Richard Sorabji-Aristotle Transformed_ the Ancient Commentators and Their Influence (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)-Cornell University Press (1990)
English translation of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics
Aristotle on Definition
Lessing - Aristotle on Tragedy
falsafah dan logika melayu aristotle MUHAMMAD HAFIZMULLAH BIN MUHD NORFull description
In more or less plain English, notes on Poetics by Aristotle
In more or less plain English, notes on Poetics by Aristotle
Aristotle's Poetics
Aristotle Topos
Aristotle's Poetics complete edition, An Ancient Greek Work and Philosophy
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Aristotle's Poetics - Ingram Bywater's edition, translation, and commentary
SIMPLICIUS On Aristotle Physics 1.3-4 Translated by Pamela Huby and C.C.W. Taylor
Bristol Classical Press Ancient Commentators on Aristotle General editor: Richard Sorabji
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Acknowledgements The present translations have been made possible by generous and imaginative funding from the following sources: the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research Programs, an independent federal agency of the USA; the Leverhulme Trust; the British Academy; the Jowett Copyright Trustees; the Royal Society (UK); Centro Internazionale A Beltrame di Storia dello Spazio e del Tempo (Padua); Mario Mignucci; Liverpool University; the Leventis Foundation; the Arts and Humanities Research Council; Gresham College; the Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Trust; the Henry Brown Trust; Mr and Mrs N. Egon; the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO/GW); the Ashdown Trust; Dr Victoria Solomonides, the Cultural Attache of the Greek Embassy in London. The editor wishes to thank Mossman Roueche and Catherine Osborne for their comments, Era Gavrielides for preparing the volume for press, and Deborah Blake at Duckworth, who has been the publisher responsible for every volume since the first. Typeset by Ray Davies Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group www.bloomsburyacademic.com
Notes Bibliography English-Greek Glossary Greek-English Index Subject Index Index of Passages
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112 113 123 145 147
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Conventions [... ] Square brackets indicate additions to the translation to complete the sense. < > Angle brackets indicate additions to the Greek text.
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Abbreviations DK =H. Diels, rev. W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th edn, Berlin, 1951, 3 vols. FHSG = W.W. Fortenbaugh, P.M. Huby, R.W. Sharples and D. Gutas, ed. and tr., Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought and Influence, Leiden, New York, Koln, 1992, 2 vols (Philosophia Antiqua liv.1-2). Guthrie = W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Cambridge, 1962-81, 6 vols. KRS = G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 1984. LSJ =H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edn, rev. H.J. Jones and R. McKenzie, with a revised supplement, Oxford, 1996. RUSCH = Rutgers ..i(Jniversity Studies in Classical Humanities, Eudemus of Rhodes, ed. W.W. Fortenbaugh and I. Bodnar, 2002. Wehrli= F. Wehrli, Eudemos von Rhodos, Basel, 1955 (Die Schule des Aristoteles viii).
We have removed Diels' brackets and the word hetis. kenoin6neke should be kekoin6neke. read de for te. Diels prints ei, 'if, but notes that it is absent in MS D. In this quotation from Alexander it seems better to omit it. Reading, following Diels, dio kai duskinetotera hoion gen. Eti puknotera phesi instead of the MSS' dio kai duskinetoteron ou men eti puknotera phesi. Reading, following DK, auto gar moi touto theos dokei einai instead of the MSS' apo gar moi touto ethos dokei einai. Reading, following DK, ho de nous, hos aei esti, to karta kai nun estin hina kai to alla panta instead of the MSS' ho de nous hosa esti te karta kai nun estin hina kai ta alla panta. Reading, with DK and other editors, threphtheisa instead of the MSS' thruphtheisa. Reading, with DK and other editors, mathe instead of the MSS' methe. Reading, following Sextus M. 9.10, atalanton hapantei instead of the MSS' atalanton hekaston. Reading, with DK and other editors, pei de ke kexapoloito instead of the MSS' pei de kai kerux apoloito. Reading, with DK and others, leukon horan kai thermon hapantei instead of the MSS' thermon horan kai lampron hapantei. Reading, following M.R. Wright, Empedocles, The Extant Fragments, revised edn, Bristol Classical Press, London and Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1995, p. 194, hoti sphisi gennai en orgei instead of the MSS' hoti sphisi gennan orga. Reading, following DK, ei toinun meden en instead of the MSS' ei tukhoi nun meden en or ei tukhe nun meden en. Following the Aldine edition we insert ou before ta suntheta.
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Introduction Simplicius Simplicius came from Cilicia and spent some time in Alexandria, but eventually went to Athens and was one of the Neoplatonist pagans still flourishing there in 529, when Justinian II decided to do something about it and, perhaps, prevented them from continuing to teach in the Academy. Seven, including Simplicius, went off to Persia, at the invitation of the ruler Chosroes. But it didn't work out, and they left Persia in 532. It is still uncertain where each of them went, but it is clear from his later writings that Simplicius at least still had access to a large library. He remained a pagan, and was hostile to the Alexandrian commentator Philoponus, who was a Christian, and frequently wrote against him. In his commentary on Aristotle's Physics Simplicius preserves a large amount of material from the works of the Presocratics, much of which is not available to us anywhere else, and also from previous writers like Eudemus and Adrastus, which are also largely lost. He even quotes from a lost work of Alexander of Aphrodisias, much of whose other writings has survived. Simplicius is a careful scholar, and took considerable care to transcribe the words as he found them in his sources. He was able to record material from Presocratics like Melissus and Zeno partly from their own works and partly from Plato, Aristotle, and later commentators. He is frequently repetitious, and can be obscure, but is also inquisitive, and enquires, for example, whether the dichotomy argument really belongs to Zeno, or to Parmenides, as Porphyry claimed. At times he dons a Neoplatonist hat and tries to interpret Plato and Parmenides through Neoplatonist concepts, but usually he expounds standard Aristotelian metaphysics, including the ten categories and the four causes, although he also makes play with the alien notion of hypostasis. He uses the system of logic of his time, which includes both Aristotelian and Stoic elements. In places his methods are puzzling: thus he raises questions about Zeno in connexion with what other writers have said, but then says that he has Zeno's own words to hand, and he is erratic in his quotations from Parmenides. All this could be explained on the hypothesis that his studies were intermittent and conducted in various places.
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Introduction Simplicius On Aristotle Physics 1.3 PamelaHuby
As has been pointed out, Simplicius had access to a variety of sources, and frequently acknowledges them. But it is likely that he used Alexander and Porphyry in particular more often than he says. In this volume he first deals with the Eleatics, especially Parmenides and Melissus, who argued that being was one. Aristotle criticises both but says that Melissus is the more tedious. In particular he is guilty of the logical fault of assuming that if p implies q, not p implies not q, stating that if what comes to be has a starting-point, what does not come to be does not have a starting-point. Simplicius says that Parmenides, on the other hand, had the argument: 'What is other than Being is not-Being, what is not then Being is nothing' and not adding 'other than Being is nothing' which follows, but 'Being is one'. He then turns to a detailed study ofMelissus' arguments. Melissus, as reported by Simplicius, used a condensed style: 'But if there is something, either it has come to be or it has always existed. If it has come to be, [it has come} either from what is or from what is not; but it is not possible either for something to come to be from what is not, nor from what is. For in this way it would exist and would not come to be. Therefore Being does not come to be. Therefore it exists forever, and Being will not be destroyed.' There follows the error that Aristotle castigated, and then arguments that Being is infinite, one, unchanging, and, ultimately, full. Simplicius then spends some time on the logical aspects ofMelissus' error, and brings in Eudemus' remark that all that is actually proved by Melissus is that Being is uncreated. Aristotle then distinguishes between a starting-point in time and the starting-point of a thing. A quotation from Theophrastus is supposed to lend support to the view that some things come about instantaneously. In addition the heavenly bodies show that some things have always existed but are finite. Simplicius tries to understand Melissus, and says that his being is incorporeal, but that what is perceived has come to be, referring to Plato's Timaeus for a similar distinction, and quoting from Eudemus in support. After a long development he brings back Eudemus, who refines the notion of infinity by suggesting that time is infinite in the past, but finite at the present, and that there could be more than one infinite thing existing together. Alexander added that for Melissus being was motionless, but that he did away only with spatial motion, but not other kinds of change. Simplicius disagrees with that and then brings in the void, which Melissus discussed and rejected. He gives a long quotation from Melissus about changelessness, which includes not merely lack of physical change but also freedom from pain and grief. In connexion with the argument that motion requires a void, Simplicius points to Aristotle's argument that a thing can move within
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itself without void, like water in a vessel. Since things can be one by being in the same species, Simplicius considers how this might be. He suggests that it might be by relation to their matter, but dismisses it, bringing in Aristotle's four causes. Then he notes that being is infinite for Melissus, but finite for Parmenides. But both say that being is one, and he quotes from Alexander the short statements of both Theophrastus and Eudemus of Parmenides' argument, admitting that he himself may not have full knowledge ofEudemus' work. He then argues that, just as many things may be beautiful, so "many things may be said to be, and still be many. He excuses Parmenides on the grounds that the later refinements of language had not then been worked out. He then quotes from Porphyry, implying that the latter is not being true to Parmenides in his elaborations, and returns to Aristotle. There follows a brief quotation from an early part of Parmenides' poem and then Aristotle's objection that Parmenides is treating 'being' as having only one meaning, when in fact many words have more than one meaning. So being can apply in each of the categories; further even if it applied only to substance, Eudemus showed with the example of beautiful that even if 'beautiful' had only one meaning there could still be many beautiful things, and the same would apply to 'being', using a similar argument to that of Aristotle regarding 'white'. Again, with genus and species, things that are one in genus or species are still many in number. Further, something may be one by continuity, but what is continuous can still be several. Even within 'white' one can distinguish between the colour and the coloured object, both of which are called white. A further distinction is made with 'hypostasis' which is distinguished from both 'substrate' (hupokeimenon) and 'substance' (ousia) (it could be thought of as 'thing'). The Megarians are then cited as an extreme example of philosophising, for thinking that for each word there is a separate entity. Unlike them, Parmenides was able to describe his One by several terms, still regarding it as one. Simplicius tries to explain this kind of unity in Neoplatonist terms, and goes on to refine further by distinguishing between 'white' and 'whiteness', and later between accident and that of which it is an accident. He then quotes, from Porphyry, an extract from the commentator Adrastus, who says that substrates are the primary substances of the Categories, and develops this view at length, going on to analyse sentences and definitions. Simplicius goes on to bring in the just-existent (Aristotle's to hoper on) and argue that being is substance and its substrate, referring to the Categories. Simplicius interprets Aristotle as saying that Parmenides actually brings in not-being, and refers to the great kinds of Plato's Sophist, which set being apart from the rest. The text then turns to Aristotle's argument that being cannot have size, attacking both Parmenides and Melissus, and Simplicius quotes Parmenides statement that being is a sphere. Simplicius thinks that
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Introduction
Aristotle is saying that if substance alone exists it will not be divisible, but says that Alexander thinks that Aristotle is talking about quantity and substance. Aristotle then argues that the just-existent is divided into just-existents, and cannot itself be an accident of anything. Alexander is supposed, by Simplicius, to be saying that Aristotle said that the just-existent has size, but Simplicius shows that Aristotle said the opposite. Later, in a passage that still seems to be based on Alexander, the division is into the parts of the definition, and the conclusion is that the whole universe is composed of indivisibles. This refers to one sentence in Aristotle which is best taken as a query: 'Is the all made up of indivisibles?' but which can also be seen as a statement of fact. Simplicius says that Alexander supposed that the all was made up entirely of substances. Simplicius then lists the arguments set out by Alexander in a formal way: they are arguments independent of Aristotle and lead to the conclusion that in no sense of one can being be one. Simplicius then attacks the view held by the commentator Aspasius that the just-existent is the genus of existing things, and again uses the arguments of Alexander. Some of these are puzzling. including the claim that in some works Aristotle placed the just-existent above genus, but in general Alexander sticks close to Aristotle's text. At the end, however, he refers to works which must be later than those of Aristotle. The quotation from Eudemus, taken from Alexander, which follows is puzzling, but seems to mean that Eudemus denied that Parmenides could have referred to genus as a universal. Aristotle says that as a result of the arguments of the Eleatics, some said that not-being existed, others that there were indivisible lines. Simplicius explains that the latter are replying to the dichotomy argument of Zeno, who wanted ·to help Parmenides by showing that the supposition that there were many things had equally ludicrous implications. Then he quotes Alexander's account of what Plato meant in the Sophist, and follows that with a different account by Porphyry, who, referring to the Timaeus as well, says that Plato distinguished between form and matter, and the latter is something that does not exist. Simplicius replies to Alexander by quoting from the Sophist to show that Plato was bringing in not the absolute not-being, but some not-being. Alexander attributes the dichotomy argument to Zeno, and says that Xenocrates accepted it and so invented indivisible lines. Simplicius has some doubts about whether it was Zeno's, and says that Alexander took the idea that it was from Eudemus. Simplicius concludes that Zeno was arguing on both sides, and puzzlingly quotes from Zeno's own book, after not appearing to know it. He then says that Porphyry attributed the argument to Parmenides, and gives a detailed argument, going on to Xenocrates and his indivisible lines. After more indecision about the matter he again quotes from Zeno's own work, giving several arguments
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from it, but thinking that they are aimed at doing away with the many not supporting the one. Simplicius then introduces the distinction between actual and possible infinity, and quotes an important passage from Porphyry on this subject. Xenocrates may have wanted only to say that actual slicing to infinity was impossible, so that something unsliced would always remain. Simplicius returns to Parmenides, quoting at length from his poem and arguing that he had a being that was uncreated and indestructible, incorporeal, unmoving and the first cause, interpreting it in Neoplatonist terms as at the highest level in which all is united. He also defends Parmenides' language as being poetic, and applies some of his terms to the soul and the intellect. Finally he tries to show that both Plato and Aristotle were sympathetic to Parmenides. Simplicius On Aristotle Physics 1.4 C.C.W. Taylor In chapter 4 Aristotle begins his discussion of previous views of the principles of nature, beginning with those who think that there is a single physical principle. The opening section of the chapter, down to 187a21, is devoted to these physical monists. Aristotle distinguishes two forms of monism, one identifying the physical principle with either fire, air, or water or with some other stuff intermediate between one or other of those three elements on a scale of rarity and density, the other identifying the principle as a mixture of opposites (probably undifferentiated between properties and stuffs); in the former theory non-basic stuffs are formed from the basic by the processes of condensation and rarefaction, in the latter they are separated out from the primal mixture. Density and rarity being opposites, mention of them allows Aristotle to digress in comparing physical monism with Plato's theory that the elements of reality are unity and the opposition of the great and the small, the difference being that for Plato the great and small plays the role of matter which is given form by unity, whereas for the physical monists the opposites are differentiae which give specific form to the primitive matter. Simplicius' commentary on this section follows the order of Aristotle's exposition, his chief contributions being the addition of factual detail on earlier philosophers and criticism of rival commentators. He provides names (omitted by Aristotle) of theorists who maintained the primacy of each of the three elements (149, 7-8), and then engages in a debate with other commentators on the identity of the proponent or proponents of the intermediate theory. Alexander attributes it to Anaximander (149,11-13), Porphyry, following Nicolaus of Damascus, to Diogenes of Apollonia (149,13-18). Simplicius disagrees with both; Anaximander held the mixture theory (150,22-3), while Diogenes identified the principle with air (149, 7-8). In passing Simplicius criticises Porphyry for
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Introduction
describing Anaximander as treating the basic substrate not as a mixture, but 'in an undifferentiated way' as a simple stuff, i.e. presumably treating it as something simple without saying what kind of thing it is. That is incompatible with Aristotle's testimony that Anaximander generated the non-basic things by extraction (149,13-27). Simplicius does not himself (any more than Aristotle) name any proponent of the intermediate theory (nor has subsequent scholarship identified any particular candidate for that honour, see the relevant note in Ross 1936, pp. 482-3). In the digression on Plato, in addition to elucidating Aristotle's remark that Plato treated the great and small opposition as matter (150,4-11), Simplicius offers his own suggestion that Plato may have meant that in itself matter has no size, and is therefore small, but is also the cause of all dimensions, and is therefore large (150, 15-18). He takes the opportunity of adding some further information on Plato's views, including the information from Alexander and others that the great and small, otherwise known as the indefinite dyad, and the one were the principles of the Forms (151,6-11), but urges in his own person that Plato could not have treated the great and small as matter, on the ground that in the 'l'imaeus space, which Simplicius identifies, wrongly, with matter, belongs to the physical world, whereas the great and small are principles of the intelligible Forms (151,12-19). The debate mentioned above on the nature of the theory to be ascribed to Diogenes of Apollonia provides Simplicius with the pretext to quote extensively from the latter's On Nature (151,31-153,22). These passages establish beyond doubt that Diogenes followed Anaximenes in identifying the basic stuff as air. At 187a21 Aristotle moves on to consider those who say that the principles are both one and many, citing Anaxagoras and Empedocles by name. The section on both is a mere five lines (187a21-6), in which Aristotle says only that while both separate things out from a mixture, they differ in that (a) Empedocles places that process in an eternal cycle of mixing and separation, whereas Anaxagoras believes in a single original separation, and (b) Anaxagoras' elements are an infinite number of natural stuffs and opposites, Empedocles' are the four elements, earth, air, fire and water. With this preamble Aristotle then goes on to the examination and critique of Anaxagoras which occupies the remainder of the chapter. Simplicius elaborates this preamble in several ways. He raises questions about the sense in which the principles of Empedocles and Anaxagoras are one and many. Is it the elements which are many, and the organising principle (Mind for Anaxagoras, Love and Strife for Empedocles) one, or is it rather in each case the mixture of elements which is one? (154,9-14). He quotes Theophrastus in support of the latter suggestion in the case of Anaxagoras (154, 14-23), and takes up a hint in a comment of Alexander's to suggest that Empedocles' theory affords a place for opposites no less central than does that of Anaxagoras (155,1-20). He quotes extensively, chiefly from Anaxagoras (155-7) but also from Empedocles
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(158-61), partly to support his own suggestion that both accept a Platonic account of reality in which the physical world is a representation of an eternal, intelligible world of archetypes (157,5-24, 160,22-6). Aristotle prefaces his critique of An.axagoras with an account of the principles underlying his theory (187a26-b7). These are (a) nothing comes into being from not-being (which Aristotle describes as a belief common to [sc. all] natural philosophers), and (b) opposites come into being from their opposites. Further, he says, Anaxagoras observed that everything comes into being from everything (which must presumably be understood as 'anything comes into being from anything'). On the basis of these principles Anaxagoras concluded that everything must already be present in everything; i.e. every portion of any stuff contains portions of every stuff, imperceptible because of their smallness. Aristotle adds that according to Anaxagoras things derived their perceptible character from their predominant microscopic ingredients. (It has to be said that Aristotle's identification of Anaxagoras' principles is too schematic to show why his conclusion might seem to follow. Thus from 'Nothing comes into being from not-being' and 'Opposites come into being from their opposites' all that seems to follow is that if something F comes to be, it must have come to be from something not-F. Anaxagoras' principle is the stronger one that if something F comes to be (e.g. something hot) it must have come to be from something which was itself F. And that is certainly not a principle common to all natural philosophers.) Sim.plicius does not offer any criticism of Aristotle's statement of Anaxagoras' principles, accepting his account of 'nothing comes into being from not-being' as a common axiom, and illustrating it by citations from Parmenides and Melissus (161,23-163,8). Regarding the second principle, that opposites come into being from their opposites, Sim.plicius seems to suggest that rather than concluding, as Anaxagoras is reported by Aristotle as having done, that all opposites are already present in their opposites, he should have said that opposites are present together with their opposites, either by juxtaposition or by mixture (163,35-164,2). In this instance, unusually, instead of expanding on Aristotle's elucidation, he seems to be objecting to the doctrine which Aristotle is elucidating. The rest of Aristotle's chapter, 187b7-188al8, is taken up with seven arguments against Anaxagoras' theory, with a final sentence comparing Anaxagoras unfavourably with Empedocles on grounds of redundancy. I provide a paraphrase of each argument (in italics) in order, followed in each case by a summary of Simplicius' comment. I (187b7-13) The infinite is as such unknowable, both quantita-
tively and qualitatively. But Anaxagoras' elements are infinite both quantitatively and qualitatively. Therefore what is composed of them is unknowable, for what is composed of unknowables is unknowable. 7
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Simplicius first gives a brief summary of Anaxagoras' principal doctrines, illustrated by quotations (164,11-165,5), before turning to Aristotle's criticisms. He begins by reporting a disagreement between Porphyry and Alexander on the identification of Aristotle's target: Porphyry says the argument is directed against all those, including the atomists, who say that the elements are infinite in any respect, whether in number (as the atomists hold that there are infinitely many atoms), size (they hold that the void is infinite in extent) or in diversity (Anaxagoras says that the homoiomeries are infinitely diverse in kind), while Alexander says that it is aimed at Anaxagoras alone (165,8166,6). Simplicius sides with Alexander (166, 7-12), on the ground that his interpretation gives a better argument; since the atomists, unlike Anaxagoras, hold that the atoms are all of the same kind, they are not vulnerable to the argument that the elements, and hence the things composed of them are unknowable both quantitatively (it is impossible to say how many there are) and qualitatively (it is impossible to say, i.e. to specify completely, what kinds of things they are). Simplicius argues that since Anaxagoras holds that Mind knows all the elements, his thesis that the elements are infinite in number and diversity must mean that they are beyond the capacity of human beings to count and describe, not that they are literally infinite in number and diversity (165,30-166,2). He does not discuss the possibility that an infinite mind could comprehend an infinite number of things of infinitely diverse kinds. II (187b 13-21) If the parts of a thing can be arbitrarily big or small, the thing of which they are parts can be arbitrarily big or small. But since it is impossible for a plant or animal to be arbitrarily big or small, it is impossible for their parts, such as flesh or bone or fruit, to be arbitrarily big or small.
In elucidating Aristotle's argument Simplicius distinguishes between theoretical division, which goes on to infinity, and division into actual constituents. Considered purely as a mathematical quantity, any amount of any stuff is theoretically (in Aristotelian terms potentially) divisible ad infinitum. But since there is a minimum size for any actual member of a natural kind, including any actual amount of a natural stuff, division into actual constituents has a limit (167,12-26). In our text, and in Simplicius', Aristotle gives fruit as his example of the parts of a plant. Alexander, according to Simplicius, interprets 'fruit' as 'seed', on the ground that elsewhere in the text Aristotle says that seed is one ofthe parts of a plant (167,30-168,1). (Since that statement is neither in our text nor in that read by Simplicius this, together with other small variations cited by the latter, is evidence that at this point Alexander's text differed from both.) As the conclusion of this section Simplicius proposes on behalf of Anaxagoras a defence against argument
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II, and then rebuts the defence (168,25-169,2). Both defence and rebuttal are obscure; for a suggested interpretation see the translation, n. 73.
ill (187b22-34) Given that every finite body is exhausted by the repeated abstraction of a finite body, the assumption that everything is contained in everything leads to absurdity. E.g. the repeated extraction of quantities of flesh from a quantity of water either comes to an end, or goes on to infinity. If the former, when it comes to an end the water will contain no more flesh, so it is not the case that everythirtg is contained in everything. If the latter, the infinitely many extractions produce infinitely many equal quantities of flesh, contained within a finite quantity of water, which is impossible. Simplicius begins by setting out the argument as above, stating that on the interpretation of Alexander (and Themistius) it assumes a premiss of argument IT, namely that there is a minimum actual amount of any natural stuff (169,5-24). He then suggests that the argument does not have to assume that premiss, apparently thinking that Aristotle may now be conceding to Anaxagoras 'in a way' that there can be arbitrarily small magnitudes, but still arguing that, even given that concession, the absurd result follows (169,25-170, 7). H that is Simplicius' interpretation, he does not succeed in making clear what he thinks Aristotle's revised argument is. Further, it is clear from Aristotle's text that he does not in fact make the supposed concession (see translation, n. 80). Simplicius criticises Alexander for describing the results of infinite extraction as equal finite magnitudes, apparently on the ground that he is not entitled to the assumption that the magnitudes are equal (170,7-13). It is true that that assumption presupposes that there is a minimum amount of any natural stuff, which Si.mplicius is suggesting Aristotle may no longer be insisting on. But since Alexander is explicitly following Aristotle on this point (see 187b33-4), Simplicius is in effect criticising Aristotle for (allegedly) failing to see an implication of his own view. IV (187b35-188a2) Since every body decreases in size when some part of it is removed, and there is a minimum amount of any natural stuff, it is impossible to remove anything from a minimum amount, for then there would be something smaller than the smallest amount. Simplicius' elucidation (171, 12-28) is unproblematic. He points out, correctly, that the assumption that from a minimum amount of any natural stuff a smaller amount of that stuff is extracted generates a contradiction.
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Introduction V (188a2-5) Each natural body would have to contain infinite separate amounts of natural stuffs such as flesh, blood and brain, which is absurd.
Simplicius again emphasises that the hypothesis is that the infinite amounts of different stuffs exist, not merely notionally or potentially, but as actual constituents (172,11-14). He clearly reads Aristotle's text as saying that these stuffs are separate from one another (172,13-20: see translation, n. 88), interpreting 'separate' as both 'distinct in nature', and as 'spatially discrete'. He argues that separate things cannot be infinite, (a) because separate things limit one another (172, 14-16), (b) because the distance between such things added to the sum of their sizes produces a total larger than infinity (172,31-173,3). The former argument arguably, the latter certainly assumes spatial discreteness. He draws an implication of Anaxagoras' theory which Aristotle does not mention; since every stuff contains every stuff, and there is an infinity of kinds of stuff, not only does every stuff contain infinitely many constituent stuffs, but every constituent stuff contains infinitely many constituent stuffs, and so on ad infinitum (172,20-31). He next cites Alexander as suggesting, as a possible defence of Anaxagoras, that his theory should be understood as claiming, not that everything is in everything, but that every perceptible body is a compound of every principle. But Alexander himselfblocks this escape route by pointing out that Anaxagorean theory does not allow for simple principles. Hence every component of a perceptible body is just as much a compound as the body itself, so the original objection remains (173,8-28). Si.mplicius himself now repeats his suggestion that in describing the elements as infinite Anaxagoras means no more than that they are incomprehensible to us, though in themselves finite both in kind and number. Hthere were infinitely many elements Mind could not organise them, and if they were infinitely diverse in kind Mind could not have a determinate conception of them (173,29-174, 18). Si.mplicius thus provides Anaxagoras with an escape route from the arguments from infinity, but concludes this section by bringing some objections against his account of extraction as the process by which things come to be. He adduces some phenomena which cannot be adequately accounted for by extraction, such as the organisation of natural stuffs into individual organisms. If, as Anaxagoras insists, flesh comes into being by extraction from a compound containing flesh, how can he avoid conceding that a horse comes into being by extraction from a compound containing a horse? (174,19-175,5). VI (188a5-13) Anaxagoras is right to hold that things can never be completely separated from one another, though he does not understand why. The reason is that attributes are inseparable from their subjects. Anaxagoras' Mind is in the absurd situation of trying to
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separate the inseparable, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Things are qualitatively inseparable because attributes are inseparable from their subjects, and quantitatively inseparable because there is no smallest magnitude. After paraphrasing Aristotle's argument (175,11-21) Simplicius quotes Eudemus in elaboration of the thesis that attributes are inseparable from their subjects (175,21-33). He then points out that since An.axagoras himself maintains that there is no smallest quantity of anything and that the' elements cannot be separated from one another, the description of Mind as trying to separate the elements is inaccurate. Mind separates out discriminable amounts of different stuffs from the original undifferentiated mixture (these discriminable stuffs themselves being mixtures of stuffs in different proportions) (175,33-177,8). VII (188a13-17) Anaxagoras is wrong about the way homogeneous stuffs come into being. In one sense a quantity of mud is composed of smaller quantities of mud, but in another sense it is not [but rather of earth and water}. And the ways in which bricks come from a house and a house from bricks are not the same as the ways in which water and air come from each other. Simplicius paraphrases Aristotle's argument, emphasising the central point that Anaxagoras cannot admit the generation of a stuff such as flesh from a combination of elements none of which is flesh (177,20178,8) He records Alexander as suggesting the possibility of a variant reading of 188a13-14 (178,8-11: see translation, n. 105). Aristotle concludes by remarking (188a17-18) that Empedocles' theory is superior to that of Anaxagoras in having fewer elements, i.e. a finite number, [instead of infinitely many]. After paraphrasing (178, 1428), Simplicius repeats his suggestion that Anaxagoras does not hold that the elements are infinitely many, but merely that they are uncountable by us (178,28-30). He then suggests (against the clear evidence of the texts) that for Anaxagoras the only elements are the opposites such as hot and cold, wet and dry. On that supposition his elements would be more genuinely elemental than those of Empedocles, since earth, air, fire and water can be analysed as different combinations ofhot, cold, wet and dry (178,33-179, 12). He concludes (179, 12-19) by saying that matter and form are more basic elements than those of either Empedocles or Anaxagoras.
