ARISTOTLE'S GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE MODALITIES

In the terminology of ‘A belonging to or applying to B’ (‘A huparchei + dat. B’), dominant in Pr. An. A.4–22, the three basic readings described earlier go as follows: On a de dicto version, Aristotle employs only one copulative expression, huparchei (‘belongs to’, ‘applies to’), but three sentential operators for possibility, necessity, and two-way possibility, each attaching to a plain proposition to form a new modal dictum asserting that the original statement is necessarily true, possibly true (in the sense of not necessarily false), or contingently true (i.e., neither necessarily true nor necessarily false). A modalized predicate reading also calls for the plain copulative expression huparchei, but now with three term-forming operators on terms: n, let us say, which attaches to a given term A to form the term ‘necessarily A’ or ‘necessary-A’ (nA), and the operators p and pp for ‘possibly A’ (pA) and ‘two-way possibly A’ (ppA). Finally, the copulative reading involves no sentential operators and no term-forming operators on terms, but rather four expressions linking Aristotle's general terms: huparchei, ‘belongs to, applies to’; ex anangkēs huparchei, ‘necessarily belongs to’ (symbolized as ‘A N all B’); endechetai (or dunatai) huparchein, ‘possibly applies to’ (A P some B’) or ‘two-way possibly applies to’ (‘A PP all B’). (Negation and quantification pose other questions and may well be, in Aristotle's view, copula operators. The matter is discussed at the end of this section.)

This is a study of Aristotle's theory of substance, more precisely of his theory of sublunary substance. Although some philosophers, upon reading the Metaphysics, see the influence of Aristotle's biology, others – and I am one of them – see Plato. Indeed (although Aristotle would not have put the point in this way), I would go so far as to say that Aristotle can be seen as attempting to offer a defensible version of Platonism. What I mean when I say “a version of Platonism” is that for Aristotle, as for Plato, there is something which is first in knowledge, definition, and time, and that for Aristotle, as for Plato, whatever is knowable must be eternal and unchanging. In the case of Plato, it is, of course, the Forms which are intended to meet these requirements. But Aristotle finds the Forms problematic on both metaphysical and epistemological grounds, and while Plato himself certainly struggled with some of the difficulties that Aristotle complains of, Aristotle believes that Plato's solutions fail, chiefly on account of separation. Specifically, Aristotle seems to believe that separation creates a gap that recollection cannot fully bridge and that Plato's blurring of the distinction between universality and particularity not only leads to regress but casts doubt upon the very intelligibility of Forms.

Aristotle's account of substance involves yet another case – indeed the most central case – of his use of numerical sameness without identity, and in this chapter I offer an interpretation of Aristotle's views about substance which depends on that distinction. The task of interpreting VII–VIII has, of course, been undertaken many times, and yet nothing approaching a consensus has been reached. My strategy is to argue that Aristotelian substances are specimens of natural kinds, where such specimens are numerically the same as but not identical with sensible objects. I maintain that, if a distinction between numerical sameness and identity is posited, Aristotle's view is consistent, his claim about the separation of substance is intelligible, and his requirement that substances have ontological and epistemological priority is satisfied. This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the Categories and proceeds to consideration of how Aristotle's position in that work is affected by the demand in the Metaphysics for the epistemic priority of substances; separation and ontological priority will be considered in later chapters.

In the Categories, an early work, Aristotle makes a distinction between what is present in a subject, what is said of a subject, what is both, and what is neither (1a20–1b6).

In the interpretation of Aristotle's account of substance I have proposed thus far, I have claimed that Aristotle believes that by denying separation he can uphold the epistemological, and, as I will argue in Chapter VI, ontological priority of substances, where those requirements are understood in very Platonic terms. I have claimed further that my interpretation of the motivations for Aristotle's view of substance makes understandable his account of how we come to have knowledge. Nevertheless, as I said in Chapter I, even as Aristotle criticizes Plato for separating the Forms, he says of substances that they must be separate. In Metaphysics VII 1, for example, Aristotle says:

In this book I have argued that the assumption that Aristotle distinguishes numerical sameness from identity provides a wide-ranging explanation of referential opacity in his works and makes possible an interpretation of substance that sees Aristotle's theory as a response to what he takes to be the flaws in Platonism. I have not attempted to defend distinguishing between numerical sameness and identity on philosophical grounds or even to consider the philosophical implications of such a view; as I said in Chapter II, the logic of a metaphysics that confounds counting has to be, to say the least, problematic. It may be, of course, that Aristotle adopted a position that cannot be made coherent or attractive, although such a conclusion would be disappointing. Although I will not in this final chapter try to offer a philosophical analysis or defense of the distinction, I will nevertheless describe an interesting occurrence of it in the recent philosophical literature. But the primary goal of this chapter is to argue that substances, understood as specimens of natural kinds, can defensibly be said to be ontologically prior to the sensible objects with which they are numerically the same, and for that argument too the example now to be offered will prove useful.

