count against it.6 Her insistence on IR is
meant to support Moss's larger agenda. On the traditional view,
only rationality brings rational wish (boulesis), and only rational
wish brings wish for the good as good; so, cognition of the good as
such arises only in rational creatures. Animals (and the non-rational
part of the soul) have desire merely for the pleasant—precisely what
the Politics passage spells out. By contrast, Moss wants perception
(and phantasia) in animals to be cognizing the good as such because
she does not want such cognition to be peculiar to human beings.
Indeed, she seeks to retain the motivating role of the non-rational
appearance of the good as part of human as well as animal (moral)
psychology. Moreover, as we shall see, she will argue that the entire
content of our notion of the good comes from non-rational cognition.
Chapter 3 is concerned with the role of phantasia in locomotion.
Moss presents what she calls the 'basic conception' of phantasia
(52-3): that it always arises from perception in some way, is in-
dependent of perceptible objects in that one can have a phantasia
of something not present to perception, and that the physiological
and psychological effects of phantasia, caused by phantasmata, are
very similar to those that arise from aisthemata in perception. Some
scholars go beyond this minimal account by maintaining that phan-
tasia adds some sort of additional content to a phantasia beyond
what is cognized by perception. Moss denies this and claims fur-
ther that a virtue of her account is that she has already argued that
perception on its own can motivate.
So, Moss needs only two things for an account of 'practical phan-
tasia'\ ( i ) evidence that phantasia can motivate just as actual per-
ception does; and (2) an explanation of why phantasia is necessary
for locomotion, if perception on its own can motivate (57). The first
6
And her most cited texts in favour of IR—'holds the same place' passages from
MA (7oi b i9-2oand b 28-9),E'E'7. 2, I235 b 25~7, and/M433 b 9, all discussed above—
do not support it against ER.
is established by arguing that phantasia simulates perception; just
as perceiving something pleasurable is itself pleasant (and involves
the physical processes of heating and cooling), so having & phantasia
of something pleasant is itself pleasurable and thus motivates in the
same way. She contrasts her account with Jennifer Whiting's. While
Whiting argues that phantasia motivates by representing objects as
pleasant or painful, Moss defends the idea that phantasia motivates
by being itself pleasurable or painful, just like perception.
As Moss recognizes, this leaves her with the second question of
why phantasia should be necessary for locomotion, given that per-
ceptions by themselves can motivate and phantasia does not add
anything to the content of perception. After pointing out that De
motu animalium equivocates on the question of whether or not phan-
tasia is necessary, Moss proceeds to offer an account that 'many
have offered' (61):
[Locomotion or goal-directed action] takes place when an animal pursues

something not immediately present: something at a distance, or not in view,
which it has to move to get. For when the animal is in direct perceptual con
tact with something she likes (actually drinking water, for example) she has
no need to move around. If phantasia is what enables us to represent per-
ceptibles in their absence, then it is clear why it should be necessary for
locomotion: only through phantasia can an animal or person be aware of
something not present to perception making that thing available as an ob-
ject of her desire, a goal. (61)
Aristotle's account, though, has problems in its own right—

interesting ones, but again ones that he does not address. A gap in
Moss's minimalist conception of phantasia concerns how and why
pleasurable phantasiai that are representations of goals (drink that
water that is seen over there or that is remembered as being over
the next hill) are different from phantasiai that are mere fantasies,
hallucinations, or memories of a past no longer attainable. Moss
concedes that the evidence suggests that Aristotle 'neither noticed
this gap nor intended to fill it with phantasia' (63). Then she
simply returns to the claim that Aristotle has shown why phantasia
is necessary for all action.
As we shall see below, however, we may discover the seeds of a
larger problem here when we try to account for the sense of 'appar-
ent good' that involves not only a good as appearing to phantasia,
but as merely appearing, while not actually being, good. One ge-
Apparent Goods 367
neral concern is whether Moss's avowedly Humean reading of Aris-
totle (66 n. 36 and elsewhere) can adequately account for rational
adjudication among ends. This is going to be a difficult matter if, as
Moss claims (66), all of the content of thoughts come fromphanta-
siai, which in turn come from perceptions, and all of the motivation
comes crucially from phantasiai of pleasure and pain. What faculty
will distinguish the merely apparent from the real good? What will
distinguish illusory or mistaken content from genuine and true con-
tent? Merely another (more vivid? more coherent?) phantasiai
4. Part II: The Apparent Good and Non-Rational Motivation
Chapter 4 adjudicates a dispute between the doxastic and the