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Simplicius On Aristotle Physics 1.3-4 Translation
Simplicius On Aristotle Physics 1.3-4 1.3, translated by Pamela Huby 186a4-13 To those .who follow this way it seems impossible that existing things should be one, and from what they [i.e. Parmenides and Melissus] add in support of their conclusion it is not difficult to refute, for both argue sophistically, both Melissus and Parmenides, for they adopt false !"premises] and their arguments are invalid; but Melissus is more tedious and unprovoking; having started with a single absurdity the rest follow. That is not difficult. It is clear then that Melissus argues illogically, for he thinks that it has been accepted that if everything that comes to be has a starting-point, 1 then also what does not come to be does not have one.2 Aiming at the complete destruction of the hypothesis, so that it may not seem that it is refuted [just] through the feebleness of its supporting arguments, he [i.e. Aristotle] goes on further to refute also the arguments on which those who argued that BeingS is one relied, not guaranteeing that belie:£4 by these means, but persuading those determined by his arguments to feel uncertain about that hypothesis. For if, both, he overturns the belief, and, the arguments which supported it are refuted, it remains unquestionably [true] that the opposing view will be strengthened. For if there be a primary demolition of [some of] the opposing views, this becomes per accidens the defence of their opposites; hence when the statement that Being is one is destroyed, [the position] that it is many is established. And in this way it did not escape the notice of Socrates that Zeno's argument, through showing that many absurd things follow those who say that the things that exist are many, helps Parmenides, who says that Being is one.5 But he [i.e. Aristotle) says that it is not di:flicult to refute the arguments, because he will show both that the premises are false and that the figures used in the combinations are not valid. He finds more fault with the argument of Melissus, as has been said earlier, either because, as well as the rest, he also says that Being is infinite, or because he too both seems to adopt false premises, and to put them together invalidly, when he says that if what comes to be has a starting-point, what does not come to be does not have a starting point, when in negating the consequent he ought to say 'what does not have a starting-point has not come to be'. For in this way the
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second mood6 of hypothetical syllogisms is completed. Parmenides puts the premises in order, and adds to the premises not the deducible conclusion but a different one when he says: 'what is other than Being is not-Being, what is not Being7 is nothing' and not adding 'other than Being is nothing' which follows, but 'Being, then, is one'. But these things will be tested later on. Let us now look at the argument of Melissus, 8 which he [i.e. Aristotle] earlier opposed. For Melissus used the axioms of the natural philosophers, and began his writing on coming to be and passing away thus: 9 1f there is nothing, what could be said about that as if it were existent? But if there is something, either it has come to be or it has always existed. But if it has come to be, [it has come] either from what is or from what is not; but it is not possible either for something to come to be from what is not (nor for something else which is nothing, and much less what exists absolutely), nor from what is. For in this way it would exist and would not come to be. Therefore Being does not come to be. Therefore it exists forever, and Being will not be destroyed. For neither is Being able to change into not-Being (for this too is agreed by the natural philosophers) nor into Being. For in that case it would still remain and not be destroyed. Neither therefore has Being come to be nor will it be destroyed: it always has been, therefore, and (always] will be. But since what comes to be has a starting-point, what does not come to be does not have a startingpoint, and Being has not come to be, it would not have a starting-point. 10 Again, what is destroyed has an end. But if something cannot be destroyed, it does not have an end. But what has neither a starting-point nor an end is 11 infinite. Therefore Being is infinite. And if it is infinite, it is one. For if it were two, they could not [both] be infinites, but they would have limits towards one another. But Being is infinite: therefore existing things would not be more than one. Therefore Being is one. But ifit is one, it is also unchanging. For what is one is always like itself. But what is like [itself] would neither be destroyed nor would it become larger nor would it change its shape nor does it feel pain or grief. For ifit underwent any of these, it would not be one thing. For what undergoes any type of alteration12 is changed from one thing and into another. But there was nothing other beside the one and so this will not be altered. And, by another route, nothing is empty of Being. For the empty is nothing. The nothing therefore would not exist. Therefore Being is not altered. For it has nowhere to go to since the empty does not exist. But also it cannot contract into itself. For in this way it would be rarer and denser than itself. But that is impossible. For the rare cannot be equally as full as the dense. But in fact the rare is emptier than the dense. But the empty does not exist. And we ought to judge whether Being is full or not by whether it receives another [thing] the same [as itself] or not. For if it does not receive [anything], it is full. But if it were to receive
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sOmething, it is not full. If then it is not empty, it must of necessity be full. And if that is so, it does not change, 13 not because it cannot
change because it is full, as we say of bodies, but because total Being cannot either be changed14 into Being (for there is nothing beside it), nor into not-being. For not-being does not exist.' This much then is enough from Melissus with regard to Aristotle's refutation. His premises, speaking shortly, are like this: 'Being has not come to be. What has not come to be has no starting-point, since what has come to be has a starting-point. What does not have a starting-point is infinite. The infinite could not be second alongside another, but [must be] one. And the one and infinite is unchanging.' Among these [arguments] he [i.e. Aristotle] first criticises the first statement which says that if what comes to be has a starting-point, what does not come to be does not have a starting-point. And in this he first criticises it for being invalid, and then he finds fault with the falsity of its premises. For in a syllogism a fault in the figure is greater than one in the premises. An indication of this is that from a faulty figure there never comes a syllogism, but it can come from false premises, if they only agree to assume [for example]: 'man is winged; the winged is a laughing thing: therefore man is a laughing thing'. So he [i.e. Aristotle] found fault, because the result was invalid, with the fact that the sequence of the premises was the reverse of what it should have been. For 'what has not come to be does not have a starting-point' does not follow from 'what has come to be has a starting-point', but 'what does not have a starting-point has not come to be' does. For in hypotheticals the sequence by conversion is valid when, taking the opposite of the consequent, we conclude to the opposite of the antecedent. For the converse of the proposition which says: 'If it is a man, it is also an animal' is 'if it is not an animal, it is also not a man'; the first, therefore the second, but not 'if it is not a man, it is also not an animal'. So also in the argument ofMelissus, the sequence would have been valid if, taking the opposite of the consequent 'what does not have a starting-point', we were to add the opposite of the antecedent 'it has not come to be'. And the whole thing would have been like this: 'Hwhat has come to be has a starting-point, what does not have a starting-point has not come to be': the first, therefore the second. But this would have been of no use to Melissus. For if there were added the premise which says: 'but Being has not come to be' the whole syllogism will be: 'Being has not come to be; what does not have a starting-point has not come to be' .15 And it will be in the second figure, but the combination will not be valid, because even if they were not negations but affirmations by transposition, 1~ in the second figure there is no necessary conclusion from two premises of the same form. But Melissus, taking 'what has not come to be does not have a starting-point' and having shown before that Being has not come to be, for it is not possible for it to come to be either from
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Being or from not-Being, deduced that Being does not have a starting-point. But someone may perhaps say that often the conversion from the antecedent is true, when the antecedent is equivalent to the consequent. For if man is a rational mortal animal, and if it is not a man, [then] it is not a rational mortal animal. But with what Melissus assumed, there does not seem to be equivalence; for even ifeverything that comes to be has a starting-point which is limited as to the thing, yet not everything that is limited has come to be, like the sun and the moon and the heaven. Eudemus, 17 however, says that even through these premises 18 nothing else is proved except what was there originally, that Being is uncreated, 19 for the valid conversion is: 'what does not have a starting-point is uncreated, and Being does not have a starting-point'. But it is said [by him] like this: 'it is not the case that if what has come to be has a starting-point, what has not come to be does not have a starting-point; rather, what does not have a starting-point is uncreated. For it is in this way that the sequence of the negations comes about. So Being becomes uncreated for him. For it does not have a starting-point.' 186a13-16 Then this too is absurd, that there is a starting-point of everything, as a thing, and not merely of time, and of comingto-be not simply, but also of qualitative change, 20 as if change does not [ever] happen instantaneously. Having shown that the combination is invalid, he [i.e. Aristotle] then attacks the premises as being false, criticising the hypothetical fpremise] 'what has come to be has a starting-point', assuming it as true with regard to time, but changing it [to being false] with regard to a starting-point of the thing, and (charging it with] being a sophistry from the homonymy. For it is necessary, if one takes the startingpoint with regard to time as belonging to everything that comes to be, about which Melissus made his argument, to keep this in the proof; but he took the starting-point with regard to the thing instead of that [with regard to time], as is clear :from his adding to 'what does not have a starting-point' that it is infinite. For one kind of starting-point is spoken of as equivalent to cause. like what acts, i.e. the source of alteration, 21 and the 'from which', i.e. matter, and as the form, i.e. the account of substance, and in addition to these the 'for the sake of which', i.e. the purpose.22 In another sense starting-point is spoken of as of size, and this we also call limit. And if anything has this we call it limited. But if anything were supposed not to have it, we say it is infinite. And in this sense the point is the starting-point of the line, the line of the plane, and this of the solid. And [it is also spoken of as] the parts first in order,like heart or head or root. For it is limited also by these. In another sense the starting-point is spoken of as that of
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the coming-to-be of each thing in time, being the time itself at which it first began to come to be, which is not easy to define because of the infinite divisibility of time. There are other senses in which 'startingpoint' is used. But these are enough for the present.23 With regard to what is commonly said to have come to be, everything has its starting-point from which it began to come about in time, which is also the starting-point of its coming to be, but not everything has its starting-point regarding the thing, but some come about as substance, and their coming to be, is said to be simple because they come about in themselves, whereas things that come about in the other categories are not said to come to be simply. Thus Socrates is said to come to be himself in himself, but heat is not said to come to be in itself, rather it is a body that becomes hot, and air that becomes illuminated. The things that come to be as substance and their coming to be have, not only a starting-point in time but also a starting-point from some part of the object, like that of animals from the navel or the heart, that of plants from the roots, and of the house from its foundations. And since changing things are also said to have a starting-point and their coming-to-be is change24 (for white comes to be from black and hot from cold), with these it is not true that everything that comes to be has a starting-point with regard to the thing, but some things all together and their parts as a whole begin to change, as do the things that freeze, 25 in which it is not in any particular part that the change with regard to freezing begins, but as a whole and at once, and everything advances in it [the freezing] at once; and the fact that it happens all at once, as I think, does not show that it is timeless, as Porphyry26 understood it; he tries to argue that alteration27 is timeless; but that all the parts [change) simultaneously. For freezing and illumination of the air do not happen timelessly, but they have their beginning in time, at this special part of time, but all the parts undergo the effect together. Or some part is altered28 at once and is divisible to infinity itself, and is not affected :first in a part, as Aristotle himself too in Book Z of this work will show, when he says 'nor is there any part of the thing that has changed29 which has changed earlier', 30 and he has written this still more clearly in the last book31 : 'also with any kind of change32; for even if the thing to be changed is divisible to infinity, the change itself is not for that reason likewise [divisible to infinity], but often it happens all at once, as with freezing.' And Theophrastus too, in the first book of his On Motion, 33 is clearly thinking the same on this point. 34 He says this: 'About the motion35 of the moving thing and the [passive] motion of the thing that has been moved, one ought to sayS& - and this also applies to bodies and their alteration37 - that not always is the half first but sometimes [it happens] all together.' For all these reasons it does not seem to have been a satisfactory assumption that everything that
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comes to be has a starting-point with regard to the thing; so that the additional assumption which says: 'but what comes to be has a starting-point', is not true, and the proposition that comes from the conversion, and says: 'what does not come to be does not have a starting-point', seems to be faulty, not only in the form of the conversion that comes from the antecedent, but in that it is also false itself, if again one were to take the starting-point of the thing and not of time. For the sun and the moon and the heaven and the things in the heaven and the whole universe itself, which have not come to be in time, yet do have a starting-point with regard to the thing since they are finite. And Parmenides, declaring that Being has not come to be, makes it '[extend equally from the centre in every direction'. 38 What is limited in this way has a starting-point regarding the thing, so that both premises are false. And the [syllogistic] figure has been shown to be invalid. Aristotle has refuted these well, replying with reference to appearances. 39 But since Melissus was a clever man, we ought to aim at the thought of a man like that, resolving the objections that have been brought against him. And that he took Being to be incorporeal40 is clear from his showing that it is motionless and indivisible, because bodies show clearly that they are mobile and divisible. But for the perceived and what has dimension he takes that which has come to be, as does Timaeus in Plato, who says 'it has come to be; for it is visible and touchable and has a body', 41 and for the intelligible and what is without parts [he takes] that which does not come to be, as again Plato says of this: 'what is that which always exists, and does not have a coming-to-be?'42 When then he [i.e. Melissus) says that what has come to be has a starting-point, he is referring to the perceived and what has dimension, in that what is limited has a starting-point and a limit. For body is not unlimited. And Eudemus too adds that even if with some few 43 other things that have come to be there are no starting points with regard to the thing, yet with what Melissus means and supposes, there are. And he writes like this: 'But perhaps with a few things there are not starting-points, but with what he [i.e. Melissus] deals with it is reasonable that there are. So we must stand aside from this, and must look at the sequence.'" But when Melissus adds: 'What has not come to be does not have a starting point' he then says that what truly exists is without parts and has neither starting-point nor end: hence it is also infinite. And in this way neither of the axioms is taken falsely. For even if alteration45 happens all at once, especially if all the parts are actually altered together, yet the whole alteration does not come about altogether, but it too has a starting-point and an end. Then, in the alteration the thing altering is not the whiteness, but the body with regard to its whiteness. The body which is altering and which is coming to be has a starting-point and a limit in this way, as subject
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to alteration. And that which does not come to be in this sense of the term has truly been said not to have a starting-point, being without dimension and without parts. For the heaven and this universe have many and wonderful things from the Creator,46 but it has also at least a share of body. Hence it has parts, and a starting-point and an end. But Aristotle also agrees that Being had not come to be, and welcomes the teaching itself, and Melissus' proof about this teaching. And Eudemus agrees that what simply exists has not come to be, saying: 'It is well to agree that the whole of what there is47 did not come to be all at once, since it is "not possible for it to come to be out of what does not exist; but it is of course reasonable that many things come to be and pass away in parts, and we see that'. And in this way the premises have been taken truly and the conversion of equivalents is not prevented from occurring with the antecedent; as when we say 'If it is a man, it is also a rational animal and mortal', and 'if it is not a man, neither is it a rational mortal animal'. H then being created is equally true with having a starting-point and an end, it is no different from the conversion of the antecedent. 48 For being uncreated is also equivalent to not having a starting-point, and the example of the heaven and in general the eternal bodies does not impede us. For these are uncreated not as partless, but as not having come to be from the starting-point oftime.49 And Melissus is criticised for the fact that, since arkhe&J has several senses, he takes, instead of beginning with regard to time, which is appropriate to what has come to be, that with regard to the thing, which does not also belong to the things which alte:r5 1 all at once. But52 it seems that he, even before Aristotle, 53 made the fine suggestion that every body, even that which is eternal, being limited, has a limited beginning in time. But because of the continuous guiding motion of the ControllerM it is always at the beginning, and exists forever, so that what has a beginning and an end in size has these things also in time, and vice versa. For what has a beginning and end in time does not all exist at one time. So he bases his proof from its beginning and end in time. He does not say that what is not all, that is, what is not whole at the same time, is without beginning in this way and without end. That belongs to the things that have no parts and are truly infinite, that is, to what exists absolutely and most perfectly. For all that belongs to Being. And Melissus speaks of these matters in this way: 'When therefore it did not come to be, but exists, it always was and always will be and does not have a beginning or an end, but is infinite. For if it had come to be, it would have had a beginning (for it would have begun, if it came to be at some time) and an end (for it would have had an end if it came to be at some time)55: but if it did not have either a beginning or an end, and has always been and always will be, it has neither a beginning nor an end; for it is not possible for what is not all to exist for ever.' And it is clear
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that the word 'pout (at some time) has a chronological sense; and that with coming to be he meant 'has come to be' in relation to substance. which until it exists is coming to be, and not Being, is clear from 'it would have had an end at some time if it came to be existing' and from 'it is not possible for what is not all to exist for ever', since what always exists, which is also all, is contrary to what has come to be. And that just as he says the 'came to be at some time' is limited as to substance, so he also means that what always exists is infinite in substance, he made clear when he said 'but just as it always exists, so also its size must always be infinite'. But he does not call what has dimension size. For he himself shows that Being is not divisible: 'For if Being is divisible, it changes. 56 But what changes would not be all altogether'. And he calls the extent (diarma) 57 of the substrate size. For that he wants Being to be incorporeal he showed when he said 'If it were Being, it ought to be one. But being one it ought not to have a body'. And next he attached being infinite with regard to substance to the eternal, when he said 'nothing that has a beginning and an end is either eternal oc infinite, so that what does not have them is infinite.'58 Then from the infinite he argued also to the One, from the words 'if it were not one, it would be limited towards something else'. 59 But Eudemus criticised this as being stated imprecisely, when he [i.e. Eudemus] writes like this: 'If anyone were to agree that Being is infinite, why will it also be one? It is not because they are several that they limit one another in some way. For it seems that past time is infinite, although it is brought to an end at the present. So perhaps things that were several would not be infinite in every way, but it seems that they could be towards one another. One ought then to define in what way they would not be infinite, if they were also several.' 186al6-18 Then why is it motionless, if it is one? Or just as this actual part, as a unit, like this water, moves within itself, why not also the all? Then why would there not be alteration (alloiosis)?
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'Melissus, having shown that it is infinite from its having neither beginning nor end, and from its being infinite that it is one, next shows also that it is motionless', as Alexander60 says, 'from the fact that what moves must move either through something full or through a void (and in this way there would actually be something else [other than Being]). But that it is not possible for something to move through what is full, and that a void cannot be among the things that exist (for the void is nothing, and if it existed Being would still not be infinite; for if it were possible for it to change around in itself, it is clear that it would be larger than itself, but nothing is larger than the infinite) .. .' 61 Alexander wrote these things in his own words like this,
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and [said] that Melissus did away only with spatial motion, and not other kinds of alteration.62 He gives this account because of Aristotle's remark: 'then why would there not be alteration?'63 But it seems to me that Melissus is completing what he had said about Being, that it has not come to be and is eternal and infinite and one and like itself, [and] through these taking away from Being all the other changes connected with coming to be, and showing first that neither as being destroyed nor as growing nor as getting smaller nor as being altered is Being changed, or made different as a whole, which would be common to growth ana alteration. For it would be neither eternal nor infinite nor one nor like itself if it underwent these things. Then also [he said] that there is no void. For the void, not that [empty] of body but [that] empty of Being, is nothing. Assuming first then that Being is more, 64 that is, the same as full, and, showing that void does not exist, he concludes that it would not move in space as into another place beside itself, for there is nothing empty of Being into which it could move, nor into itself. For it was necessary that it would have become denser from rarer. But it would not be dense and rare. For the rare has some void, and the void does not exist, neither as a whole nor especially in it [i.e. Being], because it is more [i.e. full]. And that Being is more he shows from the fact that it receives nothing else into itself; for if it did receive [something), there would be a void in Being, and void does not exist. But that it is not as Alexander understood, 65 the proof proceeds in this way, from the fact that the moving thing must move either through what is full or through void; but that Being itself ought to be full Eudemus also shows when he says, 'In what way is it immobile? Because it is full; and it is full because what is infinite has no part in void.' But since it may be archaically, 66 but not unclearly, that Melissus actually wrote this, let us set out his archaic words in order that readers can be more accurate judges of quite relevant explanations. So Melissus says this, completing what he had said earlier. and bringing in, in this way, the things about motion. 'Thus therefore it is eternal and infinite and one and all alike. And it would neither be destroyed nor become larger nor would it change its shape nor feel pain or grief. For if it were to undergo any of these things it would not still be one. For if it were altered, it would be necessary that Being be not alike, but that the previous Being be destroyed and for what is not to come to be. If again67 by one hair in a thousand years the all68 were changed. it would be destroyed in the whole of time. But it is also not possible for it to be disarranged. For the arrangement that existed before is not destroyed, and what was not does not come to be. When nothing can be added, nor destroyed, nor altered, 69 how could any bit of what exists be rearranged? For if anything became different, it would at once also be rearranged. Nor does it suffer pain; for it would not all be in pain. For there could not always be a thing in pain,
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and it would not have equal power to a thing in health; nor would it be like itself, if it were in pain. For it would be in pain if something were removed or added, and it would not be like itself. Nor could the
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healthy be affected by pain; for the healthy and the existent would be destroyed, and the non-existent would come into being. And about grief it is the same story as about pain. Nor is there any void; for the void is nothing. Therefore the nothing would not exist. Nor does it move; for it has nowhere into which to move; but it is full. For if there were void, it would move into the void. But since there is no void it 10 does not have anywhere to go to. And it would not be dense and rare; for it is not possible for the rare to be full like the dense, for the rare is already emptier than the dense. One must decide in this way about the full and what is not full: if it has room for or receives anything, it is not full; but if it has no room and does not receive [anything], it is full. It is necessary therefore for it to be full, if there is no void. H 15 therefore it is full, it does not move.' These then are the words of Melissus. But Aristotle finds fault, first [asking] why it is necessary, if it is one, for it not to move spatially, 70 if even whole things can move 71 staying in one and the same place through the interchange of their parts, 72 not needing any void, like this water staying in one and the 20 same vessel and being shaken. 73 What then prevents the all, too, from moving but neither losing74 space nor adding to it, with the parts in it moving with their mutual interchange, just as the whole sphere also is seen to be moving around its poles and its axis which stay still, and [so too] every sphere and cone and cylinder; for a thing can move in its place and not change from place to place, as has been said. And 25 just as he says a portion of water 'moves within itsel£, 75 so what prevents the whole Being also [doing likewise]? But since Melissus removed alteration76 also from being one, 'why', he [i.e. Aristotle] says, 'would there not be alteration'77 of what is one, if it is possible for that one, staying the same in substance, to exchange one quality for another at different times, like becoming cold from hot or black from white, or being ill from being healthy? But it seems that Aris30 totle's terseness 78 has often caused the commentators to go wrong. For when he said, 'then why would there not be alteration?'79 Alexander explained it like this: 'as Melissus, through showing that Being cannot move in a spatial motion, ascribing to it complete immobility' 113,1 (for these are Alexander's exact words) although Melissus had earlier done away with the other types of motion even before that of spatial motion, as the quotation given before shows. As [Aristotle did] about the One being able to change and alterSO and stay still one in substance, so now Aristotle met [the difficulty] by taking the 'one' 5 generally according to common usage (for we say that Socrates staying one and the same feels pain in his leg and gets relief) and Melissus takes One more strictly and not more generally, as the other things
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he said show, and not least81: 'If again by one hair in a thousand years the all were changed, it would be destroyed in the whole of time', with its being necessary, if it is one, to be like itself and eternal in the strict sense. So that if it stayed the same in everything it would not have anything by which it would receive change.82 For it was necessary for what was changing and altering in any way to change from one state to another. And if it were to move spatially by whirling around like water, if there were no void it must have a circular shape like one that is spherical or conical or cylindrical. For the other figures 83 when whirled around touclt different places at different times. And what has a shape would be limited and not infinite. If something that was unmoved before were to move in the same place, of necessity the starting-point of the motion would be some part getting denser or rarer. And in general revolution is a movement of bodies. And Melissus has shown that Being is bodiless. 186a19-22 But it is not possible for [the contents of the universe] to be one even in species except in their matterM (some of the natural philosophers also speak of the one in the latter way, but not in the former) for man is different from horse in species, and the opposites from one another. In the universal85 words there are three separate meanings of the word 'one', that by continuity, that as undivided, and that [as having] the [same] account, and having shown that by none of these meanings can Being be one, and having also replied to Melissus' actual words, in my opinion he [i.e. Aristotle] brings in this common argument that in general it is not possible for being to be one in species, except in its 'from which', that is, except by its material cause. 'For by this', as Alexander explains, 'it is possible for being to be one in species,86 as some other of the natural philosophers also said, '!'hales and Hippo87 speaking of water, Anaximenes of air, and Heraclitus of fire. It is however absurd to say that for that reason these things are one in species. For if anyone were to say this, that things are one in so far as all things have come from some one thing and one principle,88 he would be giving an account that had also been given by some of the said natural philosophers; for according to those for whom the origin of things is one, all things would be one in account, as from one [origin], but not as they [now] are. For according to this, having different accounts, and some even opposite [accounts], how would they be the same as one another? As man and horse, or rational animal and irrational, would be the same in matter, but not the same in species. It is clear that it is more absurd than that the differences should be the same that the opposites should be the same.' It is worthwhile to concentrate on what Alexander is looking at when he says that it is possible to say that things are one in species
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by their relationship to their matter.89 Surely it is forced, to say 'the species of the matter', 90 and better to say that in general it is not possible for something to be one by its species, but if it is, after all. the case, we must take the 'one' by some common feature, like matter and the 'from which', as some of the natural philosophers said. Hence he [i.e. Aristotle] also added 'for man is different from horse in species and opposites [are different] from one another', speaking of what applies to each as species, but not the 'from which'. 91 It is clear that if someone were to speak like this of the species as the compound, of which a compound definition is given, Melissus would not accept that Being is species. But if it were put in this way, that species is the matterless and the absolutely simple, perhaps he would accept it. For there are many things that he ascribed to it [Being]: not having come to be, immobility, being infinite, and many others. But Melissus would neither say this, that it is one by the 'from which' and the material, nor as the natural philosophers say (for he says that Being is incorporeal), nor by matter in the strict sense, if he says that Being does not receive anything nor change in any way, whereas matter both receives and changes. And again he [i.e. Melissus] says: 'there is nothing that is superior to genuine Being'. But matter is most inferior. 186a22-24 And against Parmenides the same kind of arguments, even if there are some others special [to him]; and the solution is first that [what he says] is false, and secondly, that there is not a valid conclusion.
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Both in the theory and in the defence of the theory some things are common to Parmenides and to Melissus, but others are special [to one or the other]. Common in the theory is that Being is one and immobile, special are that Melissus [says that] it is infinite, and Parmenides that it is finite. Common to their positive arguments are again that they argue invalidly and that they adopt false premises. But specific are the actual premises which each of them used. For it was not through the same premises that they both produced their proofs. And so some parts of the counter-argument against them will be produced in the same way, but others in one or another way. For whatever has been said to destroy generally the claim that Being is one, these have equally been said against both, as also with both that the argument is faulty and that each assumes false premises and that the conclusion is not valid. For this too is brought in common towards a refutation. About the things which are said in reply to the special premises of each of them, these he [i.e. Aristotle] meets individually to each, and as they differ in their opinions, the one saying that Being is infinite and the other [that it is] finite, it is also for this reason necessary for the opposing arguments to differ.
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186a24-25 [the premise] is false in taking 'being' as used in a single sense.
The argument of Parmenides, as Alexander reports, Theophrastus92 sets out like this in the first book of his Research concerning Nature: 'What is other than Being is not: what is not is nothing: therefore Being is one', but Eudemus like this: 'What is other than Being is not: but also 'being' is used in one sense only: therefore Being is one.' I cannot say if Eudemus set this out anywhere else as clearly as this, but in his Physics he mote the following about Parmenides, and it is perhaps possible to derive the stated conclusion: 'Parmenides does not appear to prove that Being is one, not even if anyone were to agree with him that ''being" is used in only one way, unless as in the "what'' category of each thing, as ''man" of men. For when the accounts of each have been given the account of Being will be one and the same in all, just as the account of animal in all animals. Just98 as, if all beings were beautiful and there were nothing to be found that was not beautiful, all things would be beautiful, and yet the beautiful will not be one but many, (for a colour will be beautiful, and an activity, and whatever else) and thus also94 all things will be existent, but [they will not be] one or the same; for water is one thing, and fire another. Someone might be amazed at Parmenides for following these untrustworthy95 arguments and being deceived by things of this kind, but these matters had not yet then been clarified (for neither did anyone refer to "[being spoken of] in many ways", but Plato was the first to introduce "in two [ways]", 96 nor [did anyone speak] of the "in itself' or the accidental). 97 But98 it seems that he [i.e. Parmenides] was indeed misled by these matters. These things have been studied through the arguments and counter arguments and the method of syllogising. For there was no agreement, unless it appeared necessary.99 But our predecessors made claims without proof.' And having got so far about Parmenides he [i.e. Eudemus] turned to Anaxagoras. Porphyry1oo himself wrote what follows, partly, as I think, from the words of Parmenides and partly from those of Aristotle, and partly from what someone wanting to set out the view of Parmenides persuasively might say. His account is like this: 'If there is something other than white, that is not white, and if there is something other than good, that is not good, and if there is something other than Being, that is not Being. But what is not Being is nothing. Being therefore alone exists: Being therefore is one. For if existing things are not one but several, either they will differ from one another in existence, or in non-existence; but neither would they differ in existence (for they are alike in actually existing, and like things, as like, are indistinguishable and are not other [than one another], and what are not other [than one another] are one), nor in non-existence; for things that differ must first exist, but things that do not exist differ
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in no way from one another; if, therefore, he [i.e. Parmenides] says that several postulated things are not able to differ and be other than one another, either by existing or by not existing, it is clear that all will be one and that will be uncreated and imperishable.' Aristotle, however, in what follows, seems to recall Parmenides' argument in this way: if'one' signifies Being, and the [two parts of the] contradiction cannot hold at the same time, there will be nothing non-existent. And he [i.e. Parmenides] thinks the same as his predecessors. 101 For if 'one' signifies Being, what is other than it does not exist and is nothing. And if the [parts of the] contradiction, so that the same thing can be being and not-being at the same time, do not hold together, it is clear that what is other than Being will not exist, and what does not exist is nothing. H anyone wants to hear Parmenides himself stating these premises, the first, saying that 'What is other than Being is not being and nothing', which is the same as the saying that being102 is spoken of in only one way, you will find it in these lines: The one, that it is and it cannot not be, is the way103 of persuasion, for truth accompanies it, 104 the other that it is not and that it is necessary for it not to be, which I declare is a wholly unconvincing way. 105 For neither would you know what is not, for it is not possible nor would you tell it. And that the [parts of the] contradiction are not true at the same time he [i.e. Parmenides] says in those words with which he criticises those who bring the contraries together. For in saying: 'For it is possible to be, and nothing does not exist; that I order you to tell; for I keep you off this :first106 path107 of enquiry'. He adds: But then from that along which mortals, knowing nothing, wander108 two-headed; for impossibility in their hearts controls their drifting mind. But others are carried along being both deaf and blind, however, dazed, confused tribes; by them Being and not-being are thought to be the same and not the same, and the path109 of all things turns back on itself.
Of this account Aristotle first shows the falsity of the premises, and then the invalidity of the argument. And the falsity comes from the fact that he [i.e. Parmenides} takes 'being' in only one way, when it is used in many ways, as many ways as he [i.e. Aristotle] has shown it is used in the Categories. For the statement: 'if anything exists other than Being, that is non-existent', if 'Being' were spoken of in only one way, it would perhaps have been rightly said. But not with the things that are said in many ways. Just as if someone were to say: 'If something exists other than the crab, that is not a crab.' For we will
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ask about a crab of a different kind. For the crab in the heaven is other than the crab that lives in water, or the crab of the smith. 110 And there :is no impediment to there being a species of crab other than the one in the heaven. Likewise if there is anything other than what is, i.e. other than substance, that is not substance, but there is no impediment to its being quality or quantity, and if there is anything other than quality, it is not quality, but may be quantity or substance. And so nothing prevents there being many existing things and even Being itself not to be, but not the opposites. 111 For Socrates is a man, but not a horse, and a substance, but not a quality. And the lemma112 is absurd for other reasons. For with 'If anything other than Being exists, it is not Being' at the same time they grant that the same thing may possibly be and not be; but this in the case of what is said to be 'in itself is absurd. If anyone were to produce the first premise 113 with 'being' spoken of in many ways, this will be true, but the one following it will not be true, the one which says that what is not being is nothing; for this is equivalent to 'what is other than substance is nothing' although there are many things which are not substances. So in this way the premises given by Theophrastus are rejected as being false, and their combination as invalid, because the following conclusion drawn was 'what is other than Being is nothing'. But he [i.e. Theophrastus] added: 'Being then is one'. And if one supposes that 'what is' is spoken of in only one way, as Eudemus records, he also takes it as false. For 'being' is not [spoken of] as one, at least if [it is spoken of] in ten ways. 114 And then also it is not in this way that the conclusion is reached that Being is one. And if someone supposes there is nothing other than substance, nothing prevents there being substances alone, but that these are many, which Eudemus also showed through his saying: 'Nor if anyone were to agree with him that being was spoken of in only one way', and the following: 'Just as if all beings were beautiful and there were nothing to be found that was not beautiful, all things would be beautiful, and yet the beautiful will not be one but many, (for a colour will be beautiful and an activity and whatever else)', 115 and Aristotle showed the same thing with the case of white116: 'in this way all things will exist, but they will not be one and the same'. And the conclusion that says 'Being therefore is one' is false, and is not deduced from the assumptions. For even if 'being' [is spoken of] in only one way, it is not immediately true that Being is one. For it is spoken of in one way both in genus and in species. And many things [are spoken of] in either way. And it will happen in the case of Eudemus' example of beautiful, where he says: 'because all things will be beautiful, still the beautiful will not be one' in number. For the things that are one in account are not immediately also one in number. But Aristotle brought together the same [i.e. white] things under white. And if anyone were to say that it is not in number that being is brought together as one, but in species and in
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genus, he [i.e. Aristotle] immediately agrees that existing things are many in number. And the things which are one in genus and account are many. And if they [i.e. Parmenides and Melissus] say that Being is one in this way, how will they still say that because it is one it is motionless? 186a25-32 and [the argument] is inconclusive, because if only white things were supposed to exist and if white meant 'one' nonetheless the white things would be many and not one. For the white will be one neither by continuity nor in account. For being white will be different from being that which has received white. And there will not be anything separate apart from the white. For it is not by its being separate but by its existing that the white [colour] is different from that to which it belongs. But Parmenides did not yet understand that.