That Aristotle criticizes Plato for separating the Forms is a fact known to every reader. However, what exactly it is that Aristotle wants to criticize has, until recently, seldom been discussed explicitly and at length, and indeed as exploration of the question has occurred, views have differed considerably. It has been proposed by some interpreters that when he criticizes Plato for separating the Forms, by ‘separation’ Aristotle means their independent existence, that is, their capacity for existing even if there were no sensible objects. But other interpreters have held that he means their numerical distinctness from sensible objects, and some writers have thought that he means both of these.

Thus despite the considerable importance Aristotle places on Plato's separation of the Forms, there is disagreement about just what he is objecting to.

At the beginning of Metaphysics VII 6 Aristotle inquires whether each thing and its essence are the same or different, an inquiry that, he claims, is of use for the investigation of substance. In Chapter III I will argue that VII 6 does indeed tell us much about substance. What is of relevance in this chapter, however, is Aristotle's preparedness to raise such a question. What Aristotle says of the inquiry into the sameness of each thing and its essence is that each thing is thought to be not different from its substance and that the essence is said to be the substance of each thing (1031a15–19). It is easy enough to suppose that ‘is not different from’ means ‘is the same as’ and that ‘is the same as’ means ‘is identical with’. If this assumption is made, there would not seem much need for inquiry: If each thing is identical with its substance and its substance is identical with its essence, then obviously each thing is identical with its essence.

Nevertheless Aristotle does inquire about the relation between each thing and its essence, a way of proceeding that suggests that the sort of sameness that interests him may in fact not be identity.

On the interpretation of Aristotle's account of substance I have just offered, substances are specimens of natural kinds that are numerically the same as sensible objects without being identical with them. Further, in virtue of their indistinguishability from one another (within the same kind), specimens of kinds have the knowability characteristic of the Forms without the separation; indeed it would not mischaracterize Aristotle's theory to say that it treats each specimen of the kind human being as if it were The Human Being – each specimen of a kind, in other words, as if it were the Platonic Form.

But even if specimens of natural kinds meet the requirement set forth in Metaphysics VII 1 that substances must be first in knowledge and definition, mere knowability on the part of substances does nothing to establish that they can be known by us. After all, one of the most serious difficulties with the Theory of Forms is that even though Forms are said to be eternal, unchanging, and the objects of definition, knowledge of them remains problematic. I contend that Aristotle believes his rejection of the separation of Forms can address this issue also – that is to say, he believes that his view enables him to explain how it is that there is knowledge.

The Statesman (or Politicus) is central to any serious concern with Plato's political thought. It clarifies and modifies Plato's earlier positions, especially in the Republic, and illuminates the principles of his political thinking even while these are in the process of changing.

Plato (429–347 bc) is known and discussed widely as a political thinker, but usually on the basis of his best-known work, the Republic, and this is in many ways a pity. The Republic is a work in which political theory is mixed together with ethical theory and metaphysics, and the political strand (which is not a very large one) is hard to disentangle and open to many different kinds of interpretation. Further, the political ideas, though expressed with vigour, are very sketchy, and their relation to contemporary political reality is remote. Plato's later works, Statesman and Laws, are more properly seen as works of political theory than is the Republic, and studying them can both help us to understand the Republic better, and also put it into perspective, as being only part of a long development in Plato's thinking.

In the Statesman, for example, Plato defends the ideal of the ruler as possessor of a particular kind of expertise, namely expertise in the ‘political skill (or art)’ (politikē technē). This idea dominates the political aspect of the Republic: political problems are to be solved by imposing an ideal ruler, and the only interesting question is what the nature of that rule is to be.

In preparing this translation, the Oxford Classical Text (E.A. Duke, W.F. Hicken, W.S.M. Nicoll, D.B. Duke and J.C.G. Strachan, eds., Platonis Opera, vol. I, Oxford University Press, 1994) has been followed, except in the few places indicated in the notes. We are extremely grateful to David Robinson for letting us see a copy of the text of Statesman in advance of publication.

The canonical essay on Plato's style of writing in his later dialogues remains the General Introduction by Lewis Campbell to his 1867 edition of Sophist and Statesman combined (see the bibliography on pp. xxviii–xxix). Here I need only point out to the reader that the Greek of Statesman is occasionally difficult and dense, and that it rarely rises to the conversational fluency and brilliance of Plato's early and middle-period dialogues. At the same time, he sometimes experiments – for no very good reason that I can see – with artificial alliteration, word order and rhythm. It is in the nature of translating from one language to another that these rhetorical devices are likely to be lost: they certainly have been in the following translation. Otherwise, my intention has been to keep as close to the Greek as a reasonable degree of fluency allows, without losing the occasionally dry and laborious tone of the original. Apart from this tone, however, there is little in the way the dialogue has been written to deter a potential reader, and (as always in Plato) enough thought-provoking material to make a reading worthwhile.