Review of Outstanding Questions

It is time to take count of questions raised previously that remain unresolved. These questions spring ultimately from the Stranger's disclosure at Statesman 285D that the purpose of his conversation with YS is to make its participants better dialecticians. In Chapter 10, we concluded that becoming a better dialectician is a matter of becoming increasingly capable of making accurate divisions, which in turn boils down to an ability to divide things according to Forms. Chapter 10 ended with the question of what accuracy in this respect amounts to.

Chapter 11 began with an attempt to make headway on this question by considering passages in other dialogues where Plato's characters talk to dividing things according to Forms. One such passage is Phaedrus 273E, in which Socrates likens the dialectician's ability to divide things according to Forms to the ability of a butcher to cut carcasses along their natural joints. This gave rise to a further question of what exactly gets divided in the dialectical process. A possible answer is indicated at Sophist 267D, where the Stranger faults earlier speakers of Greek for a certain laziness with regard to “the division of kinds according to Forms.” But nothing is said in this context about the nature of kinds or about the sense in which they might be subject to dialectical division.

Shifting attention to this further question in section 11.2, we undertook a survey of current views regarding what gets divided in the dialectical process.

Relevant Texts in Other Dialogues

To students of the middle dialogues, the Stranger's talk of dividing things according to Forms may sound reassuringly familiar. Before returning for a closer look at the Stranger's remarks in this regard, let us recall some similar remarks by Socrates of the middle period.

At Republic 454A, Socrates tells Glaucon that people often are unable to distinguish between disputation and genuine discussion because they lack the ability to divide things according to Forms (μὴ δύνασθαι κατ᾿ εἴδη διαιρούμενοι: 454A6). This failure is comparable to that of the “clever people” of Statesman 284E11, whose inability to distinguish the two kinds of measurement is attributed to exactly the same cause (μὴ κατ᾿ εἴδη … διαιρουμένους: 285A4–5).

At Cratylus 424C, in their discussion of letters and syllables, Socrates tells Hermogenes that vowels should be divided from other elements according to Forms (or classes) (διελέσθαι … κατὰ εἴδη: 424C6). This brings to mind the story of Theuth in the Philebus. As we recall (from section 8.4), Theuth was credited with having first discerned vowels, semivowels, and mutes within the Unlimited range of vocal sound. In describing this achievement, Socrates refers to mutes as a third class (τρίτον … εἶδος: 18C2) to be set aside as distinct. The distinctions among phonemic sounds that Hermogenes is advised to observe correspond to those established by Theuth in the story of the Philebus.

The Phaedrus contains three explicit references to the procedure of dividing according to Forms.

Antecedents to the Paradigm of Weaving

Having illustrated the use of paradigms with the modest example of their use in learning letters, the Stranger returns to the task of defining statesmanship. What they need to do next, he tells YS, is to bring a paradigm to bear in grasping the nature of “looking after those in the city” (τὴν τῶν κατὰ πόλιν θεραπείαν: 278E9). In this way, that nature will become present to them “in a waking state instead of a dream” (ὕπαρ ἀντ᾿ ὀνείρατος: 278E10) – a clear allusion to the dreamlike state said at 277D1–4 to be remedied by the use of paradigms.

A chronic problem with previous efforts to define statesmanship in the dialogue was an inability to distinguish it from a host of similar skills. At 268C2 there is reference to myriads of skills that lay claim to the title “rearer of the human herd,” several of which are specified at 267E7–8. According to 275B, this problem was one reason for introducing the Myth of Cronus. The reader is encouraged initially to think that the problem has been resolved, under the influence of the myth, by the replacement of herd rearing (ἀγελαιοτροφικός) by herd keeping (ἀγελαιοκομικός) in the definition. Such at least appears to be the sense of the Stranger's remark at 276B7–C2 that statesmanship has better claim than any other skill to providing civic care (ἐπιμέλεια at 276B7, approximate synonym for ἀγελαιοκομικός according to 275E5–6).

The two parts of this book require separate introductions. Although Part I (on method) comes first in order of presentation below, Part II (on metaphysics) was composed earlier and thus will be introduced first. Part II is a continuation of the inquiry into the metaphysics of Plato's late period that resulted in the publication of Plato's Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved (PLO) in 1983.