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And if someone were to agree with him [i.e. Parmenides], he [i.e. Aristotle] says, that 'being' is spoken of not in many ways but in one way, so that the premise is true which says 'what is other than Being does not exist', and 'being means one', not even so is it the conclusion that Being is one in number. For the conclusion is: 'what is other than Being is nothing if it is not one' .117 But if anyone wants to draw the opposite conclusion to this, as being derivable from the conclusion, which is what Parmenides appears to do, since [it is] by conversion with negation, 118 the conclusion will then be: 'the one then is Being'. For if the sequence were: 'what is other than Being, that is, what is not, is not one', there arises from the conversion 'the one then is Being', which is different from 'Being is one or one is Being' 119 But he himself [i.e. Aristotle], with the case of white, shows that there is no conclusion, taking being now as a certain kind of accident, but after a while as substance, and with each showing that it not possible for Being to be one. For if white alone existed, and nothing else, with everything beside white not existing, and what does not exist being nothing, not even in this way is it shown that the white is one in number, but if, then, it is one, it is so either in genus or in species, which are actually many. And that it is not one in number he shows by reminding us of the preceding division of the one of this .kind. 120 For if it was one in number, it was going to be one as continuous, or as undivided, or as the same in account. But neither as continuous is it necessary for it to be one; for white things can be many, and scattered, with these premises laid down. Nor is white one by continuity, as121 snow, or swan, or white lead, but it has been divided up. And yet even if someone were to agree that it was continuous, it has been shown by the division that the continuous is many. And, in another way, if someone were to agree that white was continuous, it will not be one in account, for each of the white things taken sepa-
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rately is divided into the substrate, which by sharing in whiteness is said to be white, and the colour itself which is shared. For this too is 20 called white, and [said] to be white, and the form of whiteness. And the account will be peculiar to each, the one as subject, as of the swan that it is this kind of animal, which is whitened, of the other as of a subject and in a subject, for in both cases it is said by him [i.e. Aristotle] of the accident that it is a colour discriminatory of sight. 122 25 So that white things will be many and the premise, that other than the white there is nothing, will remain true. For there is a different account of each, although both are called white. And we need not be disturbed about being forced, if we say that the accident is something other in account than the substrate, to grant that the hypostasis123 is separate from the substrate. For it is not necessary, where the account 30 is different, that these things should also be separated from one another by the hypostasis. For the things which share a hypostasis with one another have their own special accounts, and receive their own impact124 on the soul, like surface and body. For neither is it because they are separate that they have their own accounts. This, 120,1 he [i.e. Aristotle] says, Parmenides did not yet see, that it is possible for things that are one in hypostasis to have different accounts and for that reason to be many. 125 And that is not surprising, because the rules of [using] accounts had not yet been sorted out, but were later decided upon from things themselves, and so brought in to contribute 5 to greater accuracy. And Eudemus bears witness to this when he says: 'Someone might be amazed at Parmenides for following these untrustworthy126 arguments and being deceived by things of this kind, but these matters had not yet then been clarified. For neither did anyone refer to "[being spoken of] in many ways" but Plato was the first to introduce ''in two ways", nor [did anyone speak ofj the "in itself' or "the accidental"; and it seems that he [i.e. Parmenides] was 10 indeed misled by these points. These have been studied through the arguments and counter arguments, and the syllogistic .127 For there was no agreement unless it was seen to be necessary .126 But our predecessors made claims without proof.' 129 And because of their ignorance of these matters the philosophers called Megarians, 130 taking as obvious the premise that things that have different accounts are different, and that different things are separate from one another, appeared to prove that each one is separate from itseJf. For 15 since there is one account of musical131 Socrates, another of white Socrates, Socrates himself would actually be separate from himseH. But it is clear that with regard to the substrate, of which he actually is Socrates, he is the same, but with regard to the accidents he is different, but also one and many by different aspects. It is clear however that Parmenides most of all was not ignorant of this distinc- 20 tion, since when speaking of the One he ascribed to it so many features; for it is 'whole with a single origin, unmoved, and uncreated'
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and immobile and eternal and undivided and a thousand other things, which through the indeterminate unity of these things attributed to it were in all respects one, with everything after it having been determined by the one cause; from them we refer to it the categories that have been determined. But nowhere did Parmenides bring in the rule 132 itself; for this system of rules did not belong to the limited vocabulary of the ancients. But Aristotle wanted to show more force30 fully, with the hypostasis133 of the same thing, as with the white body, 121,1 that white is many in account, both as substrate and as in substrate. And yet the name of these is not the same. For the substrate is not white nor is it so called in itself, except when it is taken with its whiteness. So that if it is so, there will be the same name in different accounts, not of the substrate and of what is in the substrate, but of the two together, because we say that both the active partaker is 5 white, with its partaking, and the colour itself, which is that which is partaken. But, being more precise, neither is the name of these the same, if the one is white and the other whiteness, and the one [is] a thing qualified, the other a quality. For this reason too we define whiteness as a colour discriminatory of sight, but the white body as partaking of whiteness. Seeing these things, as it appears, Eudemus 10 was not forced to show the difference between the accounts with the case of the one [thing] being the same in hypostasis, but he made his proof with a common element, 'beautiful', applying it to many things differing in account so that all seem to be one in what they share, but many in their accounts. He wrote like this: 'Just as if all existing things were beautiful, and there were nothing to be found that was not beautiful, all things would be beautiful but the beautiful would 15 not be one but many (for this colour will be beautiful activity and whatever else) 134 and in this way beings will be many, but not one nor the same. For water is one thing and fire is another.' But perhaps Aristotle avoided this kind of proof, because if he supposed that being was one as common, whether as genus or as species or as a homonymous 185 sound, at once he also introduced the many. 20 For what is common is necessarily common to several. Hence, suggesting that it is one in number, since this kind of one is one either as continuously one, or as the same in account, or as undivided, he showed that it is not one as continuous, nor as the same in account, and he omitted to refute the contention that it was undivided, as being clearly absurd, since the undivided is supposed to have a bodily 25 limit.
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186a32-186b12 It is necessary to assume not only that 'being' signifies one thing, of which it is stated, but also 'just-being' and 'just-one' .136 For the accident is stated of some substrate, so that that of which being is an accident will not be. For it is different
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:from the existent. There will then be something non-existent. Indeed the just-existent will not belong to something else. For it will not be possible for it to be something existing, unless being signifies many things, in such a way that each is something. But it has been assumed that being signifies one. H then the just-existent belongs to nothing, but the other things belong to it, how can the just-existent signify more being than not-being? For if the just-existent is also white, and being white is not just-existent (for neither is it possible for being to belong to it; for what is not just-existent is nothing existent) therefore the white does not exist; and not as something not existing, but not existing at all. 137 The just-existent therefore is not existent; for it is true to say that it is white, and this signified not being. So that white also signifies just-existent. Being therefore signifies many things. It may be that what has been said just now, and these words, are aimed not only at Parmenides but also at Melissus. For since of existing things some exist as accidents, others as the substrates in which the accidents occur, and these are not the same as one another but also in a way subcontraries, 138 the one existing in itself and the other having its being in something else, it is necessary to call being one of these, either the accident or the substrate to this. And so even at the beginning of his argument against them he says: 'The most appropriate starting-point of all, since "being" is spoken of in many ways, is how those who say that all things are one say [it], whether all things are substance, or quantities, or qualities.' 139 Assuming earlier therefore, through the case of white, that the nature of accident is being, he showed through this example that it is not possible f.or being to be one. For when the accounts are different, these things are different from one another, and not one but many. And the account of an accident is different from that of that of which it is an accident, even if they are inseparable from one another. And there must also be the substrate, if the accident is going to exist. For such is its nature. And since both exist, being is not one. He [i.e. Aristotle) has shown this earlier, but he now adds a proof of the same [point] like this: For if the accident is Being, 140 that of which this is an accident will be Being too and will not be Being by the same token. For to the extent that what happens to it is Being, being different from Being, it is not Being (for it was only being as accident), and in reverse, to the extent that being is an accident to it, by this it is being; for the substrate of something receives the category of its accident either by the same name or derivatively.141 So we call white that of which white is an accident, just as that of which being is an accident will be existent. Something then will be being and not-being for the same reason (for it is so through its substrate}, which is absurd. So
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that it is impossible to say that being is accident. And at the same time it was absurd to reproach famous men in this way: that they did not know that an accident always brings with itself something else of 25 which it is an accident. One ought therefore to suppose that they speak of being as that which is properly and most of all Being, and, as Plato would say, Being itself, 142 and Aristotle the just-existent. 143 This for him signifies that which is properly and most of all being, which he considers to be substance, as subsisting in itself and being the cause of existence for others. It is not reasonable therefore for them 30 [i.e. Parmenides and Melissus] either to speak of Being as accident or the One as one, and the conjunction of the two, should anything of this kind exist, not as an accident of something else, but as existing itself by itself. But Adrastus, 144 wanting to show what 'just-being' is, 145 is, slightly sidestepped the assumptions; and as what he said is 123, 1 useful, and Porphyry actually recorded it, 146 I think it better not to pass them by. He [i.e. Adrastus] says that of all things some are substrates, and some are the things which belong to them through their substrate. Properly speaking, the substrates are each of the primary substances, 147 like some particular man like Socrates, or this 5 stone, but more generally everything to which something else is attributed. For the particular white and the particular knowledge of letters in themselves are in no way substrates, but they are in a substrate, the one in this body and the other in this soul. Of substrates, however, they themselves (i.e. the substrates] have an account, for we attnoute to the one white, or colour, and to the other 10 either knowledge of letters or just knowledge. But of all the things referred to in some way, some are applied to the substrate as belonging and in themselves, and others, in a way, as external and as accidents. In themselves and as belonging are those that signify the 'what it is' and the substance of the subjects, like the definitions, and what are completive143 of their substance and are taken up in the definitions, like the genera and the differentiae, and the species 15 themselves and the properties and the things that differ only in name, as in the case of things that have several names. For in all these cases each thing in a way is predicated of itself, and synonymous with it becomes the category of the substrate which receives the name, and the account of what is categorised, so that the matter is and is said to be what is categorised. For Socrates is said to be a rational mortal animal and what a rational mortal animal is. And 20 again Socrates is described as an animal and is what an animal is, and what rational is and as a man and what a man is. And white, like the white of this swan, is said to be white and what white is, and [is said to be] a colour discriminatory of sight and what a colour discriminatory of sight is. If however white were applied to something else as 25 an accident and by accident, like a garment, this garment will be said to be white, but not also what white is. For no one would call it a
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oolour discriminatory of sight. Nor, similarly, with anything else among things applied accidentally is it correct to apply 'just-being'. It happens that Socrates is snub-nosed and sits or converses and many other things; but he is said to be snub-nosed, but is not said to be 30 snub-nosedness, nor what snub-nosedness is; for Socrates is not curvedness in the nose. And if he were called, as it might be, learned, 149 he does not receive the definition of learning. For never does the substrate receive the definition of the accident, nor is it said to be what the accident is' .150 I think we ought to understand that 124, 1 what partakes ofthe'llccident is not what the accident is, because the learned is not what learning is, and similarly what partakes of the difference is not what the difference is; for the rational is not what 5 rationality is, and in general what is named from something derivatively is not that from which its name derives. Man, however, is what animal is, because it is not so-called derivatively. 'Of accidents', he [i.e. Adrastus] says, 'some are always present in the things of which they are accidents, like the snubness or the handiness: others are sometimes present and sometimes not, like sleeping or walking or 10 whatever can belong to the same thing sometimes and sometimes not; the substrate receives the definition of none of the accidents, but neither in the definition of the substrates is there included any of the accidents. Hence neither is the substrate said to be what the accident is. For neither is the nose said to be what snubness is, nor is Socrates said to be what conversing is. However, the substrate is included in the definitions of permanent accidents, as the nose is in the definition 15 of snubness and the legs in that of handiness. For snubness is said to be curvedness in the nose, and handiness to be curvedness in the legs. However neither in these is either the substrate what the predicate is, nor the predicate what the substrate is. Again these things must 20 be defined, that, simply, every sentence is made out of two parts, like nouns and verbs; for in 'Socrates converses' the parts of it are the 'Socrates' and the 'converses'. And likewise the sentence with 'to be' and 'substance'; for this too is completed from the genus and the differentiae. 151 And in each whole sentence are embraced and included its parts and again the accounts of these, that is the definitions, but in the parts and the accounts of them the accounts of the 25 wholes are not [included]. Thus in the definition of man, I mean rational mortal anima], or footed two-footed [animal], (for Aristotle sets this as the account of man, as being how Plato defined it) there is the account of animal and of two-footed and likewise with the others; but in animal and in two-footed or in the definitions of these there is not existent or included the definition of man. Similar, but 30 not involving a definition, is the sentence which says that Socrates is walking. And in this whole sentence there is both the account of Socrates and the account of walking, but in each of these the account of the whole is not there' With these things defined, it is clear that if
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Being is one, as the followers of Parmenides 152 say, there will be nothing else of which this is an accident, but according to what is predicated of it, it is necessary for this to be called both what Being153 is and what One is, as if Being were being predicated of itself. For if [it is] not like this, but 'being' were to be said of something else as an 5 accident, that will be something other than Being, and for that reason not-being at the same time as Being: which is absurd. For to be something and not be the same is impossible. So that if Being is one, it will also be the just-existent, and will be an accident of nothing. For it will not [be possible] for Being to be 154 to that to which it is an accident, if it is other than being, unless beings were many in such a way that they are something other than being, as the accident is other than the substance. But it is their [i.e. the followers of Parmenides] 10 hypothesis that Being signifies one. 155 It remains, therefore, that substance, rather, and the substrate to the accident, are being in its proper sense, even if the accident is not; for that is subsequent. For what is in fact the cause of existence to the rest, that would most be being; and substance is like that. For all the others are said to be either of the substrate of substance or in the substrate to it, as we 15 have learned in the Categories. 156 But, also, substance in the strict sense alone is one. Of the rest each is called one as accident, by the fact that this substance of which it is an accident is one. But it is impossible for substance to be one. For if what is strictly being, which we call just-existent, is an accident to nothing else, but to that something else is an accident, if it is the substrate, in what way does 20 it signify more the being which is just-existent, but not not-being? For if this being is only the substrate and the just-existent, its accident will not be being, such as white.lf then the just-existent is also white because white is an accident of it, but the white which is its accident, which we call being white, that is, whiteness, is not-being, not something not being, but absolutely not-being (for there is nothing in being 25 which is not the just-existent) then both what shares [in it] and that to which it is an accident will be strictly not-being; for that of which not-being is an accident is not-being, just as that of which being is an accident is being. Substance therefore, or the just-existent, will not be being simply, and the same [will be] strictly being and strictly not-being; for what is an accident to the substrate, if the just-existent were an accident- I mean existing at the same time and not existing - this itself happens to the just-existent, if it were assumed as 30 substrate: except that to that substrate being belongs through accident, but not-being through itself, but contrariwise to this, since here the just-existent is substrate, but there it is taken as accident. If then these things are impossible, and the just-existent is being as it is 126,1 substrate, it is also necessary that its accident should be being and the just-existent, if there is nothing else other than the just-existent. So that 'being' signifies several things, and being is not just one but 125,1
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also the accidents of substance. And it seems to me that with these words 157 Aristotle shows Parmenides that in wishing to do away with not-being, and through this supposing that Being is one, since what is other than being is nothing, he not only brings in something not-being through that supposition, but also shows that Being itself is not-being. And this has been shown previously by Plato in the Sophist, 158 and that Being is one and is not many. For Being is neither motion nor rest nor [any] other kinds 159 of things. Aristotle, 160 however, will show to those who say that Being is one that [on their supposition] Being is Iiot something not being, but absolute 161 not-being. But in his language it produced considerable lack of clarity when he, postulating that being was substance, instead showed that it was not accident, in the words 'for the accident etc' .162
186b12-b14 Therefore the just-existent, will also not have size; for to either the being of the parts will be different. 163 Next he shows that one ought not to say that what is one is either limited or infinite, attacking both Parmenides and Melissus together. For if Being is one, he says, it will not also have size. 1" And if it does not have size, it is clear that it will be neither limited nor infinite; but Parmenides seems to have attributed size too to it directly, both from being a whole and having parts, when he says:
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Like the mass of a sphere well-rounded on all sides equal from the middle. 1611 It is then clear that if it is one it will not have size, if the one is not many and does not have many, 166 but what has size has parts; and what has parts has many and is many, because each of the parts has a different existence. 167 Those things whose existence is different, they differ from one another and are many. But in this way the argument seems to be about difference, showing that there are many. 168 But Aristotle seems also to attack with regard to the just-existent; for he was suggesting now that the one being is substance, and added 'if it is the just-existent', 169 meaning, I think, nothing else than that if substance alone exists, it will not be divisible, for what is divided into several parts has quantity. And seeing that he said 'for either of the parts its being will be different', 170 .Alexander171 says it is more appropriate to understand it not as being about parts of size but as ifboth size and substance were two parts of what is-quantity and substance. But perhaps he said 'to either' because what is first put together from parts ought to have been put together from the minimum [number] of parts - from two, therefore and not more. But perhaps he said 'either' as showing that two is a finite number, and
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:for that reason clearly indicating a participating in quantity by what is. But perhaps Aristotle is not bringing this absurdity against them [i.e. Parmenides and Melissus], as many of the commentators think, that Being would not have size, although it was said by them to be either infinite or limited (for he was not ignorant that they did not 172 want it to be sizeless and indivisible, and gave a proof), but that if Being were supposed to be one alone, there will be nothing among things that exist that has size or is a whole and parts. But this is very much opposed to what is obvious, because all sensible and natural things have size.
186b14-186b35 It is also clear by reasoning that the just-existent is divided into some other just-existents, just as, if man is some just-existent, it is necessary that animal also is some just-existent, and two-footed. For if they were not some just-existent, they would be accidents. Either then they would be accidents to man, or to some other substrate. But that is impossible. For this is said to be an accident, either what can belong or not belong, or that of which that to which it is an accident, belongs in its definition [or in which the definition exists to which it is an accident] (like sitting is a separate thing, but in 'snub' the account ofthe nose is included, to which [nose] we say that 'snub' is an accident); again the things that are in the defining account or out of which it [i.e. the defining account] is, in their account is not included the account of the whole, as in the account of two-footed that of man, or in that of white that of white man. Iftherefore these things are like this and two-footed is an accident of man, it must be separable, so that it would be possible for man not to be two-footed, or else in the account of two-footed is the account of man. But that is impossible; for that [i.e. the accident] is in the account of that [i.e. the subject]. If two-footed and animal are accidents of another thing, and neither is some just-existent, man also would be one of the accidents to something else. But let the just-existent be an accident to nothing, and let both terms and what comes from them be said of it. Alexander says that 'having shown that the accidents are brought together with the just-existent, he {i.e. Aristotle] now shows that even if it were granted to them [i.e. Parmenides and Melissus) that the just-existent alone exists, by the fact that this is strictly Being, and that accidents exist in a different way, even so Being itself will not be one, but many just-existents; for the division, as of size, which he recorded, will be into just-existents. And it is also necessary to divide according to the account into several just-existents, that is, according to the definition. Having shown then according to size and its division into parts that being becomes many and dissimilar, if each of the
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parts is different, he finally brings in also the according to the definition.' 173 With these words Alexander interprets Aristotle as having shown that the just-existent has size, although he [i.e. Aristotle] says the opposite: 'nor will being have size, if it is the just-existent'. 174 Perhaps then, accepting their hypothesis that Being is one, he removes from this both its being finite and infinite or like the mass of a sphere well-rounded from the middle 175 as Parmenides says. For such things, being of a size and being divided, are many and not one. And through the fact that this just-existent, which they suppose to be one, is divided according to the definition into just-existents, he [i.e. Aristotle] shows that it is not one, so as to make inescapable for them from every direction the refutation potentially argued thus, in accordance with the so-called conversion with negation: 'if Being is one, it does not have size, because it is not divided, but if it is divided, as appears according to the definition, it is not one'. 176 And he [i.e. Aristotle] demonstrated 177 the consequence through size being divided, and that what is is divided through: 'that what is is divided into several just-existents that differ in account is clear', he says, 'from the definition' .178 For as the definition is, so also is what is defined. If then the defining account of man is 'footed two-footed animal', the parts of this, I mean the animal and the footed and the two-footed, are just-somethings, 179 and substance and [are] different in their accounts. For either they are substance or accidents, that is, either in a substrate or not in a substrate, and there is nothing apart from these. And if they are accidents, [they are accidents] either of the man himself or of something else. But both are impossible. For if they happened to the man himself, either they happened to him as separate things, like sitting, and sometimes man will not be animal, or not footed, or not two-footed, which is absurd or as inseparable- an accident is inseparable when in its account there exists that of which it is an accident- or snub is an inseparable accident of the nose: hence when we define snubness we include the nose; for snubness is hollowness of the nose. He [i.e. Aristotle] says in the Posterior Analytics180 that these things actually belong in themselves. Ifthen in the account of animal and footed and two-footed and of the whole of the things that complete the definition man is not included (for in defining animal we do not include man, but conversely in defining man we do include animal) it is clear that these things will not exist as inseparable accidents of man. And if these are accidents of something else. at once there will be several existing things. For that of which they were accidents would be substance and the just-existent. But he (i.e. Aristotle] did not lead the argument in this direction, but in that in which he proposed to prove that the just-existent is divided by reason into just-existents. If then it [i.e. the just-existent] is an accident of something else, it is clear that the whole completed from these, that
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is, man, will also be an accident of that thing. For if it belongs to something to be animal and footed and two-footed, it will also belong to it to be man. But man is substance and the just-existent. And the just-existent and substance are substrate to nothing that is an accident, so that neither will the things included in the definition be accidents, but all will be the just-existent. So that if being is divided into beings, in this way again beings will be many. And if each being is not many but one, neither will it have size through the conversion with negation, 181 nor will it be either whole or parts. But neither will it be a definition of something. For neither will the account have parts, but it itself will be indivisible. Then the whole will be made up of indivisibles which are parts like man and horse and the rest, if none of these is divisible. And it is clear that the whole itself also is indivisible both what is and what is spoken of. For neither will the indivisibles be many for there is not quantity in the one Being, and if there were many, what has been put together from them will be indivisible. For when several points come together they all become one point, as in fact he [i.e. Aristotle] himself will show. But these things are absurd. For it is clear, and has been shown, that not only is the whole divisible, but also each of the things that exist. By this it also seems a fortiori that not only the whole being will be many, but also every one of all the things [there are] .182 But Alexander wants to understand 'the all then is [made up] of indivisibles' 183 in this way: that [the all is made up] of what are not accidents, and are not able to be separated :from it, and are not things of a different nature, but are of the same [nature] as the all. And the all and Being are substance, and the parts of it are substances, as if he had said 'the all then is [made up] of substances'; it is [made up] of these, and it is divided into these. Hence the proposition that the just-existent is divided into just-existents has been proved. So that the statement that the all is [made up] ofindivisibles has been brought in, not as absurd but only as a oonsequenoo of what has been said. This is the whole thought of what has been said. 184 As to the words, when he says: 'The things that are in the defining account or from which it is [made up]', 185 he shows that even in those things which do not have a definition, as in indivisible substances, there are however some things of which they are composed. And the 'of which both' and the 'let it be said to be [made up} of these' 186 either mean that in general this should be, and be spoken of, as what is made out of the parts, which in fact is both the parts, if the parts are accidents, and the whole. Or rather, conversely, that the parts should be called this which is also that [made out] of the parts. And what was [made out] of the parts was substance and the just-existent, and existing as the accident of nothing. And the parts, therefore, are substances and just-existents and not accidents. But it is also written187 as: 'of which both and either, and that made from these', that is, of which both and
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either were said, or each of the parts, of this also that [made] from the parts should be said. A consequence of this would be: 'and also man would be [one] ofthe accidents'. Among these things he put in: 'but let the just-existent be an accident to nothing' .188 In these matters this too must be added: it is clear that the just-existent being divided now should be divided neither as genus nor as species, from the fact that man is divided not into atoms, but into the definition. 189 But since Alexander brought together the formal arguments on this topic with great care, 190 let us too set them out in the approved way, like this, from the beginning of his account: 191 [1] 'those who say that being is one say that being is spoken of either in many ways or in only one way. But if in many ways, they agree that existing things are many (for they are substance and quantity and quality and the rest into which being is divided), but not one. So [it is] not [spoken of] in many ways. In one way then, according to what is called the fifth indemonstrable. 192 [2] Then the second argument, with the assumption that being said in one way is itself disjunctive like this: the one being is either substance or accident, according to the twofold division that occurs in the division of things that exist, into that which is in a substrate and that which is not in a substrate. But it is not an accident: it is therefore substance, and this too is deduced according to the fifth indemonstrable. [3] And that the one being is not accident the third argument shows like this: 'if being is accident its substrate exists and does not exist at the same time. But this is impossible. Therefore being is not accident' by the second indemonstrable. 193 He proved the consequent from the fact that the substrate to the one and only being does not exist, because, first, there does not exist another thing other than it (for there was not anything else other than Being) and, secondly, because being belongs to it, and it itself becomes being. [4] And also, that substance is not what is strictly being, or as he himself says, the just-existent, he shows again like this: 'if substance is the just-existent, the just-existent signifies no more being than not-being. 1M So that the just-existent will be alike being and not being. And 'being' signifies several things, when it was supposed that it was one only. But these things are impossible. Therefore substance is not the just-existent'. [5] And that the just-existent is no more being than not-being he shows like this: 'If the just-existent is substance and substrate, and accidents belong to substance, and they are notbeing because they are other than being, and that to which not-being belongs is not existent, substance and the substrate will be not-being, and not just any not-being, but wholly not-being. For such was the not-being of the accident that belonged to it [sc. substance]'. [6] And that the just-existent signifies several things he shows like this: 'if the just-existent is substrate, it is possible to name it from an accident, like white. So that it will also be said to be white, and to be one, and the just-existent (for there is nothing else other than this),
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and thus what is will be many.' [7] And also, that the one being will not have size, he shows like this: 'The just-existent itself as only substrate is not many, and does not have quantity: what has size is many: therefore the just-existent will not have size'. [8] And that 131,1 what has size is many he shows in this way: 'Size has parts: what has parts has things that are other in account: what has things that are other in account has many things in itself and is many.' [9] And at the end, finally, that the just-existent is divided into just-existents and things that differ in account, he shows with one [case of] the just-ex5 istent, taking its definition and concluding that its parts are themselves just-existents. He concludes like this: 'They must be either substances or accidents: but they are not accidents: substance,l95 therefore'. This too in accordance with the fifth indemonstrable. H therefore the one, as has been said earlier, 196 is one as being continuous, or as things of which the account is the same, or as indivisible, and it has been shown that the one being is not able to 10 have size, nor a definition, and is not indivisible, it is clear that according to none of the meanings of 'one' would Being be one. But since throughout all my exegesis I myself too have treated the just-existent as substance, and substance as individual and one in number, but some of the commentators on Aristotle. among whom is Aspasius, 197 take the just-existent as the genus of existing things, and 15 since Alexander of Aphrodisias has spoken adequately against them, let there be set out in shortened form the things said by him: 'For some', he [i.e. Alexander] says, 'understood his words as if he [i.e. Aristotle] were saying that it is necessary for those who say that being is spoken of in only one way to suppose a common genus for all existing things, to which all the things existing belong as parts, and 20 to say that this is being and so one, since taking none of the things under being can they still say that being is one by bringing together with the supposed [one] the others too. For the accidents are brought together with the substance, and substance with the accidents, as he showed. 198 He [i.e. Alexander] confirmed this account from the [statement] in the Topics that places the just-existent above the genus, saying 'man is what animal is' 199 instead of 'in the animal genus'. But 25 that he [i.e. Aristotle] is not speaking like this now of the just-existent, but [indicates that it] signifies substance, he shows from what was said before. For even if it is necessary to speak out against this hypothesis, 200 he has already spoken in the words he used: 'if there are going to be substance and quantity and quality, and whether these are separated from one another or not, existing things are many'.201 For the one who speaks of being as genus supposes that all 30 these things exist. So that it has been said202 against this opinion also, if indeed it needed any refutation. For he [i.e. Aristotle) seems to despise an open refutation. For the man who wanted there to be one thing only as being one in number, would not say that this [kind of 30
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one] was genus, because genus at once brings in with itself a quantity of species and individuals. But from what is it clear, someone might say, that Parmenides spoke of it as one in number?203 It is also clear from that man [i.e. Aristotle] that he does not speak of the just- 35 existent as genus, but as substance. [1]2°4For he shows that it [i.e. the just-existent] is not accident, from the fact that accident is spoken of 132,1 as in a substrate, so that it itself is not in a substrate, but is a substrate which is a substance standing by itself and not needing anything itself for existing.205 But206 genus, it too, is [one] of the things that are in a substrate. So that the just-existent would not be genus, 5 if what is in a substrate is clearly distinguished from it. [2] Again, after a little time he [i.e. Aristotle] says: 'Who understands being itself except as some just-existent?'207 If then being itself is related not to genus but to substance, the just-existent would be substance. In connexion with this it should be said that Plato uses 'itself of the genera and not of the subgenera, but of what move through all by one 10 common nature. 208 [3] Again, if he [i.e. Aristotle] takes the opposite of the accident, as is clear from [the words] 'but let the just-existent be an accident to nothing',209 the opposite of accident is not genus but substance, and this would be the just-existent. [4) Again, by a division he made a contrast, and divided it between accident and the just-existent.210 For it was not a necessary211 question: what do they call 15 being, accident or genus? For there is something other than these; so that [it can be divided to include] substance. The just-existent then is substance. [5] Again, dividing how 'one' is spoken of: he selected one in number. He did not make mention of one in genus or in species, as obviously bringing in number. [6] Again, genus has two [divisions], the substantial212 and the common, but substance has to be substance alone. If then he nowhere speaks against what is common, but only 20 against substance, the just-existent is not genus but substance. [7) Again, further on, he himself says: 'If then the just-existent is an accident of nothing' ,213 and some genera are accidents, even if not of those things of which they are genera, but genera of the accidents are said to belong to substance, like a colour to a man, 214 if then in the genus there is actually some accident, but in substance there is nothing like that, and he himself places the just-existent in opposition 25 to accident, he would call the just-existent the substance, not the genus, which is attached also to the nature of accident. [8] Again, advancing, he says: 'If therefore the just-existent is an accident of nothing, but [other things are accidents] of that'. 215 If then that to which accidents occur is substance, but not genus, the just-existent would be substance, not genus. [9] Again, dividing the just-existent, 30 he does not divide it into species and individuals, which is the way genus is divided, but into definition and what are in that, that is, into genus and differentiae, which would be the way substance is divided, but not genus. Hence there is a genus of substance, but there is no
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genus above the very highest genus of all. [10] Again, he shows that genus and differentiae are just-existents because they are parts of the just-existent. If then genus is the just-existent through something else, it would not be the just-existent itself, but substance [would be that], through which the genus of substance is substantiated, as the [genus of] accident is accident. [11) Again, this216 would have appeared neither to be a mere suggestion nor a paradoxical proposal; for it seems to many of the philosophers that being is one as genus. [12] Again, if the just-existent were supposed to be a genus, how is it that he said that white or any other of the accidents did not exist? For these are species of what is just as substance is as well. But he himself, taking them as not existing, brought in as also not existing in the same way the just-existent, to which these belong, and not existing not as some thing not existing, but as absolutely not existing. And yet how would the accident be absolutely not existing, if its genus is the just-existent? [13] Again, if the just-existent is a genus, why will all the things under it be either not existent or just-existents? For it is not the case that everything under the genus is a genus itself. [14] Again, 'For if, he says, 'the just-existent is, white'. 217 And yet nobody would call the genus white, but we do say that the substance which shares in it is white. From this it is clear that he speaks of substance at the individual level, but not at that of genus. [15} Again, it was very easy to show that existing things are many by setting out the definition of genus; for the genus is of several things. But he nowhere refers to this clearly when he shows that there are many existing things, and it is clear that he takes the just-existent as not being a genus. And if anyone thinks it right for this reason to say that the just-existent is genus, because in other works he calls the just-existent the genus, 218 it is time for him to call the just-existent also the differentia. For there he also calls that [sc. the differentia] the just-existent as completive219 of the just-existent. And in those works, however, in which he calls the genus the just-existent, as substantially predicated and making that of which it is predicated what it is, in this way he calls it the just-existent. And Eudemus, following Aristotle in everything, did not accept that the just-existent is genus. At any rate speaking about Parmenides in the first [book] of his Physics he wrote this (as Alexander says; for I have not found this statement in my Eudemus material):220 'He would not mean the common. 221 For neither were these matters enquired into yet, but later on, from the arguments, there was an advance, nor would there be accepted what he [i.e. Parmenides] says about Being. For how will this be "equally extending from the centre" and similar points. But to the heaven, they say, nearly all such arguments are appropriate.' 222
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187al-11 And some yielded to both points, 223 to the one [point], that all things are one, if being signifies one, by saying that not-being exists, and to the other, from the dichotomy, by creating indivisible lines. It is obvious that it is not true, if being signifies one, and it is not possible for both parts of the contradiction to be true at the same time, that there will not be anything non-existent; for nothing prevents not-being, not from simply existing, but from being something which is not. To say that if there is nothing else apart from the one, all things will be one, is absurd. For who understands being itself except as some just-existent? And if that is so, nothing prevents existing things from being many, as has been said. So it is clear that it is impossible for being to be one in this way. He [i.e. Aristotle] himself, having refuted Parmenides' argument both as adopting false premises (the premise was that being is spoken of in one way only -either 'There is nothing other than what is' or 'What is not is nothing'- for these are equivalent) and as putting them together in a non-syllogistic way (for the conclusion asserted does not follow) he says that some yield to both arguments, both that stated by Parmenides and that stated by Zeno, who wanted to help the argument of Parmenides against those who tried to mock him on the grounds that if one is many he will be saying224 things both laughable to reason and self-contradictory. Zeno shows that their hypothesis, which says that there are many things, involves still more laughable things than the one [which says] that there is [only] one, if anyone were to attack it properly. For Zeno himsel( in Plato's Parmenides, 225 seems to be a witness to this account. And the statement of Parmenides is this, that all things are the one Being, if being means one. For other than it there will be nothing. And as Theophrastus proposed: 'What is other than being is not. What is not is nothing'. 226 And he [i.e. Aristotle] says that some give in to this argument. And to give in to an argument is to agree to the premises which establish it, or to the combination. They say that Plato gave in to the premise that says that what is other than being is not. (For indeed he says in the Sophist227 that motion and rest and same and other are different from being) but he still does not agree that what is not is nothing. For he also says that what are different from being, even if they are not beings, still however exist, and by this he brings in what is not. And Alexander says that he [i.e. Plato] agrees on the one hand that Being is one, but he still does not on the other agree that all things are one, when he assumes that among all things are not only Being but also not-being. 'And it is not', he says, 'in this way that he [i.e. Plato) said that not-being existed, as being some tbing among the things that are under being. For he was not saying that there was something not existing and something existing, nor that [it is that] 228
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which is included in what is assumed to be, but [it is] that which has another nature other than what was agreed and postulated, when he accepted that Being was one and was spoken of in only one way. But agreeing to the premise that other than Being there is nothing, but saying that there is something other than the being assumed in the premise, he [i.e. Plato] says that there is a contradiction. 229 For, granting that what is other than being does not exist, he says that on the contrary what is other than being does exist and falls into the contradiction by saying that not-being exists simply. H however someone were to say that not-being exists, but not the simple not-being, but some not-being, he does not fall into the contradiction. For 30 that which is something other is not other. For it was shown that being was not one in number through its being taken that it was spoken of in one way.' These then are the words of Alexander. But Porphyry says that Plato says that not-being also exists, but 135, 1 in this way, as not being. For he [i.e. Plato] declared that what truly exists is form, and that is really substance, and that the highest, first, shapeless and formless matter, 230 from which all things come, exists, but is none o:f the things that exist. For it, thought of in itself, is 5 potentially all things, but actually nothing. But the thing completed from the form and the matter, in as far as it partakes of form, to this extent it is something and is named after the form, but in as far as it [shares in) the matter, and through this finds itself in continuous flow and change, on the contrary exists neither simply nor :firmly. At any rate Plato divides them up in the Timaeus23 1 and says: 'What always 10 exists, and does not have an origin, and what comes into being, but never exists'. And when he said that not-being exists, he did not [say that] Being was not-being, nor that not-being was Being. [These are] not contraries according to the antithesis. For man cannot also at the same time be not-man, but it is true that he [can be] not a horse. But in reply to Alexander it is enough to set out the words of 15 Plato, 232 to which Alexander himself referred, which show clearly, I think, that Plato was bringing in not the absolute not-being, but some not-being. These words go like this: 'Do you know then that we have had doubts about Parmenides' statement and gone far away from his prohibition? In what way? Going further than he forbade us to look, 20 by searching forwards we have taught him something. How? Because he says somewhere: 25
For never shall this prevail that what are not, are, but you, keep your thought away from this path233 when enquiring.
