Both Epicurus and the Stoics thought we have natural concepts – prolepses or common notions – whose reliability and clarity acts as the touchstone of all inquiries. In the next chapter we shall ask whether either Epicurus or the Stoics thought that these concepts were, in any sense of the word, innate, or whether they were natural only in the sense of being derived from experience rather than teaching or tradition. In this chapter we shall focus on their attitude to common sense. Plato would have agreed that all of us possess such foundational knowledge; the problem is that it is buried deep in the soul, hidden beneath a layer of wax. Most people are thus quite unaware of the knowledge they possess. The Hellenistics, on the other hand, seem to hold that our criteria are manifest to everyone: how else could they appeal to universal consent as they seem to? So far, then, we seem to have an optimistic theory about nature giving us reliable concepts that are put to work throughout our lives. The problem is that both these philosophers can also be extremely critical of common sense. In other words, they start by showing an Aristotelian respect for our ordinary cognitive resources, and then offer an almost Platonic view about human propensity to error. The point of this chapter is to determine where these philosophers really stood on this issue.

EPICURUS

There are two reasons for thinking that Epicurus was a philosopher who felt obliged to tailor his theories to common sense. The first, as we have seen on pp. 162–3, comes from Cicero, N.D.

In a Delphic parenthesis at An. Po. II 19 100a16-b1, Aristotle says that perception is of the universal:

The same point seems to be made ax An. Po. I 31, 87b28–30:

My interest in these lines should be obvious. In my account of Physics I 1 and An. Po. II 8 in chapter 5, I have argued that, for Aristotle, perception involves some hazy grasp of the universal and to perceive something involves seeing it as a belonging to a certain kind. Now the idea that perception grasps the essence dimly has been proposed as an interpretation of the above lines, and so perhaps I ought to be leaping at them in support of my overall argument; in fact, things are not quite so straightforward.

If the point of these lines is that even the earliest perception instils in us a dim understanding of the universal, the negative part of the parenthesis becomes very difficult to understand. If ‘perception is of the universal’ means that perception is aware of the universal, then presumably ‘perception is not of the particular’ means that in perception we are not aware of particulars. But that is very strange.

This study has been shaped in part by the contrast between two very different interpretations of Platonic recollection. I have tried to show how opting for one of these interpretations also raises new questions about the course of the learning debate as it ran through Aristotle and the Hellenistic philosophers. We took stock of our conclusions about that debate after section III, and so shall not repeat the task here. In the last section, we showed how some of these conclusions affect the way we view the lineage of the theory of innate ideas in the seventeenth-century. In chapter 9 we traced out the affinity between Stoicism and the seventeenth century theory of innate ideas, and in the following chapter found a remarkable alliance between Plato and Locke. The explanation for this lies partly in the fact that the theory Locke was attacking was very different from recollection. What was also important was that Plato and Locke shared a similar attitude to the status that ethical common notions should have in philosophical inquiry. This last point brings out the way in which the debate about moral learning in the seventeenth century, like its ancient equivalent, was not simply one about the origin of ideas or principles, but also about the status of ethical common sense. In this conclusion, I wish to show how this second issue, that so divided Plato from both Aristotle and the Stoics, has developed more recently.

The debate about the status of common sense and the role it should play in ethical reasoning is now often referred to as the debate about moral intuitionism.

In this chapter, I shall turn to the question of what level of learning Aristotle was trying to explain, and shall argue that, like Plato, he had little interest in developing an account of ordinary learning. Let me start, however, with two qualifications to this view. First, as in the previous chapter, the focus of this discussion is on cognitive learning. As Plato had done in the Republic, Aristotle does show an interest in the early stages of character formation, the education of the non-rational part of the soul. This was made clear in the previous chapter. What I am claiming, however, is that he shows little interest in articulating the earliest stages of cognitive development.

Second, I am only saying that Aristotle does not develop any detailed account of ordinary cognitive learning. I am not saying that he was completely silent on the issue or that we cannot get some clues as to how he would have tackled it. The point is that he did not make it an important problem in his epistemology. There are indeed hints scattered around some works like the De Anima about how our first concepts of universals are derived from particulars. Our earliest sense perceptions leave behind images, which can become memories. For the next stage we could take a leaf out of the De Memoria. At 450a1–15 Aristotle describes a process of contemplating the image of a triangle, but in such a way that one does not see it as having any particular size, and attending to only general characteristics. A similar process of abstraction could apply to images of e.g. man.

The writings of Tertullian of North Africa which bear on the nature of the church and of Christian ministry mark an important stage in a development from the fluid ecclesial concepts of the second century to the more fixed structures of the third. This is a shift from a dominant concern for the preservation of authentic apostolic doctrine to one for the validation of a regular, prescribed apostolic office.