'phantastic' account of the passions. The latter holds that the
passions 'involve' phantasia (69, 70, 71) or that 'the passions must
be functions of either perception or phantasia' (71). Moss states
once again that Aristotle is not clear on the question of how passion
and belief are related to each other. But, however that turns out,
'it should be clear that they [the passions] are based directly on
phantasia' (71). The passions also have a Very close relation' to
pleasure and pain, but yet again it is unclear whether Aristotle has
a consistent or detailed account of what the relation is (80). Thus,
Aristotle's account of the passions has 'three essential features':
(a) they are pleasurable or painful; (b) they involve evaluative re-
presentations; and (c) the representations are the work of phantasia
(75). 'If I can show that anger, pity, fear, confidence, shame, and a
few others are, like appetite, based on phantasia, I will have shown
that evaluative phantasia plays a very important part in Aristotle's
ethics' (75, my emphasis).
The upshot is that on the 'phantastic' account passions do not
necessarily involve beliefs, although, in normal circumstances, they
will give rise in rational creatures to evaluative beliefs:
For a non-rational part of the soul, as for a non-rational animal, there is
no meaningful distinction between being subject to an appearance and ac-
cepting it. Of course this acceptance will not be rational acceptance—not
reflective acceptance on the basis of reasons accepted as reasons . . . it will
be a default, automatic, unreflective acceptance. But it makes sense to view
it as a kind of acceptance: just as the rational soul takes it that p in believ-
ing that£, so the non-rational soul takes it thatp in being appeared to as if
p. . . . on Aristotle's view, being subject to an appearance of something as
terrible will not always entail rational acceptance, i.e. belief that the thing
is terrible, but it will always entail wow-rational acceptance—i.e. fear. (93—4,
emphases original)
So, while the Stoics insist that the passions, requiring assent, are
rational (and so belong only to rational creatures), Moss's Aristotle
holds that they are non-rational and exercises of a 'part of the soul
common to humans and non-rational animals alike' (93); they are
default, passive acceptances rather than active rational assents. The
question I shall pursue below is whether this common, non-rational
part of the soul continues to play the distinct and non-rational but
cognitive role Moss attributes to it in the actions and moral psycho-
logy of Aristotle's virtuous person.
Moss explains further that since evaluative phantasiai of future
evils will normally generate corresponding beliefs that there are
future evils, Aristotle can, and frequently does, characterize the
passions by way of corresponding beliefs. But that ought not to en-
courage us to take the doxastic reading that passions somehow ne-
cessarily are or involve beliefs; phantasiai on their own are necessary
and sufficient for generating passions (95-6). So, the emotions stand
as examples of non-rational, but cognitive and evaluative phanta-
siai, i.e. quasi-perceptual appearances of things as good or bad,
pleasurable or painful. She will use this account of evaluative phan-
tasiai and the passions to which they give rise to analyse Aristotle's
account of incontinence in the next chapter.
Chapter 5, which treats akrasia, along with the previous chapter
that discusses the pathe, together constitute Part II. While the ra-
tionale for putting these two chapters together is understandable, I
am not sure it is best. Pathe are also had by animals, while akrasia
(and enkrateia) are distinctively human phenomena. To character-
ize akrasia as about non-rational motivation seems to leave out half
the problem: it is, of course, an issue of rational vs. non-rational
motivation. I mention this because I will have some questions about
how Moss draws the distinction between what is rational and what
is not.
Moss's overall approach to akrasia is clear enough. In several pas-
sages of the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics Aristotle describes
akrasia as some sort of motivational conflict, which she refers to as
the 'struggle account' and which she reasonably dubs the Platonic
Apparent Goods 369
model (thinking of conflict between parts of the soul in Republic 4., 8,
and 9). In NE 7 . 3 , however, Aristotle gives a 'Socratic' account ac-
cording to which akrasia is somehow due to ignorance. For help in
reconciling the 'struggle account' and the 'ignorance account' Moss
turns to DA 3. 9—10. She argues that there Aristotle presents the
possibility of akrasia as arising from a conflict between reason and
phantasia—a 'literal' quasi-perceptual appearance of a thing as good
and pleasant. She then draws a parallel between ordinary perceptual
illusion (e.g. the sun's appearing 'a foot in length') and evaluative il-
lusion. In the relevant evaluative illusion something that is pleasant
only in a qualified way 'triggers aphantasma of something good and
pleasant without qualification—and thus induces desire' (108).
Since evaluative appearance (and, of course, illusory evaluative
appearance) are in themselves motivating, we can understand why
the agent is drawn towards the object of the illusory appearance;
in Moss's example, the person is mistakenly drawn towards a third
piece of chocolate cake (philosophers' examples are always so mo-
dest!) because of her illusory evaluative appearance that it is a good
without qualification. But what is more, evaluative appearances are
also cognitive, despite being non-rational. Thus, Moss argues, with
this account from DA 3. 9-1 o we can see why Aristotle would also be
inclined to think of akrasia as a matter of ignorance: because a sort
of cognitive error occurs in the mistaken evaluative appearance. Re-
lying on evaluative phantasia, then, we have a way of understanding
Aristotle's account of incontinence that can take in its stride both
his remarks that suggest it is a matter of motivational conflict and
those that suggest it is a matter of cognitive error.
Unfortunately, as Moss herself notes, NE 7. 3 makes no men-
tion of false appearances and hardly any mention of phantasia at all
(121). The longish discussion of 7. 3 (121—32)—admittedly one of
the most difficult chapters in the entire corpus—is dense and does
not, it seems to me, add much to existing literature that is new or
clarifying. While Moss's use of evaluative appearance does give a
neat explanation of Aristotle's two accounts, with some caveats to
be mentioned just below, there is simply little or no sign that it is
at work in 7. 3. So, if it is in the 'background', it is very much so.
Moreover, there seems to me some difficulty in relying too
strongly on the parallel between perceptual illusion and evaluative
illusion, particularly in Moss's discussion of the difference between
virtuous and non-virtuous agents. The right thing to say about
perceptual illusions, as Aristotle seems to recognize, is that even
though the perceptual appearance is ineliminable, a rational per-
ceiver will not be inclined to make false judgements stemming from
appearances about the size of the sun, the movement of the land
while sailing by, or the length of the Miiller-Lyer lines. But this
cannot be parallel to the case of evaluative phantasiai (or evaluative
perceptions). Since evaluative phantasiai are in their own right
motivating, someone with proper evaluative phantasiai—Aristotle's
virtuous person—must get rid entirely of the illusory, false ones. To
the extent that she does not, she remains continent or incontinent
(or worse). Despite Moss's insistence on the non-rational nature
of evaluative phantasiai, then, they must be entirely eliminable
according to Aristotle. This suggests that in theory they must
be more subject to our rational control than cases of perceptual
illusion, which, once exposed as illusory, nevertheless continue to
appear to us in the same way.
This thought moves us more towards a McDowell/Wiggins
account of Aristotle's moral psychology and away from the more
Humean picture Moss defends. Moss seeks to distinguish the
McDowell/Wiggins view from her own ( i n ) , but McDowell and
Wiggins would resist any attempt to separate out the intellectual
contribution of phronesis from the cognitive but non-rational moti-
vational impetus of evaluativephantasia. McDowell, at least, would
surely include evaluative phantasiai, properly shaped, in phronesis,
as part of what phronesis is. And the point made above that illusory
evaluative phantasiai, unlike illusory perceptual phantasiai, must
be eliminated entirely to cohere with Aristotle's account of the
virtuous person supports the McDowell/Wiggins account rather
than Moss's.
An additional remark might be made here. If false evaluative
phantasiai are to be eliminated in the virtuous person (say via a
proper habituation and so a proper moulding of this cognitive
capacity), what does it mean to say that the remaining evaluative
phantasiai are non-rational?7 They have been developed under the
7
A very similar issue arises in the final chapters of the book, where Moss argues
that habituation is an entirely non-rational process. Of course, she acknowledges
that for the habituation to yield virtue, it must be proper habituation, and so 'su-
pervised' (202). But what is it supervised by if not reason (one's own or another's)?
And if the virtuous capacity for evaluative phantasia is shaped by proper upbringing
so that illusory evaluative phantasiai are eliminated, surely there is a clear sense in
which such a habituation is a rational process. See below.
Apparent Goods 371
guidance of reason and they have been endorsed as correct and true
by reason. Reason, after all, is by definition the capacity that aims
at truth, at getting things right. Non-rational evaluative phantasia
is driven by phantasiai of what is pleasurable, which is 'the only
way this part of the soul can cognize the good, being unable to
discriminate the two [pleasure and the good]' (lOQ). 8 It is difficult
to see how this concession coheres with how Moss (rightly) wants
the ethics to work out. How can it be that the non-rational part
accesses the good only through pleasure, unable to distinguish one
from the other, and yet is not aiming at pleasure but aiming at the
good? Of course, non-rational phantasia remains non-rational in
the sense that the determination of its correctness does not come
from 'within' it. But this does not conflict with the claim that,
ideally, what is in charge here is reason, thereby complicating any
notion that practical rationality is grounded in or gets its content
from non-rational evaluative phantasia. Reason may get its data or
information from phantasiai or perceptions, but the selection of
which bits are to constitute its final—now I want to say, rational—
content is one that reason and only reason can make. I shall discuss
these issues further as we turn to the final three chapters of the book
and the account of the rational motivation of the virtuous person.
5. Part III: The Apparent Good and Rational Motivation
The book's final part, the majority of which reproduces a long ar-
ticle published in Phronesis in 2011, aims to establish two conclu-
sions. The larger one, which is the upshot of the volume as a whole,
is to establish Aristotle's 'Practical Empiricism' as promised at the
end of Part I. The second, more local conclusion, shared with the
article, is to defend an explicitly Humean reading of the passages
where Aristotle says that while virtue (understood, of character)
makes the goal right, phronesis concerns merely the 'things towards
the goal'. The Practical Empiricism Moss attributes to Aristotle in-
volves the idea that practical thought, its genesis, operation, and
content, is 'based on' or 'determined by' non-rational cognitions
(perceptions and phantasiai) that have their grounding in pleasure
8
As I mentioned in my discussion of pt. i, I had trouble fitting this remark to-
gether with the thesis that perception and phantasia grasp the pleasant because it is
good. I argued above that the support for that earlier claim was inadequate; here, at
109, Moss's claim seems significantly weaker and there is no follow-up on whether
it is to be understood in accordance with IR or ER.
and pain. So, more narrowly, when Aristotle says that virtue sets
the goal, he is committed to the idea that non-rational cognition is
what sets the goal. Of course, given Moss's distinction between the
cognitive and the rational, being non-rational does not imply being
non-cognitive.
I will focus primarily on the details of Moss's defence of this read-
ing. Then I will make a couple of brief remarks about Practical Em-
piricism.
The heart of Moss's argument focuses on Aristotle's claims that
Virtue makes the goal right, phronesis the things towards the goal'
(NE 6. 12, 1144*7-9; cf. 6. 13, 1145*4-6; 7. 8, 1151*15-19; 10. 8,
H78 a i6-i9; EE 2. n, I227 b 22~5), calling them collectively the
'Goal passages' (157). The 'face-value reading' of these passages
is that phronesis—excellence in practical reasoning—shows us the
right way to achieve our ends, but 'never tells us what ends to pur-
sue', while having the right ends is a matter of virtue (of charac-
ter), which is 'not an intellectual state at all' but a state of the non-
rational part of the soul (157).
The resistance to this straightforward reading is not so much
textual as philosophical. If Aristotle actually means what he seems
to say, then it can sound as though he is a crude Humean who rejects
the view that reason or intellect supplies, or contributes to supply-
ing, our ends; rather, our goals are determined wholly by desire. To
avoid this Humean subjectivism, many scholars are 'Intellectualists'
of some sort, defending the idea that, in one of two ways, reason
enters into the selection of ends and is not relegated to mere instru-
mental reasoning. The Intellectualist argues either (a) by agreeing
that virtue sets our ends but claiming that it is, at least in part, an in-
tellectual state, or (b) by agreeing that virtue is entirely non-rational
(which I take it Moss equates with being non-intellectual), but
denying that it actually sets our ends. Thus our ends are, after all,
rationally chosen, not simply given to us by our desires (163-4).
Moss tries to walk a very narrow line here. As we shall see,
she agrees that Aristotle is not a 'crude' Humean of the type just
sketched, but still a Humean of some philosophically more pal-
atable sort. One defence of this stems from the book's already
familiar distinction between the cognitive and the rational:
If intellect does not supply our goals, the thought [of the Intellectualists]
goes, then only desire and passion are left to do the job. But this interpre-
Apparent Goods 373
tation turns on an equation of the non-rational with the non-cognitive: th
rational part is made the sole source of all cognition, including all judg-
ments of value, while the non-rational part is reduced to a purely cona-
tive force, its only role being to provide motivational force in support of or
against such judgments. (158)
Moss accuses the Intellectualists of saddling Aristotle with a 'stark
dichotomy' between the rational and the 'purely conative'. There
are two pressing questions here. The first is whether Moss is correct
to say that (all) Intellectualists saddle Aristotle with this dichotomy.
The second concerns whether Moss's distinction between the cog-
nitive and the rational helps with the problem at hand. Let us start
with the second. Non-rational cognition, in the form of perception
or phantasia, is an ability to discriminate the pleasant and painful
(and, according to Moss, the good and the bad). Thus, the good and
bad 'literally' appear to us via these faculties, and those appearances
are also in themselves motivating. Moss's point all along has been
that these non-rational states are not mere urges or feelings, but
they discriminate the good—at least the apparent good.9 At issue
here is the old, familiar meaning of 'apparent good' as something
that merely appears to be, but is not actually, good, for this is the
puzzle that exercises the Intellectualist: if you cannot rationally ad-
judicate among ends that appear good, you cannot have good rea-
sons for thinking that one end rather than another is the right (or
better) one. If this is so, then the mere fact that one's faculties are
discerning the pleasant (good) because it 'literally' appears to one
does not help to give the selection of that end the rational support
it needs to be justifiably judged as the real, and not merely the ap-
parent, good.
Secondly, do all Intellectualists saddle Aristotle with a sharp di-
chotomy between the rational and the purely conative? Moss gives
an impressive list of those who refuse to accept the 'face-value' read-
ing of the Goal passages, although their views differ in detail from
one another: Cooper, Hardie, Broadie, Greenwood, Joachim, Ir-
win, and McDowell. McDowell's inclusion on this list is question-
able, however. While the others are quoted as remarking that any
straightforward reading of the Goal passages is 'misleading', 'must
be modified', 'must be treated as a lapse', 'is wrong', and so on, all
that McDowell says is that they 'risk obscuring' not just Aristotle's
9
This shows too why Moss keeps insisting in pt. I on the importance of establish-
ing that perception and phantasia is of the good.
genuine view' (as Moss summarizes, 157), but the nature of Aris-
totelian phronesis.10 Let me quote McDowell more fully:
This double aspect of practical wisdom, as correctness of motivational ori-
entation and as cognitive capacity, is something Aristotle risks obscuring
[in the Goal passages. These passages] might seem to represent having the
right goal, which is, presumably, having one's desiderative element (one's
orektikon) as it should be, as one thing, and practical wisdom as quite an-
other; as if practical wisdom, the intellectual excellence operative in vir-
tuous behaviour, serves merely as handmaiden to a separate motivational
propensity, which exerts its influence from outside the intellect.11
This passage explicitly refuses to attribute to Aristotle any 'stark di-