PLO was concerned primarily with the once strange-sounding theses attributed to Plato in Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics. Among them are the theses: (i) that numbers come from participation of the Great and the Small in Unity, (ii) that sensible things are constituted by Forms and the Great and Small, (iii) that Forms are composed of the Great and the Small and Unity, and (iv) that Forms are numbers.

Prior to PLO, there were two radically opposed positions on the significance of Aristotle's reports. One (represented by K. Gaiser and H. J. Krämer of Tübingen, among others) held that Aristotle was reporting a set of doctrines passed on orally by Plato but never committed to writing – the so-called unwritten teachings. The other position was championed by Harold Cherniss in The Riddle of the Early Academy, to the effect that Aristotle simply did not understand Plato's views and was reporting them erroneously. Opposed as they were in other respects, both camps maintained that the views attributed to Plato by Aristotle could not be found in Plato's dialogues.

Topical Structure of the Dialogue

The Statesman begins with Socrates thanking Theodorus for introducing him to Theaetetus and the Stranger (ξένος) from Elea. After a bantering interchange on the relative values of sophistry, statesmanship, and philosophy, and after acquiescing to the Stranger's request that Young Socrates (YS) serve as respondent in the ensuing discussion, Socrates announces his intention to converse with his younger namesake on another occasion and takes his seat among the audience. We hear nothing more from him until the final speech of the dialogue in which he compliments the Stranger for completing an excellent portrayal of the kingly art.

The Stranger begins by assuming that the statesman, like the sophist before him, is someone possessing knowledge (έπιστημόνων: 258B4). After securing YS's agreement that the king, the slave master, and the household manager all share the same knowledge and exercise the same skill as the statesman (259C1–4), the Stranger identifies this knowledge as theoretical (γνωστικῆς: 259C10) rather than practical (πρακτικῆς: 259D1). Theoretical knowledge is then divided into that responsible for making judgments and that responsible for giving directions, which latter is further divided into self-directive (αὐτεπιτακτικην) and a nameless kind concerned with promulgating the directions of others. Those guided by their own directions, in turn, might be concerned with bringing either inanimate or animate products into being (γενέσεσιν at 261B13).

Return to the Problems of Chapter 7

Anticipating that YS might come to consider their definition of weaving too long, the Stranger attempts to forestall such misgivings by undertaking an examination of Excess and Deficiency in general. He begins this examination by distinguishing two kinds of measurement, which he proceeds to describe in a variety of alternative formulations. In our initial encounter with these alternative descriptions (in Chapter 7), we found them sufficiently diverse to raise doubts about the nature of the intended distinction. In hopes of resolving these doubts, we undertook a brief survey of other relevant contexts employing the same terminology, looking first at Aristotle and his later Greek commentators (section 7.2) and then at other dialogues written roughly at the time of the Statesman (Chapter 8). It is time to return to the problems raised by these diverse formulations.

While the reader may want to refer to the translations provided in Chapter 7 for details, it will be helpful to have a summary of these formulations at hand.

1. In formulation (1), the first kind of measurement is said to concern the association of greatness and smallness with each other, whereas the second is said to engage a being that is necessary for generation.

2. In formulation (2), the first compares the larger and the smaller with each other exclusively, whereas the second involves comparison with the condition of due measure (which is chiefly responsible for the difference between bad and good in human affairs).

3. In formulation (3), the first has to do with the fact that the Great and the Small both exist and are judged relative to each other, whereas the second pertains to their existing and being judged relative to due measure.

4. […]

Knowledge and Art in the Philebus

In a seemingly offhand remark at Statesman 284D1–2, the Stranger alludes to a forthcoming “exhibition” (ἀπόδειξιν) of exactness itself and says that on this occasion there will be need for the distinction between two kinds of measurement that he and YS have been discussing. As pointed out during our initial encounter with this passage in section 7.1, there is an examination of accuracy among the arts at Philebus 55D–59D that apparently answers to the Stranger's prediction. Not only does this examination of accuracy make use of a distinction between two types of measurement very much like that in the Statesman, it also deals at length with the topic of dialectic which is the Stranger's main concern in the passages directly following the prediction.

Whether or not Plato had the Philebus (or plans for it) in mind when assigning this remark to the Eleatic Stranger, its treatment of accuracy in the arts is obviously relevant to the discussion underway at the middle of the Statesman. The task of the present chapter is to bring Socrates' examination of accuracy to bear in setting the stage for a discussion in the following chapter of the procedure of dividing according to Forms.