Until the end of the second century nowhere is there in Christian thought–neither in the West nor the East–evidence of a clearly defined ecclesiology; that is, no extant Christian document of the period possesses a coherent and comprehensive doctrine of the church. It might be said that prior to the end of the second century the existence and the nature of the church were taken for granted. There is little evidence that any Christian writer before Tertullian had given attention to the question of the church's essential marks or notes. None appears to have gone beyond the reproduction of biblical images such as ‘the body of Christ’ and ‘the bride of Christ’. Yet, by the middle of the third century, in the writings of the most prominent Western churchman of the time, Cyprian of Carthage, a highly developed ecclesiology had emerged. Questions of apostolic orthodoxy and a due order in Christian ministry and office aside, the church simply was. Its raison d'être was its existence. It was, at most, a means to an end, and no end in itself.

Locke, no friend of innate principles, would normally be considered, a fortiori, no friend of Plato. But while there are undeniable and obvious differences between the two philosophers, this chapter is intended to bring out some remarkable affinities between them. To do this we shall be focusing on Locke's attack on moral innatism in the first book of the Essay concerning Human Understanding. After first sketching out the background to this attack, I wish to show that, as we might by now be expecting, when Locke comes to attack moral innatism, he selects something far more like the Stoic theory than the Platonic as his target. Admittedly, he does not simply do this because that was the theory that happened to be around at the time; he himself believes that if there were to be an innatist theory, that would be the most plausible; and he actually supplies arguments of his own to show this. But despite this limited concession to those who espoused the Stoic form of innateness, he then turns against it using arguments that sound strangely Platonic.

BACKGROUND TO ESSAY I iii

Locke starts his attack on innatism in the second chapter of book I and his overall strategy remains clear and systematic throughout: the second chapter deals with speculative maxims, the third with practical (i.e. moral) principles and the fourth with ideas such as those of God and substance. Another way of seeing the division of labour is that the second and third chapters deal with principles or propositions alleged to be innate, whereas the fourth concentrates mostly on ideas.

MINISTRY AS ‘SERVICE’

Tertullian rarely speaks of ministry in the sense of a general ‘service’. There are very few references in his extant writings to any such service in the sense of the Greek ‘diakonia’. When he wants to refer to ministry in such terms, however, he normally employs ‘ministerium’, ‘virtutes’ or ‘charismata’, or even ‘officium’ (though this latter term can also be used of ‘office’ proper).

‘Ministerium’

‘Ministerium’ is an obvious Latin translation for the Greek words ‘diakonia’ – though not to be confused with the formal, diaconal order – ‘leitourgia’ and ‘latreia’. Yet only once, at De Oratione 15,1, does Tertullian directly quote a New Testament passage in which one such ‘service-ministry’ expression is found. Tertullian here translates the Greek ‘latreia’ from Romans 15,1, as ‘officium’ with its alternative and (here) appropriate meaning of a ‘ceremonial observance’.

There are no obvious patristic precedents by which to appreciate better Tertullian's employment of the word ‘ministerium’. He employs it with a wide variety of meanings, though usually with reference to non-ecclesiastical matters. He employs it to mean ‘implements’ at Adv. Marcionem 11,16,2, a ‘fellow culprit’ at De Anima 40,4, an ‘agency (of persecution)’ at De Fuga 2,1, the ‘exousiai’ (rulers) mentioned at Romans 13,1, ‘ministers (of God)’ at Scorpiace 14,1 (again as part of a translation of Romans 13), and the organs of the human body at De Corona 5,2. Tertullian also calls ‘exomologesis’ a ‘ministerium’ (handmaid) of repentance at De Paenitentia 12,8 and refers to the ‘sacrificial services’ of Numa Pompilius as ‘ministeria’ at De Praescriptione 40,6.

Occasional references to an ‘ecclesia in caelis’ can be found in Tertullian's writings. Yet, for the most part, Tertullian sees the true church as an historical, empirical reality the authentication for which can be found at least partly in the present age. This reality is partly determined by the nature and the circumstances of the church's foundation by the apostles, and partly by its Spirit-driven activity in the present time, but, above all, by its present nature, consistent with its promise as the eschatological community, as both the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. This church in the power of the Spirit, which power enables it to become now what it is in promise, is not yet the Kingdom of God, but its anticipation in history. In this Tertullian differs from both Origen and Clement of Alexandria, for example, for whom the present reality is but an imperfect shadow of some heavenly, as yet unrealised ideal. Tertullian is consistent in his understanding of the historical and empirical nature of this church, and, in this sense, no significant difference is discernible in his ecclesiology in the transition from Catholic to New Prophet. What do change, however, are the criteria by which for him the reality and the authentication of the true church are evaluated; that is, what it is for this church to be faithful to its essential and authentic nature.

Some of the images employed by Tertullian to depict the church are drawn from secular life, though most do have biblical and other Christian connections.