chotomy' between the rational and the purely conative. Before I go
on to quote McDowell's solution to the threat of a crude Humean
reading, let me say that I am not highlighting this out of a desire to
quibble about the secondary literature. Rather, I think that Moss's
lumping of McDowell together with other Intellectualists contri-
butes to the omission of a key exegetical option.
McDowell adds:
But we can avoid the quasi-Humean reading while taking [the Goal pas-
sages] fully at [their] word. The point of the contrast is this: what deter-
mines the content of a virtuous person's correct conception of the end is not
an exercise of the practical intellect, but rather the moulding of his motiva-
tional propensities in upbringing, which is described in book 2 of the NE
as instilling virtue of character. This need not be a quasi-Humean thought,
because there is no reason why a state whose content is so determined can-
not be an intellectual excellence. The claim is that it is not practical wisdom
that makes it the case that the goal is the right one. This leaves intact the
thesis that having the right goal, being, as it is, inseparable from the ability
to know what is to be done occasion by occasion, is what practical wis-
dom is. ... Having the right motivational orientation can be something
other than a product of argument (or intellectual intuition), without any
implication that it is extra-intellectual, something that directs the practical
application of the intellect from outside. (31-2, emphases original)
McDowell's aim here is clearly to accept the 'Goal passages' in a
way that his opponents do not. I put this view on the table because
I will return to see what part of it Moss disputes and to examine
how distinct the position she finally defends actually is.
10
J. McDowell, 'Some Issues in Aristotle's Moral Psychology' ['Issues'], in id.,
Mind, Value, and Reality (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1998), 23-49.
11
Ibid. 30-1.
Apparent Goods 375
I do not have the space to discuss in detail the specific (and well-
known) passages at issue; at any rate, the texts themselves do not—
even on Moss's own view—really settle the issue. She certainly of-
fers for the most part plausible, but by no means definitive, read-
ings. I shall focus instead on the coherence and plausibility of the
view that emerges.
Moss writes: 'Indeed, the interpretation on which virtue is wholly
a state of the non-rational soul is so straightforward that we should
only abandon it if there is clear textual evidence against it' (165).
She then adds the following footnote: 'This is of course compatible
with being rational in an extended sense: in a virtuous person, the
non-rational part not only obeys reason but is in harmony with it
and follows it in everything' (165 n. 28, my emphases). Given Moss's
insistence that it is virtue, and virtue alone, that sets the end, how
is virtue supposed to follow reason? If virtue by itself is setting the
end, surely reason (phronesis) follows itl On the other hand, virtue
of character in the virtuous person will not simply obey, follow,
and be in harmony with reason, it will have been formed by reason.
All of virtue's content will have been either given to virtue by rea-
son or, if it was already 'there' naturally, say, it will be endorsed
by reason—'reason-approved' as it were. If this is the case, I am
not sure how 'extended' the extended sense is after all. The virtu-
ous person's desires remain non-rational in so far as the desires are
not themselves doing the rational approving, but nevertheless their
very presence in the virtuous agent is due to their being endorsed
by reason; otherwise, they would have been eliminated. 12
But the main problem for Moss arises when she seeks to explain
just what the role of phronesis is. She wants phronesis to be 'much
more than Humean instrumental reasoning' (195), and she holds
that working out 'the things towards the ends' is 'far broader than
what we think of as instrumental means' (191). But she also denies
that phronesis sets ends, that phronesis is a matter of deliberating
about ends, and that phronesis supplies content (179, and passim).
How does all this come together?
The positive view is that children and animals do not deliberate
(commenting on EE i2z6b2O-3O, among other passages):
. . . because a crucial part of what it is to do something through deliberation
is to recognize what one is doing as being for the sake of an end and to use
12
Recall the earlier discussion of the difference between perceptual and evaluative
illusions in the account of akrasia.
that end to guide one's deliberations. . . . Thus 'supposition of the end' in
this EE passage [i226b2O-3o] means not the thought that goes into identi-
fying the end, but rather the grasping of the end qua end, i.e. the using o
the end to guide deliberation. [. . .phronesis does not supply the content of
the goal]. Instead [the point] is that the phronimos is one whose excellent
deliberation is constantly guided by an excellent goal—a goal supplied, as
we are frequently told elsewhere, by virtue. (181-2, emphasis original)
Phronesis is going to be the knowledge that one should be acting to-

wards that end and using the end to guide deliberation, while virtue
is what makes 'x appear to you . . . making one aware of the content
of the end—that one should act finely, or that one should save the
drowning baby, or whatever it may be' (182-3, emphasis original).
But we need to understand what sort of content is provided by vir-
tue if we are going to understand what is involved in being 'guided
by that end'. What it means to be 'guided in deliberation' by the end
of 'acting finely' seems to be very different from what it means to be
guided by the end of 'saving a drowning baby'. Surely the former
requires deliberation about what acting finely is here and now; the
latter, presumably, tells you what acting finely is here and now: sav-
ing a drowning baby. If virtue supplies only 'acting finely' as an
end, deliberation about ends clearly remains to be done. In sum,
'using an end to guide deliberation' is going to be very different de-
pending on what the end is and how it is specified. This problem
grows as the argument proceeds.
Moss argues that NE 10. Q'S claims about the usefulness of lo-
goi for virtue do not undermine her thesis or support the view that
phronesis supplies our ends (188). Rather it confirms that 'intellect
(one's own or another's) supplements character by giving specific
guidance about what to do'. This merely repeats the problem: what
sort of 'specific guidance' does phronesis give? The specific guidance
needed is going to depend on and vary widely with the end supplied
by virtue. Does phronesis tell me that here and now the fine thing
to do is to save the drowning baby? Or, as suggested above, when
virtue itself gives me the end of saving the drowning baby, does
the 'specific guidance' of phronesis simply consist in how to save the
drowning baby (e.g. fetch a life jacket, jump in the water, etc.)?
The question of what sort of ends virtue sets dogs the rest of the
account, particularly in the final pages of chapter 7. In order to sup-
ply additional detail as to what exactly phronesis does, Moss turns
to the Doctrine of the Mean in NE 2. 6: virtue tells us to aim at the
Apparent Goods 377
mean and phronesis tells us what the mean is. Moss says, 'Thus we
can unify Aristotle's various descriptions of virtuous action as fol-
lows. In a particular practical situation the virtuous deliberator be-
gins with a goal at which he ... is aiming, i.e. wishes (has a boulesis)
to achieve' (194). But the goal can be described Variously' as:
(i) the mean (EE II. 11 1227^6-8)
(ii) the fine (e.g. E7VIII. 7 Iii5bi3-i4, IV. i 1120*23-24, and EE III. i
1230^7-29)
(iii) the major premise of a particular practical syllogism: 'Avoid all un-
healthy things' (or whatever Aristotle intends at VI/VII. 3 1147*32) or 'I
must make something good' (MA 7oi a i7)—or to use the general formula
of starting-points of practical syllogisms,
(iv) 'the end and the best' (V/VI. 12 1144*31-2). (194-5)
Phronesis then steps in to determine the mean, identify the fine, sup-
ply minor premisses, or say ' "this will lead to the end or best", i.e.
identify the "things toward the end"' (195). The job of phronesis is
to 'make determinate the indeterminate goal with which the agent
began'. But these are very different things, depending on the goals
just listed. First, it is unclear where the earlier example of 'sav-
ing the drowning baby' belongs. Perhaps it was meant as a uni-
versal premiss, All drowning babies should be saved', and not as
an instruction about the here and now (as I took it above), in which
case it would fall under (iii). The problems with thinking of major
premisses as universal ethical rules, where phronesis is relegated to
minor premisses, such as 'this is unhealthy' (195) or 'this is a drown-
ing baby', are well known and I will not rehearse them here. But the
other descriptions are no more helpful. Surely identifying what is
fine here and now is identifying what my end should be. To say
that 'this will lead to the end and best' is to retain a form of words
that makes it sound as though what I am engaged in is akin to in-
strumental reasoning, but what I am really engaged in—as many
commentators have pointed out in reading 'the things towards the
goal'—is deliberation about ends. Moss earlier (177) dismisses the
idea that all virtue sets is the goal of happiness 'generally conceived'
(emphasis original): 'Where virtuous people differ from others is
in having the right specification of the end: in identifying the end
as excellent rational activity rather than as e.g. pleasure or wealth'
(177). But on page 195, where she is specifying the end supplied by
virtue, it is simply 'the mean' or 'the best' or 'the fine'. The mean,
of course, does not refer to the arithmetical mean: sometimes it is
right to get extremely angry. So, what end does virtue itself set with
regard to anger? What is worse, in actual deliberation one typically
does not know beforehand that the issue is simply how angry to feel,
but also whether to feel angry as opposed to, for example, compas-
sionate or fearful.
Moss takes it to be an advantage of her account at this point
that we see that phronesis cannot be mere instrumental reasoning
(195 fT.). With a couple of pages left in the chapter, the reader can
be forgiven for being a bit exasperated finally to hear what she was
thinking about all along: 'The interpretation of deliberation I am
presenting may look very like one familiar from the literature: the
so-called "constituent means" view of deliberation famously advo-
cated by (among others) Wiggins, McDowell, and Irwin. . . . The
view is indeed similar to the one I have advanced' (196). So is the
position distinct, and if so, how? Moss insists that it is:
But if we follow the constituents-deliberation view to its proponents' con-
clusion, we wind up giving up the game on Virtue makes the goal right'
entirely. For Wiggins and Irwin 13 use their notion of deliberation to argue
that there is after all deliberation of ends—and thus that giving content to
the goal is an intellectual task. [A quotation from Irwin follows, saying that
phronesis in so far as it is concerned with constituent means is concerned with
ends.] But this is simply to obliterate the distinction Aristotle clearly thinks
so important: the distinction between being right about the end and being
right about the 'things toward it'. It may be fair to say that Aristotle does
not give us much guidance in drawing the line between the two, but we
should nonetheless avoid an interpretation which precludes it being drawn.
(19?)
Moss reasonably refuses to relegate phronesis and the deliberation
of the phronimos to mere instrumental reasoning. She agrees that
phronesis must determine things such as 'what the fine is', 'what the
generous is', and 'what the best is'. But then she offers no reason
for denying that this sort of deliberation is a deliberation about what
the end is. At this point she virtually concedes that Aristotelian deli-
beration is about ends, only we should not say so. She never explains
how her view is dissimilar to the constituent-means view except in
so far as she refuses to say that practical reasoning is about ends.
In fact Moss's conclusion seems to verge on being contradictory.
First she writes, 'I have attempted in this section to give an account
of phronesis which allows it the ethical significance which Aristotle
13
I think it is striking that McDowell has dropped out here.
Apparent Goods 379
clearly grants it despite lacking the end-identifying role which he
(almost clearly) denies it' (198). But on page 195 she claims that
thephronimos is involved in 'identifying what is fine in the circum-
stances'. It is true that a good person does not deliberate about
whether to pursue the fine, but that is something with which many
Intellectualists agree. The position seems to boil down to an insis-
tence not to call deliberation about ends what it is: 'my main point is
simply that what Aristotle explicitly and unequivocally does attri-
bute to phronesis—the power to determine the mean at which virtue
aims, i.e. the power to "make right the things towards the end"—is
sufficient to explain why phronesis is so important to happiness and
to character. There is neither good textual evidence nor philosophi-
cal argument for thinking that it also identifies ends' (198).
So let us return, finally, to McDowell's view. I quote the relevant
bit again:
The claim is that it is not practical wisdom that makes it the case that the
goal is the right one. This leaves intact the thesis that having the right goal,
being, as it is, inseparable from the ability to know what is to be done occa-
sion by occasion, is what practical wisdom is. ... Having the right motiva-
tional orientation can be something other than a product of argument (or
intellectual intuition), without any implication that it is extra-intellectual,
something that directs the practical application of the intellect from out-
side. (32)
It would seem that Moss ought to agree that 'having the right goal'
is 'inseparable from the ability to know what is to be done occasion
by occasion'. McDowell agrees that having the right motivational
orientation (i.e. the result of proper upbringing and habituation)
is not a product of argument, but still argues that virtue does not
direct the operation of phronesis 'from outside', since there is no
way to specify what 'the best' or 'the fine' is other than by engaging
phronesis. While Moss says her view is distinct from this, I do not
see how.
Finally, a brief remark about Aristotle's Practical Empiricism. On
the final page Moss sums up one of the 'most radical consequences'
of the book:
Aristotelian practical thought is far less sovereign and self-standing than its
Kantian or Platonic counterparts. Although it is superior to non-rational
cognition, and although non-rational cognition exists in us partly for its
sake, reason does not rule in us as an independent force inserted as it were
from above (on the model for example of Plato's Timaeus). Instead, it is de-
pendent on non-rational cognition, both in genesis and in operation. (235)
This passage encapsulates an ambiguity, or perhaps an omission,
that I found troubling. There is no question that Aristotelian prac-
tical thought is not given to us by nature or by some divinity 'from
above'. There is also no question that our actual practical wisdom,
like our actual theoretical wisdom, could not come about without
perception and phantasia. The practical and theoretical thought of
each individual is indeed dependent on non-rational cognition for
its genesis. But are they dependent also 'in operation'? Well, we
could not engage in practical thought (and at least many types of
theoretical thought) without perception and phantasia, so they are
dependent in that sense. But what is missing is the normative ele-
ment. It is not non-rational cognition that is able to determine what
we ought to think theoretically (the true) or what we ought to decide
on practically (the good); reason, theoretical and practical, is what in
the end must distinguish the apparent good—the good that has ap-
peared to us via our non-rational, cognitive faculties—from the real
good, with which it may or may not coincide. And in this sense, rea-
son is self-standing and does stand in judgement of the deliverances
of our non-rational cognition, as we might say, 'from above'. My
point does not undermine the parallel Moss seeks to draw between
theoretical and practical empiricism; rather, it seeks to supply what
I think is an essential feature of both.
6. Conclusion
Aristotle and the Apparent Good is an important work in part be-