To someone accustomed to a sharp distinction between knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) and art (τέχνη) in other Platonic contexts, it may seem disorienting to find dialectic referred to as an art in the Statesman and the Philebus.

Subdivisions of Mental Derangement in the Phaedrus

With regard to dialectic, the pivotal passage in the Phaedrus is 265D–266C. The passage begins with reference to a pair of procedures, identified shortly thereafter as collection and division, and concludes by assigning the name ‘dialectician’ persons able to apply them. As already noted, collection is described here as a process of bringing what is multiply dispersed “into a single Idea” (Εἰs μίαν … ἰδέαν: 265D3). Division is characterized in turn as a matter of “cleaving things according to Forms” (κατ᾽ εἴδη … διατέμνειν: 265E1) and likened to the technique of cutting “according to natural joints” (κατ᾽ ἄρθρα ᾗ πέφυκεν: 265E1–2) practiced by a competent butcher.

The treatment of collection in the Phaedrus has been discussed in the previous chapter, along with the relationship between collection and recollection (ἀνάμνησις). Our present concern is with the other phase of the dialectical process in which things are partitioned according to Forms.

This technique of cutting things along natural lines of cleavage, Socrates tells Phaedrus, has already been illustrated in his two speeches on love. After locating mental derangement (τὸ … ἄφρον τῆς διανοίας: 265E3–4) under a single common Form (by collection), these two speeches then partitioned off the “left-handed” and the “right-handed” parts of mental derangement (termed παρανοίας at 266A2), analogously to the distinction between the left- and right-hand parts of the body. Let us examine the forms of mental derangement distinguished in these two speeches.

The Purpose of This Chapter

Chapter 7 identified seven expressions used equivalently by Aristotle and his commentators for Plato's (the) Great and (the) Small. All but two of these appear in the Platonic dialogues. Of the five used by Plato, occurrences of ὑπεροχή καὶ ἔλλειψις (Excess and Deficiency) and τὸ μέγα καὶ τὸ μικρόν (the Great and the Small) are found in the Statesman. The remaining three, τὸ ἄπειρον (the Unlimited), τὸ μᾶ̃λλον καὶ ἧ̃ττον (the More and Less), and ἡ ἀπείρον φύσις (the Unlimited Nature, or the Nature of the Unlimited), occur in the Philebus. The tactic of the present chapter is to examine the use of these expressions in the latter dialogue in hopes of elucidating the nature of Excess and Deficiency in the middle section of the Statesman.

Merely knowing that these three expressions occur in the Philebus, of course, tells us little about their meaning in that particular context. Of the three, τὸ ἄπειρον has received the most extensive discussion. Ancient commentary begins with Aristotle, who says in the Physics that Plato made the Infinite (or Unlimited) a substance in its own right (203a4–5), that it is present both in the Forms and in sensible things (203a8–10), and that Plato had “two infinites,” the Great and the Small (203a15–16). Commenting on these and adjacent passages, Simplicius equates the Infinite with the Indefinite Dyad and the Great and Small on Plato's behalf (see Appendix). Similar connections are made by Alexander, Themistius, and Philoponus (see Appendix).

Overview

This chapter and the next deal with antecedents present in earlier dialogues of the dialectical method exhibited in the Statesman. These antecedents are found primarily in the Phaedrus and the Sophist. A brief overview of these antecedents will indicate why this and the following chapter are needed.

The Sophist and the Statesman are the second and third members of a trilogy beginning with the Theaetetus. The method followed by Socrates in the Theaetetus is an integrated version of the method of hypothesis developed in progressive stages through the Meno, the Phaedo, and the Republic. When Socrates cuts off his conversation with Theaetetus to go meet his indictment, he steps down as discussion leader for the remainder of the trilogy. The Sophist takes up next morning with the introduction of the Stranger from Elea, who leads Theaetetus through the steps of a substantially different dialectical process. This process is commonly characterized as the method of collection and division.

Lest too much be made of the association of different methods with different discussion leaders, we should not forget that the method of collection and division first appeared in the conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus. In point of fact, the Phaedrus is the only dialogue in which collection and division are paired by name as companion procedures. Yet collection is the procedure featured most prominently in this earlier conversation, as we shall see in section 2.2.