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the part of each thing related to being to it, 285 we have been bold enough to say that this itself is what is genuinely not-being. Let no one therefore tell us that, having revealed that not-being is the opposite of being, we dare to say that it is. For we long ago said goodbye to the question whether there is an opposite to it, whether it is or is not, having an account or being entirely without an account. But about what we have said about not-being existing, let someone persuade us by a refutation that we have not argued well, or, to the extent he cannot, he must also say as we say, that the genera are mixed with one anot;her, and Being and Other, going through all things and one another, and on the one hand the Other, sharing in Being, has existence through this sharing, not however being that in which it shares, but other, and being other than Being, necessarily most clearly can be not-being. On the other hand not-being again sharing in the Other, would be other than the remaining genera. And being other than all of those it is not each of them, nor all the others except itself, so that indisputably Being again is not thousands upon thousands, and the others individually, like this, both in many ways are everything and in many ways are not'. 236 From these words Alexander thought that Plato was introducing the absolute not-being, taking absolute not-being as being genus. It was enough to hear Plato himself saying: 'Let no one therefore say of us, that having revealed that not-being is the opposite of being, we are bold enough to say [that it is], 287 and that 'each thing exists through its sharing in Being, but it is not Being'. And before these words he showed clearly what kind of not-being he was introducing by saying: 'whenever we speak of not-being, as it seems, we do not speak of something opposite to being, but of [what is] different only.'238 It was enough to hear also the words spoken about what was absolutely not-being and opposed to Being, as Plato dismissed any argument about it whatsoever. For neither the one saying that it is, nor the one saying that it is not, is free from censure. Nor is saying anything about it safe. So then these things that I said were sufficient. It is necessary to comprehend that the Being assumed by Plato is what is studied in accordance with the bare peculiarity of Being itself, which is set in the division against both the other genera and not-being. For he says that this too is a genus, but not complete being, which contains all the genera in itself. To that, complete not-being would be opposed, if it is possible to speak of opposing with regard to it. This kind ofbeing would not be a genus, if genera are opposed to one another in a division. And these are circumscribed by one peculiarity, and distinguished from the intellectual289 union, in which all were one, as Parm.enides said, and descending :first into the mental section, divided undividedly, and then into the sensible portion, and between these into the psychical conjunction. So that it is far from true that Plato introduced the absolute not-being which is opposed to absolute Being.
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And Porphyry observed well that Plato did not introduce absolute not-being, but that he taught in the Sophist that the created being was not Being about which he says in the Timaeus, 'and what is coming to be, 240 but never Being', this seems to me to be worthy of examination. For it is not in the division containing the sensible but in that of the mental forms that Plato appears to find not-being, for at some time he would say these things about the enmattered and sensible: 'What, by Zeus? Shall we easily be persuaded that motion and life and soul and thought are truly not present in the entirely existent, and that it does not live or think, but, solemn and holy, not having mind, it exists staying unmoved?'241 I reply in common to Alexander and Porphyry that Plato did not as clearly say that some not-being, which he introduced, existed, as Aristotle alleged in accusing him of introducing absolute not-being. And still, however, he [i.e. Aristotle] would not in these words be objecting to Plato, that he feared in vain, that if what is other than Being is not, all things are one, and brought in not-being for this reason. For Plato did not show that there are many things by bringing in not-being, but he showed that, after having demonstrated that One is one thing, and Being another, and from its wholeness to be like the mass of a sphere well-rounded from every direction, and equal from the middle, 242 and 243 not-being and calling the sophist a maker of images, 244 and [saying that] the image has something false, but that falsity does not exist unless not-being exists. For the liar either says that what is is not, or that what is not is. These then are about one way out of the difficulty, with Aristotle neither agreeing that being is spoken of in only one way, nor accepting the proposition saying that what is other than being is not; unless someone were to say of not-being that it is not substance, but is not prevented from being something else. And, before Aristotle, Plato also proclaimed that. And it is clear that Aristotle also saw that not-being is included with plurality. For nothing, he says prevents not-being, not to be absolutely, but to be some particular not-being. 245 Next, however, he says246 that even if the proposition were true, which says that what is other than being is not, it is not immediately necessary that all things are one in number. For Being itsel£, 247 which they postulate, nobody would understand as other than what is spoken of as the just-existent, that is, strictly being, that is, substance. And this being so, it has been shown earlier that whether the just-existent shares in accident, existing things are many, or whether it does not share [in it], things in themselves, which are what beings are, are also many, through the things substantially included in the definition of the just-existent. It is worthwhile to understand that the just-existent has also been called Being itself, according to the Platonic custom. Alexander says that the second argument, the one from dichotomy, is by Zeno, who says that if being had size and were divided, both
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Being and not-being would still be many; and through this shows that the One is none of the things that exist. But about this argument, and through what came before, he says that Aristotle spoke when he said: 'The later of the ancients were disturbed too', 248 and he provided the solution with the words: 'as it is not possible for the same thing to be one and many, at least not as opposites, Being is one both potentially and actually'. 249 'To this argument', he [i.e. Alexander] says, 'the one about the dichotomy, Xenocrates of Chalcedon yielded, having accepted that the all, when divided, is many (for the part is different from the whole), and that the same thing cannot be one and many at the same time, because the (parts of the] contradiction cannot be true together, but yet did not agree that every magnitude is divisible and has parts; for there are some indivisible lines, of which it is not true that these are many. In this way he thought to find the nature of'one' and escape the contradiction through the fact that neither is what is divided one but many, nor are the indivisible lines many but only one.' It is worthwhile to consider these remarks of Alexander, first [asking] if this is Zeno's own saying, that One is nothing of the things that exist. 250 At any rate he wrote many arguments to the contrary. doing away with the view that there are many things, so that by the destruction of the many he would strengthen the view that all things are one, which Parmenides also wanted. Next it was necessary to explain the usefulness of the mention ofZeno's argument and of the ineffectual concessions to him, since for those who gave in to Parmenides' argument, but introduced not-being, its usefuJness was clear; for it was to show that existing things are many, which Parmenides did not want. But if Zeno himself destroyed the One by showing that there are many things, the argument did not need any support, unless someone should say that he mentioned it because this argument was opposed to the one saying that existing things were only many. But it seems that Alexander took from the words of Eudemus the opinion that Zeno did away with the One. For Eudemus says in his Physics: 'is it then that One is not this, but it is something?251 For there was a question about this. And they say that Zeno said that if anyone were to give him whatever One is, he would have the power to say what the things that exist are. 252 And there was a question, it seems, because each of the sensibles was said to be many both by the categories and by division, but the point was supposed to be nothing. For what would neither increase something when added to it, nor diminish it when taken away, was not thought to be among the things that exist'. And it is likely that Zeno was arguing on both sides with exercises (for which he was also called 'double-tongued'),253 and when wondering about the One (was likely] to produce arguments of this kind. In his book, however, which has many attempts at argument, he shows in detail that the man who says there are many things finds
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that he is making opposing utterances; one of these is the attempted argument254 in which he shows that if there are many things, they are both large and small, large so as to be unlimited in size, and small in such a way as to have no magnitude. In this he shows that what has 10 neither magnitude nor thickness255 nor bulk would not even exist. 'For', he says, 'if it were attached to another existing thing, it would make it no bigger; for when there is no magnitude, and it is attached, 256 it is not possible to add anything to magnitude. And so at once what is attached would be nothing. And if when it was removed what remains is not less, nor again when it is attached that will not 15 increase, it is clear that neither what was attached nor what was removed was anything.' And Zeno says this, not destroying the One, but [saying] that each of the many has magnitude and is without limits, 257 because before it is taken away there is always something, through the slicing to infinity; and that he proves, having earlier proved that nothing has magnitude from the fact that each of the many is the same as itself, and one. And Themistius258 says that 20 Zeno's argument argues positively that Being is one from its being continuous and indivisible, 'for if it were divided, he says, it will not be one in the strict sense because of the cutting of bodies into infinity'. But it rather seems that Zeno said that it would also not be many. Porphyry, however, says that Parmenides, in his argument from 25 dichotomy, was trying to show from it that Being was one. He writes as follows: 'There was another argument by Parmenides, the one through the dichotomy, thinking to show that Being was one alone and this without parts and indivisible. For ifit were divisible, he says, let it be divided in two and then each of the parts in two, and with this happening continually it is clear, he says, that either there will 30 remain some final least magnitudes which are individuals and unlimited in number, and the whole will be made up of the things which are the smallest, but which are unlimited in number; or it will have gone away and will be dissolved into nothing and will come together out of nothing: these things are absurd. It will not therefore be divided, but 140,1 will remain one. For in addition, since it is in every way alike, if it is divisible it will be divisible in all ways alike, but not here, yes, and there, no. Let it be divided then in every way: it is clear then again that nothing will be left, but it will have gone away, and if it should come together, again it will come together out of nothing. For if anything is going to remain, it will not have been entirely divided. So 5 that, he says, from these things it is clear that Being is something indivisible and without parts and one. 'Xenocrates259 agreed that the first implication held, that is, that if Being is one it will also be undivided, but not that Being is undivided. Hence again Being is not just one, but many. However wbile divided, it does not go on to infinity, but stops at some individuals. These 10 however are not individuals as being without parts and smallest, but
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fissile with regard to quantity and having parts, but individual and primary in form, supposing that there are certain primary indivisible lines, and the planes from these and primary solids. Xenocrates thinks that he can solve the problem meeting us from the dichotomy and, simply, the cutting and division to infinity, by bringing in the indivisible lines and making absolutely indivisible magnitudes, es~ caping the difficulty that if Being is one it will be dissolved into not-being and be expended, since the indivisible lines from which existing things are made remain unsliced and undivided.' If, in these words uttered by Porphyry, there is a verbatim record of the argument from dichotomy through absurdity consequent on the division, bringing in that Being is undivided and one, that would be fine. But it is worthwhile to consider whether the argument is indeed by Parmenides260 and not by Zeno, as it actually seemed to be to Alexander. For nothing like this is to be seen in the works ofParmenides, and the broadest enquiry assigns the problem of the dichotomy to Zeno. And mention is also made of it in the arguments about motion, as being by Zeno. And why should I say any more, for it also exists in the treatise of Zeno? For again, showing that if there are many, the same things will be limited and unlimited, Zeno writes thus verbatim: 'If there are many, necessarily they are as many as they are, and neither more of them nor fewer. But if they are as many as they are, they would be limited. If they are many, existing things will be unlimited. For there are always other things in between existing things, and again other things in between them. And in this way existing things will be unlimited.' And in this way he demonstrated the unlimited in quantity from the dichotomy, but [the unlimited] in magnitude he [demonstrated] earlier by the same argument. For having shown first that 'If Being did not have size it would also not exist', he adds: 'but if it exists, it is necessary for each thing to have some size and thickness and be apart from it the one from the other. And about that which projects there is the same argument. For that also will have size and part of it will [again] project.261 It is the same to utter this once and to say it always. For nothing of it like this will be last, nor will there not be another related to another. In this way if they are many it is necessary for them to be small and large, small so as not to have magnitude, and large so as to be unlimited.' Perhaps then the argument from dichotomy is indeed Zeno's, as Alexander wants, but not however doing away with the One, but rather [doing away with] the many by the fact that those who support them are affected by the same contradictions, and in this way supporting the argument of Parmenides which says that Being is one. So that both the present reference to the argument from dichotomy is reasonable, and that to those who unjustifiably yielded to it, [saying) that if there did not exist some indivisible magnitudes, existing things would necessarily
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be unlimited in both number and size, and for this reason postulating indivisible lines, so that both existing things may be many, and the number and the size should not advance to infinity. And yet they appear to have fallen into a contradiction in speaking of sizeless size. Hence Aristotle does not accept this solution. For it is not the case that if magnitude were divisible to infinity, immediately its parts would also be actually infinite, but [they would be] actually one, potentially many. Hence Aristotle did not do well in bringing in the 20 contradiction, or the solution of those who said that the one and the many were the same. For those, however, who show that they are infinite it is not true to say that the parts of the continuum are potentially infinite. For they would at some time have become actually infinite, unless the potential was useless. But it must be remarked that Porphyry said that 'it is one thing for the continuum to 25 be divisible to infinity, and another for it to have been divided to infinity.' For division can always come about, and that is for it to be to infinity, but it never can have come about and have ceased, since in stopping at least it has been given a limit. For there is a difference between something having been divided to infinity and dividing something to infinity. Fm" the one thing would never come about and 30 have been completed, whereas the other would never cease continually happening. For through the one always coming about and not being able to cease, the other would never be completed. Let therefore no one worry about how what is divisible to infinity, having the potential to be divided (for what is divisible is what is capable of being divided), will never, even so, be divided to infinity. For it will appear that the potential which will never end up in actuality is irrelevant. 35 Let this therefore not disturb you; for what is divisible to infinity has not been potentially divided to infinity, but is being divided to infi.n142,1 ity. This always holds in actuality, if every given thing is divisible, and is divided, at least if nothing prevents it, if not by us, by nature, which is continually being applied and dividing it. And it is clear that with everything continuous being divided to infinity the view that 5 there is no magnitude and that it is being divided neither into indivisible magnitudes nor into non-magnitudes is strengthened. For of every given continuum there is some part which is itself also continuous, even to infinity. And if every division is into magnitudes, it is clear that [this] division will be to infinity. And that it is into magnitudes is clear, if points can neither touch one another nor create a distance between them. For a point put next to a point makes a point, but not a magnitude. Therefore it is neither formed 10 from points nor divided into points; but neither will it ever be divided into infinite magnitudes since it is finite. For from those into which it is divided, from them it is formed; but what was [made up] of magnitudes infinite in quantity, would itself be infinite in magnitude. For if it were finite, it would receive an addition 15
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of something else like what made it up; and thus those things were not infinite in quantity. But since Xenocrates was also a clever man, how did he come to suggest the indivisible lines? For he was not ignorant of the nature of magnitude, but neither did he say that it was divisible in species.262 For not only do the smallest lines have that, but also the largest bodies. Perhaps then Xenocrates opposes, not the slicing to infinity (for as a geometer he would not do away with a geometrical principle), but, the being divided into infinity when there were always some undivided magnitudes; these are not by nature strong enough in themselves, because of their smallness, to be divided, but united back with other bodies, with the whole divided like this, in themselves they accept the division to which by themselves alone they would not have stood up. So just as Plato said that the first and smallest bodies were plane surfaces, so Xenocrates said [they were] lines indivisible because of their smallness, but these too being divisible in nature. But since we have already arrived at the end of the arguments against Parmenides, it would be well to search out Parmenides' own opinion about the one Being, 263 as agreeing with what has been said, and to examine what the disagreements are about. That Parmenides supposes that the one Being is not part of the things that come to be and pass away, is shown by his indication which says that the uncreated and unending is one, in which he says: There remains a single account of a journey, that it is. On this way there are very many signs, that being uncreated, it is also indestructible. 264 Moreover he certainly does not want the one Being to be corporeal, since he says that it is indivisible, in the words:
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Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike.265
So that the things he has said are not connected with the heaven, as Eudemus says that some suppose, hearing of66 [the words]:
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Like the mass of a sphere well-rounded on all sides.267 For the heaven is not indivisible, and also it is not like a sphere. But a sphere is the most precise of natural things. And also, that Parmenides says that the one Being does not have a soul he [i.e. Eudemus] shows by his [i.e. Parmenides] saying that it is unmoving, thus, 268
It is unmoving; for its name is all things, 269
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since mental substance, according to the Eleatics, does involve movement. And he says also that Being is all together: since all is now together, 270 And with regard to the same things and being similar: 15
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remaining the same in the same it lies by itself. And clearly both in substance and in potentiality and in actuality it has both 'the all together' and the 'according to the same' which are beyond271 the mental hypostasis. And perhaps he does not even say that it is thinking, 272 for the thinker exists by its distinction from the thought, and by its turning273 towards the thought, and the one Being he says is both thinking and thought and mind, clearly when he writes like this:
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It is the same thing to think and that for which the thought exists, for you will not find thinking without the existing thing, (that is the object ofthought), 274 in which it is expressed. 275
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Again, the intellectual276 is divided up into forms, just as the thought has acquired the division of the forms by way of union. 277 And where there is division, there there is also otherness; and since this is so, not-being appears beside it. For the one thing is not what the other is, and Parmenides entirely excludes not-being from the one Being. For never shall this prevail, that what are not, are, but you, keep your thought away from this path when enquiring. 278
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But he does not want the one Being to be [1] 279 any commonness, 280 neither that which is generated later and arises from abstraction in our thoughts, for that is neither uncreated nor indestructible, but also not [2] the commonness in things, for that is sensible and among the things of opinion, and deceptive, about which he speaks later, and there is another {3] from the differentiae, as having already undergone otherness and not-being. How with this sense would it be true that all would be everywhere now, or that there were joined together in itself the thinker and the thought? But is it that he does not say that the one Being is indivisible substance, or is this further [from the truth)? For the indivisible substance is created and separated by otherness, and enmattered and sensible and other than the accident. And also it is divided and in motion. It remains, therefore, that the thought, the cause of everything, and through which are both the thinker and thinking, in which all things by one union are taken
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together, joined and united, this is the Parmenidean one Being, in which there is one nature both of the One and of Being. Hence Zeno used to say that if anyone could show him the One, he would reply with Being, 281 not as departing from the One, but as coexisting together with the One. Indeed all the aforementioned conclusions fit with this one Being. For the uncreated and indestructible is also perfectly unique. For what is before all distinction would not be a second with another to Being. To this 'being all together' is appropriate, and that not-being has nowhere any place in it, and again being undivided and unchanging with regard to every kind of division and change, and being about the same things and in the same way, and standing on the edge282 of all things. But if this is that for which thinking exists, clearly it is the thought. For both thinking and the mind are for the thought. But if the thinking and the thought are the same in the same, the extremity of this unity would be ineffable. And provided that I do not appear fussy to anyone, I would happily add to these records the words of Parmenides, which are not many, about the One, but to give confidence in what has been said by me and through the scarcity of Parm.enides' treatise. What comes after the destruction of not-being is like this: There remains a single account of a journey, that it is.283 For this there are .very many signs that, being uncreated, it is also indestructible,284 a whole, unique, unshaken, and perfect. 285 And it was not once, and will not be, since it is now all together, One, continuous; for what birth would you seek for it? Grown to where and whence? Nor will I let you say or think that it is from not-being. For it is not to be said or to be thought that it is not. And what actual need would have driven it to grow later or earlier, beginning from nothing? Thus it is necessary for it to exist either completely or not at all. Nor will a reliable strength allow anything ever to become out of what is not, 286 beside it. For this reason Justice has never relaxed her fetters to allow it either to come to be or to be destroyed, but holds it. And the judgment about these matters is in this: 287 It is or it is not. It has been decided therefore as necessary, to let the one [way] go as unthinkable, nameless (for it is not the true way), 288 and the other to be and to be true. How then would Being be afterwards, and how would it come to be? For if it has come to be, it is not, nor if it will at some time be. Thus coming to be has been extinguished, and being destroyed is unheard o£ Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike. Nor is there anything more here, 289 which would prevent it from holding together. Nor is it in any way worse, but all is full of being. It is all by being continuous; for by being it gets near to Being. But unchanged in the limits of great bonds it is without beginning, unceasing, since coming
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to be and destruction have wandered far away, and true belief has pushed them aside. Remaining the same in the same it lies by itself. And thus held it stays there; for strong necessity holds it in the bonds of a limit, that holds it all around. So it is not lawful for being to be incomplete. For it is not in need: not being, it would be in need of everything. It is the same thing to think and that for which the thought exists, for you will not find thinking without the existing thing, in which it is expressed. Nor if time is, or will be, will there be anything besides being, 290 since fate has bound the whole to be changeless. All things have names which mortals have given them believing them to be true, coming to be and passing away, existing and not, and changing place and altering their bright colour. But since there is a final limit, it will be completed on every side, like the mass of a well-rounded sphere, 291 equally extended from the centre in every direction; for it is necessary for it to be neither somewhat greater in any way nor somewhat smaller here or here. For there is not not-being, which would check it from arriving at its like, nor is it existent in such a way as to be more here, less there, since all is inviolate. For it is equal from every direction, reaching evenly to its limits. Here I end my trustworthy account and thought about truth; from now on learn the belief of mortals, hearing the deceitful beauty of my words. These are the words of Parmeni.des about the Being which is one. After them it is left for him to discuss the things of opinion, and describe the principles which he supposes to be in them, and to which Aristotle also refers in what follows, saying: 'for Parmenides makes hot and cold principles, but he calls them fire and earth' .292 But if he [i.e. Parmenides] says that the one Being is like the mass of a well-rounded sphere do not be surprised; for through his poetry he touches upon a kind of mythical style. In what way does saying this differ from how Orpheus spoke of'a silvery egg''P93 And it is clear that some of the reports of what he said more generally apply to other things that come later. Thus294 'uncreated and indestructible' apply both to the soul and to the intellect and 'unchanging and staying in the same place' [applies] to the intellect. And all together and understood in themselves they fit that. For even if in one sense the soul is uncreated, and the intellect, it is still led aside by the intelligible. And it has the unchanging in a strict sense, in which both the change by way of activity has not been distinguished, and remaining in the same place belongs strictly to what is remaining. But soul and the highly valued intellect have come out from what is remaining and turned back to it. And it is clear that the things that are said to belong to it as united have
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been received into it, but as distinguished, and, as appears from the account of them, have come forth from it after it. And it seems to have been treated as the first cause by Parmenides, if 'the all together' and 'final limit' are one. But if he did not simply call it one, but one Being, and if 'unique', and if the limit is 'perfected', 295 perhaps he shows that the ineffable cause of all things is established beyond it. 296 How then is it that both Plato and Aristotle are clearly speaking against Parmenides? Or, [that] Plato opposed him in two ways, both with regard to saying that Being is one, and with regard to completely doing away with not-being, and made his opposition from the universe that is mental297 and contains distinctions, in which both, Being has been distinguished from the One, and the two did not remain one, and the parts [have been distinguished] from the whole. For it was from these [arguments] that Plato showed that existing things are not one but more than one. And [that] the not-being [is something] he showed from the otherness in the forms that had been distinguished, through which there the being, taken according to one special feature, is being, but is not change or staying the same. And each of the others is what it is, and is not the others. And it is clear that this (not-being) is entirely there where distinction and otherness have also been revealed, by the forms in the mental298 area, and by separation in that of the senses. And that this is not-being Parmenides himself clearly agrees in his part about opinion, when he calls deceptive the beauty of his verses, which are about the opinions of mortals. Where there is deceit, there there is not-being. For he who considers not-being to be, or Being not to be, is deceived. As to what is entirely non-existent, not only does Parmenides do away with it, but also Plato, who evades enquiry into it by saying: 'Let no one therefore tell us that having revealed that not-being is the opposite of being we dare to say that it is. For we long ago said goodbye to the question whether there is an opposite to it, whether it is or is not, having an account or being entirely without an account. But about what we have said about not-being existing, let someone persuade us by a refutation that we have not argued well, or, to the extent that he cannot, he must say as we say.'299 And there is nothing surprising in the fact that he showed this kind of not-being to be defined like this by one special feature, with such not-being having no place for the Being which is perfect and intelligible and all things in union with being before all things. But Aristotle, bringing in his opposition by a division, says:800 either 'being' has many meanings, and in this way will be many, or only one, and will be either substance or accident. And it is clear that none of these are relevant to the intelligible, since this division appeared in [the world of] coming to be, and was assumed, if at all, for some reason in the intellectual distinction. 301 But let no one blame Plato and Aristotle for speaking against other
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ideas. For in a kindly way they prevent the misunderstandings which might come about, since they show that they think Parmenides clever, Plato302 by witnessing to the totally noble depth of the thought of the man, and reporting that he was the teacher of the loftiest subjects [studied by] Socrates, and Aristotle, thinking him to be looking in another direction, placing him in relation to the natural philosophers. Since both Plato reported this one Being in the Parmenides, praising his superiority, and Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, maintaining that the one itself exists, and shouting out that 'many heads are not good',303 he304 too proclaiming before him [i.e. Aristotle] the unification, and observing, well, that there mind and thought and substance and possibility and activity are the same. But enough of these matters, lest we should seem to anyone to 'leap over the trenches'305 - according to the proverb, putting the loftiest of divine matters into the subject of nature. 1.4, translated by C.C.W. Taylor
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187al2-21 The views of the natural philosophers take two forms. Some regard the underlying body as one thing, either one of the tbree1 or something else which is denser than fire and finer than air, and they generate the other things by density and rarity, making them many (these are opposites, and in general [instances ofj greater and lesser quantity, as Plato speaks of the great and the small, except that he regards them as matter and the one as their form, whereas they regard the underlying one as matter and the opposites as differentiae and forms). The others think that the oppositions are present in the one and are separated out from it, as Anaximander says ... He has dealt with the view of those who say that what is is one, and one in the following way, namely the only thing that there is, and something unchangeable; this is not a view appropriate to natural philosophers, but to those who investigate things which transcend nature. 2 (Aristotle has charitably pointed out by means of his distinction between them and the natural philosophers, who contrariwise treat what is as body, that they [i.e. the metaphysicians] are not speaking about nature, while on the other hand he shows that by treating what is and the principle as identical even they were speaking about a principle).3 So having shown that it is impossible for what is to be one in that way, he next proposes to investigate the sense in which the natural philosophers say that the primary element from which things come is one. Some of them say that there is one element, others that there are several. In the case of those who say that there is one, he says that they think that things come to be from it in either of two ways: they all assume that this one thing is something bodily,
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but some of them say that it is one of the three elements, Thales and Hippon that it is water, 4 Anaximenes and Diogenes5 air, 6 and Heraclitus and Hippasus fire 7 (no-one thought it appropriate to postulate earth because it is hard to alter),8 while some postulated something other than the three elements, which is denser than fire and finer than air, 9 or, as he says elsewhere, 10 denser than air and finer than water. 11 Alexander12 thinks that it wasAnaximander who postulated as the principle some kind of body other than the elements, but Porphyry, assuming that Aristotle is opposing those who say in an undifferentiated way that the underlying substrate is a body to those who say either that it is one of the three elements or something else, intermediate between fire and air, says that Anaxim.ander said in an undifferentiated way that the substrate was an unlimited body without differentiating its nature as fire or water or air. He himself [i.e. Porphyry] attributed the intermediate theory to Diogenes of Apollonia, 13 as did Nicolaus of Damascus. 14 It seems to me that it is more natural to interpret the words [of 187a13-15] not as opposing body to the elements and the intermediate, but as dividing it into the three and the intermediate; for he [i.e. Aristotle] speaks of 'the substrate' [as] 'a body, either one of the three or something else which is denser than fire and finer than air' (187a13-15); nevertheless he made the general observation about all the above-mentioned theories that 'they generate the rest by rarity and density' (187a15), though Anaximander, as he himself [i.e. Aristotle] says (187a20-21), does not generate them in that way, but by extraction from the unlimited. How then, if he [i.e. Aristotle] was speaking of him [i.e. Anaximander] as positing body in an undifferentiated way, did he make the general observation about generation by alteration?15 All of these people are agreed in speaking of the principle as one, but they divide into two classes with regard to the ways in which things come to be. From the material one some generate the other things by rarity and density, for instance Anaxim.enes says that when air is refined it becomes fire, and when it is condensed it becomes wind, then cloud, then when further condensed water, then earth, then stones, and the rest from these. 16 In his Enquiry 17 Theophrastus mentions rarefaction and condensation only in the case of Anaximenes, but it is clear that the others too [who belong to this first class] made use of rarity and density, since Aristotle says in general about all that 'they generate the rest by density and rarity, making many things' (187a15-16) out ofthe one matter. And if rarefaction and condensation are opposite (as there is a more general opposition between greater and lesser quantity, as for instance Plato spoke of the great and small) (187a17-18), it is clear that all of these people were no longer speaking of the principle as one, but as three, and were making use of opposition, as he himself [i.e. Aristotle] will do. 18 Except that Plato spoke of great and small as the matter of things (187al8), 19 attesting that all the oppositions are