cause it includes independent accounts of perception, phantasia, the
emotions, akrasia, virtue, and phronesis, each of which is a vexed
topic that has received an enormous amount of scholarly attention
in recent decades. I have engaged in the usual practice of focusing
on the aspects of Moss's book about which I am most critical. But
there is much to recommend the book, beginning with the fact that
she engages with many of the most important, fundamental issues
in Aristotle's philosophy of action, moral psychology, and ethics.
Her command of the relevant passages and secondary literature is
impressive, and she weaves together her overall position in a subtle
and frequently persuasive way. Moss argues convincingly that per-
Apparent Goods 381
ception and phantasia are cognitive and evaluative capacities and
that they are central to the non-rational motivation of animals and
humans. She also provides a thorough psychological account (based
in part in physiology) of how people and animals are moved by their
non-rational perceptions and quasi-perceptions to act as they do.
While I have raised some doubts about how these conclusions fit
together, there is no doubt that Moss has established a close con-
nection between Aristotle's psychology—particularly his accounts
of perception and phantasia—and his ethics. Every student of Aris-
totle's psychology or ethics will benefit from engagement with this
book.
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

INDEX LOCORUM
Abu cAh Ibn Sina: see Avicenna J

39~43: 339 n - 88
Abu 1-Walid Ibn Rushd: see Aver- 144: 344 n. 99
roes Quaestiones, ed. Bruns
2. 3: 345 n. 100
Abu Nasr al-Farabi: see al-Farabi
Ammonius
Aetius In Aristotelis De interpretatione com-
Placita
mentarius, ed. Busse
2. i. i: 317 17. 28: 263 n. 32
2. 3- 4: 344
4. i i . 1-4: 254 n. 5 Aquinas
4. i i . 4-5: 304
In Aristotelis De caelo commentarium
prooemium: 317 n. 19
Alexander of Aphrodisiass
In Aristotelis Physica, ed. Maggiolo
In Aristotelis Analyticorum priorum
lib. 2, 1. n, n. 2: 96 n. 44
librum primum commentarium, ed.
Wallies
177. 25-178. i: 281 Aristotle
Categories
402. 15-18: 279 n. 69
In Aristotelis Metaphysica commenta- ia2O~9: 136 n. 71
ria, ed. Hayduck i b io-i5: 117-18 n. 25, 124 n. 45
13. 1-15. 19: 337 n. 84 2 a i i-b6c: 1 10 n. 3
181. 19—22: 74 n. 4 2 a i4~i9: i n n. 5
187. 16 ff.: 337 n. 84 2 a 35~ b i: 117-18 n. 25, 124 n. 45
196. 31-4: 319 n. 25 2 b i7~22: 117-18 n. 25, 124 n. 45
324. 7-10: i n n. 6, 119 n. 30 2b29-37: i n n. 5
324. 13-16: i n n. 6, 119 n. 30 7bi-3: 119 n. 30
In Aristotelis Meteor ologicorum libros i ia34~6: 1 19 n. 30
commentaria, ed. Hayduck I4b28: 97 n. 49
i. 21-2. i: 316 i4 b 3i-2: 97 n. 49
120. 13-17: 3H I5 a 9-io: 97 n. 49
In Aristotelis Topicorum libros octo De anima
commentaria, ed. Wallies 403a3-io: 222
301. 19-25: 259 n. 23, 287 n. 82 4O3a7: 222, 223 n. 28, 229 n. 46
On the Cosmos [Mabadi3], ed.6 4O3a8-io: 222
Genequand 4O3a8: 222
J
: 344 4O3 a i6: 222
2: 313 n. 7, 337 403ai9-25: 244
3: 344 4O3 a i9~22: 184
17-19: 3i3 n. 7 4O3a26~7: 222, 222 n. 27
57: 339 n. 88 4O3a3O-bi: 222 n. 27
61 : 340 n. 92 4o8 b n-i5: 34, 69-70
81: 339-40 41^7-24: 337
128 ff.: 339 n. 88 4i2 a i5~i6: 100
129: 341 4i2 b i-4: 88 n. 27
130: 342 4i2 b io-4i3 a i: 89
132: 342 4i2 b i3-i4: 91 n. 33
384 Index Locorum
4i2 b i9' 90 433 a io-n: 229 n. 46
b
4i2 2O-i: 91 n. 33 433 a i4: 223-4 n. 33
4i2 b 28-4i3 a i: 90 433 a i8-2i: 179
4i3a2~3: 100 433a22-9: 229 n. 46
4i3 b i3~32: 222 n. 26 433a26-9: 237 n. 57
4i4 a 32~4i4 b 6: 193 n. 40 433 b i~4: 222 n. 26
4i4 b 2: 180 n. 24 433b5-!o: 216, 227 n. 43, 243
a b
4 i5 25- 8: 332 n. 68 433b5-6: 229 n. 46
4i5b2-3: 99 n. 52 433b5: 229 n. 46
4i5 b i 1-13: 98 n. 50 433b6: 229 n. 46
4i5 b i2-i3: 97 n. 49 433 b 7~io: 217 n. 10, 229 n. 46
4i5 b 8-i2: 78 433b9-i2: 179
4i5 b i2-28: 78 n. 10 433b9: 243, 363, 364, 365 n. 6
4i5 b i8-2o: 100 n. 61 433 b io-i2: 179
4i5 b 2O-i: 99 n. 52 449b30-45oa5: 189
4i6 b 35: 53 n. 32 De caelo
422a2: 182-3 n - 3° 271*32-3: 335-6 n. 77
427a26-8: 53 n. 32 278 b i2-i3: 341
427b7~8: 216 n. 7 278 b i9~22: 319 n. 25
427 b i 1-14: 216 n. 7 278bi9~2o: 312
427bi6-24: 235 28oa22: 31 1, 312 n. 6
427bi7-2o: 176, 195, 237 28 5 b i2: 325
427 b 2i~4: 173, 176, 192, 195, 206, 286a8-9: 87
216, 240 287 b i5: 325
427b2i-2: 235 288a2-n: 335-6 n. 77
427b23-4: 240 290 a 3i- b i: 335-6 n. 77
428a2~9: 229 n. 45 29^24-6: 335-6 n. 77, 340-1 n. 93
428a8: 174 29i b i3: 335-6 n. 77
428a9: 223 n. 28 293 a i7- b i6: 317
a b
428 i8- 9: 172 296 a 3i: 330 n. 60
a
428 i8-24: 223 n. 32 296^3: 325
428^9-24: 1 88 De generations animalium
428a2i~4: 216 n. 7 7i5 a 4-n: 77
428b2-4: 1 66, 200, 226 7i6a24~5: 88 n. 27
428 b n-i7: 223 n. 28 7i7 a 2i-2: 85 n. 21
b
428 25-6: 175 73^24-33: 85
429a4~8: 1 80, 181, 185, 230 73ia33-4: 89 n. 29
429a5-8: 237, 239 73ib24-732a2: 332 n. 68
429a7: 228 n. 44, 238 742^2-33: 98
429 b io-i4: 136 n. 72 745^7-30: 88 n. 26
a
43 i 8-n: 363 75oa3i-2: 96 n. 45
43i a io-i i: 225 n. 37 788b3-6: 88 n. 26
43^12-14: 223-4 n. 33 788b30-3: 88 n. 26
43i a i6-i7: 189 De generatione et corruptione
b
43i 4-6: 183 3J9bb3-4: 109 n. i
432^-14: 189 32i i6-32: 114 n. 15
432a22-b7: 222 n. 26 32i b i8: 1 14 n. 15
432b5~6: 1 80 n. 24 32i b 2i-2: 1 14 n. 15
432b5: 192 32i b 3i: 1 14 n. 15
b a
432 29-433 3: 243-4 n. 69 322 b n-i8: 318 n. 23
432b30-433ai: 198 325 a i8: 23 n. 76
433 a 9~i2: 181, 185 335b5-?: 79
433a9: 223-4 n. 33 336*14—17: 147 n. 100
Index Locorum 3§S
a
336 2i-2: 97 n. 49 De partibus animalium
336 a 2i: 97 n. 49 64O a ioff.: 96
b
33 6 32: 332 64Ob22-9: 136 n. 72
De insomniis 640b35-64ia2: 89
459 a i6-i7: 223 n. 28 64i a i4: 1 19 n. 30
46ob5-8: 183 64^27: 79
46o b i 1-16: 182, 239 642 a i i: 100 n. 61
46o b n-i3: 185 645bb i?-i9: 95 n. 43
b
4 6o i 3 -i8: 227-8
645 i9~2o: 88
46o b i4-i5: 239 645 b i9: 100 n. 61
46o b i5-i6: 185 648 a i9: i 13-14 n. 13
46o b i6-i7: 183 n. 32 649a 14-23: n o n . 2
46obi8-22: 200 649^4-17: 116-17
46obi8-2o: 228 649 a i4~i6: 109 n. i
46o b i8: 228 649 a i5: 1 10 n. 2, 1 14 n. 14, 121
46ob2O-2: 231 649 a i6: i 14 n. 14
46o b 2i: 231 649 b 2i~7: i 14-15
46i b 2-5: 231 649b22~3: 1 14 n. 14
46ib3-7: 187, 197 649b23~4: 109 n. i
46ib5-7: 197 649b24: 121
46i b 2i-2: 232 649b26~7: 1 14 n. 14
46ib30-462a2: 231 n. 49 65oa2: 1 13-14 n. 13
De interpretation 65o a i6-i8: 1 13-14 n. 13
i6 a 3: 263 n. 32 65i a i2-i4: 1 14 n. 15
655b8-n: 88 n. 26
De longitudine et brevitate vitae
662 a i6-i8: 88
465 a i6: 97 n. 49
665b3i-666a8: 127 n. 51
De memoria
666a2~3: 127 n. 51
45o a i2-i4: 51 n. 27 667bi9-29: 127 n. 51
450^9-32: 55 668ai~4: 1 14 n. 15
453a26-8: 243 668a7~9: 1 14 n. 15
De motu animalium 668 a i7~i9: 1 14 n. 15
7ooa35-bi: 97 n. 49 66 9 a i 3 : 88 n. 27
7oob2: 1 80 n. 24 687 a n: 88 n. 27
7oob2O-i: 354 69Oa3O-b2: 85 n. 21
7oi a i: 238 n. 60 69i b i9-2o: 88 n. 26
70^7-25: 359 694bi3: 88 n. 27
7oi a i7: 377 De sensu
70^32-3: 237 n. 57 437a24~6: 182-3 n - 3°
7oi b 2-i7: 238 437a25-6: 182-3 n - 3°
7oi b i6-i9: 198 n. 45 447ai4-i7: 239 n. 61
7oi b i7-i8: 198 n. 45 De somno
7oi b i9-2o: 365 n. 6 454^6-30: 85 n. 21
7oi b 23~5: 237 n. 57 454a26-9: 90
7oib28~9: 365 n. 6 455b22-5: 88, 95 n. 43
7oi b 32~3: 178 n. 22 Eudemian Ethics
7oib33-702a2: 237-8 i2i8 b 2O-2: 98 n. 50
7oi b 34: 238 n. 60 I2i9 a 8-i i: 94 n. 41
702 a i8-i9: 237 n. 57 I2i9 a 8: 87, 95 n. 43
703b5-8: 198, 243-4 n. 69 I2i9 a i3-i7: 82 n. 19
De mundo I2i9 a 3i: 95 n. 43
397 b 2i: 339 n. 89 I2i9 b 23: 223-4 n - 33
399 a 3i: 339 n. 89 !2i9 b 26-i22O a 4: 223 n. 29
386 Index Locorum
I2i9bb 3°~ 1: 2I 7 iO2O a io-i i: 141 n. 85
i2i9 32-6: 222 n. 26 iO22 a i4-i7: 130-1 n. 56
i22O a 8-i2: 223 n. 30 iO23 a 8-n: 130-1 n. 56
i22O a io-i i: 217 iO23a26~9: 130-1 n. 56
I220 b 5-i4: 223 n. 31 iO26 a 33~ b 2: 130-1 n. 56
i22O b i2-i4: 224 iO26 b i5-2i: 133-4 n. 63
i22O b i2-i3: 180 n. 24 iO28 a i-3i: 1 10 n. 3
i22O b i3-i4: 194, 201 iO28 a i-2: 132 n. 61
I220 b i4: 225 n. 37 iO28ai8-2o: 131 n. 57
!22O b 34-i22i b i7: 223 n. 31 iO28a2O~9: 131 n. 59
I22i b 27~34: 223 n. 30 1028^2-5: 1 10 n. 2
I22i b 3i: 223-4 n - 33 iO28a29~3o: 131 n. 60
I22i b 36~7: 194, 201 iO28a3o: 132
I222 b 4~i4: 223 n. 31 iO28 a 3i-2: 130-1 n. 56
I223 a 26~7: 1 80 n. 24 i029a3-5: 104
I223 a 34: 180 n. 26 !O29 b 22-iO3i a i4: no n. 2
I224 a 37: 180 n. 26 !O29 b 22-iO3O a i7: 114-15 n. 16
I225b24~6: 1 80 n. 24 !O29b22-iO3Oa7: 1 14 n. 14
i225 b 3O-i: 180 n. 26 iO29 b 22~9: 135 n. 66
i226b2O-3o: 375-6 iO3O a i 1-14: i n n. 5
i227b22-5: 372 iO3O b i4— 103 i a i4: i i o n . 2
i227b36-8: 377 iO3Obi4-2o: 136-7 n. 73
i229 b 3i-2: 180 n. 26 iO3O b i6-2o: 136 n. 72
I235 b 25~7: 365 n. 6 iO3O b i6: i 10 n. 2
I235 b 27: 363, 364 i030b20-6: 136-7 n. 73
I249 b i5: 98 n. 51 i03i a 5-6: 136-7 n. 73
Historia animalium iO3i a 6: n o n . 2
503a35: 182-3 n - 3° I03i a i2: 91 n. 34
588ai8-3o: 216 n. 8 i03i b i9-28: 135 n. 66
633bi8-29: 85 n. 21 iO32 b 24: 1 19 n. 30
633bi9-22: 90 iO34b32~5: 130-1 n. 56
Magna Moralia i035b8-25: 331
n87b36-7: 180 n. 24 I036a28~9: 91 n. 34
Metaphysics iO36b3O-2: 85 n. 21