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potentially present in it as arising from the one opposition, 20 while the others said that the one substrate was the matter, and the opposites, rarefaction and condensation, differentiae and form. So all of them said that there are three principles, the opposites and one other thing. Unless Plato spoke of matter not as [consisting actually of] two principles, great and small, but [used the terms] figuratively, and [spoke] similarly of the indefinite dyad and disorder, parts of which are the greater and less and much and little and inequality, all [of 15 which are] attributes of matter. Perhaps that is what Plato meant by the great and small, that matter, being non-bodily and having no size, is therefore to be called small, but is at the same time the cause of all bulk and dimension, and hence large. This is one form of the supposition that what is is one, namely to constitute the plurality of things 20 by rarity and density. The other form is that in which they no longer ascribe change to matter nor explain things' coming into being by alteration of the substrate, but by extraction; Anaximander says that the opposites are in the substrate, which is a limitless body, and that they are extracted from it; he was the first to call the substrate a 25 princi.ple.21 The oppositions are hot, cold, dry, wet etc. This is all that the above-mentioned people said. One should know that Aristotle considers that rarity accompanies fineness of texture and density coarseness.22 That is why he takes fire to be at once rare and fine, speaking of what is 'denser than fire and finer than air' (187al4-15), assuming that air is coarser and denser 30 than fire. Plato too says that air is coarser than fire, and that simply the lower elements nearer the centre are coarser-textured than the upper nearer the periphery. That is why they are hard to displace, e.g. earth. 28 Further, he says that they are denser, because he consid151,1 ers that the rare and the dense are defined by the positions oftheir parts, as Aristotle said in the Categories.24 If that is so, where the parts are larger the distances between them must be larger, hence the whole must be rarer, since it is looser-textured and not a single thing, but like a pile of stones or nuts. But where the parts are smaller 5 the distances are smaller, hence the whole is denser, being a quantity like a pile of sand.25 Alexander says that, 'According to Plato the principles of everything, including the Forms themselves, are the One and the indefinite dyad, which he called the great and small, as Aristotle also reports in his "On the Goat!". 26 One can get this information also from Speusippus, Xenocrates and the others, who were 10 present at Plato's lecture on the Good; all of them wrote down and preserved his view, and they say that he treated those as principles. 27 It is altogether likely that Plato should speak of the One and the indefinite dyad as principles of everything, since this is a Pythagorean doctrine, and Plato seems to follow the Pythagoreans at many points; but how would it be consistent for him, having called the indefinite dyad and the principles of the Forms the great and small, 10
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to use these terms to refer to matter? Plato separates matter off as existing only in the perceptible universe and says clearly in the Timaeus that it belongs to coming to be, and that what comes to be comes to be in it; he said that the Forms are knowable by thought, while matter is 'believable by bastard reasoning'_ 28 The majority account says that Diogenes of Apollonia, like Anaximenes, posits air as the primary element, but Nicolaus in his treatise On the Gods states that he declares the intermediate between fire and air to be the principle, and Nicolaus was followed by the most learned of the philosophers, Porphyry. One should know that this same Diogenes wrote several books, as he recorded himself in his On Nature, saying that he wrote in opposition to the natural philosophers, or, as he calls them, sophists; he also records that he wrote a Treatise on the Heavens, which he says includes a discussion of the principle, and also a work On the Nature of Man. In On Nature, which is the only work of his which I have come across, 29 he sets out to show by many arguments that there is a great deal of thought30 in the principle which he has posited. After the introduction he writes as follows [DK 64B2]: To speak comprehensively, it seems to me that all things are formed by differentiation of the same thing, and are the same. This is very clear. For if the things that there are now in this world, earth and water and air and fire and everything else apparent in this world were different from one another, each one different in its own nature, and if they were not the same thing undergoing many changes and differentiations, they would be unable to mix with one another, or do one another good or harm, nor could a plant grow from the earth nor an animal or anything else come into being, if they were not so constituted as to be the same. But all these things come to be distinct at distinct times by differentiation from the same thing, and they go back to being the same. Reading these opening words I took him to be saying that the common substrate is something other than the four elements, on the assumption that he was saying that they could not mix nor change into one another if the principle were some one of them with its own partH:ular nature and it was not the same thing which underlay them all, from which they are all differentiated. But immediately he shows that this principle possesses a great deal of thought ('For', he says (DK 64B3), 'things could not have been divided up this way without thought, so as to have the measures of everything, summer and winter, night and day, rain, winds and fine weather and the rest which anyone who cares to consider will find to be as well arranged as possible'), adding that humans and the other animals derive their life, soul and thought
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from this principle, which is air. These are his words [DK 64B4]: 'In addition we have these important indications; humans and the other animals live by breathing air. This is soul and thought for them, as will be manifestly shown in this treatise, and if it is removed, they die and their thought gives out.' A little later he added plainly [DK 64B5]: And it seems to me that what possesses thought is what people call air, and that they are all directed by this and that it controls everything. For this very thing seems to me to be a god, 31 and it reaches as far as everything and arranges everything and is in everything. There is no single thing which does not have a share of it, but nothing shares in it in the same way as anything else, but there are many forms both of air itself and of thought. It is multiform, warmer, colder, dryer, wetter, more static, in quicker motion, with infinitely many other variations of taste and colour. The soul of all animals is the same thing, air which is warmer than the air which surrounds us. but much colder than the air in the sun. This warmth is not alike for each animal (nor indeed for different people), but the difference is not great, so that they are similar. Yet it is not possible for any of the things which are differentiated one from the other to become absolutely alike, without becoming the same thing.32 Since the di:fferentiation between them is multiform the animals too are multiform and many, and they are not like one another in appearance or habits or intelligence, because of the multitude of differentiations. Yet they all live and see and hear by the same thing, and all have the other aspects of thought33 from the same source. Next he shows that the seed of animals is breathy, and that thoughts come about when air occupies the whole body along with blood through the veins, and in so doing he gives an accurate anatomical description of the veins. In this he plainly states that the principle is what people call air. It is surprising that, while saying that the other things come to be by differentiation from it. he nonetheless says that it is eternal, in these words [DK 64B7]: 'This very thing is an eternal and immortal body, and by it things come to be and pass away', and elsewhere [DK 64B8]: 'But this seems clear to me, that it is great and strong and eternal and immortal and multiple in form'. This additional infonnation about Diogenes may suffice. Next Aristotle moves on from those who say that the principle is one to those who say that it is one and many. 187a21-6 ... and those who say that it is one and many, as Empedocles and Anaxagoras do. For they too separate out the other things from the mixture, but they differ from one another
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in that Empedocles makes that occur in a cycle, Anaxagoras once [only), and Anaxagoras has infinite[ly many] things, the homoiomeries and the opposites, but Empedocles has only what are called the elements. Having discussed those who say that the principle, in the sense of the substrate, is one, whom he calls the natural philosophers, and having 154,1 set out the difference between the two ways in which they say things come into being from the substrate, namely by way of alteration and by way of extraction, he moves on next to Empedocles and .Anaxagoras, 34 who say that the principle is one and many . .Anaxagoras posited the homoiomeries35 as principles in the sense of substrate, saying that they are unlimited, and said that the produc- 5 tive cause was one, namely Mind which separates them. But Empedocles posited several principles as substrate, namely the four elements, and posited Love and Strife as one, because each of these is in control and is productive in turn, not both at once; in that way what is productive is always one in his view. But perhaps one should not say that they speak of what is productive as one thing, but rather 10 of the mixture itself [as one thing], which is composed according to .Anaxagoras of the unlimited quantity of the homoiomeries, but according to Empedocles of the four elements, which are at one time mixed together by Love to compose the sphere, 36 and at another separated by Strife to compose this world. Theophrastus assimilates Anaxagoras to Anaximander, understanding Anaxagoras' words as 15 amounting to saying that the substrate is a single nature. He writes as follows in his Enquiry into Nature [FHSG 228B]: 'Hpeople were to understand him that way he would appear to be making the material principles infinite, as has been said, but giving change and comingto-be a single cause. But if someone were to suppose that the mixture of everything is a single nature, undifferentiated in form and in 20 quantity, which is what he appears to mean, he turns out to be saying that the principles are two in number, namely the nature of the infinite and Mind; so that in every way he seems to be treating the physical elements as Anaximander does. '37 Now it was appropriate for him [i.e. Aristotle] to place those who say that the principles are one and many after those who say that there is a single principle, whether unchanged or changing, and before those (e.g. Democritus) who seem to 25 say merely that there are many; for they take the middle position between the two. These adherents of a single principle share the view of those who explain coming-to-be by combination and separation [from one another]; but Anaxagoras is closer to those who appeal rather to extraction [from a compound]. They [i.e. Anaxagoras and Empedocles] differ from those who say that there is only a single principle by saying that the principles are one and many, and from one another :first in that .Anaxagoras says that once the world has come-to-be from the mixture 30
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it remains thereafter organised and separated offby the presiding Mind, whereas Empedocles posits an eternal sureession of contrasting periods, at one time of combination of the four elements through Love and at another of their separation through Strife. Secondly, Anaxagoras posits that the many composing the whole are infinite (viz. the homoiomeries), but Empedocles that they are finite, for what are called the elements are four in number. Anaxagoras has the homoiomeries, Empedocles the elements. Alexander says, 'In the case of Anaxagoras he [i.e. Aristotle] has added the words "and the opposites" (187a25-6) because the oppositions are in the homoiomeries as are all the differences. For the same reason the earlier expression "or even opposites" (184b22) is to be understood as applying specifically to the opinion of Anaxagoras.' But perhaps there are oppositions in the elements too, hot-cold, dry-wet, heavy-light etc., and the words 'and the opposites' fit both opinions alike; unless perhaps there are certain oppositions in the elements, but in the homoiomeries all the opposites are there together at the same time, as are all the differences, and that is the reason why the expression 'and the elements', including the connective, applies rather to the opinion of Anaxagoras. Or perhaps all the opposites are in the elements, since the elements are principles, but not all connectedly as in the case of the homoiomeries. For if sweet and bitter happened to be there, on the supposition of the elements they are not primary characteristics of the elements, but occur because of heat and cold and dryness and wetness, but on the supposition of the homoiomeries they occur as primary and in their own right, as do the oppositions of colour. Or perhaps even in the case of the homoiomeries some oppositions are prior to others, and the secondary occur because of the primary. 38 Now Anaxagoras says in the first book of his Physics (DK 59B16]: 'Water is separated out from the clouds, and earth from the water, and from the earth stones are congealed by the cold, and they go further out than the water.' Anaxagoras says that from a single mixture, in which everything is in everything, homoiomerous things unlimited in quantity are separated out, each thing being characterised by what predominates in it. He makes that clear in these words at the beginning of the first book of his Physics [DK 59B1]: 'All things were together, unlimited in quantity and smallness;39 for the small too was unlimited. And since all things were together, nothing was perceptible because oftheir smallness; for air and aither encompassed everything, both being unlimited; for in everything these are the greatest in quantity and in size.' And a little later [he says] (DK 59B2]: 'For air and aither are separated off from the great amount which surrounds them. And that which surrounds is unlimited in quantity.' And a little later [DK 59B4, 1-4.13-18]: 'This being so, one must believe that in all the things which are combined there are many things of all kinds and seeds of all things with all kinds of
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shapes and colours and flavours. Before they were separated from one another, when all were together not even any colour was perceptible; for the mixture of all things prevented it, the wet and the dry and the hot and the cold and the bright and the dark and the great amount of earth which was in it and the seeds infinite in quantity, none resembling one another. For none of the other things was like any other' .40 That none of the homoiomerous things comes-to-be nor perishes, but that they are always the same, he makes clear in the following words [DK 59B5]: 'Once these things have been separated in this way one must realise that they are all in no way fewer or more; for it is not possible for there to be more than all, but all are always equal'. That is about the mixture and the homoiomeries. About Mind he wrote as follows [DK 59B12]: And Mind is something unlimited and self-controlling, and it is mixed with nothing, but alone is itself by itself. For if it were not by itself, but had been mixed with anything else, it would have had a share in all things, if it had been mixed with any. For in everything there is a portion of everything, as I said previously, and the things mixed in with it would have hindered it from controlling anything as it can do being alone itself by itself. For of all things it is the finest and purest, and it has all thought about everything and the greatest power, and as many things, both greater and lesser, as have soul, all ofthem Mind controls. And Mind controlled the entire rotation, so that it began to rotate. It first began to rotate in a small part, and later it is rotating more, and it will rotate yet more. And the things that are mixed together and separated off and separated apart, all of them Mind knew. And such as were to be, and such as were, and as many things as now are, and such as will be, 41 all of them Mind set in order, as well as the present rotation of the stars and the sun and the moon and the air and aither which are separated off. It is this rotation which caused them to be separated off. And the dense is separated off from the rare and the hot from the cold and the bright from the dark and the dry from the wet. There are many portions of many things. Nothing is totally separated off or separated apart from anything else except Mind. Mind is all alike, the greater and the lesser. Nothing else is like anything else, but each single thing most perceptibly is and was what predominates in it. He posits a twofold world order, one intellectual, the other perceptible, derived from the former; that is clear both from what has previously been said, and from the following [DK 59Bl4): 'Mind indeed is, now as ever, where the other things are, 42 in the great amount that surrounds them, and in things which have been combined and in
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things which have been separated'.43 Further, after 'in all the things that are combined there are many things of all kinds and seeds of all things with all kinds of shapes and colours and flavours, and people have been constructed and the other animals which have soul' [DK 59 B4, 2-5], he goes on, [DK 59B4, 5-10]: 'and the people have built cities and devised works, as we do, and they have a sun and a moon and the rest, as we do, and the earth brings forth for them many things of all kinds, the most useful of which they collect in their dwellings and use'. 44 That he is hinting at a different world order from ours is made clear by the phrase 'as we do', which he uses more than once. That he thinks that it is not a perceptible world, preceding this world in time, is made clear by 'the most useful of which they collect in their dwellings and use'. For he does not say 'used', but 'use'. But he is not talking about a civilisation similar to ours located elsewhere. He does not say 'They have the sun and the moon as we do' but 'a sun and a moon, as we do', speaking of different ones. 46 Whether that is so or not is worth investigating. Empedocles sets out his account of the One and the limited plurality and the periodic reconstitution and generation and destruction through combination and separation in the following words in the first book ofhis Physics [DK 31B17]: I shall tell a double tale. At one time one thing grew to be alone from many, at another many grew apart again from one. Twofold is the generation of mortal things, and two-fold their passing away. One the coming together of all things brings to birth and destroys, the other flew asunder, nourished as they grew apart. 46 And they never cease these continuous changes, at one time all coming together in one through Love, at another all being driven apart again through the hatred of Strife;" And again as the one thing grows apart many spring forth; in that way they come to be and their life is not stable. But in so far as they never cease these continuous changes, in that way they are forever immovable in their cycle. But come, listen to my words; for learning'S will increase your mind. Declaring what I previously said as the limits of my words, I shall tell a double tale. At one time one thing grew to be alone from many, at another many grew apart from one, fire and water and earth and the limitless height of air, and destructive Strife apart from them, like in every way, 49 and Love in them, equal in size and breadth. Perceive her with your mind, but do not sit staring with astonished eyes; she is believed to be infused in mortal limbs, and through her they think kindly thoughts and do friendly deeds, calling her by name Joy and Aphrodite. Her no mortal man has seen weaving her way among them. But you listen to the order of my speech. which is not deceitful. All these are equal
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and of the same age, but each wields a separate power, and each has its own nature, and they rule in turn through the cycle of time. And in addition to these nothing comes to be or ceases. For if they were continuously destroyed they would no longer exist; for what would increase this totality, and where could it have come from? And how could they be completely destroyed, 50 since nothing is without them? But again, these things exist, and running through one another they become now one thing, now another, ever continuously alike. In this passage he says that the one is what comes from the plurality of the four elements, and shows Love as in control at one time and Strife at another. That neither of these completely disappears is shown by their all being equal and of the same age, and by the fact that nothing comes to be nor ceases. The many are the plurality from which the One comes to be; for Love is not the One, and even Strife is completed in the One.51 In other descriptions of the plurality he adds the characteristics of each, calling fire the sun, air bright and the heaven, and water rain and sea.52 He writes as follows [DK 31B21]: But come, perceive the things that witness to those earlier words, in case anything of what I said earlier was deficient in form: the sun, bright to behold and everywhere hot, and those things immortal in kind, bathed in the bright rays, and the rain, dark and cold in everything, and from earth there flow out dense and solid things. In Strife all are diverse in form and separate, but in Love they come together and long for one another. From these are all that was and is and will be; trees grew, and men and women and animals and birds and fish that are nourished in water and long-lived gods, highest in honours. 58 For those things are themselves, but they come to be of different kinds as they penetrate one another; such change does their mixture effect.
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And he added a clear example of different things coming to be from the same things [DK 3lB23]:
As when painters decorate offerings, men who are knowledgeable about their craft through their skill, when they take in their hands pigments of many colours, mixing in proportion more of some and less of others, from these they fashion likenesses of all sorts of things, creating trees and men and women and animals and birds and fish that are nourished in water and long-lived gods, highest in honours; so do not you deceive your mind, thinking that the source of all the limitless number of mortal things that visibly come to be is anything other. But know this clearly, having heard the tale from a god.
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And that he is thinking of these many things in the world which has come to be, and not merely of Strife and Love, is clear from his saying that trees and men and women and animals have come to be from them. And he shows that they change into one another when he says [DK 31B26, 1-2]: 'And they rule in turn through the cycle of time, and they perish into one another and increase in their portion of fate'. And he shows that even things which come to be and are destroyed attain eternity through their succession when he says [DK 31B26, 11-12 (= 31B17, 12-13)]: 'But in so far as they never cease these continual changes, in that way they are forever immovable in their cycle.' That he too is hinting at a twofold world-order, one intelligible and one perceptible, one divine and one perishable, one containing these things as paradigm, the other as image, is clear from his saying that not merely generated and perishable things consist of these, but the gods too, unless one were to interpret this as merely his customary usage. 54 One might also think that he is hinting at the twofold world-order in the following [DK 31B22]: For these, bright sun and earth and heaven and sea, are all united with their own parts, such as wandered off and came to be in mortal beings. Similarly such as enter into a more sufficient mixture have loved one another, made like by Aphrodite. Hostile things keep furthest apart from one another in their generation and their mixture and their moulded forms, in every way inappropriate to unite and very grim in their births in strife, since their births are in anger. 55 For he has also shown that these things have been fitted together in mortal beings, but it is rather in intelligible things that they have been made one and 'have loved one another, made like by Aphrodite', and even though [this takes place] everywhere, it is [especially] intelligible things which are united by love, but perceptible things, which are controlled by strife and torn further apart in their generative mixture, in their moulded and image-like forms constitute things born in strife and inappropriate to unite with one another. 56 And that Empedocles too postulated coming-to-be through combination and separation is shown by what is set out right at the beginning [DK 31B17, 1-2]: 'At one time one thing grew to be alone from many, at another many grew apart again from one', and also by the fact that coming-to-be and destruction are nothing 'but only mixture and separation of what had been mixed' [DK 31B8, 3], and that coming together and unfolding come to be through fate. 187a26-31 Anaxagoras seems to have thought them [i.e. the principles] infinite in this way because he accepted as true the
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general opinion of the natural philosophers that nothing comes
to be from what is not (that is why they say 'All things were together', and that coming to be such and such amounts to alteration, though some say combination and separation). In this section Aristotle, rivalling Plato's generosity, is not seeking to undertake an examination of long-dead nonentities whose views are in every way irrational, nor to ignore them, as condemned by default; instead he sets out some arguments by which they were led to their apparently absurd vi.ews. First he puts Anaxagoras on the stand, 57 since he proposes, having dealt with those who say that what there is is one, to examine those who postulate infinitely many things. For the view of those who say that the principle is one and unchanging appears more absurd, since it abolishes both principle and nature, and next comes the view of those who posit infinitely many principles, since it makes them indefinable and unknowable. Once these have been examined there is left for consideration the view which posits a finite plurality. So he says that Anaxagoras was led to his theory of the homoiomeries by two reasons, one ofwhich was his thinking that 'the common opinion of the natural philosophers is true', viz. 'that nothing comes to be from what is not' (187a27-9), but that everything which comes to be has its coming-to-be from what there is. And indeed Parmenides showed that what really is is ungenerated by arguing that it comes to be neither from what is (for there was nothing in being prior to it) nor from what is not; for it must come to be from something, but what is not is nothing. The additional reason why what comes to be must always come to be from what is was wonderfully stated by Parmenides. For in general, he says, if it comes to be from what is not, what chance determined it to come to be then, at the time it came to be, but not earlier or later? He writes as follows [DK 28B8, 6-10]: For what generation do you seek for it? In what way and whence did it arise? I shall not allow you to say or to think 'from what is not'; for that it is not is neither sayable nor thinkable. And what need would have urged it to grow later or earlier, beginning from nothing?
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Now Anaxagoras, accepting this as a principle, that nothing comes to be from what is not, seems to have used an argument virtually on the following lines: What comes to be comes to be either from what is or from what is not. But coming to be from what is not is impossible. So it comes to be from what is. But if so, from what is already in that 30 from which it is [i.e. from which it comes to be]. For it does not seem to come in from anywhere outside, when wasps come to be from horses or air from water. 59 So there are in the homoiomery flesh, bone, blood, gold, lead, sweet and white, but they are imperceptible to us because of their smallness, as everything is in everything. For how is 163,1 it apparently the case that everything comes from everything (even if via other intermediate stages), if everything were not in everything? Each thing presents the appearance of what most predominates in it, and is named accordingly. For this thing cannot be purely white or black or sweet or flesh or bone, but the nature of the thing appears to 5 be that of which it has most, since everything is always in everything. 'For nothing', says Anaxagoras LDK 59B17], 'either comes to be or is destroyed, but they are mixed together and separated from existing things'. That is why he begins his treatise with 'All things were together'. Alexander says that the words 'coming to be such and such 10 amounts to alteration' (187a30) refer to Anaxagoras; because likewise in his On Coming to Be he [i.e. Aristotle] censures Anaxagoras for calling combination and separation (by which he says things come to be) alteration, adding, 'though Anaxagoras was ignorant of the appropriate term' [GC 314a13]. So he [i.e. Aristotle] says that [according to Anaxagoras] the coming-to-be and destruction of such and such amounts to alteration, though he did not apply the appropriate term, 15 alteration, to combination and separation.60 Porphyry attributes 'All things were together' to Anaxagoras, but 'Coming to be is alteration' to Anaximenes, and combination and separation to Democritus and Empedocles. Anaxagoras states clearly in the first book of his Physics that coming-to-be and destruction are combination and separation, 20 writing as follows I.DK 59B17]: 'The Greeks do not have the correct view of coming-to-be and destruction. For nothing comes to be or is destroyed, but they are combined together and separated from existing things. And so they would be right to call coming-to-be combination and destruction separation.' All of this, 'All things were 25 together' and coming-to-be by alteration or by combination and separation, is cited to support the view that nothing comes to be from what is not, but that what comes to be comes to be from what is; for alteration is something that happens to what is, and combination and separation to things that are.
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187a31-b7 Also from the coming-to-be of the opposites from one another; so they were already present. For if everything which comes to be does so either from things which are or things which are not, and if of these alternatives it is impossible to come to be from things which are not (which all writers on nature agree), they thought that the remaining alternative necessarily followed, that things come to be from things which are and which are already present, but imperceptible to us because of their small size. That i&. why they said that everything is mixed in everything, because they saw everything coming to be from everything. Things appear different and are called by different names from one another according to what is quantitatively predominant in the mixture of infinite[ly many] things. For nothing is, taken as a whole, absolutely white or black or sweet or flesh or bone, but it is what each thing has most of, that appears to be the nature of the thing. This is the second reason he gives for Anaxagoras' having posited the homoiomeries as principles. For if the opposites are destructive, not naturally productive, of one another, but it appears that the opposites come to be from their opposites, what else would one suppose than that the opposites which are already present in their opposites are separated out? For they could not come into being from them. 61 And it appears absurd that opposites should be present in their opposites, but in many cases the opposites are present together with one another, not merely by juxtaposition, but also by mixture.62 Yet if someone were to say that the opposite comes from the opposite as its productive cause, that is in itself absurd, since everything produces what is similar to itself. Having added to the previous one this second reason for Anaxagoras' giving this account of coming-to-be, he coneludes that what is said next, containing the argument and the demonstration that what appears to come into being is already present and separated out, is based on both premises, that nothing comes to be from what is not and that the opposites seem to come to be from their opposites. 187b7-13 Now if the infinite is unknowable qua infinite, the infinite in number or size is quantitatively unknowable, and the infinite in kind is qualitatively unknowable. And if the principles are infinite both in number and in kind, it is impossible to know what is composed of them. For we think that we know the compound when we know what kind of things and how many things it is composed of. Having first set out what is persuasive in Anaxagoras' view, so that it should not be thought that the theory was refuted through weak-
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ness of advocacy, 63 he turns to demolishing it. Anaxagoras set out many conclusions or doctrines, and Aristotle seems to reply more or 15 less to each. That things were unlimited he says right at the start [DK 59Bl]: 'All things were together, unlimited both in quantity and in smallness'. And that in the principles there is no smallest and no largest thing [DK 59B3]: 'For neither of the small' he says 'is there a least, but always a lesser. For what is cannot not be. 64 And also in the case of the large there is always a larger. And it is equal to the small in quantity, but in relation to itself each thing is both large and small.' 20 For if everything is in everything and everything is separated out from everything, even from what appears smallest there will be separated out something smaller than it, and what appears largest has been separated out from something larger than it. He says clearly [DK 59Bll] that: 'In everything there is a portion of everything except Mind, and there are things in which Mind is also present'. And again [DK 59B12, 1-2] that: 'Other things share a portion of every25 thing, but Mind is something unlimited and self-controlling and is not mixed with anything'. Elsewhere [DK 59B6] he says this: 'When there are equal portions of the large and the small in quantity, in that way too everything would be in everything. Nor can they be separate, but everything shares a portion of everything. When there cannot be the smallest, it could not be separated, nor be on its own, but as at the 30 beginning all things must be together now. In everything many things are present, and of the things that are separated off the 165,1 quantity is equal in the larger and in the smaller.' And here is what Anaxagoras says in asserting that each of the perceptible homoiomeries comes to be and to be characterised through the putting together of similars; his words are [DK 59B 12, 29-30]: What a thing has most of in it, that each single thing most clearly is and was'. He seems also 5 to say that Mind is unable to discriminate them when it tries to do so. In reply to these doctrines of Anaxagoras Aristotle replies first to the thesis that the principles are infinite. Porphyry says that his [i.e. Aristotle's] attack is directed in common against Leucippus and Democritus and Metrodorus and all who 10 say that the elements are infinite. Since there are two kinds of infinity, infinity in quantity and in quality, and two kinds of quantitative infinity, infinity in number and in size, all the above-mentioned say that the elements are infinite in number, while Leucippus and Democritus are speaking of infinity in size in saying that the void is infinite, but Anaxagoras seems to say that the homoiomeries are infinite [i.e. infinitely diverse] in kind, since, he says, of the things which are infinite 'Nothing different is like anything different' [DK 15 59B12, 28]. Now if everything infinite is incomprehensible in so far as it is infinite, and what is incomprehensible is unknowable, the principles and the elements of which everything is composed would be unknowable; so the things which come from the principles would
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also be unknowable. 'For we think that we know each thing, whenever we recognise its causes and first principles' (184a12-14). The upshot is that people who try to gain some knowledge of reality from these suppositions achieve its opposite, ignorance. The critical argument, which Aristotle has set out concisely, is virtually this: the homoiomeries are infinite in kind and in number, the infinite is unknowable qua infinite, so the homoiomeries are unknowable. If you add that the homoiomeries are principles of the things that there are, you will draw the conclusion that the things that there are have principles which are 1mknowable. And if you further add that things whose principles are unknowable are themselves unknowable, you will draw the conclusion that the things that there are are unknowable, since their principles are infinite. He showed that things whose principles are unknowable are themselves unknowable in the words 'We think we know the compound when we know what and how many things it is composed of (187bll-13). Now Anaxagoras said that the number of kinds which are principles is infinite in this way, namely incomprehensible by us, not infinite by nature, as he makes clear in the following words [DK 59B12, 15-19]: Mind knew all the things which are mixed together and separated off and separated apart. And such as were to be and such as were and as many things as now are and such as will be,65 all of them Mind set in order.
So if they are knowable to Mind, they would not be infinite in nature, except66 that what Aristotle says is true, viz. that if the kinds of the principles are unknowable, the things that come from them are unknowable too. It should be understood that Porphyry, as I said, thinks that the reply is directed in common against all those who assume that the elements are infinite. Alexander, however, understands it as aimed at Anaxagoras alone, and perhaps it gives a better argument if understood in that way. For even if Democritus and Leucippus assumed that the principles are infinite in number, all the same they assumed that their kind and nature is one and limited. So in their view the principle would not be unknowable, since they postulated neither the shapes [i.e. atoms] nor anything else as infinite in kind But since Anaxagoras assumes that the principles are infinite not only in number but also in kind, he has to accept the apparently absurd conclusion that what comes from the principles is unknowable also. 187bl3-21 Further, if it is necessary that something whose parts can be of any size you please, large or small, can itself be so (I mean the kind of part into which the whole is divided as an
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Translation actual constituent), and if it is impossible that an animal or plant can be of any size you please, large or small, it is clear that neither can any part whatever; for [in that case] the whole will be so too. Flesh and bone and things like that are parts of an animal, and the fruits [parts] of plants. Now it is clear that it is impossible for flesh or bone or anything else to be whatever size you please, large or small.