984^7-27: 318 n. 24 iO36 b 3O-i: 89 n. 30
996V 85 104^31-2: 97 n. 47
997bb5~7: 3i9 n. 25 I042 a i7: 91 n. 34
999 i4: 119 n. 30 1043^-28: 135 n. 66
ioo3a33-b6: 130-1 n. 56 I044a32-bi: 78
ioo3b6-io: 131 n. 58 iO45a36-b7: 120 n. 32
ioo3 b i5-i6: 131 n. 58 1046^-6: 130-1 n. 56
ioo3b3O-3: 120 n. 32 iO47 a i8-i9: 105
ioo4ai-4: n o n . 2 I049a27-b3: 135 n. 67
ioo4bi-4: 135 n. 66 io5o a i5-i6: 90
ioo4b9~i4: 289 io6o b 3i-3: 130-1 n. 56
1005^-3: 131 n. 58 io63 a i5: 325
ioi5b28-34: i n n. 5, 124 n. 46 io69 a i8: 328
ioi7 a 7-i9: 124 n. 46 1072^9-23: 147 n. 100
ioi7 a 22~3o: 132 n. 61 io72b2~3: 98 n. 51
ioi7 a 27~3o: 132 n. 61 io72 b io: 131 n. 58
IOI a
7 35 ff- : IO2 n - 64 io72b28~9: 84 n. 20
ioi7 b 2i-2: 91 n. 34 io74b3i-8: 319 n. 25
ioi8 a 35~8: 130-1 n. 56 io75 a i2: 330
Index Locorum 3§7
a a
io76 i: 330 n44 3i-2: 377
1076^: 330 i i45a4-6: 372
Meteorology H46a9-i6: 229 n. 47
352 a i7ff.: 314 H47 a io-i8: 228 n. 44
384^*25-8: 1 13-14 n. 13 H47a3i-b3: 192 n. 39, 202 n. 52, 229
389^9-22: 1 13-14 n. 13 n. 46
b
389 7-i5: 113-14 n. 13 H47a32: 377
39O a io-i5: 85 n. 21 i i47 b i: 229 n. 46
39O a io-i2: 89 n47bb3-5: i?8
390 a i3: 85 i I47 3: 229 n. 46
Nicomachean Ethics i I47b6~9: 228 n. 44
iO94a5~6: 94 n. 41 i I49 a 2i- b 26: 242
I094b24: 25 1149^5-34: 216
!O95 b 3i-iO96 a 2: 95 n. 42 i i49a25~6: 216 n. 5
1096*23-9: 332 n. 66 i I49a29~34: 227 n. 43, 229 n. 46
1097^5-34: 94 n. 41 i i49a3O~4: 180 n. 26
I097 b 24ff.: 85 H49a32-bi: 178 n. 22, 180, 192
iO97b3O-2: 85 n. 21 i i49a33~4: 229 n. 46, 242
I097b33-!098a3: J 93 n - 4° i I49a33: 216 n. 5
1098^: 217 115^15-19: 372
iO98a5~6: 95 n. 42, 101 ii5i b i7-22: 247
!O98b3i-iO99a7: 95 n. 42 H5i b 32-ii52 a 3: 229 n. 47
IIO2 a 26-32: 222 n. 26 i i6i a i5-i7: 101 n. 62
a a
H02 27-ii03 3: 223 n. 29 i i68a5~6: 101 n. 62
no2b25-33: 215 i i72ai-6: 1 19 n. 30
i iO2 b 26: 217 ii72 a i: 119 n. 30
i iO2 b 27: 217 i i75a2i-8: 225 n. 37
H02 b 28: 217, 240 H76a33-b2: 95 n. 42
iiO2 b 3O-2: 217-18 n. n i I78 a i6-i9: 372
i iO2 b 33: 217 [Oeconomica]
i iO3a3~8: 223 n. 30 I343 a i2-i4: 78
H03 b i3-2i: 225-6 n. 39 I349a6: 325
i iO4 b 3~i io5 a i6: 245 n. 71 [Peri kosmou]
iiO4 b i4-i5: 194, 201 39i b 4: 326
no5 a i3-i6: 225-6 n. 39 39i b 9-n: 326 n. 47
no5 b 2i-3: 1 80 n. 24, 224 39i b n-i3: 326 n. 47
i io5 b 23: 194, 201 399 a i2: 326
no6 b i6-23: 223 n. 31 399ai3-i4: 326
i io6b36-i io7a2: 245 n. 71 399 a i7ff.: 326
no7 a i-2: 246 Physics
1 1 1 ia24~b3: 182 i86 a i3-i6: 141 n. 82
1 1 1 i b i-2: 180 n. 24 i86 a i9-22: 337
1 1 1 i b i: 192 i86bi4-i7: 120 n. 32
1 1 1 i b i2-i3: 192 i86 b 3i~5: 120 n. 32
1 1 i3 b i i: 180 n. 25 i9O a 3i: 130-1 n. 56
ni5 b i3-i4: 377 i94a35-6: 98 n. 51
1 1 19a4: 1 80 n. 26 i94ab33-5: 104
H33 a 3i: 305 n. 121 I96 24~6: 346 n. 106
ii33 b 20-2: 305 n. 121 i98a24-7: 73
i I39 a 23: 180 n. 25 I98b8~9: 105 n. 67
i I39b4~5: 1 80 n. 25 200a5~7: 105 n. 67
i i4i b i: 325 2i2 b 7~i i: 154 n. 120
ii44a7-9: 372 2i8a3~8: 156 n. 124
3§8 Index Locorum
a
2i8 8-25: 148 n. 103 22Oa2i~4: 142 n. 90, 143-4 n - 93> J4^
2i9 a io-i3: 141 n. 82 n. 102
2i9 a io-i2: 136 n. 68, 70 22O b 5~i2: 148 n. 102
2i9 a io-i i: 150 n. 109 22O b io-i2: 148 n. 102
2i9 a i2-i9: 136 nn. 69, 70 22i a i3~i6: 142-3 n. 91
2i9 a i4-i5: 137 n. 74 222a24~3o: 145 n. 97
2i9 a i6-i8: 137 n. 74 222a24~7: 1 19 n. 28
2i9 a i7-i8: 137 n. 74 223a2i-9: 156
2i9 a i9~ 21: 109 n. i, 111 n. 6, 112 n. 223^5-9: 134
8, 134, 138, 138 n. 78, 160 n. 129 223a25~8: 109 n. i
2i9 a 2O-i: 159 223a27: 1 16 n. 20, 159
2i9 a 2o: 136, 136 n. 70 223a28-9: 142 n. 87
2i9 a 22- b 2: 149 n. 104 223b8-i2: 148 n. 102
2i9a22~9: 141 n. 86 224a2-i5: 148 n. 102
219^3-9: 137 n. 75 227b3~229a6: 154 n. 119
2i9 a 23: 136 n. 70 227b3~2o: i n n. 5
2i9 a 24~5: 136 n. 70 227b2O-228a2: 154 n. 119
2i9a27-8: 143-4 n. 93 227b24~228a3: 133-4 n - 63, 139 n. 80
2i9 a 27: 143-4 n. 93 246b20-247ai9: 223-4 n - 33
2i9 b i-3: 155 n. 122 247a4: 225
2i9 b i-2: 146 n. 98 247a6-7: 225
2i9 b 5: 157 n. 125 247a7-i8: 225
2i9b5-9: 155 n. 123 247 b i: 225 n. 38
2i9b5-8: 144 n. 94 25i b io-28: 145 n. 97
2i9 b 9-i5: 149 253b23-6: 141 n. 82
2i9 b io-i2: 148 n. 102 26i a 2: 97 n. 49
2i9 b io-n: 109 n. i, 119 n. 30 263a23-b9: 137 n. 75
2i9 b i2-i5: 134, 152 n. 115 Poetics
2i9 b i2-i3: 148 n. 103 i449b27-8: 205
2i9 b i3-i5: 109 n. i I449b27: 204
2i9 b i4-i5: 116 n. 20, 159 I
45 2b 3°~ I 453 a 5 : 2 4 J n - 66
2i9 b i6-25: 133 I452b32-i453a7: 204
2i9 b i8-22: 133, 134, 142, 151-2, 151 i453 b iff.: 204
n. 1 10 i453 b i-3: 204
2i9 b i8-i9: 109 n. i I454b3-?: 204 n. 54
2i9 b i8: 159 Politics
2i9 b i9: 152 n. 1 12 1253^-18: 365
2i9 b 22~3: 152 n. 1 15 I254b2~9: 223 n. 31
2i9b23-5: 142 n. 87, 143-4 n. 93 I254b8: 176, 223 n. 31
2i9b26-8: 134, 149-50 i256 b 2i-2: 335-6 n. 77
2i9 b 26: 109 n. i, 116 n. 20, 159 I27i b 4i-i272 b i i: 325
2i9 b 28: 142 n. 87, 143-4 n - 93 I278 b 37~i279 a 5: 100 n. 59
2i9 b 3O-i: 133 n. 62, 152 n. 116 i325bi7-33: 347
2i9 b 3i-22O a 3: 142-3 n. 91 I325 b 29: 325
2i9 b 3i~3: 152 n. 1 15 1328^8-31: 87
2i9 b 33-220 a io: 152 n. 115 i 3 28 a 3 i:8 5
2i9b33-220a9: 133 i34Oai4~b7: 241 n. 66
2i9b33-220a4: 143-4 n. 93 i34Oai4~28: 244 n. 70
220a4-i4: 153 Posterior Analytics
22Oa6-8: 109 n. i, 151 n. no 7i b i5-i6: 90 n. 32
22Oa8: 154 n. 1 19, 159 72a7: 91 n. 36
22Oai8-26: 149 n. 104 72 a i4~i6: 91 n. 36
22O a i8-2i: 156 n. 124 72 a 2i: 91 n. 36
Index Locorum 3§9
a b
73 2i-3: 90 n. 32 I38o i6-i7: 171-2 n. 13
I
73a34~b5: 136-7 n. 73 38ob37: 171-2 n. 13
73b5-8: 129 n. 54 I38i a i8: 171-2 n. 13
74b5~6: 91 n. 36 1382^0-2: 233-4
74b6: 90 n. 32 I382 a 2i~5: 221 n. 23
74 b i5: 91 n. 36 i382a2i-2: 166, 224
74 b i8: 91 n. 36 I382a22: 207
74 b 26ff.: 91 n. 36 i382b29-34: 171-2 n. 13
75 a i2-i3: 90 n. 32 I382b33: 191
83^-9: 124 n. 46 I383 a i6-i9: 221 n. 23
83aai 3- J 5: 129 n - 54 I383a26: 171-2 n. 13
83 14-20: 124 n. 46 I383 b i2-i5: 221 n. 23
83a30-2: 129 n. 54 I383 b i2-i3: 1 66
83bi7-24: 129 n. 54 I383 b i3: 207
89b3i-5: 125 n. 48 i383b25-8: 191
9Ob24: 91 n. 36 i384a22: 1 66
98b28-9: 96 n. 46 I385 b i2-i6: 186
99a5: 96 n. 46 I385 b i3-i6: 213, 215 n. 4
99b4~5: 96 n. 46 I385 b i3-i4: 166, 207
ioo b i-3: 289 I385 b i6-i8: 171-2 n. 13, 191
Prior Analytics I385b24: 171-2 n. 13
25a37~4o: 130-1 n. 56 I386 a 29~ b i: 221-2 n. 25
Problems 1387*3—5: 218 n. 12
898b30-i: 122 n. 37 1387*8-9: 221 n. 23
Rhetoric 1387^4-5: 171-2 n. 13
I355a3~6: 218 n. 13 I387 b i6-2i: 218 n. 12
i356 a i~4: 218 n. 13 I387b22~5: 221 n. 23
I356a35-b6: 186 i387b23-6: 187
i356b2-3: 171, 233 I387b34: i?i-2 n - J 3
I356 b 28-i357 a i: 224 n. 34 1388^*27-30: 218 n. 12
1359^6-9: 224 n. 34 1388*32—5: 187, 221 n. 23
I368b28-i369b29: 224 n. 34 i388b29: i 88
i369ai-4: 192 Sophistici elenchi
1369^: 224 i73 b 9~i i: 155 n. 121
1369'?: 192 i75 b i5~27: i 10 n. 2
I
I369 b 23: 224 n. 34 ?8 b 36-i79 a io: no n. 2
1370^7-32: 225 i82a4~6: 155 n. 121
1370^8-9: 175 Topics
i377b2O~4: 218 n. 13 iO3a25~6: 80 n. 15
i378a3-5: 229 n. 46 i i8 b i9: i 19 n. 30
I378ai2-i4: 233 i I9 a i8: 1 19 n. 30
I378 a i9~22: 224 I25 a 33~5: i i ? n. 23
I378 a i9~2o: 218 n. 13 I25 a 33: 119 n. 30
i378a2O— i: 194, 201 I25 a 38: 117 n. 23, 119 n. 30
i378a22-6: 224 n. 34 i25 b i-2: 1 17 n. 23
i378a26: 188 I25 b 2: 1 19 n. 30
1378^0-2: 221, 233 I25 b 28 ff.: 194 n. 41
1378^0-1: 232 n. 51 I46b7~9: 1 19 n. 30
I
3?8b9-io: 221-2 n. 25 I5i b 28-3o: 80 n. 15
i378 b io: 174, 1 88 n. 34, 197 i52bb34-5: 92
I38oa8-i2: 233 i75 i5-27: 133-4 n. 63
I38o a io-i2: 221 n. 23, 234 I
?8 b 36-i79 a io: 133-4 n - 63
I38o b i6-i8: 190 i?9a35-b4: 133-4 n. 63
390 Index Locorum
Aspasius 7. 138-40: 336
In Ethica Nicomachea commentaria, ed. 10. 24-12. 5: 272 n. 54
Heylbut
42. 27-47. 2: 194 n. 41 Critolaus, ed. Wehrli
fr. 12: 337 n. 83
Averroes
In Aristotelis De caelo librum primum Damascius
commentaria, ed. Carmody In Platonis Philebum commentarium,
comms. 1-2: 329 n. 55 ed. Westerink
comms. 95-6 [96-7]: 329 n. 54 174: 56
In Aristotelis Metaphysica A commen-
taria, ed. Bouyges David
comm. 2, iii. 1408. 6-10: 328 n. 50 In Aristotelis Categorias commentarium,
comm. 49, iii. 1684. 4-5: 319 n. 25 ed. Busse
1 13. 22-3: 345 n. 101
Avicenna
Kitdb al-hudud, in Tisc rasd3il (Con- Democritus, 68 DK
stantinople, 1881) B 125: 9-10 n. 37
91: 328-9 n. 53
Diogenes Laertius
Buridan, Jean 6. 20-81: 19
Quaestiones super libris quattuor De
7- 3: 259
caelo et mundo, ed. Moody
7- 43- 5-44- i: 303 n. 119
bk. i, q. i: 329 n. 57
7. 53: 300 n. 112
bk. i, q. 12: 329 n. 57
7. 60-1: 286
bk. i, q. 19: 329 n. 57
7. 61: 288
7. 69-70: 292 n. 90
Calcidius
7. 135: 254 n. 3
In Platonis Timaeum commentarium,
7. 138: 254 n. 3
ed. Waszink
220: 298 n. 106 7. 187: 292 n. 89
9. 2-3: 19
293: 336, 336 n. 78
9- 3: 19
Chrysippus 9. 23: 18
Quaestiones logicae
SVF ii. 298a, col. xvm, 1. 16: 259 n. Diogenes of Apollonia, 64 DK
24 A i: 318
A 6: 318
Cicero A 7: 318 n. 23
Academica B 2: 318 n. 23
i. 39: 257-8
De fato Empedocles, 31 DK
21-5: 281 n. 72 A i: 19
38: 281 n. 72 A 86: 53 n. 32
De natura deorum B 109: 53 n. 32
i- 13- 33: 337 n. 83 B 1 12: 19
Cleomedes Eudemus, ed. Wehrli