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Anaxagoras says [DK 59B3] that: 'Neither of the small is there a least, but always a lesser' nor is there a largest. That is clear from his own words, and also from the following words ofTheophrastus in the second book of his OnAnaxagoras [FHSG 235]: Moreover, saying that everything is in everything on the ground that they are infinite in largeness and in smallness, and that it is not possible to find the largest or the smallest, is unconvincing. Aristotle not only refutes this, but at the same time demonstrates in advance that there being a smallest size would be useful to him [i.e. Anaxagoras] in practically everything which he says subsequently, by an argument of this kind: if the parts of a whole can be of any size you like, large or small (for this is what it is for neither the smallest nor the largest to have been defined), then the whole itself can be of any size you like, large or small. But the whole cannot be of any size you like. Therefore, by the second hypothetical the parts cannot be of any size you like.67 He sets out the conditional as something obvious. For it is clear that if something is composed of parts such as feet and hands and head and these can be larger or smaller without limit, it is clear that what gets its being from the combination of those things will be larger when they are larger, and smaller when they are smaller. And that will go on to infinity, to whatever point on the continuum of largeness and smallness is proportional to the smallness or largeness of the parts themselves. The additional assumption he also derives from things that are obvious. For the wholes which are combined and composed of the homoiomeries, e.g. any kind of animal or plant, cannot be of any size you like (for it is not possible for a man or a fig tree to be the size of a grain of millet or of a mountain); their size has defined upper and lower limits. Therefore each of the parts into which they are divided likewise has limits on its size. And it is not possible to have flesh of any size you like, since flesh is part of an animal; for then the animal of which it is part would be of any size you like. It is from homoiomeries of that kind that animals are composed, according to Anaxagoras, and divided into them; on his view there is nothing further than them. So they too have definite limits on their size; within those limits a thing remains of the same kind [but not if it goes beyond them]. And if anyone says that
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every magnitude is divisible to infinity, and that it is therefore possible to have something smaller than whatever you take, let him know that the homoiomeries are not simply magnitudes, but magnitudes of certain kinds, flesh, bone, lead, gold etc., which cannot be divided to infinity while preserving their kind. As magnitudes, they too can be divided to infinity, but as flesh and bone they cannot.ss Those are the principles which Anaxagoras posited, and they are not divisible. And the whole is composed of those parts into which it is divided by actual separation, e.g. the homoiomeries, not bodies qua bodies. Which is why .Aristotle was careful to add 'I mean the kind of part into which the whole is divided as an actual constituent' (187b1516). For the whole is not divided into bodies qua bodies, but into amounts offlesh,69 bones etc., which are also indestructible according to Anaxagoras. So they could not undergo division to the point which would bring about their ceasing to be of their specific kind. Now the parts which result from division to infinity are not present as actual constituents, but merely potentially. Besides, Aristotle put in that remark with an eye to what are spoken of as parts of something, but into which the whole is not divided, for instance the matter and the form are spoken of as parts of the body. Alexander says: 'He [i.e. Aristotle] used the expression "and the fruits [parts] of plants" (187b19) meaning ''the seeds", for it is the latter that plants are composed of. That is why a little later he names the seed rather than the fruit as part of the plant, in the words "so that neither flesh nor bone nor the seed of plants could be of any size you like; for it is of these that either kind of thing is composed."' But the texts I have come across do not contain these words, nor this other passage which Alexander cites: '"So if animals and plants cannot be so large or so many, that is", he [i.e. Aristotle] says, "if neither as continuous nor as discrete can they extend to infinity, nor will their parts be as large as you like, increasing or diminishing to infinity.'"70 But notice that what he [i.e. Aristotle] says refers to size only, not to number, which Alexander says is contrasted, in the sense of discrete number, with size. For he did not base his demonstration on the argument that things are not composed of parts infinite in number, 71 and indeed he would have been interpreted incorrectly if having said 'so if animals and plants cannot be so large or so many', he were taken as saying that they extended to infinity neither in size nor in number. For to say 'so large' is not the same as to say 'as large as you like', which signifies decrease or increase in size to infinity.'l2 'And he [i.e. Aristotle] mentions the seed' he [i.e. Alexander] says 'since there are according to Anaxagoras certain homoiomeries from the multiplication of which plants come into being, and the differences of plants come into being from the differences of the seeds which multiply in them.' But the seed from which the plant comes into being is not one of 'the parts into which the whole is divided as an actual constituent'
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(v. supr.], nor in the animal is the seed, from which it comes into being, preserved as one of the parts into which the animal is divided. It appears that the majority of copies which contain the words 'and the fruits [parts] of plants' are correct. For just like shoots and leaves, the fruit and pericarp are parts of fruit-bearing plants, and the whole is divided into those parts, which are present in it and capable of being separated. That may suffice on the question of textual error. Perhaps someone might say, on behalf of Anaxagoras, that if each animal or plant contained a single constructive homoiomery out of the different kinds of homoiomeries, e.g. one for flesh and one for bone and one for blood, to the increase and decrease of the homoiomeries there would necessarily correspond the differences in size of the animals and plants. But if they contain a number of each sort of homoiomery, e.g. many little bits of flesh, where would be the absurdity in purging away flesh to infinity, but leaving the animal?73 But if there are many little bits of flesh, they are either finite in number or infinite. And if they are finite, e.g. three or four or ten thousand, the size of the smallest and the largest would be finite, but if they are infinite in number, a magnitude composed of an infinite number of magnitudes must be infinite. For what is finite is divided into finite parts, as Aristotle himself argues. 74
187b22-34 Further, if all such things are present in one another, and do not come into being but are there and are extracted, and things are named according to their predominant element, and anything comes to be from anything (e.g. water being extracted from flesh and flesh from water), and every finite body is exhausted by a finite body, it is clear then that it is impossible for everything to be in everything. For once flesh has been extracted from the water, and again more flesh from the remainder by separation, even if what is extracted is smaller every time, all the same it will not exceed a certain magnitude in smallness.75 So if the extraction comes to an end, not everything will be in everything (for in the remaining water no flesh will be present), and if it does not come to an end, but will always have [further] subtraction, in a finite magnitude there will be an infinite number of :finite equal magnitudes. But that is impossible.
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Alexander says that it is by using the argument set out immediately above 76 that Aristotle now demonstrates that coming to be does not occur by extraction, and that it is not the case that everything is in everything, as Anaxagoras thought. So taking it as agreed that there is a smallest body, something expressed in the words 'even if what is extracted is always smaller, all the same it will not exceed a certain magnitude in smallness' (187b29-30) (since it is clear that it will not exceed the smallest body in smallness), now if one for example
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extracted the smallest amount of flesh from water, it having been shown that there is a defined smallest size, 77 and again another smallest, and went on doing this, either the extraction will come to an end, since it has been defined that there is a smallest, and the water which is left will not contain any more flesh and so it is not the case that everything will be in everything nor will everything be extracted from everything, or, if it does not come to an end, this water from which the flesh was extracted will have a certain definite magnitude, and if that is so, there will be in it infinitely many amounts of flesh equal to one another; for there will be in it infinitely many smallest amounts of flesh, equal to one another in magnitude. But that is impossible because it was specified that there is a smallest amount of flesh, than which a smaller amount could not be extracted. For it was demonstrated in the previous section that the smallest amount of flesh has been specified,78 and that being so it is impossible that flesh should be extracted ad infinitum from this amount of water, but it must come to an end; so that it is not the case that everything will be extracted from everything. But, he says, if it were always possible to take a smaller amount from whatever had been extracted, the extraction would not have come to an end, as in the case ofthe largest. That is the interpretation of Alexander and Themistius. But it may be possible to establish the .present argument even without the previously demonstrated conclusion, 79 if Aristotle is now perhaps agreeing in a way to their positing what he there showed to be impossible, that there can be a magnitude of any size you like, 80 when he says 'even if what is extracted is always smaller, all the same it will not exceed a certain magnitude in smallness' (187b29-30). And I think that Aristotle is not showing without qualification that the extraction comes to an end,81 but that both from its coming to an end and from its not coming to an end there follows an absurd consequence for those who say that everything is in everything and that everything is extracted from everything, and who maintain that 'comes to be' says the same thing. 82 For both these assertions are refuted by extraction's coming to an end. For if the extraction of flesh from this amount of water comes to an end, it is not the case that everything will be in everything nor that everything will be extracted from everything. For in the water that is left no flesh will be present. But if they were to say that it does not come to an end, but it is always possible to take away more, in this finite magnitude of water there will be infinitely many magnitudes, which is impossible. It seems to me that Alexander's interpretation relies on the expressions 'equal finite magnitudes' (187b33-4) and 'it will not exceed a certain magnitude in smallness' (187b30). For in each extraction, he says, a certain number of smallest magnitudes will be extracted, and so the things that are removed will always be in a way equal, since they are all smallest. What would be the absurdity in there being many smallest things, which are yet not equal, rather than just magnitudes?BS For,
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he says 'even if what is extracted were always smaller, all the same it will not exceed a certain magnitude in smallness' (187b29-30). This is to say that even if one concedes to them that you can always get 15 smaller magnitudes from the smaller, it would never get beyond being a magnitude in smallness. For the division of magnitudes to infinity results in magnitudes. But the person who says that everything is in everything says that it is in it actually, not potentially, as in the case of things which are divided to infinity. It is possible to understand 'equal' applied to 'finite magnitudes' as equivalent to 20 'similar finite magnitudes'. And if being finite is a property of quantity, it is more proper to speak of equal finite than similar finite magnitudes.84 So the whole argument refutes the theses that everything is in everything and that everything comes to be or is extracted from everything by relying on the premiss that every finite body is measured and exhausted by a finite body (187b25-6), which he himself [i.e. Aristotle] expressed by 'is done away with' in the correct 25 texts. 85 For if you continually subtract from a finite cubit a finite quantity, the cubit will cease to exist. And let the subtraction be not theoretical, which will never come to an end, but the subtraction of parts actuaD.y present in it, however smalL Having assumed that, he demonstrates that it is not possible for each to be in each, that is for 30 everything to be in everything, or everything to be extracted from everything, as follows: if there were extracted from the water an amount of flesh, and again another, even if the one that is extracted is always smaller, all the same it will have some magnitude. One must also assume the following as a premiss of the demonstration; either the extraction will stop or it will not stop. But if it stops, it is not the case that everything will be in everything (for no flesh will be left in the water which remains); and if it does not stop, but there will 35 always be further subtraction, in a finite magnitude there will be an 171,1 infinite number of similarly finite magnitudes, which is impossible. For according to the premiss the finite magnitude will itself cease to exist through the finitely repeated removal of one of the finite magnitudes contained in it. So there will not be an infinite number of finite magnitudes in a finite magnitude. It is clear that, as I said, the 5 subtraction is not to be done in accordance with theoretical division to infinity; in that sense it would not come to an end, nor is the conclusion absurd, that something finite is composed of things divided to infinity. In those cases the infinity is potential, not actual. But Anaxagoras' extraction is that of an infinity of actually present (parts]. 10
187b35-188a2 Moreover, if every body necessarily becomes smaller when something is removed from it, and flesh has a maximum and a minimum size, it is clear that no body will be
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extracted from the smallest amount of flesh. For [in that case] there will be something smaller than the smallest. He assails the theses that everything is in everything and that everything is extracted from everything by this further argument. He assumes here too the evident premiss that every body must become smaller when something is subtracted, since it becomes larger when something is added, and in addition to this premiss uses here the previously demonstrated thesis that there is no amount of flesh of any size you like, but the smallest is a definite amount, just as the largest. Given these assumptions, one can reason as follows: if something is extracted from the smallest amount of flesh, there will be some amount of flesh from which an amount smaller than the smallest was extracted. But that is impossible; for the smallest was that than which there is no smaller amount of flesh. So no body whatever will be extracted from the smallest amount of flesh. And the conclusion is true because of the premiss. And the additional assumption is evident. And if from the smallest amount of flesh it is impossible for any body to be extracted, it will not be the case that everything is in everything or that everything is extracted from everything. And another absurdity follows from the assumption that something will be extracted from the smallest amount of flesh; there will no longer be any flesh after the extraction, for what is smaller than the smallest amount of flesh will not be flesh. So it has been destroyed qua flesh. So the homoiomeries are destructible, which he [i.e. Anaxagoras} does not admit. 86 So it is not the case that everything is in everything or comes to be from everything. B7 188a2-5 Further, in the infinite bodies there would be present infinite flesh and blood and brain, separate from one another, 88 but being no less real, and each infinite. This is absurd. The fifth criticism, expressed in these words, is I think the most serious to which Anaxagoras' theory is subject, if one takes it at face value;89 the attack is directed against the entire supposition that the principles are homoiomeries infinite in quantity and that everything is mixed in everything. Anaxagoras states that right at the beginning of his treatise, saying [DK 59Bl.l-2]: 'All things were together, infinite in quantity and in smallness'. For the small too was infinite. And he often says that 1n everything there is a portion of everything except Mind' [DK 59Bll]. So if the homoiomeries are infinite and everything is in each, there would actually exist infinite flesh and blood and brain. For the infinite quantity of amounts of flesh which are in the infinite homoiomeries make the whole of flesh infinite in size, and similarly blood and brain, and obviously gold and each of the others. So there will be a numerical plurality of infinite magnitudes,
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or rather an infinite number (for there is one for each homoiomery), which is absurd. For an infinite magnitude is that which has no magnitude external to it. And the infinity is not potential, as in the case of things which come to be or are divided to infinity, but already actual; for they already exist 'separate from one another', and 'being no less real' (188a3-4) than the things in which they are. And even 15 more absurd is their being separate from another and yet infinite; for things which are separate from one another are limited in relation to one another. He [i.e. Aristotle] says that these infinite things are 'separate' not merely because flesh and bone and each of the others is in the infinite separate homoiomeries, but because Anaxagoras himself says 'Nothing is like anything else'. So they are themselves 20 separate in their particular nature from one another. The conclusion which Aristotle draws will seem yet more absurd for another reason. If the homoiomeries are infinite and everything is in everything, everything would be in each of the homoiomeries, which are infinite. And everything will be in each of the infinitely many in this one. And so in every homoiomery there would be infinite amounts of flesh and 25 bones and blood and brain and all the other things, which are infinite. And it follows that this goes on to infinity, since each thing contains everything, and each of the things in that thing contains everything, and this though everything is always assumed to be actual, not potential. 90 So there is a manifold absurdity in such a supposition; that in a finite magnitude there should be an infinite magnitude is absurd, and it is even more absurd that they should be infinite and infinitely many times infinite. For the infinite things will be in this 30 little bit of flesh, and infinite things in each of the infinite things, and so on to infinity. And it is absurd that the infinite things should be separate from one another, not merely because separate things are limited by one another, but because an infinite magnitude cannot be composed of separate parts. For then there would be something larger 173, 1 than the infinite. For the distance between the separate parts of the infinite added to the infinite would be larger than the infinite itself. And further, the infinitely infinite will be a plurality, infinite both in quantity and in magnitude, and actual as well, given that 'since they 5 are separate from one another, each of them is no less infinite', which is what he [i.e. Aristotle} means by 'separate from one another, being no less real, and each infinite' (188a3-4). 'But perhaps', says Alexander, 'this is not the way to criticise the theory. For perhaps Anaxagoras was not applying the thesis that 10 everything is mixed in everything to the principles, giving the result that in each of the principles there is everything (for then they would no longer be principles, since they would be compounds), but was saying that everything was mixed in each of the perceptible bodies that are compounded from the principles. For it is from these that things come to be and extractions occur. For the pure elements are
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neither perceptible at the beginning, nor do they even exist in themselves, since it is not possible for them to be separated off. But someone who says this does nothing more than transfer the objection to the compounds. For if each of the perceptible things is a mixture of everything, which appears such and such according to what predominates in the mixing, and if everything in the compounds too is characterised differently according to the predominance of each of the infinite homoiomeries, and all such things are extracted, since everything comes from everything; hence the perceptible things too will be infinite. So if each of them is a mixture of everything, flesh would be infinite both in quantity and in size. And similarly each of the other kinds will be infinite. For in what is extracted everything will once again be present and will be extracted. And the same will be said about those things that are extracted. And so on to infinity; for the things that are extracted are perceptible mixtures, since things that were unmixed at the beginning cannot be extracted'. This is how Alexander adduces what purports to help the theory but then refutes that too. 91 Perhaps Anaxagoras' theory would be more plausible if it did not say that from a single perceptible thing some perceptible thing will be extracted, e.g. from this amount of flesh alone perceptible bone and from that again some other perceptible thing, but that everything is in each perceptible thing but is imperceptible, and everything will be extracted from each of the perceptible things, but will remain imperceptible, until from more perceptible things more things of the same kind are extracted and combined, and so become perceptible, in that while everything is once again present in each of the compounds, each is characterised by what predominates in it. But even if they [i.e. the adherents of the theory] were to say that, first of all either it will not be the case that every perceptible thing will come from every perceptible thing, as they maintain, or the 'infinitely many times infinite' conclusion92 will follow as before. Further, though it were true to say of the elements that they are infinite in quantity, if in a finite perceptible thing there are present an infinite quantity of homoiomeries, it would be absurd as before. If, however, in describing the elements as infinite Anaxagoras did not mean that they are in reality infinite and innumerable, but merely incomprehensible to us, though in themselves finite and bounded in nature and in number (if, as he says 'Mind knew all the things that were mixed together and separated off and separated apart, and such as were to be and such as were and as many things as now are and such as will be, 98 all of them Mind set in order'. Yet if the elements and the compounds of the elements were in kind actually infinite in quantity [i.e. were of infinitely many kinds], not even Mind would have known them or set them in order. For setting in order is a certain arrangement, but arrangement does not apply to infinites, and knowledge is a definite
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conception of the Mind, not an indefinite one, and it applies to de:finite94 kinds, not to infinite ones. And that by 'unlimited' he does 15 not mean 'in every way inexhaustible in quantity' is made clear by the fact that he describes Mind itself as unlimited, in the words 'and Mind is something unlimited and self-controlling'). H then .Anaxagoras was not saying that the elements are infinite in kind, the compounds formed from them would not be infinite, but finite in kind, and in each of them there will be finite homoiomeries. But it does not seem that Anaxagoras simply extracted everything 20 from everything, even though he says that 'All things were together'. For plainly in the process of extraction it is the opposites which he says are extracted from their opposites, not any old things. His words are [DK 59B12, 21-5]: 'And this rotation made them be separated out; the dense is separated out from the rare and the hot from the cold and the light from the dark and the dry from the wet', so not any old thing 25 from any old thing, e.g. flesh or brain from water. This will enable Anaxagoras to escape all the objections brought against him. For if the principles are not infinite, neither they themselves nor the things that come from them will be unknowable, nor will there be smaller or larger infinities, nor will there be extraction to infinity of infinite forms present in things, but if there are to be arguments against him they will have to be other arguments, attacking his theory that things 30 come to be by extraction. For how could so much air be extracted from a ladleful of water if there were no qualitative change? And what is it that makes a human being from flesh and bones and the rest; certainly no human is already present in them. And if we see a human coming from what is not a human, what is there to prevent flesh itself 175, 1 coming from what is not flesh through the causation of what makes the human, whether that is Mind or any other cause? And in general, if they do not venture to construct non-homoiomerous things like animals and plants by extraction, why is it necessary for the homoiomerous things to come into being in that way?95 Or why are the homoiomerous things ungenerated and indestructible, but the things 5 formed from them generated and destructible? After all, wholes are superior to parts. And it is worth pointing out that Anaxagoras treats the brain as a homoiomerous thing, though it is an organic part, with veins and arteries supplying it and membranes dividing it.
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quality, in respect of quantity because there is no smallest size, and in respect of quality because properties are inseparable. Anaxagoras says [DK 59B12, 26-7]: 'Nor is one thing separated off or apart from another' because everything is in everything, and elsewhere he says [DK 59B8]: 'Nor is either the hot cut off with an axe from the cold or the cold from the hot' (for nothing is purely by itself). This, he [i.e. Aristotle] says, is not an expression of knowledge; for it is not through everything's being in everything that non-separation 15 results, but it results. nonetheless. Therefore even if saying this does not express knowledge, it is correct all the same. For affections, i.e. attributes, are inseparable from substance, e.g. colours and states. If the attribute is separated from the mixture of substance and attributes it will be no longer an attribute but a substance, as subsisting of 20 itself and not having its being in a substance; that is what he [i.e. Aristotle] calls 'not [said] of a subject' (188a8-9). Eudemus puts it well [:fr. 46 Wehrli]: 'Not only is it not possible to separate affections from substances, but it is not even possible for all affections to be there together, so that everything is in everything. Heat and knowledge cannot be there together, but only things that can be mixed, and in general a mixture is of separate things. What are separate are things 25 which are in their own right, or can be, at least. Things of that kind are substances; therefore it is bodies that are mixed together. Of these, we say that liquids are blended, and that solid things such as seeds or sheep have been mixed up together, but we do not say that white and man or knowledge and soul have been mixed. Each of these belongs only to those things of which they are predicated. What things have been mixed and how everything was together has been 30 more clearly delineated, since it is not the case that everything is mixed with everything, so that not everything comes :from everything. For :from white there comes, not a line, but black or grey.' I have set down these words of Eudemus as appropriate to the context. But how can Mind want to separate the homoiomeries, if it is set 176,1 in charge of things to separate them and has that function, but to do so is impossible? Attempting the impossible is appropriate to something mindless rather than to Mind. It is impossible for them to be separated either quantitatively or qualitatively. Quantitatively, because the smallest part will not turn up, for otherwise the extraction will stop.96 For if the smallest amount of flesh is separated off, a 5 smaller amount than that cannot be separated off. The nature of the smallest part is quantitative separation.97 For as long as it is possible to get something smaller than what you have got, the quantity has not been separated. But if it stops at the indivisible, it has been separated. But this is impossible. For it will not stop, not because of division to infinity, as Alexander understood it, but because [on that supposition] the extraction will stop [contrary to Anaxagoras' hypo-
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Translation
thesis]. 98 But it [i.e. Mind] cannot separate them qualitatively either, since affections are inseparable from matter. So if quantitative separation is [identical with] stopping in the smallest quantity, and qualitative is the separation of form from matter, both are impossible, the former according to Anaxagoras (for stopping in the smallest is inconsistent with everything's being in everything), the latter according to Aristotle, who regards qualities as inseparable. So Mind is absurd either in being ignorant of what is impossible or in knowingly 15 attempting the impossible. Let this suffice for the interpretation of Aristotle. As far as I can see, Anaxagoras does not say straight out that Mind wants to separate the homoiomeries, but that to do so is impossible (188a9-10), but rather that it is Mind which moves things and makes 20 them rotate and sets them in order and is the cause of the entire extraction. For having said that Mind is the cause of the rotation he adds [DK 59B12, 21-5]: 'It is this rotation which caused them to be separated out, and the dense is separated out from the rare and the hot from the cold and the light from the dark and the dry from the wet'. Then a little later [DK 59B12, 26-7]: he adds, 'nor is one 25 separated out or separated apart from another'. So it is clear that 'the dense is separated out from the rare' and what follows is said in one sense, and 'nor is one separated out from another' in another. The former is about the coming to be from one another, not of everything (for a line is not separated off from white), but of the opposites, while the latter says that 'the things in the same world are not separate from one another, nor are they cut off with an axe', as he says 30 elsewhere [DK 59B8]. They are together with one another and united in one another. lnAnaxagoras' view the kinds owe both their separation and their unity to Mind. He celebrates it worthily in the words [DK 59B12, 1-3]: 'Mind is something infinite and self-controlling and it is mixed with nothing, but alone is itself by itself, and again [DK 177, 1 59B 12, 9-19): 'for of all things it is the finest and purest, and it has all thought about everything and the greatest power, and such things, both greater and lesser, as have soul, all of them Mind controls, and Mind controlled the entire rotation. And the things that are mixed together and separated off and separated apart, all of them Mind 5 knew. And such as were to be, and such as were, and as many as now are, and such as will be, all of them Mind set in order.'99 So in Anaxagoras' view Mind did not want the impossible, but itself separated the kinds in the world by its intellectual separation, while being apart from them. And the kinds in the world are mixed with one another both through their archetypal intellectual nature and through the confusion of their coming-to-be. 100 The thing that Socra10 tes adduces as a complaint against Anaxagoras in the Pha£do, that in his particular causal explanations he does not make use of Mind, but only material accounts, 101 is in fact appropriate to natural philoso-
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phy. Indeed, in the Timaeus Plato himself first gives his general description of the productive cause of everything, and then in his detailed account cites differences of sizes and shapes as the causes of heat, cold and the rest. 102 But Socrates, wishing to set out his account in terms of the final cause, cited Anaxagoras as making use of the material cause rather than the final. Let us proceed.
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188a13-17 Nor is he correct in his treatment of the coming-to-be of the homogeneous things. For in one way mud is divided into quantities of mud, 103 but in another not. And it is not the case that water and air are and come to be from one another in the same way as bricks from a house and a house from bricks. When .Anaxagoras says that things come to be by extraction and that each is characterised by what predominates in it, since everything is in everything, it is clear that he wishes to achieve the coming-to-be of each of the compounds by the putting together of similar things, since he saw that they divided up into similar things (flesh into pieces of flesh and bone into bones), and it seems that each thing is divided up into what it is composed of. It is not, however, necessary that comingto-be should occur from things of the same kind, especially coming-tobe from elements; rather it is necessary that it does not occur in that way. Wholes of a given kind can come to be from parts of the same kind, e.g. a larger quantity of mud from several smaller quantities of mud. But something which comes to be from elements comes from things which are unlike it and simpler in nature, and is divided up into them, e.g. bricks from earth, water and straw, into which they are divided. And the closer the analysis gets to the elements, the more it results in what is dissimilar. So the parts of flesh are like it (for they are amounts of flesh), but their elements are no longer pieces of flesh, but blood and, going further, the four elements and their qualities. Now something of that kind does not come to be by putting together, in the way a house comes to be from bricks, nor is it divided into the things that were put together, as a house is into bricks, but in a different way. It is by alteration that 'water and air come to be from one another and are' (188a16-17), not by putting together or by extraction. For how could so much air have come from a ladleful of water?104 So it is not by extraction, as Anaxagoras seems to say, but by change and alteration, as Aristotle and others say. Alexander explained the structure of the sentence in two ways: 'Either', he says, 'he [i.e. Aristotle] means that he [i.e. Anaxagoras] is not correct in explaining the coming-to-be of the homoiomeries by putting together, or that he is not correct in explaining the coming-to-be from the homoiomeries, in which case the words "from the" are omitted from the sentence'. 105
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178,1
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Translation 188a17-18 Better to have fewer and finite, as Empedocles does.
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179,1
Even though Empedocles and Anaxagoras agree on how things come to be, since both explain it by combination and separation, they disagree about the number of the elements. And it is 'better to have fewer and finite', as Empedocles did, than more and infinite, like Anaxagoras. The finite is better than the infinite in being graspable both in perception and in knowledge, while the infinite is neither perceptible nor knowable. Moreover, if the task can be carried out by fewer means, why does one need infinitely many more? Since of things generable and perishable some are generated and others perish, the destructions of the earlier suffice as principles for the coming-to-be of the others. Those who, like Democritus, postulate infinitely many worlds necessarily say that the elements too are infinite in number, but not even they are obliged to say that they are infinite in kind [i.e. infinitely varied). But those who, like Anaxagoras and Empedocles, say that there is a single world, have no need for infinity; which is why Empedocles does better in saying that the elements are finite, since he escapes the absurd consequences previously adduced against the postulation of infinity. But earlier106 I tried to show that Anaxagoras does not say that the elements are infinite in the sense of innumerable. 107 But though finite in kind, Empedocles' elements, earth, water, air and fire. in being simpler than what comes from them are more genuine principles than those postulated by someone who thinks that the elements are similar to the things composed of them. Unless, that is, Anaxagoras posited as elements the simple qualities, which have the nature of principles, but not the compounds, 108 in the words [DK 59B12, 21-5]: It was this rotation which made them separate out, and the dense is separated from the rare and the cold from the hot and the bright from the dark and the dry from the wet. And a little later he says [DK 59B15]:
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The dense and dry and cold and the dark came together here where now the earth is, and the rare and the hot and the dry went out to the extremity of the aither. He says that these most simple things which have the character of principles are separated off, and that other things of a more compound nature are in some cases coagulated as compounds, in others separated off, e.g. the earth. He says [DK 59B16]: From these things which are separated off earth is coagulated;
Translation
87
for water is separated off from the clouds, and from the water earth, and from the earth stones are coagulated by the cold.
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In resorting to the simple kinds in this way Anaxagoras seems to theorise about the elements in a way which involves more genuine principles than Empedocles. Perhaps Aristotle and Plato and, earlier than both, the Pythagorean& posited more completely elemental principles in matter and form, and even more completely those who considered differences of shape closer to matter than" qualitiless body and made them underlie the qualitative differences of the elements, the pyramid for fire and other shapes for the others. 109 Democri.tus seems to have done well in seeing that, but he fails in not analysing the simple bodies into form and matter.
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Notes Notes to 1.3 1. The word arkhe is used in a number of senses. Here and in many contexts the words 'starting-point', with the implication that time is involved seem.s appropriate, but later on time is not relevant and 'principle' seems a better rendering. 2. This error of Melissus is featured several times in Aristotle's Topics. See also n. 72. 3. Throughout this work it is difficult to be consistent in the treatment of the verb 'to be'. Simplicius is writing about the views of philosophers who lived up to a thousand years before him, and who had metaphysical approaches that iBvolved what some people would regard as a misuse of language. I have used 'Being' where there appears to be the idea of an entity such as that described by Parmenides, but 'being' when there is more emphasis on the verbal nature of what is being referred to. It seems best to write 'Being' in this particular context, but then 'not-being' and 'not being' as the occasion seems to require. As we also have 'exist', and 'is/are' available in English these will also be used. Where I have seen fit to emphasise the metaphysical aspect of the thought of the Eleatics by using 'Being', Christopher Taylor has preferred to use 'what is' for his section (148,25-179,39). 4. This seems wrong. Aristotle should have been attacking that belief; but I have kept the text as it stands. 5. Pormenides 128A-B. 6. H the first, then the second; but not the second: therefore not the first. 7. Here it seems better to have 'not Being' without the hyphen. 8. Melissus' arguments, as given by Simplicius, are studied in detail by Barnes, 1979, who changed his mind on some important points in his revised edition, 1989, pp. 180-1. While Simplicius is our sole source for exact quotations, the pseudo-Aristotelian on Melissus X£nophanes and Gorgias is also useful 9. In this extract the language used is standard Greek, whereas later on Simplicius states that he will use Melissus' own archaic language. Presumably the present passage is not a precise account of Melissus' argument. Barnes, 1982, p. xix describes it as a paraphrase, but a valuable one. 10. Diels suggests inserting ara and translating it as therefure. That gives a smoother reading, but there is no support in the manuscripts. 11. The Greek is 'tunkhaner."', which is commonly translated 'happens to be', but that is not suitable here. An anonymous reader suggests 'is as a consequence'. 12. There are three words commonly used for changing. 'Kinesis' can often be seen to mean 'moving spatially', and sometimes to mean 'changiBg' in a more general way. Furthermore, sometimes it is not clear how it is being used. 'AlloiOsis' and 'metabole' are also general words for changing. 'Alteration' here renders kinesis, but 'change' is fur 'metaballei'.
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Notes to pages 17-20
13. The word used is kinein. 14. Again kinein. 15. This is not a complete syllogism. MS F shows unease about the reading, and Diels has suggested bringing in from 105,6 'if what has come to be has a beginning, what does not have a beginning has not come to be', but that is only a conjecture. 16. For affirmations by transposition see Huby, 2007, pp. 46-51. The name was given by Theophrastus. Simplicius has embarked on a hopeless attempt to save Melissus by treating 'what does not have a starting-point', which is clearly negative in form, as being like 'what is starting-point-less', which could be seen as positive in form. But he sees that even that would not help Melissus. · 17. It is not easy to tell how much of this is Eudemus' own words. I have taken it that they are given from 105,24 ou gar to 27. The fragments of his Physics have not yet been studied. See Baltussen, 2008, pp. 99-104 for a discussion of Simplicius' use ofEudemus. 18. These premises must be those given at 105,12-13: 'What has not come to be does not have a starting-point', and 'Being has not come to be'. 19. Simplicius in his account ofEudemus' argument uses the word agenetos 'uncreated', where Melissus had ou gegone 'has not come to be'. But then he gives what he says are Eudemus' own words, in which he also uses forms ofgignesthai 'to come to be'. It is only at the end line 26, that agenetos reappears. I wonder then whether the quotation from Eudemus ends in 105,25 (uncreated). If so, the reference to 'the sequence of the negatives' would be Simplicius' contribution, and might be ~:elated to his thought about affirmations by transposition discussed in note 17. 20. The Greek here is allowsis followed by metabole. 21. Kinesis. 22. In this sentence Simplicius is giving terms in pairs, two for each of Aristotle's four causes, and! have therefore used 'i.e.' instead of'and'. See Phys. 194b24-195a3 for Aristotle's own account. 23. Later on the word 'arkM, here translated 'starting-point' is used of the basic features of what there is, and is rendered 'principle'. 24. AlloiOsis. 25. Phys. 253b23-6. 26. Presumably from Porphyry's lost work on the Physics. Diels refers to the passage at 10,25, which suggests that the contribution from Porphyry goes further back here. 27. AlloiOsis. 28. Alloioutai. 29. A form of metaballein. 30. Phys. 236a27. 31. Phys. 253b23-6. 32. AlloiOsis. 33. Kinesis. 34. Theophrastus [FHGS, 155C]. 35. The verb kinein alone is used here. 36. Both the text and its sense are uncertain, but the main point is clear. 37. AlloiOsis. 38. This is part of what is given at greater length at 145,17-146,25 below. 39. I thank a reader for suggesting that this refers to what follows in Aristotle about water (186a16-18). But Golitsis, 2008 has pointed out that there are similar expressions at 461,10-11 and 487,18-19 about Anaxagoras. One might have 'with respect to the apparent meaning".