Caelestia fr. 87: i n n. 6
i. i. 23: 274 n. 62
i . i . 150-3: 269-70 n. 49 Eusebius
i. 11-15: 335 Praeparatio Evangelica
7- 137-8: 336 15. 14. i: 258
Index Locorum 39i
al-Farabi, Abu Nasr 45E: 254 n. 3
Al-siyasat al-madaniyyat al-mulaqqab 45G: 258
bi-mabadi3 al-mawjudat, ed. Najjar 47O: 254 n. 3
31. 6-7: 328 n. 51 49A: 270 n. 50, 271, 271 n. 52, 274,
35: 334 n. 72 274 n. 62
63: 334 n. 72 496: 270 n. 50, 274 n. 62
78: 334 n. 72 49E: 271 n. 52
Falsafat Aristutdlis, ed. Mahdi 49H: 272 n. 54
5, §§ 35-6: 328-9 n. 53 5oF: 260
5iA: 265 n. 39
Ficino, Marsilio 5iB: 265
Opera, ed. Kristeller 5iC 5: 265 n. 38
intro., ch. i: 336 n. 81 5iG: 254 n. 7, 267 n. 43
ii. 1438-9: 347 n. 107 52A: 265 n. 39
Galen, ed. Kiihn 53G: 298 n. 106
De qualitatibus incorporeis 53O: 298 n. 106
xix. 464. 10-14: 271 n. 52 53T: 303-4 n. 120
xix. 483. 8-15: 254 n. 3 556: 254 n. 9
55E: 257 n. 17
The Hellenistic Philosophers, ed. 6oS: 254 n. 6
Long and Sedley
2oE: 281 n. 72 Heraclitus, 22 DK
27: 257 n. 17 B 123: 12
27A: 287 n. 82, 293 n. 94
276: 259 n. 23, 287 n. 82 Hesiod
27C: 289 Theogony
28A: 298 n. 106 27-8: 17
3oA: 287
3oC: 286, 288 Homer
3oE: 287 Iliad
3oF: 295 2. 214: 317
30!: 282-3 n. 74 10. 472: 317
3iA: 303 n. 119 14. 187: 317
3iC: 259 Odyssey
336: 263 n. 32 20. 9-24: 242 n. 67
33C: 303 n. 119
33J: 255 n. 10 Hymn to Demeter
33?: 254 n. 8, 267 n. 43
256-8: i i
34: 292 n. 90
34C: 281 n. 72
34H: 278-9 Ibn al-Nadim
34!: 279 Kitab al-fihrist, ed. Fliigel
38F: 281
250-1: 312 n. 5
39D: 300 n. 1 12
39E: 254 n. 5 Ibn Rushd, Abu 1-Walid: see Aver-
39F: 254 n. 5 roes
44A: 272 n. 54
45: 257 n. 17 Ibn Sma, Abu CA1I: see Avicenna
45A: 257-8
456: 259 n. 21 Julian
45C: 254 n. 4 Orations, ed. Rochefort
45D: 254 n. 4 8 (5). 3, 107. 7-108. i: 323 n. 40
392 Index Locorum
Lysias B 13-18: 3
In Agoratum B 13: 5
49: 96 n. 45 B 14: 5
B 15: 5
Marcus Aurelius B 16: 5
Meditations B 17: 7
9. 1.2: 267-8 n. 44 B 18: 7
Melissus, 30 DK Philo of Alexandria

A i: 20 De aeternitate mundi
A 3: 20 20-4 ff.: 325-6 n. 44
52: 265 n. 39
Michael of Ephesus 70: 337 n. 83
In Aristotelis libros De partibus anima-
lium commentaria, ed. Hayduck Philolaus, 44 DK
33. 17-20: i n n. 6 B 17: 31?
Nemesius Emesenus Philoponus
De natura hominis, ed. Morani De aeternitate mundi, ed. Rabe
78. 7-79. 2: 254 n. 4 6, 174 & 179: 345 n. 101
81. 6-10: 254 n. 4 9- 333-5: 323 n. 38
291. 106: 298 n. 106 9. 342-4: 323 n. 38
In Aristotelis libros De generatione et
Olympiodorus corruptione commentaria, ed. Vitelli
In Aristotelis Meteora commentaria, ed. 63. 14-17: i n n. 6
Stiive In Aristotelis Physica commentaria, ed.
7. 1-9. 16: 312 n. 3 Vitelli
i. 23-4: 3!3-!4 n - !2
Origen 5. 17-25: 338 n. 86
Commentarii in lohannem 298. 3-6: 96 n. 44
2. 13. 93: 287-8 n. 84 301. 22-5: 96 n. 44
720. 26—30: i i i n. 6
Parmenides, 28 DK 720. 27-8: 138 n. 79
A 25: 23 n. 76
B i. 30-2: 1 6 Pindar
B i. 30: 2, 3 n. 17, 24 Pythian Odes
B 2-8. 50: i n. 2 8. 95-6: 12
B 6: 3 n. 17, 20
B 7: 13, 20 Plato
B 8: 28 Euthyphro
B 8. 1-49: 17 3 A 2-4: 96 n. 45
B 8. 53-9: 14 12 E 5-14 A 10: 100 n. 60
B 8. 54: 8 13 c 6-9: 100 n. 60
B 8. 51-61: i n. i 13 E 10— 1 1 : 100 n. 60
B 8. 51-9: 25 Gorgias
B 8. 52: 2, 24 465 c 7—D i: 65 n. 51
B 8. 54: 3 n. 17 5170 7ff.: 65 n. 51
B 8. 60- 1 : 16, 27 Laws
B 8. 61: 24, 25 889 B i-c 6: 65
B 9-19: i n. i 892 A 2-B 8: 65
B 10-1 i: 3 Parmenides
B 10: 5 132 B—c: 299
B n: 5 132 B 4-5: 299
Index Locorum 393
Phaedo 35C-D: 33 ff-
94 B 4-c 2: 70 35 c 3-0 7: 38-9
94B 5: 65 n. 51 35 c 6: 37
94 B 7-c i : 34 35 c 10: 53
Phaedrus 35 c 12: 68
245 E 7-246 A i : 64 35 D 1-4: 63
Philebus 35D 1-3: 37, 45, 63, 63 n. 47, 68
1 1 B 4-c 2: 71 35 D i: 40 n. 13, 68
i i B 7: 71 35 D 3: 65 n. 49
23 c 4-27 c 2: 48 35 D 5-6: 34, 37, 69
23 c 9—D i : 48 35 D 5: 40 n. 13
25 E 7-26 D 10: 48 35 E 7-360 2: 44
26 B 6-7: 48 35 E 9-10: 64
280 5-9: 65 35 E 10: 64
30 D 1-2: 66 366 8-9: 58, 58 n. 40
30 D 8: 65 36 c 3-7: 58
31 A 7-10: 66 38 B 12-13: 56
31 c 2-1 1: 47 380 2-39 B 2: 55, 56
31 c 5-34C 3: 5i 38 c 2-E 8: 57 n. 38
31 c 1 1: 48 39 A 1-3: 56
31 D 4-10: 66-7 39 B 3-c 3: 56
31 E 3-32 B 4: 37 39D 4: 59
3i E 3: 37 40 A 6: 57 n. 38
32 A 1-8: 67 40 A 9-12: 57, 57 n. 38
32 B 9—c 5: 66 40 A 9: 57 n. 38
32 D 1-6: 68 41 B i i-c 8: 34, 44
33 c 5-6: 66 41 c 5-6: 44 n. 17
33 D 4-6: 50 n. 25, 51 46 B 8-c 4: 49
33 D 5-6: 43 47 D 5-50 D 6: 49
34A 10: 51, 52 51 E 7-52 A 3: 48
34 B 6-8: 51 52A 5: 48
34B 7: 5i Republic
348 10-1 1: 51 n. 27 346 D 1-6: 100 n. 59
34 B n: 51 n. 27 346 E 3-7: 100 n. 59
34 c 6-8: 66 439 A 4-7: 70
34 D i: 48 439 A 9-B 6: 70 n. 59
34 D 4: 48 439 B i: 70 n. 59
34D 5-7: 48 439 B 4: 70 n. 59
34 D IO-E i: 37 439 D 8: 70 n. 58
34 E 9-35 A 5: 39 440 £-441 B: 242 n. 67
34 E 9-12: 43-4 443 E 5-6: 95 n. 42
34 E n: 41 445 A 5-B 5: 95 n. 42
34 E 13-35 A 2: 41 477 B i: 260 n. 25
34 E H-35 A 2: 70 478 E 4: 260 n. 25
35 A 3-4: 4i 596 D—E: 240
35 A 6-10: 64 602 c: 200
35 A 6-c 2: 39 Sophist
35 A 6-10: 49, 50 n. 24 241 D: 10
35 A 7: 52 2470 8-E 4: 258
35 B 1-8: 41, 46 Statesman
35 B 6-7: 49 269 c—D: 331
35 B 9: 41, 46, 49 Symposium
35 B i i-c 2: 41, 46 200 A 5—B 3: 42 n. 15
394 Index Locorum
Theaetetus i- 3- 33~4- I: 32° n- 26
152 D 9: 260 n. 25 i. 6. 22-7. 16: 321
i6oE 6—7: 117 n. 23, 122 n. 39 i. 12. 26—14. i: 322 n. 36
174 A: 19 i. 263. 19-264. 13: 321 n. 32
183 £-184 A: 1 8 n. 65 i. 272. 11-274. 3I: 322
1840 1-5: 69 i. 277. 33-278. 2: 322 n. 37
1890 5: 54 i. 413. 27-414. 17: 336 n. 80
189 E 4-190 A 6: 54 ii. 62. 3-4: 320 n. 27
1900 5-D 2: 54 ii. 120. 8-122. 17: 323 n. 39
Timaeus iii. 272. 20-1: 345
27 A: 321
270 5-28 A 6: 256 n. 14 Seneca
28 B: 312 n. 6 Epistles
28 B 8: 260 n. 25 58. 13-15: 287 n. 82, 293 n. 94
29E-30A: 334 n. 74 65. 2: 257 n. 17
32B-C: 324 n. 41 65. n: 260
32 c: 320 n. 27 1 17. 2: 254 n. 6
34 B: 324 n. 41
41 A 3-B 6: 273 n. 56 Sextus Empiricus
Adversus mathematicos
Plutarch i. 17: 289
Adversus Colotem 7. 246: 295
1 1 148: 19 n. 67 8. 10: 266
1 1 14 c i: 21 n. 71, 22—3 n. 75 8. 1 1-12: 263 n. 32
in6B-c: 253, 259 n. 22 8. 70: 303 n. 1 19
1 126 A: 1 8 8. 98: 278-9
De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos 8. 100: 279
1081 F 3-6: 265 n. 38 8. 263: 259 n. 21
1084 A: 298 n. 1 06 8. 275: 303-4 n. 1 20
10840: 254 n. 7, 267 n. 43 9. 21 1: 254 n. 9
io84F-io85A: 254 n. 5 9. 332: 272 n. 54
De Stoicorum repugnantiis 10. 3-4: 270 n. 50, 274 n. 62
1054 B-D: 269-70 n. 49 10. 121: 260
1054 E-F: 336 n. 79 1 1. 8-1 1: 282-3 n. 74
[Placita] Pyrrhoneae hypotyposes
9OO C 4—D 14: 304 2. 81-3: 254 n. 8, 267 n. 43
2. 219: 286
Proclus, 28 DK
A 17: 19 n. 68 Simplicius
A 18: 19 n. 68 In Aristotelis Categorias commentarium,
In Platonis Parmenidem commentarius, ed. Kalbfleisch
ed. Cousin 6. 27-30: 338 n. 86
630: 315 n. 17 105. 7-20: 292 n. 89
641-3: 322 n. 36 105. 9-1 1: 287
In Platonis Timaeum commentaria, ed. 350. 15-16: 265 n. 39
Diehl In Aristotelis De caelo commentaria, ed.
i. i. 3: 322 Heiberg
i. i. 17-22: 321 n. 30 i. 2-3: 311
i. i. 23-4: 321 n. 32 i. 10-12: 316
i. 2. 8-9: 321 2. 18-3. 8: 319
i. 2. 29-3. 13: 322 n. 36 3. 12-14: 316
i. 3. 16-20: 322 n. 36 3. 15-16: 315
i. 3. 21-4: 324 n. 41 3. 16-25: 318
Index Locorum 395
3. 25-30: 319 i. 98: 258
3. 30-4. 2: 312 i. 518: 254 n. 4
4. 16-25: 312 ii. 83: 254 n. 5, 304
4. 25-31: 313 n. 10, 315 n. 18 ii. 87: 300 n. 112
5. 4-6: 316 ii. 130: 259
5- 7: 3i6 ii. 166: 263 n. 32
5. 26-32: 319 ii. 187: 303 n. 1 19
5- 35-7: 3i3 n. 10 ii. 2O2a: 281
1 1. 8: 320 ii. 205: 278-9, 279
201. 26-202. i: 313 n. 10 ii. 223: 303-4 n. 1 20
20 1. 26-8: 320 ii. 224: 282-3 n. 74
365. 3 ff.: 313 n. 10 ii. 278: 2878
366. 25 ff.: 31 1 n. i ii. 298a, col. xvm, 1. 16: 259 n. 24
367- 5: 323 ii. 322: 293 n. 94
367. 15-17: 323 ii. 329: 259 n. 23
396. 3-9: 340-1 n. 93 ii. 330: 289
404. 4-27: 340 ii. 332: 287 n. 82, 287 n. 82
404. 26-7: 341 n. 95 ii. 341: 254 n. 9
404. 27-405. 4: 340 n. 90 ii. 361: 295
467. 19-27: 340-1 n - 93 ii. 363: 259 n. 21
511. 3-512. 20: 317-18 n. 22 ii. 381: 254 n. 3
551 : 2— 21: 3 13 n. 10 ii. 502: 271 n. 52
559. 26-7: 21 n. 71 ii. 503: 270 n. 50, 271, 271 n. 52, 274,
In Aristotelis Physica commentaria, ed. 274 n. 62
Diels ii. 505: 270 n. 50, 274 n. 62
107. 29-109. 28: 322 ii. 507: 270 n. 50
113. 23-114. 22: 337 ii. 509: 265
363. 28-32: 96 n. 44 ii. 510: 265 n. 39
571. 22: 270 n. 50 ii. 518: 265 n. 38
639. 10-645. J 9: 331 n - 63 ii. 524: 272 n. 54
712. 16-27: i n n. 6 ii. 540: 272 n. 54
712. 24-7: 138 n. 79 ii. 550: 269-70 n. 49
721. 29-36: i n n. 6 ii. 551: 269-70 n. 49
722. 27-30: 152 n. 112 ii. 634: 254 n. 3
722. 28: 152 n. 1 12 ii. 665: 254 n. 7, 267 n. 43
723. 14-20: 133-4 n. 63 ii. 790: 254 n. 4
723. 36-724. 8: i n n. 6 ii. 847: 254 n. 5
724. 2-3: i n n. 6 ii. 879: 298 n. 106
724. 4—5: i i i n. 6 ii. 991: 298 n. 106
885. 11-21: 133-4 n. 63 iii. 91: 255 n. 10
iii Apollodorus 6: 254 n. 3
Stobaeus
i. 106: 265 Theophrastus
i. 136. 21 ff.: 287 De sensibus
i. 161. 8-26: 270 n. 50, 271 n. 52, i. 7-11: 53 n. 32
274, 274 n. 62 Metaphysics
i. 161. 8: 271 8a3-7: 33i
2. 97. 15-98. 6: 255 n. 10 9 b i f f . : 323 n. 39
i oa 1 9-20: 334
Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, ed. i2 a i-2: 334
von Arnim Fragments, ed. FHS&G
i. 65: 287 158: 323 n. 40
i. 90: 257-8 159: 323 n. 39
396 Index Locorum
Wittgenstein Xenophanes, 21 DK
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. B 7 : 19
Pears and McGuinness
2.014-2.023: 264 n. 34
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OXFORD STUDIES IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