Notes to pages 20-22
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40. At Metaph. 986b19-20 Aristotle says that Melissus was concerned with the material One. Ross ad loc. thinks this disproves Simplicius' view that Being was incorporeal. 41. Timaeus 28B. 42. Timaeus 27D. 43. The word 'oligos' can mean 'little' as well as 'few'. Possibly Eudemus was referring to some very small things, but the above interpretation seems better. 44. The rare word 'akolouthesis', here translated 'sequence', is used by Aristotle at Soph. El. 181a23, where the example of the relevant fallacy is precisely that committed by Melissus here. Simplicius may be assuming that his readers will be familiar with Aristotle's passage, on which Eudemus' otherwise obscure remark is presumably based. 45. AlloiOsis. 46. In view of Simplicius' Neoplatonist background, and the high-flown language he is using here, a capital letter seems appropriate. 4 7. I think this means everything that exists, both Being itseH and mundane things. 48. That is, what has just been discussed above. 49. Compare 108,22 where Simplicius distinguishes the heaven and this universe, which have a share of body and therefore have parts and a beginning and an end, from Being. Simplicius is aware of a problem, and continues to wrestle with it in what follows. 50. At this point only two senses of arkhe are recognised, that of a beginning in time and that of the beginning of a thing. Here 'beginning' seems the most appropriate translation. 51. Metaballein. 52. I have taken the de (but) here to introduce a reply to the charge which has just been made against Melissus. Part of the reply is couched in Neoplatonist terms, so that we cannot be sure about what Melissus actually said. Eudemus' remarks at 110,8-9 are also relevant. 53. cf. Phys. 204a34-205bl. 54. See note 49. The idea of physical things existing forever suggests a theory of circular motion, so that no point can be seen as the starting or the ending point, as with the stars. 55. This sentence is repeated at 109,27, but there the word 'on' Cexisting'), is added at the end. The MSS vary about that addition here too: I have followed Diels in keeping it at 27 but omitting it here. 56.Kinein. 57. 'Diarma' is a rare word and its meaning is uncertain in this context. An anonymous reader suggests it is a corruption of diastema. Furley, 1967, pp. 60-1 prefers 'sublimity', and rejects any implication of magnitude. He goes on to discuss three suggested interpretations of the matter. It seems to me, however, that there is a different problem here. Simplicius is concerned about Melissus' use, in this context, of the word megethos, which normally means 'size', and I suggest that it is he who uses diarrna tis hupostaseos. Hupostasis is an unlikely word for Melissus to have used, and there is nothing of this kind in any quotation from him. 58. Diels thinks that the quotation from Melissus may extend to here, and I accept that suggestion. 59. Furley, 1967, p. 59 points out that this is extended at Simpl in De Caelo 556,16: 'If it were infinite it would be one, for if it were two they could not both be infinite, but would have boundaries with respect to each other.'
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Notes to pages 22-26
60. This must be from Alexander's Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, which is lost. 61. Something seems to be missing here, either from an omission by a copyist or by Simplicius himself. 62. AlloiOsis. 63. Phys. 186a18. 64. This is presumably the actual word used by Melissus, which Simplicius feels the need to explain. 65. This is puzzling. The main point about Alexander's views as reported above is that he thought Melissus did away only with spatial motion, but the proof that follows does not tackle that. It is only when Simplicius quotes Melissus' own words that it becomes clear that he rejected all kinds of change. It is possible that the lacuna at 110,19 was of some length, and contained considerably more of Alexander's words. Simplicius returns to the point at 112,32-113,3. 66. The following quotation is given in archaic language. We may take it as having at least to some extent Melissus' exact words. 67. Barnes, 1982,p. 616, note 20 says that toinun is not inferential in Melissus and refers to Denniston, 1934, pp. 354-7. An anonymous reader suggests that Simplicius may have understood it as 'therefore', but here he is primarily quoting Melissus. 68. The Greek is to pan, literally 'the all'. 'The universe' might render it best. 69. Exceptionally here heteroioun. Presumably Melissus' own word. 70. In the following passage the word 'topos' occurs frequently. It can mean both 'space' and 'place', and I have used both as seems appropriate. 71. In what follows kinein is the verb used. 72. cf. Phys. 186a17. Aristotle's full treatment of the void, including remarks about Melissus, is at Phys. 213a12-217b28. 73. cf. Phys. 186a16-18. 74. Simplicius here uses the rare form apolimpanon, which suggests that he might have in mind an older text. 75. Phys. 186a17. 76. AlloiOsis. 77. Phys. 186a18. 78. Aristotle's remark is in a single sentence. Aristotle then goes on to use his own technical language. 79.186al8. 80. Alloiousthai, and heteroiousthai. 81. The following repeats 111,23-4. 82. Metabole. 83. i.e. the non-circular figures. 84. The Greek has ex hou 'from which' which in Aristotle's system amounts to matter. 85. The MS readings here vary, and katholou is only Diels' suggestion. The three cases are those given by Aristotle at Phys. 185b7-9. This is in a passage where Aristotle explores the various senses of 'being' and 'one'. 86. The word is eidos, which we can render either as 'species' or as 'form'. 'Species' seems more appropriate here. 87. Hippo ofRhegium, notable also for being an atheist. 88. At this point the word arkhe no longer means 'starting-point', but 'principle' in the sense of basic origin. 89. Simplicius is here referring to 113,27-8, which is indeed puzzling. Alexander does not, at least in Simplicius' excerpt, use the expression 'the species of
Notes to pages 26-29
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the matter', and it is not entirely clear what Simplicius is getting at. In any case he goes on to give his own interpretation of Aristotle. 90. This is an exact translation of the Greek. 91. i.e. matter. 92. [FHSG 234]. Sharples, RUSCH III, 1988, P- 48 n. 92, argues that this is a doxographical work. 93. 115,21-5 = 118,11-13 = 121,13-16. These are all passages from Eudemus, quoted almost exactly alike by Si.mplicius. The first and the third are extended to include a further sentence. The differences are minor, and we can be sure that they give us essentially Eudemus' own words. From what he says at 115,13-15 above, and later at 133,2.4-5, it is clear that Simplicius accepted that he did not have access to all Eudemus' works, and was happy to use Alexander as well. 94. 115,25-116,4 = 120,8-12. The only significant difference is that 116,2 has the verb to sullogizesthai, while 120, 11 has to sullogistikon. 95. Baltussen, 2002, p. 144, observes that this word, anaxiopistos, is rare and is found also at 120,7. He suggests that it may be Eudemus' own. 96. This could be thought to be a reference to the anonymous Dissoi logoi, a sophistic work of Plato's time, for a summary of which see Barnes, 1982, PP516-22. But it seems better to see it as marking a period of thought about the senses of words, between the view that each word had only one sense, and the view that it could have several senses. Eudemus, even only two generations later, may have believed that the Dissoi logoi was by Plato, but in many places Sim.plicius refers to his account of Plato's own approach, e.g. at 238,23 where he mentions Sophist 2580 f[ as evidence that Plato knew that non-being had dual meaning, and 243,1-3. At 243,1-3 he says that Eudemus said that Plato introduced to disson, but again the passage is not very helpful 97. These were among Aristotle's innovations. 98. The MSS have te (and) here, but the parallel passage at 120,10 has de (but), which I prefer here also. 99. These remarks must app]y to the methods ofEudemus and his contemporaries, using Aristotelian logic. 100. Again presumably in his work on Aristotle's Physics. 101. This is obscure: the most likely meaning is that Parmenides was like Thales and the others who believed that there was only one basic entity- At 238,23-239,3 Simplicius says that Plato knew the two-fold meaning of not-being in the Sophist 2580, but that passage does not help very much. 102. The word einai has been rendered 'being' by one translator and 'what is' by the other. 103. Parmenides uses three words apparently for the same thing, atarpos, keleuthos and hodos. In English 'way', path', and 'journey' can be used, as the context demands. Here the word is keleuthos. 104. This is as Oiels gives the text. Others would have: 'For she accompanies truth'. 105. Atarpos. 106. For a full and difficult discussion of the three paths see Barnes, 1982, PP- 157-72. 107.Hodos. 108. This represents the verb found in the MSS as plattontai, which scholars have accepted as Parmenides' form ofplazein. 109. Keleuthos. 110. The pincers of a smith were also known as crabs. 111. That is, the opposites cannot be true together. 112. This presumably refers to Theophrastus' account at 115,11-13.
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Notes to pages 29-32
113. The premise is: 'What is other than Being is not'. 114. As in the ten categories. 115. This is repeated with minor differences at 121,13-16. 116. I had intended to follow Charlton in using 'pale', but the examples Sim.plicius gives, of snow and swan and white lead, have persuaded me that 'white' is preferable. 117. This is not an exact account of what Aristotle says, there are problems with the text, and it is not a well-formed conclusion, but it fits in reasonably with what follows. 118. See n. 6. 119. Presumably the point is that in the preceding case the definite article, to, occurs with 'one', but not in these alternatives. 120. cf. 113,23-4. 121. The grammar is awkward here, but this gives the sense. 122. This is how Aristotle puts it at Metaph. 1057b8. He had taken it over from Plato Timaeus 67D-E. The exact meaning may be queried, and in Aristotle the point is about the opposition of white and black, but I think Simplicius is merely taking the definition from Aristotle as an example. It had also been used by Adrastus, whom Simplicius quotes at 123,23.26. 123. Hypostasis played an importaat part in Neoplatonism, but that hardly seems relevant here. Here it is distinguished from hupokeimenon (substrate) and ousi
Notes to pages 33-37
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137. Ross, 1936, prints 'hol&' but Simplicius at 126,11 has 'haplOs' 'simply'. 138. In this context this word can hardly have a very precise meaning. 139. Phys. 185a20-3. 140. The Greek has a succession of forms of 'being'. The capital B here may help to clarify the sense. 141. These words had technical senses in Aristotle, but I am not sure that those can apply here. 142. That is, the autoon. 143. The expression, to hoper on, is difficult. I have adopted from Ross, 1936, 'the just-existent'. 144. One of the earliest commentators on Aristotle. This is our only fragment from him. • 145. i.e. discussing Aristotle's usage. 146. This seems to mean that Simplicius took the passage from Porphyry. 147. These are the primary substances of Cat. 1b25-2a4. 148. Sumplerotikos is not an Aristotelian word. See n. 219. 149. This is a standard rendering of the Greek word 'grammatikos', but as with the word 'mousikos', discussed above, there are other possibilities, including 'literate'. 150. This appears to be the end of the quotation from Adrastus. It is resumed at 124,7. 151. This is puzzling. A reader suggests that the supposed sentence is of the form 'Socrates is a rational animal'. Then 'to be' refers to the 'is', and 'substance' to 'Socrates'. 152. The expression is hoi peri Parmenidin, which at this period is ambiguous. 'Their' at 125,9 must be the followers ofParmenides, or just Parmenides. 153. This passages contains both references to Parmenides and a theoretical argument about the function of the word 'being' if one can put the matter in those terms. I have tried therefore to use Being only where the reference is clearly to Parmenides. 154. i.e. as an accident. 155. This is 186b4 with the addition of autois, 'for them'. 156. e.g. 1a20:ff. 157. For Diels this is still part of Adrastus' work. It seems to me that here Simplicius resumes, and is referring to the whole passage as far as 186b12. 158. 250A8ff. 159. i.e. genera in Plato's sense. 160. Phys. 186b9. 161. Aristotle's text has halOs, 'wholly' where ours has haplds, 'absolutely'. 162. 186a34-5: 'For the accident is said of some substrate. so that that of which being is an accident, will not be.' It is at this point that Diels supposes the quotation from Adrastus to end. 163. The text in Aristotle is uncertain.. On eiper, 'being if it is' is omitted by the MSS. Ross in his edition of the Physics reads to on eiper hoper on to on, 'being if being is the just-existent', following some MSS. The word hekateroi 'to each of two' is also puzzling. Ross relates it to the system of dichotomy used by Zeno. That is, the original whole is first divided into two parts, and those ue again divided. We see below that Sim.plicius himself was uncertain about what Aristotle meant. 164. 185b16-19. 165. This text is repeated several times by Simplicius. It is given in a longer context at 147,15-17, and is partofDK fr. 8 ofParmenides. 166. I leave this as it stands. In its context. the meaning is: 'it is clear that the one does not have many parts'.
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Notes to pages 37-41
167. This refers to 186b13-14, but misquotes it with 'each' (hekastOi) where Aristotle has 'either' (hekateroi). Below, however, at 127,1-2, there are the correct words, though in a different order. 168. This seems to be a simple argument that things that are different are spatially different. 169. Phys. 186b12-13. 170. Phys. 186bl3-14. 171. Alexander has a different, more speculative, approach to this statement. 172. The reading here is uncertain. I follow Diels' choice, which seems the only possible one, but the uncertainty among the copyists shows that they were aware of a problem here. 173. 186b23-7. This is the part of the Physics on which Alexander is commenting. 174. Phys. 186b13-14. 175. This resembles the quotation at 126,22-3 and else'\Vhere, but the word order is different. Possibly Simplicius here is faithfully quoting Alexander's own misquotation. 176. This is quite complicated; the implied argument is: Being is divided and therefore has size and therefore is not one. 177. Phys. 186bl4-15. 178. The subject of phesi 'he says' is not clear. If it is Aristotle, it seems unnecessary, so perhaps it is Alexander. The first printed text cuts the knot with eipein 'saying', to give: 'through saying .. .'. In any case what follows seems to be by Simplicius himself. Further, the quotation here is not an exact report of Aristotle's text. We can only guess at its origin. 179. The Greek is 1wper tina, which gives roughly 'what things are'. 180. e.g. 183b19. 181. This resembles 127,36. The argument form is: If the first, the second: but not the second: therefore not-the first. 182. Ross, 1936, comments that this, Simplicius' first attempt at explaining Aristotle's 186b35, is very obscure, but Si.m.plicius seems to want to treat it as a reductio ad absurdum ofParmenides' position. 183. 186b35. This sentence has puzzled the commentators. Ross wants to treat it as a question. For a survey of the views of commentators see his Aristotle's Physics, 1936, pp. 477-9. 184. This appears to finish Simplicius' report of Alexander's view about the meaning of Aristotle's argument, but the next section, about the words, down to 129,31 is likely also to be based on Alexander, after which Simplicius refers to Alexander again and indicates that he will now give his own views. 185. Phys. 186b23. 186. Phys. 186b34-5. Aristotle's text here is uncertain and the commentators have taken it in various ways. In view of the peculiarity of the following sentence one might suspect a deep corruption. 187. That is, Simplicius had found this version in his material 188.Phys. 186b33·~ 189. This is obscure. A standard definition would be composed of genus and differentia. But how is man divided into those? 190. Sometimes the wordphilopon6s is clearly used by Simplicius as a pun on the name of his rival the Christian Philoponus. See Baltussen, 2008, pp. 188-9. 191. Simplicius appears to be reporting Alexander's arguments, but not claiming to repeat his words. Simplicius is being formal here, and I propose to add numbers to distinguish his arguments. They are not in his text. We have
Notes to pages 41-43
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the double difficulty that Alexander was commenting on Aristotle, but it is not always easy to be sure what he was commenting on, and he may have developed his own arguments freely. 192. The Stoics produced the original set of indemonstrables, but by Simplicius' time they were in general use. The fifth was originally: either the first or the second: but not the second, therefore the first, but a later list has: either the first or the second: but not the first, therefore the second. See Speca, 2001, pp. 36-66 for a discussion of the history of later Greek logic, with the suggestion that Alexander was responsible for some later developments. We cannot be sure whether this remark is from Alexander himself: or added by Simplicius. 193. If the first, the second; but not the second: therefore not the first. 194. See item 5 below. 195. The noun here is in the singular. 196. Phys. 185b7. 197. Aspasius was an early commentator on Aristotle, but his only surviving commentary is part of the one on the Nicomachean Ethics. Golitsis, 2008, p. 70 argues that Simplicius got his information about him from Alexander. 198. It is not easy to sort out where Alexander's remarks end, and who the subject of 'showed' is, though it is likely to be Aristotle. 199. Diels refers to Topics 3.1, 116a23, but points out that the example is from Posterior Analytics 1.22, 83a30. It is difficult to find any passage in Aristotle which backs up Simplicius' claim. The Topics passage is in a discussion of what things are preferable, and only indirectly relates to the relationship between to hoper on and genus. It does not even contain the words 'to hoper on'. But the following reference to Eudemus, Aristotle's immediate pupil, shows that Simplicius believed that there were grounds in Aristotle himself for the claim that he regarded to hoper on as equivalent to genus. 200. That Being is a genus. 201. Phys. 185a27-9. 202. The text is uncertain, and the MSS vary greatly. Diels suggests inserting to before, and arkei after, eiremenan to give: 'What has been said is enough against .. .'. 203. This seems to be a passing comment on the preceding sentence. 204. This seems to be the beginning of another series of argument from Alexander, to which again I have added numbers. 205. cf. Phys. 186a34-b2. 206. What follows must be Alexander's own comment. 207. Phys. 187aS-9. This is not about the just-existent, but about a particular case of that, with the word 'ti' (some). 208. This might be an interpolation by Simplicius, following a sentence by Alexander. The reference is to Sophist 259A4-6. 209. Phys. 186b33. The same thought has been given in a conditional at 186b4. 210. Phys. 186b1'i. 211. It offered only two alternatives, but there was a third possibility. 212. The word is 'ousWdes', which must be connected with ousia, 'substance'. It occurs again at 133,20 and 137,33. The thought may be that genus can be used to classify either substances, or, as a universal, covering all kinds of aspects of things. 213. Phys. 186b4. The same quotation is given, with an extension, at 132,27-8 below. 214. At this point Diels ends the sentence, but I prefer to put a comma and continue with the next few lines.
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Notes to pages 43-47
215. Phys. 186b4. Aristotle's own text here is difficult. I adopt Ross's solution of inserting ta alla after all' in Aristotle's text. Compare Sim.plicius at 125,1819, which shows him uncertain about Aristotle, as were the other commentators also. Sim.plicius must have read the corrupted text. 216. That being is genus. 217. 186b6. There are textual problems both in Aristotle and in Sim.plicius. Tauto, 'the same', is found in all Aristotle's MSS, but Ross, 1936, removes it on the grounds that it is not found in passages of Philoponus and Sim.plicius. I conclude that the word was there in Aristotle's MSS, but Sim.plicius and Philoponus found it difficult. Carteron keeps it in his Bude edition. Further, the sentence needs an apodosis, but possibly Simplicius thought the quotation by itself was enough to make his point. 218. cf. following note. 219. This word, sumplerotikos, 'completive', is not Aristotelian. Either Alexander is rewriting Aristotle, or he is referring to some works which are not by Aristotle. He has made a distinction above between works in which Aristotle clearly does not treat the just-existent as genus, and others, which appear to be logical ones, which do. The use of a later logical term suggests that he was mistaken about the latter. The word is used by Adrastus as quoted by Simplicius at 123,13 and by S:implicius himself at 128,19. 22&. Baltussen, 2002, discusses the nature of Simplicius' copy ofEudemus at pp.135-6. 221. Compare 132,18-19. 222. This is difficult. Perhaps Eudemus is making a contrast between Being and the heavens, and quoting something. That he did make some such connection is indicated by 143,4 below. 223. This is the last lemma until148,25, where the lemma is from 187a12. In the intm-vening pages Simplicius roams widely, giving the views of Alexander, Porphyry and others, and taking up questions like whether the argument from dichotomy is by Zeno or Parmenides. 224. These lines are based on Plato's Parmenides 128C7-D2 except here, where Plato's MSS have paskhein but those ofSimplicius have legein. The latter makes more sense and I therefore keep it. 225. Parmenides 12805-6 226. [FHSG 234] app. 227. Sophist 250.Aft". 228. The text here is uncertain, but there is no obvious improvement. I have tried to give the sense. 229. cf. Phys. 187a5. 230. Timaeus 27D. 231. Timaeus 27D. 232. Sophist 258C-59B. 233.Hodos. 234. The text of Simplicius has ontos, 'being', but Plato has me ontos, 'not being', which seems preferable here. 236. 'It' here refers to 'the nature of Other'. 236. This is part of a conversation between Theaetetus and the Eleatic Stranger. 237. The quotation here is incomplete. At 135,29 Simplicius repeats Plato's words at Sophist 258E6-7 which end with hOs estin 'that it is'. 238. Sophist 257B3-4. 239. At this point Sim.plicius introduces a number of terms used by the Neoplatonists, noetos, noeros, aisthetos and psukhikos, which were used to
Notes to pages 48-53
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denote different levels of being. He seems to be stating his own views. Parmenides himself can hardly have uttered anything like this. It is likely that Porphyry was the origin of such thinking. 240. Timaeus 27D-28A. Most of Plato's MSS add aei 'always', to give 'what is always coming to be'. 241. Sophist 248E6-249A2. 242. It is difficult to understand the train of thought here. Diels has put a crux in the next line and perhaps something is seriously wrong. Otherwise we must suppose that Si.mplicius is using Parmenides' words to illustrate Plato's position. 243. To mend a falJlt Diels suggests deims, 'demonstrating', but that is hardly enough. 244. Sophist 23903. 246. Physics 187a5-6. 246. What follows is only a paraphrase of the following lines of Aristotle. 247. Plato's autoon. 248. Physics 185b25-6. 249. Physics 186a2-3. But Aristotle's text differs, opening with gar, 'for', but saying only that 'one' can be both potential and actual. Our reading, from Alexander, may be preferable. 260. cf. 138,5-6. 251. Or, possibly, 'Is it then that this is not, but One is something?'. 262. cf. 144.15, but there the word for being is in the singular. Barnes, 1989, p. 235 says that the word for one here might refer either to Parmenides' One or to a unit. But the context of 144,15 suggests that Simplicius understood it as being of Parmenides' One. 263. Timon at Diogenes Laertius 9 .25. Melissus is also named there. 254. Hermann Frankel reconstituted Zeno's argument from its scattered parts in Simplicius. It is given and discussed in Furley, 1967, pp. 64-9. 255. The words pakhos and onkos have similar meanings in ordinary Greek. I suggest that here the first may have a two-dimensional sense, and the second a three dimensional one. The argument would apply to both equally well. 256. KRS adds the comma here. 207. Adopting Frankers apeiron for apeiron (pl). 258. 122,14 Diels. 259. The Greek has 'those around Xenocrates' but, as so often in similar cases, this seems to refer sole)y to Xenocrates. In line 15 only Xenocrates is mentioned. 260. As Porphyry said. 261. This is puzzling. The sentence before already provides thickness; and we can hardly bring in a fourth dimension. Ingenious interpretations have been given for what proukhein means, and somehow there must be an infinite progression. Owen points out that at Physics 239b17 Aristotle uses the word proekhein of an argument ofZeno, but it is of Achilles and the tortoise, and what projects is the small distance remaining at every stage between the pursuer and the pursued. Possibly here Simplicius is referring obscurely to the Achilles argument. 262. This is obscure. Perhaps it means that a) magnitude does not have species, and b) all things, from small lines to large bodies have it, i.e. magnitude. 263. From this point Simplicius starts using the language of the Neoplatonists in his attempt to explain Parmenides. See Golitsis, 2008, pp. 104-7 for a detailed study of the following digression, and his French translation. 1982, pp. 225-31.
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264. This is part of fr. 8, already given at 78,5 and to be repeated with context at 145,1-2. The combination muthos hodoio is unusual, giving 'account of a journey'. 266. This is repeated, in context. at 145,23. 266. Or 'understanding [in this way]'. 267. This text is repeated several times by Simplicius. It is given in a longer context at 147,15-17, and is part offr. 8 ofParmenides. 268. The text at 146,11 has houlon, whole, and that is part ofParmenides' poem. If the hoion of Simplicius' MSS is correct, it must be part of Simplicius' comment. 269. This is also quoted, more or less, at 146,11 (and 87,1). cf. 186,4. The context is given at 146,11, but both reading and sense are uncertain, and even the point of the end of the remark is unclear. Presumably Eudemus quoted it first, and Simplicius here copied him. 270. This is difficult to relate to the long quotation on pp. 145-6. Since there is a problem with the text at 146,11, this may have fallen out in that area. 271. The word epekeina used here is uncommon, and there may be a reminiscence of Plato's Republic 509B, where Plato speaks of the Good as being 'beyond Being'. 272. The word is noeros, connected with nous and here contrasted with noetos, parts of the standard Neoplatonist vocabulary. It seems best to use 'thinker' and related words here, because neither 'mental' nor 'intellectual' have the grammatical flexibility required. 273. The word is epistrophe. It played an important part in one of the triads of late Neoplatonism, but Simplicius does not involve those here. 274. The last words are Simplicius' own explanation. 276. Repeated in context at 146,7-9. 276. The word here is again noeron. A precise way of putting it could be 'the thinking thing' In this sentence there is a contrast between the active noeron and the passive noeton, and the point is that the divisions in the one are related to the divisions in the other. 277. This whole sentence is expressed in Neoplatonic terms. 278. These words are found in Plato's Sophist 242A, and quoted by Simplicius at 135,21-2. 279. I have added these numerals for clarity. 280. That is, a universal. 281. cf. 138,32-3,but there the word here translated 'Being' is in the plural 282. The MSS reading, which I have kept, is perati. But Diels suggests peras ti, which would give 'as a limit to all things'. 283. There are many problems with the text of Parmenides. I do not intend to make a thorough survey of them here. 284. Or, with KRS, 'that being uncreated and imperishable, it is,' 286. The reading of Simplicius is ateleston, which is awkward. I have accepted the emendation teleion of Owen. Owen has a long note on the text at Owen 1986, pp. 23-4, Additional Note A 286. Some scholars accept the emendation of Reinhardt 'from what is' for 'from what is not'. But Simplicius has 'what is not'. 287. Diels prints this sentence as a remark by Simplicius, but that seems unnecessary. 288.Hodos. 289. i.e. here and not there. 290. This is veey uncertain. KRS reject the reference to time, and have: 'For there neither is nor will be anything else besides what is'. Golitsis, 2008, p. 228 and n. 13 does the same.
Notes to pages 56-58
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291. See n. 165. 292. Phys. 188a20. 293. The egg is part of the complicated theology of the Orphics, described by Simplicius' colleague Damascius. See also Gabor Betegh, 'On Eudemus Fr. 150 (Wehrli)', in Bodnar and Fortenbaugh, 2002, pp. 337-57 and M.L. West, The Orphic Poems, 1984. 294. What follows is Simplicius' attempt to fit Parmenides into a Neoplatost framework. 295. The text here is uncertain. There seems to be a reference back to 145,4, where the text again is uncertain. 296. This cryptic remark may mean that Simplicius interprets Parmenides' way of speaking as hinting that there is something beyond even the one being. It is significant that at 147,13 there is the expression 'firstaition', but at 147,16 the words are 'ineffable aitia'. This would fit in with Plato's views, and that would explain why Simplicius is puzzled about Plato's attitude to Parmenides. 297. cf. n. 272. 298. cf. previous note. 299. This repeats 135,27-136,2. The quotation is extended at 136,2. 300. This may be a summary of Aristotle's views, but the sentence which follows, 148,9-11, is couched in Neoplatonist language and must be Simplicius' own addition. 301. Here, as in 143,26-7 the idea is that the divisions in the thinker are reflected in those of the thought. 302. Tluroet. 183E 303. Metaph. 1076a4. 304. 'He' is presumably Parmenides. 305. This resembles a phrase in Plato's Cratylus 413A8-9, but there the word hallesthai is used, which is more poetic than Simplicius' pedan. In Plato, as here, the phrase refers to overdoing something. It might be related to the activities of long jumpers, as skamrna could mean an area dug up to provide a soft landing place. If you jumped too far, you might hurt yourself. But this is speculation. See now Golitsis, 2008, p. 17.
Notes to 1.4 1. i.e. air, water, fire. 2. Eleatic monism, which was the topic of the preceding two chapters, belongs to metaphysics rather than to the philosophy of nature, since it is the task of the latter to account for change, the possibility of which is denied by the Eleatics. 'Natural philosophers' here renders 'phusikoi', lit. 'Those concerned with nature (phusis)', including the basic constituents and processes in it, especially change. Elsewhere (e.g. 151,25) the phrase renders 'phusiologor, lit. 'Those who gave accounts (logoi) of nature'. 3. According to Simplicius, Aristotle's comments on the Eleatics are charitable (a) in acknowledging that in speaking of the one being they are not speaking about nature (for if they were to say e.g. that nature is one and unchangeable they would be saying something obviously false), (b) in asserting that they nevertheless share with the natural philosophers the fundamental notion of a principle and undertake a common investigation whether the principles of things are one (as the Eleatics say) or many [38,6-9, quoting Phys. 184b22-4]. It may be queried whether in fact the notion of a principle applies univocally to the Eleatic One and to the primal stuff of the natural philosophers, and whether
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the Eleatics really believed that there were things for the One to be the principle of. (I am grateful to Stephen Menn for his suggested interpretation of this difficult comment, and for the reference to the passage cited.) 4. cf. 23,21-9. 5. Of Apollonia (see below). 6. cf. 24,26-25,8. 7. cf. 23,33-24.12. 8. cf. 25,11-12. 9. Metaph. 988a30; GC 328b35, 332a21. 10. Metaph. 989a14; Gael. 303b12; GC 332a20; Phys. 203a18, 205a27. At Phys. 189b3 Aristotle refers to a substance intermediate between water and fire. 11. It is clear from Aristotle's text (187a12-26) that the two forms of view maintained by the natural philosophers are the following: (I) The cosmos is composed of a single primal stuff (either water, air, fire or some other simple stuff intermediate between two of the three above on a scale of rarity and density), from which non-basic entities are formed by processes of condensation and rarefaction. (II) The basic material of the cosmos is not a single stuff, but a mixture of opposites (probably undif£erentiated between properties such as hot and cold and stuffs such as water and air), which are extracted from the primal mixture and then combined to make further things. Aristotle does not name any proponent ofl, but names Anaximander, Empedocles andAnaxagoras as having held dif£erent versions ofll. (On either version the basic stuff or mixture is what underlies change; it is referred to by Simplicius as the hupokeimenon, lit. 'the underlying thing', rendered 'substrate' in this translation.) Simplicius sets out this distinction plainly below (150,9-25), but at this point(149,4-11) his exposition is somewhat confusing. The fact that he postpones exposition of alternative II to 150,20-4, focusing at this point on the distinction between the views on the one hand that the basic stuff is water, air or fire and on the other that it is something intermediate between air and fire, or between water and air, might be taken to suggest that he takes Aristotle's 'two forms' to be the terms of the latter distinction, not I and II above. But, as is clear from 149,21-2, both the view that the basic stuff is one of the three elements and the view that it is something intermediate assume that non-basic things are generated in the same way, namely by condensation and rarefaction. Hence in saying that those who say that there is one element think that things come from it in either of two ways, he clearly has in mind the distinction in between I and II. (Simplicius' 'two ways' (duo tropous, 149,5) echoes Aristotle's statement that the views of the natural philosophers take two forms (duo tropoi).) 12. The works of Alexander, Porphyry and Nicolaus of Damascus to which Simplicius here refers are not extant. It is therefore impossible to determine whether Simplicius represents their views correctly. 13. It appears from the fragments ofDiogenes cited later in this chapter (see below) that in fact Diogenes' view was that the primal stuff was air, as Simplicius says at 149,7-8. 14. cf. 23,14-16 (with n. 131) and 25,8-9. 15. Simplicius is plainly correct in his interpretation of 187a13-15, and in his statement that Aristotle takes Anaximander's account of the generation of things to have been by extraction from an original mixture, not by condensation and rarefaction. Hence if Porphyry interpreted Aristotle as Simplicius says he did, he was wrong. 16. cf. 24,29-31. 17. 'Enquiry' renders 'Historia'. Simplicius refers to what is presumably the
Notes to pages 59-61
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same work under the title 'Enquiry into Nature (Phusike HistoriaJ at 115,17 and 154,17. The list of titles of Theophrastus' works preserved by Diogenes Laertius in his Life includes several titles dealing with nature and natural philosophers (V.46 and 48), but does not include this precise title, which may be an alternative title of one of the works listed. 18. At Phys. 1.5-7, where natural change is analysed as the transition of an underlying subject from one of a pair of opposite states to the other, e.g. a material's becoming structured in a certain way from having been unstructured in that way. 19. See Ar. Metaph. 987b14-988a15, with discussion by Ross, 1953, ch.12. 20. The thought seems to be that as the matter of which something is composed has the potential to develop or be shaped in various ways, so the fundamental opposition of large and small has the potentiality to give rise to various specific oppositions, and so to become something e.g. hot or cold. 21. At 24,13-16 Simplicius says that Anaximander said that the principle (arkhe) and element (stoikheion) of things was the unlimited (to apeiron), protos touto tounoma komisas tes arkhes. While the most probable sense of the latter phrase is 'being the first to provide this name (viz. 'the unlimited') for 'the principle', it is also possible to take it as 'being the first to provide this name of principle' (i.e. to apply the name 'principle'). In that case Simplicius says the same thing in the earlier passage as here. For that reason some scholars favour reading the earlier passage in that sense, despite the linguistic awkwardness of so doing. The alternative (favoured e.g. by Guthrie, vol. 1, p. 77) is that in the two passages Sim.plicius attributes to Anaxim.ander two distinct terminological innovations, viz. the introduction ofboth 'the unlimited' and 'principle'. 22. For Aristotle density (puknotes) consists in a thing's having its parts close together, rarity (manotes) in having parts more widely separated (Cat. 10a20-2), while coarseness (pakhos) consists in having large parts and fineness (leptotes) in having small parts (Gael. 303b26-7). At Cael. 303b22ff. he says that explaining generation in terms of density and rarity is no different from explaining it in terms of coarseness and fineness. 23. I translate Diels' suggested emendation dio kai duskinetotera hoion gen. Eti puknotera phesi. The MSS text dio kai duskinetoteron ou men eti puknotera phesi is ungrammatical. 24. See n. 22. 25. Against Aristotle's theses that density and coarseness, and rarity and fineness, always accompany one another, Simplicius maintains that things with large parts (coarse things) must have those parts widely spaced, and must therefore be rare, whereas things with small parts (fine things) must have those parts close together, and must therefore be dense. While both theses are false, it is clearly possible that things may have large parts widely spaced, and equally that things may have small parts densely packed together. Hence the cOl"relations between density and coarseness, and between rarity and fineness, cannot be universal as Aristotle, according to Simplicius, alleges, but allow for exceptions. 26. A paraphrase of Alex. in Metaph. 56,33-5. 27. For evidence on Plato's lecture on the Good see Ross, 1955, pp. 111-20. with translation in Barnes, 1984, vol 2, pp. 2397-9. 28. Simplicius cites Tim. 52B2, which refers, not to matter. but to space. Things which come to be and cease to be (i.e. material things) are perceptible. and are 'comprehended by belief together with perception' (52A5-7), while space, which is the receptacle within which material things come to be and cease to be, is imperceptible, but 'without perception is grasped by a kind of bastard
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reasoning, and is barely an object of belief' (B2). Simplicius thus interprets space in the Timaeus as matter, which misrepresents Plato's thought in that Plato does not think that space is what material things are made of, but that it is that in which they come to be and cease to be. 29. Apart from the citation by Diogenes Laertius of the opening sentence of 'his treatise' (9.57, DK 64B1) this chapter is our sole source of quotations from Diogenes of Apollonia. It is likely that the treatise which Diogenes Laertius refers to is the same as that from which Simplicius quotes. 30. 'Thought' renders 'noesis'. Other possible renderings are 'intellect', 'intelligence' and 'understanding'. 31. I translate DK's emendation auto gar moi touto theos dokei einai. The MSS text apo gar moi touto ethos dokei einai is ungrammatical, while ethos, habit, does not fit the context. 32. This is the earliest known statement of the principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles. 33. Diogenes counts the senses under noesis. This might be taken to imply an extension of the notion of noesis to embrace the traditional functions of the psukhe (see DK 64B4 above) 'this (i.e. air) is soul and thought for them'), or conversely the substantial thesis that perception involves thought (properly so called) in some way or other, perhaps in that perception involves recognition of the thing perceived. This is an intriguing anticipation of issues discussed by later philosophers (notably in Plato's Theaetetus), but unfortunately the lack of evidence prevents us from knowing how far (if at all) Diogenes himself pursued these issues. 34. The Greek is tous peri Empedoklea kai Anamgoran. Since the peri idiom seems to imply no genuine plurality, but to be a mere periphrasis, I translate hoi peri X throughout as 'X'. In other volumes of this series some editors prefer more literal translations, such as 'the followers of X'. 35. The noun homoimereia (lit. 'thing having similar parts') is an Aristotelian technical term (formed from the adjective homoiomeres), designating stuffs such as flesh, wood and gold, which are such that every part produced by division is of the same nature as the whole; e.g. every part of an amount of flesh is an amount of flesh. Such natural stuffs are among the elements in Anaxagoras' physical system. 36. According to Empedocles, the ascendancy of Love culminates in the mixture of the four elements with one another to form a totally homogeneous sphere. 37. cf. 27,17-23. 38. It is clear from the contexts that the quoted words of Aristotle refer, as Alexander says, to Anaxagoras. Nevertheless Simplicius goes on to suggest various ways in which they might be taken to refer to Empedocles as well: (i) In both theories the elements include opposites, since the Empedoclean elements are characterised by opposites, water being cold and wet, fire hot and dry etc (155, 7-9}. (ii) Empedocles assigns to his elements a limited selection of opposites, while Anaxagoras includes all opposites among his elements (thereby justifying Alexander's comment) (155,10-13). (iii) The Empedoclean opposites, hot, cold, wet and dry, are primary, in that they account for the wider range of opposites, e.g. sweet and bitter, which figure in Anaxagoras' list of elements (155,13-18). (iv) The distinction between primary and secondary opposites applies to Anaxagoras' list itself (155, 18-20). None of these theses impugns the accuracy of Alexander's exegesis of Aristotle. As regards the theses themselves, (i) and (ii) appear to be true, while (iii) and (iv) have no textual support. 39. Quoted at 34,20. 4it. 'This being so ... flavours' [lines 1-4] quoted at 34,29-35,3. 'Before ... any other' (lines 13-18] quoted at 34,21-5.