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Professor Julia Annas, University of Arizona

Professor Susanne Bobzien, Yale University and All Souls College,

Professor Dorothea Frede, University of Hamburg

Professor A. A. Long, University of California, Berkeley

Professor Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago

Professor David Sedley, University of Cambridge

Professor Richard Sorabji, King's College, University of London, and

Professor Gisela Striker, Harvard University

Professor Christopher Taylor, Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Contributions and books for review should be sent to the Editor,

Contributors are asked to observe the 'Notes for Contributors to

Up-to-date contact details, the latest version of Notes for Con-

What are 'True' doxai Worth to Parmenides? Essaying a

Desire, Memory, and the Authority of Soul: Plato, Philebus

Essence and End in Aristotle 73

Ho pote on esti and Coupled Entities: A Form of

Aristotle and the Cognitive Component of Emotions 165

Feeling Fantastic Again: Passions, Appearances, and Beliefs

The Structure of Stoic Metaphysics 253

On Aristotle's World 311

Apparent Goods: A Discussion of Jessica Moss, Aristotle

Index Locorum 383

IN recent years the preserved portions of Parmenides' poem tra-

sented at the 2007 International Symposium of Parmenides spe-

For Mourelatos, such a list would include at least the following:

(Mi) the diurnal disappearance of the stars is due to the sun's

'This complex of astronomical doctrines', Mourelatos observes, 'is

(Gi) the moon's light is a reflection of the sun's.21

As indicated previously, I leave aside completely, for purposes

On the accounts under critical examination here, we must picture,

The last statement, that the cosmology's purpose was 'wholly

The subjects for which the Doxa provides a reflected elaboration

wards obscurity, and although some modern experts—Mourelatos

Quarterly, NS 61 (2011), 28-47), this view is totally unconvincing. At a minimum,

I have alluded earlier to Wittgenstein, and comparison with the

menides of Elea: Rationalist or Dogmatist?', Ancient Philosophy, 30 (2010), 15-38

This paper has offered a perspective on and ventured an explana-

Revival', devoted to the achievements of the post-Parmenidean cos-

P L A T O ' S Philebus contains, among other things, one of Plato's more

© Verity Harte 2014

Prima facie, the conclusion Socrates draws in these passages is sur-

And yet, I shall argue, correctly understood, Socrates' conclusion

human life. It does so by extending the reach of the rational soul

i. Three conclusions at Philebus 35 c—D

[4] s o c. Then do we understand what conclusion has emerged for us from

2. Introducing the Desire Argument

As we have seen, in passage [4] Socrates highlights two claims as

(DAi) What is desired when a person thirsts is the opposite of

This argument raises many questions, and I shall not attempt to

3. What is so special about soul? Two options rejected

One possibility that might come naturally to mind in this context is

Consider, then, again what Socrates says in passage [2]:

(Cz) Every impulse (horme), desire (epithumia), and the origin

The understanding of Socrates' conclusion to the Desire Argument

4. Intentionality and Soul

Return for a moment to the Special Experience Reading. This is a

restorative filling with drink. Perhaps, then, Socrates takes intentio-

(DAi) What is desired when a person thirsts is the opposite of

Granted the intentionality of desire, assumed in (DAz), the criti-

[8] soc. . . . Now by 'thinking' do you mean the same as I do?

In what follows Socrates will destroy the other-judging proposal

[9] soc. Well, then, if to make a statement to oneself is to judge, no one