Notes to pages 65-67
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41. Simplicius quotes this sentence four times in this chapter, here, at 165,33, at 174,8-9 and at 177,4-5. Each citation begins 'and such as were to be and such as were,' but the next clause, down to 'will be' appears in a different version: 165,33 is close to the present passage with 'and as many as now are and will be', while 174,8-9 and 177,4-5 have 'as many as now are not and such as will be'. I take it that Anaxagoras' claim is that Mind knows everything past, present and future. In that case the present passage and 165,33 are verbal variants of one another, while the version in 174,8-9 and 177,4-5is deviant. On the assumption that the differences are due to variation in the MSS, rather than attributable to Simplicius' citing from memory, I emend the text of the three later passages to confonv. to that of the present one. 42. The MS text reads ho de nous hosa esti te karta kai nun estin hina kai ta alla panta. I translate DK's emendation ho de nous, hos aei esti, to karta ... panta. 43. This Neoplatonic interpretation is set out in greater detail at 34,18-35,21. It is hard to reconcile with the passages of Anaxagoras cited by Simplicius, from which it is perfectly clear that the universe over which Mind presides, whether or not including a plurality of distinct kosmoi (world orders (see n. 45)) is physical. While Anaxagoras' system does indeed allow for a distinction between Mind's intellectual representation of the physical world and that world itself, and treats Mind's representation as the model for the physical world, it does not allow for the suggestion that the civilisations contrasted with ours, and the different sun and moon which they have, belong to an intellectual world distinct from the physical world. 44. At 34,29-35, 12 'This being so [156,2] ... colours and flavours, and people ... use' is quoted as a single continuous passage [DK 59B4, 1-10]. 45. This passage has prompted a variety of interpretations, some scholars favouring the suggestion rejected by Simplicius here (and at 35,9-13), that Anaxagoras is envisaging distinct civilisations in remote areas of the earth, others that he is positing a plurality of distinct world-orders distributed spatially within the physical universe, as the atomists held. A variant of the latter is the suggestion that the plural worlds are not spatially separated, but are microscopic worlds nested within our perceptible world, in virtue of the Anaxagorean principles that everything is in everything and that there is no smallest thing. For a lucid and judicious survey and assessment of the competing views see Curd, 2007, pp. 212-22. 46. The first part of the sentence (line 4) describes the generation of things by the combination of previously separate elements, the second (line 5) the converse process, in which things are generated by the dispersal of a homogeneous mixture into its separated elemental components. The homogeneous mixture 'flies asunder' and 'is nourished' (i.e. develops into an articulated world order) as the elements 'grow apart'. In line 5 I follow DK and others in reading threphtheisa ('nourished') instead of the MSS' thruphtheisa ('shattered'). 47. '[A]t one time ... Strife': quoted at 25,29-30. 48. Reading with DK and other editors mathe for the MSS' methe, 'drink' or "drunkenness'. 49. Reading atalanton hapantei, a reading preserved by Sextus M. 9.10, instead of the MSS' atalanton hekaston. '[A.]t another ... breadth': quoted at 26,1-4. 50. Reading with DK and others pii de ke kexapoloito instead of the MSS' pei de ke kai kerux apoloito. 51. The Greek is eis to hen telei. It is not quite clear what Simplicius means. The supremacy of Strife is at its maximum when the elements are totally
106
Notes to pages 67-70
separated from one another in four distinct world masses (Ar. Metaph. 985a247; DK 31A37). Perhaps Simplicius' point is the same as Aristotle's in that passage, that in separating out the elements from one another Strife thereby unifies each into a single mass. Or perhaps the point is that the four separate world masses are contained within a single (spherical) whole. 52. cf. 32,3-4 'He calls fire "Hephaistos'', "sun", and "flame", and water "rain'' and air "aither". 53. Lines 3-10 'the sun ... honours' quoted at 33,10-17. 54. The Neoplatonic interpretation (cf. 31,18-26; 34,8·12) is as implausible for Empedocles as for Anaxagoras (cf. n. 43). B21 quoted above makes it clear that the long-lived gods are, like humans, plants and animals, part of the natural world, compounds of elements, and thereby subject to eventual dissolution. It is noticeable that they are described, not as immortal, but as long-lived, unlike the elements and Love and Strife, which are immortal (DK 31B16). The point of 'unless ... usage' may be to suggest that the only alternative to the Neoplatonic interpretation is to treat Empedocles' references to the gods as some kind of figure of speech. 55. Adopting M.R. Wright's tentative emendation hoti sphisi gennai en org€i for the MSS' corrupt hoti sphisi gennan orga. 56. See n. 54. The suggestion that union through Love is somehow primarily a feature of the intelligible world, while separation through Strife occurs only (or primarily) in the material world (cf. 31,21-3), is at odds with Empedocles' fundamental thesis that Love and Strife are equipollent forces, in their eternal opposition shapiD.g the elements into a world order whose stability consists in the instantiation of a constantly recurring pattern of change. 57. In this mtrod.uction to the discussion of Anaxagoras Simplicius uses a number of legal terms. Anaxagoras is treated as a litigant whose case is not to go by default. Instead he is to put the best case he can, and then be subject to cross-examination. Aristotle is thus treating him charitably (cf. 148,28, with n. 2). The reference to Plato's generosity is perhaps a reference back to 148,11-16. where Sim.plicius mentions Plato's respectful treatment of Parmenides in the Theaetetus and the Parmenides. 58. The two principal MSS have ei tukhoi nun meden en and ei tukhe nun meden en, neither of which is grammatical. Emendation of en to on, or of tukhe to tukhei, gives grammatically correct clauses, ei tukhoi nun meden on, or ei tukhei nun meden en, but each requires nun to have temporal reference, which gives an unsatisfactory sense: Melissus' claim is not that if now (i.e. at the time of writing) there happened to be nothing, in no way could anything come from nothing, but that if ever there was nothing, in no way could anything come from nothing. I therefore translate DK's emendation ei toinun meden en, where the force of toinun (rendered 'now') is sequential, not temporal 59. Simplicius assumes, in common with ancient theorists generally, that when wasps swarm in a decaying corpse (in his example, the corpse of a horse), some of the matter of the corpse has turned into the wasps, as boiling water turns to steam. 60. Having said at 187a27-9 that the reason Anaxagoras posited an infinity of elements was his acceptance of the common principle that nothing can come from nothing, Aristotle adds parenthetically {187a29-32) 'That is why they say "All things were together", and he said that coming to be such and such amounted to alteration, though some say combination and separation.' 'All things were together' quotes Anaxagoras [DK 59B1] and 'he' clearly refers to him, since Aristotle attributes to him the view that coming to be amounts to alteration at GC 314a13-15 (the wording is virtually identical to the Phys.
Notes to pages 71-75
107
passage). '(S]ome say combination and separation' then contrasts that view of Anaxagoras' with that of others who say that coming-to-be and perishing are combination and separation, despite the fact that that is attested as Anaxagoras' own view by DK 59B17. Aristotle's view seems thus to have been that in saying that coming-to-be is combination and perishing separation Anaxagoras really meant that they are kinds of alteration, but was not aware ofthe appropriate term for the process (so Themistius in Phys. 14,1-3). Others, by contrast (perhaps Aristotle had Empedocles in mind) really did think that coming-to-be is combination and combination perishing. This interpretation of Anaxagoras (with the concomitant contrast between him and 'others') is not supported by any of the {J:'agments. 61. Simplicius' thought seems to be that opposites cannot come to be from their opposites, in the sense that one opposite cannot turn into its opposite, e.g. hot cannot turn into or become cold. Rather, hot is already mixed in with cold, and emerges from it. 62. Simplicius appears to suggest that strictly speaking we should not say that opposites are in one another, but rather that they are mixed up with one another, either by juxtaposition, as when a mixture of sugar and salt consists of grains of sugar mixed up with grains of salt, or by mixture, as when flour and eggs are mixed to form batter. In these cases we do not say that the sugar is in the salt or vice versa, or that the flour is in the eggs or vice versa (though when a spoonful of sugar is dissolved in a gallon of water we do say that the sugar is in the water). Clearly, Anaxagoras, who maintains that everything is in everything, sees no absurdity in the claim that opposites are present in one another. Rather than elucidating Anaxagoras' thought, which is what Aristotle is doing in the passage presently under discussion, Simplicius appears then to be raising objections to Anaxagoras. 63. Seen. 57. 64. The MSS text is to gar eon ouk esti to me ouk einai, which has seemed to some scholars to require emendation. On the textual problem and the various proposals for emendation see Curd. 2007, pp. 39-40; she argues persuasively that the MSS text can express the sense given in the translation, which is what Anaxagoras' argument requires. The thought is that since there is no minimum quantity of anything, there can be no process of diminution by which a magnitude could be reduced to nothing. 65. Seen. 41. 66. '[E]xcept' is difficult; perhaps the sequence of thought is 'If the principles are knowable by Mind, they are not infinite in themselves; all the same, what Aristotle says is true ... '. 67. The argument is of the form P-+ Q, -,Q, therefore -,P, i.e. modus tollendo tollens, the second of the five Stoic indemonstrables. 68. The crucial premiss in this argument of Aristotle's and in the succeeding two (187bl2-188a2) is that, while any magnitude may potentially be divided to infinity, there is a minimum magnitude for any actual member of a natural kind, e.g. a quantity of .flesh. Anaxagoras' thesis that: 'Neither of the smaller is there a least, but always a smaller' amounts to the rejection of that premiss. 69. Simplicius treats 'sar:i ('flesh'), as a count-noun. Here he says (literally) that the whole is divided into fleshes, bones etc., and throughout he speaks of fleshes being divided into smaller flesh.es. Since 'flesh' is only a mass-noun, and never a count-noun (unlike e.g. 'bone', which is sometimes one and sometimes the other) I render 'sar:i in these instances as 'amount of flesh'. 70. The passages cited by Alexander are not found in any of the MSS of Aristotle. They are an alternative version of 187b16-21, presumably rejected
108
Notes to pages 75-77
by the final redactor of the text, but preserved in some copy which does not survive. 71. In Simplicius' text of the Physics, which is the same as ours, Aristotle's argument at 187b13-21 is that U: as Anaxagoras holds, the parts of a natural substance can be of any size you like (hopelikonoun), i.e. arbitrarily large or small, then the substance can be of any size you like, which is impossible. In the text which Alexander read Aristotle says that if the substances cannot be [arbitrarily] large or small (pelika) nor composed of [arbitrarily] many parts (posa), then the parts cannot be arbitrarily large or small. Simplicius objects that Aristotle's argument concerns only the size of the parts, not their number, but that is merely to report what was in his text, not to show Aristotle did not write what appears in Alexander's (different) text. 72. Simplicius further objects that in the argument given in the text cited by Alexander the premiss contains the word pelika, 'so large', instead of hopelikaoun, 'as large as you like', which is what is required for validity. He seems to be suggesting that since the argument would be invalid given that text, that cannot have been what Aristotle in fact wrote. The obvious reply is that pelika in the premiss is to be read, as determined by the context, as equivalent to hopelikaoun. (I make that assumption in inserting '[arbitrarily]' in the precedingnote.) 73. Simplicius puts forward on behalf of Anaxagoras a defence against the Aristotelian argument which has just been set out, and then rebuts the defence. The argument was that Anaxagoras is committed to holding that the parts of any natural object may be large or small without limit, from which it follows that the object composed of those parts may be large or small without limit, which is impossible. The defence seems to concede that that argument holds provided that each of the organic constituents of the whole (flesh, bone, etc.) is a single lump, but to maintain that it does not hold if each such constituent is a combination of several numerically distinct bits. The reason why the argument is supposed not to hold on that hypothesis is obscure; perhaps the thought is that even the subtraction of an infinite number of bits will leave an amount of the stuff exceeding the minimum amount of that stuff. But, as Simplicius proceeds to point out, that presupposes an infinite number of bits of the stuft: from which it follows that the total amount of the stuff is infinite, contrary to the original hypothesis. Any defence ofAnaxagoras must challenge the principle that a magnitude composed of an infinite number of magnitudes must be infinite. 74. Phys. 187b25-6. 75. i.e. there is some minimum size, such that no body can be smaller than that size. 76. Strictly speaking, the present argument uses a premiss of the previous one, viz. that there is a minimum actual amount of any natural stuff (187b29-30). 77. The argument does not assume that any particular finite size, e.g. 1 mikron, has been defined as the minimum size, but merely that it has been specified that there is some particular size which is the minimum size. 78. See previous note. 79. See n. 76. 80. Simplicius appears to suggest that in 187b29-30 Aristotle is conceding to Anaxagoras what he has maintained above (at 187b13-21) to be impossible, namely that there is no minimum quantity of any natural stuff, in order to show that even given that concession it is impossible that everything should be in everything. The argument would then be that given that there is no minimum quantity of any stuff, any stuff must be divisible ad infinitum; but then any
Notes to pages 77-79
109
finite amount of any stuff would contain infinitely many parts, which is in Aristotle's view impossible. On that interpretation 'even if what is extracted is always smaller, all the same it will not exceed a certain magnitude in smallness' does not mean 'however small the extracted amount, there is some given magnitude than which it will not be smaller', [i.e. some minimum magnitude], but 'however small the extracted amount, there is some magnitude than which it is not smaller' [i.e. some magnitude equal to or smaller than the extracted amount]. There is, however, no indication in Aristotle's text that 18'ib29-30 withdraws the earlier assertion that there is a minimum amount of any natural stuff. Rather, the argument from 187b27 relies on that premiss, since Aristotle there argues that, give~ that there is a minimum amount of any stuff: then either the process of extraction comes to an end when all of stuff A has been extracted from stuff B, which violates the principle that everything is in everything, or it goes on indefinitely to produce an infinite number of minimum (and hence equal) amounts of stuff A from a finite amount of stuff B, which is impossible. Since Aristotle goes on to reaffirm at 187b35-6 the principle that there is a maximum and minimum amount of any natural stuff, it is clear that, contrary to Simplicius' suggestion, the entire section from 187b13-188a2 relies on that principle. 81. It is unclear whether Simplicius is responding to what he takes Alexander and Themistius to have said, (viz. that Aristotle was seeking to show that the extraction does come to an end), or making an observation on his own account. H the former, neither his own summary nor Themistius' text (in Phys. 16) confirms his interpretation. 82. The Greek is tois pan en panti legousi kai pan ek pantos ekkrinesthai, tauton de eipein ginesthai axiousi. I understand the last five words as 'and who claim to say the same by "ginestha?", and take their claim to be that 'everything is extracted from everything' is synonymous with 'everything comes to be from everything'. In that construction, in which the word 'ginesthai' is quoted, one would expect the quoted word to be preceded by the definite article (in the dative case in this particular instance). I do not know whether the absence of the article is a decisive objection to my interpretation. Hit is, I have no better suggestion to offer. 83. Simplicius seems to criticise Alexander for describing the results of extraction ad infinitum as not merely finite but as equal magnitudes. He appears to be pursuing his suggestion discussed inn. 80 above, and objecting to Alexander that the specification of the results of extraction ad infinitum as equal magnitudes conflicts with that suggestion. But since Alexander is explicitly following Aristotle (see 187b33-4) on this point, Simplicius finds himself criticising Aristotle for in effect misrepresenting his own [i.e. Aristotle's] position. 84. An obscure comment. Simplicius is perhaps suggesting, in support of his own interpretation (see above), that, when applied to finite magnitudes, 'equal' may be understood, not in the strict sense, but in the weaker sense 'similar'. 85. Simplicius cites the principle as pan soma peperasmenon hupo samatos peperasmenou katametreitai kai dapanatai' (translated above), and then notes that in the correct text (lit. 'in the things [i.e. copies] which are correctly set down') Aristotle has anaireitai ('is done away with') instead of katametreitai kai dapanatai ('is measured and exhausted'). While all the extant MSS have anaireitai, Simplicius is presumably recording a variant reading, or perhaps citing a popular version of the principle, rather than quoting Aristotle. 86. The Greek is hoper ou boulontai. I take the understood subject to be hoi peri Ana.mgoran. Another possibility is that the subject is hai homoiomereiai,
110
Notes to pages 79-85
giving the sense 'rrJhe homoiomeries are destructible, which they are not supposed to be'. 87. For 'comes to be' as equivalent to 'is extracted' seen. 82. 88. This is the reading of all the MSS. Ross, 1936, inserts 'not' before 'separate', but it is clear from Simplicius' comments that his text of Aristotle did not contain the insertion. 89. This seems the most plausible construal of ei tis auton ekdekhoito kata to phainomenon (lit. 'if one were to take it according to what appears'). I take it that the reference of auton is Aristotle's criticism (elenkhos). 90. This stresses the absurdity that infinitely many times infinitely many finite magnitudes are contained in any finite magnitude not merely potentially, but actually. 91. Alexander suggests that Anaxagoras might hope to escape the above objections by weakening his theory from 'Everything in everything' to 'Everything in every perceptible body'. He then blocks this escape route. Since according to Anaxagoras nothing is completely separable from anything else, the components of the perceptible bodies will themselves turn out to be mixtures of all components, and so on ad infinitum, reinstating the objection. 92. See above, 172,27-9. 93. Seen. 41. 94. i.e. finitely m.any, as opposed to infinitely many. I translate 'definite' to capture the repetition of 'Mrismene from the description of knowledge. The inference seems to be that since knowledge is determinate, what is known must be determinate, and if determinate, then finite in quantity. 95. Simplicius cites instances of processes, the expansion of water when turned to steam and the organisation of organic stuffs into individual substances, which cannot be accounted for by extraction. 96. The thought seems to be 'Quantitatively, because you will never reach the smallest part; for if you did reach it the extraction would come to an end [contrary to Anaxagoras' hypothesis]'. 'The smallest part will not turn up' renders ou phthasei to elakhiston. Phthana has the basic sense 'be first, do something before someone (or something) else'; hence, assuming that 'to elakhiston' is the subject of the verb, the sense ought to be that the smallest part will in some sense not come before something else, but it is hard to see what that other thing might be. There is a rare absolute use of the verb, applied to time expressions, meaning 'arrive' (v. LSJ s.v. ll.2); I suggest that Simplicius may be extending this use to a non-temporal subject, giving roughly the sense 'the smallest part will not be reached, come along'. But I am not at all confident that this suggestion is correct. 97. This sentence is a literal translation of the Greek. I suggest, tentatively, that the meaning is 'Quantitative separation occurs when and only when there is a smallest thing', or perhaps 'Quantitative separation is what gives rise to the smallest thing'. 98. A difficult passage. I suggest (again tentatively) that what Simplicius means is that the reason the process will not come to an end is not that division as such goes on ad infinitum, as Alexander held (following Aristotle), but that Anaxagoras' principle that everything is in everything implies that the process of extracting one stuff from another can never come to an end. 99. See n. 41. 100. Another Neoplatonic thought. 101. Phaedo 98B-C. 102. Tim. 61D-62B. The general account of causation which precedes extends from 27C to 53C.
Notes to pages 85-87
111
103. Lit. 'is divided into muds'; cf. n. 69. 104. Repeated with slight verbal variation from 174,30-1. Its presence here may be the insertion into the text of a marginal gloss. 105. At 188a13-14 all the MSS have ouk orthOs de oude ten genesin lambanei tOn homoeidOn ('nor is he correct in his treatment of the coming-to-be of the homogeneous things'). Alexander suggests that the correct reading may be 'nor is he correct in his treatment of coming-to-be from the homogeneous things', i.e. ouk orthOs de oude ten genesin lambanei ek tOn homoeidOn (or possibly lambanei ten ek tOn homoeidOn). He says that if the latter is right the words 'ek tOn' (sc. 'homoeidOn') have fallen out of the text; but since the received text has 'tOn' before 'homoeidon', the omission would simply be that of'elt (or possibly of'ten ek'). Since the received text fits Aristotle's argument perfectly, there is no case for emendation. 106. 165,30-166,2; 174,4-18. 107. Literally 'unbounded in quantity' (aperiegeta). 108. The MSS read 'posited as elements the simple qualities which have the nature of principles, but the compounds'. The argument seems to require the insertion of 'not' before 'the compounds', as in the Aldine edition of 1526. 109. Tim. 55D-56C; cf. 35,22-3.
Bibliography Baltussen, H., Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius, London, 2008. Barnes, J., ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation, Princeton, 1984, 2 vols. Barnes, J., The Presocratic Philosophers, London and New York, 1982. Bodnar, I. and Fortenbaugh, W.W., eds, Eudemus of Rhodes, New Brunswick, 2002 (RUSCH XI). Charlton, W., Aristotle, Physics, Books i and ii, translated with introduction and notes, Oxford, 1970. Curd, P., Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Fragments and Testimonia, text and translation with notes and essays, Toronto, 2007. Denniston, J.D.. The Greek Particles, Oxford, 1934. Golitsis, P., Les commentaires de Simplicius et de Jean Philopon d la Physique d~tote, Berlin and New York, 2008. Guthrie, W.K.C., A History of Greek Philosophy, Cambridge, 1962-81, 6 vols. Ruby, P.M., Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writing, Thought and Influence, vol. 2: Logic (PhilosophiaAntiqua), Leiden, 2007. Kirk, G.S., Raven, J.E and Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 1984. Ross, W.D., Aristotle's Physics, a revised text with introduction and commentary, Oxford, 1936. Ross, W.D, Plato's Theory of Ideas, Oxford, 1953. Ross, W.D., Aristotelis Fragmenta Selecta, Oxford, 1955. Speca, A., Hypothetical Syllogistic and Stoic Logic, Leiden, 2001. West, M.L., The Orphic Poems, Oxford, 1983 Wright, M.R., Empedocles: The Extant Fragments, 2nd edn, London, Indianapolis and Cambridge. 1995.
Subject Index accident 33, 34, 36 Adrastus on substrate and accidents 34-6 Alexander 5, 8, 10, 11, 23, 24, 27, 38, 39,40,41,44,46,47,48,59, 64, 70,73,75,76, 77,80,85, 102, 104, 107-8, 109, 110, 111 attacks hypothesis that Being is one 15 attacks Melissus for bad logic and false premises 15 on starting-points 18 on change and time 19 on species and matter 25-6 analysis of the all 40 formal arguments about being 41-2 on being as genus 42-3 on Plato on Being 45-6 Anaxagoras 6-11, 63-6, 69-70,71-87, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110 Mind 8, 10-11, 63-4, 65, 72, 81-2, 83-4, 105, 107 homoiomeries 63-4, 65, 69, 70, 71-3, 74-6, 79-80, 83-4, 104, 106, 109-10 plural worlds 66, 105 Anaximander 5-6, 59, 102, 103 to apeiron 103 Anaximenes 6, 59, 61, 70 spoke of air 25 Aristotle attacks view that Being is one 15, 17,30 criticises Melissus' argument 15 gives Melissus' arguments 16 on starting-points 18-19 on movement on the spot 24 on being as one in species 25 criticises Parmenides 28 being does not have size 37-8 in other works takes the just-existent as genus 44
on Parmenides and Zeno 45 see also Index of Passages Aspasius 42 atomism 8, 73 Being, arguments about 15, 16, 22, 23, 26,29,3~37,38,39,4~47,48
combination and separation 5-6, 59-60, 63, 70, 76-8, 79, 82, 85, 86, 102 condensation and rarefaction 5, 59-60, 102 Democritus 63, 70, 72-3, 86, 87 dichotomy 48, 49 Diogenes of Apollonia 5-6, 59, 61-2, 102, 104 division, theoretical and actual 8, 10 to infinity 74-5, 78, 83 elements 5-6, 8, 11, 58-9, 61, 86, 102, 103, 104 air 5, 6, 59, 60, 61-2, 65, 66-7, 86, 101, 102 earth 6, 59, 60, 61, 64, 66-7, 86-7 fire 5, 6, 59, 60, 61, 66-7,86, 101, 102 water 5, 6, 59, 61, 64, 66-7, 86-7, 101, 102 aither 65, 86 Empedocles 6-7, 11, 63-4, 70,86-7, 102, 104, 106, 107 elements in 6, 64, 66, 86-7, 104, 106 Love and Strife 6, 63-4, 66-7, 68, 104, 105-6 (Aphrodite (= Love)) 66, 68 cosmic cycle 64,66-7, 68, 105 Eudemus 11, 18, 22, 23, 27, 29, 31, 32,44 on Melissus' arguments 18
146
Subject Index
on coming to be 21 on what is infinite 22 on Parmenides 27, 29, 53 on Zeno on the One 49 Forms, Platonic 6 genus 42, 43, 44, 47 great and small 5-6, 59-60 Heraclitus 59 spoke of fire 25 Hippasus 59 Hippon59 spoke of water 25 Hypostasis 31, 32 indefinite dyad 6, 60 infinity, the infinite 9-10, 63, 69, 71-3, 76-8, 79-80, 81-2, 86, 110 just-existent 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44,48 Leucippus 72-3
opposites 5-6, 7, 11, 59-60, 64-5, 71, 84, 102, 104 Parmenides 7, 15, 20, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31,36,43,45,46,69, 106 puts premises in order 16 being is finite 26 directly quoted 28, 53-4, 55-6 on the One 31-2 on Being 53 Plato 6, 59-60, 69, 87, 104, 106 TimO£us 20, 46, 48 'in two ways' 27, 31 on genera 43 Sophist 45, 46, 47, 48 lecture on the Good 60, 103 Porphyry 5, 8, 19, 27, 34, 46, 48, 59, 61, 72-3, 102 on timeless alteration 19 sympathetic account ofParmenides 27 records Adrastus 34-6 on Plato on not-being 48 on Parmenides' supposed dichotomy argument 50 on division to infinity 52 principle 5, 58-9, 61, 63, 69, 103 Pythagoreanism 60, 87
matter 6, 11, 59-60, 61 and form 11, 59-60, 87 Megarians 31 Melissus 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 26,69,106 arguments about Being 16-17, 23 invalid arguments 17 took Being to be incorporeal 20, 22 on starting-points 20 being is motionless 20 every body has a limited beginning in time 21 on coming to be 21-2 takes One strictly 25 on Being as species 26 being is infinite 26 Metrodorus 72 mixture 63-5, 71, 80-1, 102, 107 monism 5, 101 moon65, 66
Thales 59 spoke of water 25 Themistius 77, 109 onZeno50 Theophrastus 19, 27, 29, 45, 59, 63, 102-3 on time and change 19 on Parmenides 27, 29, 45
Neoplatonist language 54, 55, 56 Nicolaus of Damascus 5, 59, 61, 102
Xenocrates 60 indivisible lines 51-3
One, unity 5-6, 60, 67 kinds of 25, 30, 32 and size 37
Zeno 15,45,48,49 helps Parmenides 48 on the One 49-50, 55
Simplicius, see Index of Passages Socrates 84-5 on Zeno and Parmenides 15 soul61-2 Speusippus 60 stars65 substrate 6, 58-9, 61, 63, 102 sun 65, 66, 67, 68, 106
Index of Passages References to the pages of this book are in bold type. ADRASTUS
sole fragment, 3U ALEXANDER
In Metaph. 56, 33-5, 103 In Phys., 38-9, 42-4, 45-6 ANAXAGORAS
