Introduction: outline and general comments

• 10.310–18: The general applicability of these arguments against natural philosophy; doxographical excursus.

• 10.319–25: Previous arguments in M 9 and 10 are already sufficient for this topic since coming-to-be and passing-away presuppose: time, change, action and passion, addition or reduction or alteration, touch.

• 10.326–39: Direct arguments against coming-to-be: neither ‘what is’ nor ‘what is not’ come to be; coming-to-be must occur through alteration or composition but neither is possible; 334–8: a connected series of dilemmas rule out generation ‘from one thing via change’.

• 10.340–3: Attempted dogmatic responses through appeal to plain evidence; these responses rejected (on 10.341: discussion of textual issues and the interpretation of Sextus' counter-argument).

• 10.344–5: Arguments similar to those in 10.326–39 can be used against passing-away.

• 10.346–50: Temporal puzzles: if Socrates died, did he die when alive or when dead? A puzzle about the destruction of a wall.

• 10.351: Conclusion and announcement of the topic of M 11.

The concluding section of Sextus' arguments against the natural philosophers includes a summing-up of the concerns spelled out in the previous two books under the general heading of ‘an inquiry into coming-to-be and passing-away’ (ἡ περὶ τῆς γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς ζήτησις, 10.310). These two subjects of inquiry are understood sufficiently broadly so as to encompass not only what we might, in more-or-less Aristotelian terms, call ‘substantial’ coming-to-be and passing-away (the coming into existence or the passing into non-existence of some thing), but other kinds of change also. Examples used in this section range from water coming-to-be cold from being hot (10.340), to a statue coming-to-be from a lump of bronze (10.341), to nine coming-to-be from the subtraction of one from ten (10.323). Indeed, throughout this section, with its frequent reuse of arguments deployed earlier in M 9 and 10, it is possible to see Sextus closely assimilating coming-to-be and passing-away with change most generally.Footnote ¹ Sextus' sights are therefore fixed on the most general understanding of coming-to-be and passing-away, such that he can then with some justice claim at the very beginning of this section (10.310) that these are the foundational concepts in any kind of natural philosophy since, as he goes on to claim, all natural philosophers who investigated the structure of the universe ‘generated’ (ἐγέννησαν) all things in some way or another.

Sextus can therefore in this final section put into practice the preference he stated back at 9.3, at the beginning of his inquiry into natural philosophy, for ‘more elegant’ (χαριέστερα) arguments, which are those launched generally at shared and common assumptions, rather than point-by-point objections to a particular school's position: a tactic he associates particularly with Clitomachus and the Academy (9.1).Footnote ² Thinking of coming-to-be and passing-away as in some way the ‘foundations’ of all natural philosophy is, I suspect, a metaphorical image which Sextus himself would heartily endorse. He has himself used the notion of ‘undermining’ (as in a siege) the tenets of natural philosophy at the opening of these two books (9.2) and returns once more at the end of this present section to an argument taken from Diodorus concerning the destruction of a wall into its component stones (10.348–9) as part of a case against the possibility of passing-away. The choice of image is not, presumably, accidental since it offers a neat example of ring composition and further evidence for some careful consideration of the overall structure of the two books against natural philosophy.

This decision to delay the topic of coming-to-be and passing-away until the very end of the work contrasts with the treatment of the same topic in PH.Footnote ³ The comparable passage on coming-to-be and passing-away at PH3.109–14 does not occupy a concluding position exactly analogous to that here in M. Rather, PH 3.109–14 comes after a section on change and both before a section on rest and also before the discussions of space, time and number which are said to conclude the discussion of ‘the physical part of philosophy’ (PH 3.167). Indeed, Sextus makes it clear that coming-to-be and passing-away are being included in PH as species of change: he ends 3.114 with the announcement that ‘this is a sufficient outline which will do also for discussions of changes (περὶ τῶν κινήσεων). From these it follows that dogmatic natural philosophy (τὴν κατὰ τοὺς δογματικοὺς φυσιολογίαν) is non-existent and inconceivable.’ The general thrust of the passage is the same as we find in M, but in that longer work Sextus has a more ambitious understanding of the requirements of natural philosophy and the presuppositions needed for any satisfactory account of coming-to-be and passing-away; these two are explicitly recognized, for example, also to presuppose a dogmatic commitment to the reality of time.

As a result, in part, of this structural arrangement of topics in M 10, much of the material in this concluding section looks back to ground covered earlier in the two books Against the Physicists, either by explicitly referring to what has been shown earlier or by reusing arguments or forms of argument which have already been deployed against other aspects of the dogmatists' physical views. Such recycling, although it does not prevent the occasional innovation or alteration of something we have seen before, contributes to the sense of this passage's being a climax to the work as a whole in two ways. This final stretch of argument both allows Sextus a recapitulation of what has gone before and also provides him with serious and tested ammunition for a direct assault on what he takes to be the very basis of any dogmatic natural philosophy.

I should also make clear here what I take to be the range of possibilities for understanding Sextus' general aims in this text or, perhaps more pertinently, the range of possible ways in which his text might be read. There is nothing here, so far as I can see, that prevents us from imagining Sextus' arguments as an articulated set of examples and resources for a Pyrrhonist. That is, the arguments can be taken as providing both a readily available store of arguments to be set against a range of dogmatic opinions and also, in their articulated structure, an example of anti-dogmatic thinking at work. In short, the text can be approached both piecemeal by someone wanting to ‘look up’, as it were, a particular philosophical issue and its Pyrrhonist treatment and also as a continuous and sustained – and, presumably, therapeutic – train of thought. If this is plausible, we would as a result be right to think of the text as in a way ‘open-ended’, since it offers invitations to the reader to supplement, expand, query and reread each section at liberty, perhaps as a way of flexing one's Pyrrhonist muscles or relieving occasional mental disturbances produced by dogmatic belief.

Sextus' discussion can be divided into five sections. First, by way of a general doxographical excursus, he shows how the arguments he is about to offer will be relevant for any proposed dogmatic natural philosophy (10.310–18). Second, he argues that, since coming-to-be and passing-away presuppose various conditions which earlier sections of the work have discounted, they have already been thoroughly undermined (319–25). Third, there is a long section of direct arguments against coming-to-be which sets out all the possible ways in which it might be said to occur and then denies all those possibilities (326–39). Fourth, the dogmatists are briefly allowed the right of reply, but their attempts to offer unquestionable perceptual evidence of cases of coming-to-be are all rejected (340–3). After a brief summary of symmetrical arguments against passing-away (344–5), Sextus concludes with two further examples designed to show on temporal grounds that there can be no coming-to-be or passing-away (346–50). The work then ends with a brief conclusion and the announcement of the topic of M 11 (351).

The general applicability of these arguments against natural philosophy (10.310–18)

Sextus begins this concluding section by spending a reasonably long time putting together a taxonomy of physical theories, apparently intended to encompass as wide a diversity and as large a cast of philosophers as possible. For some of these philosophers, he justifies their position by the use of quotations from their works. For some, he notes interpretative problems and difficulties in assigning them a definitive place, registering that ‘according to some’ they thought one thing and ‘according to others’ another.

With this doxographical taxonomy, we might compare the similar but briefer example at M 9.359–66, which sets out various differing dogmatic conceptions of body.Footnote ⁴ There are a number of clear similarities of content. (In both, for example, Sextus corroborates some of his classifications by citing relevant sources. In both he quotes Xenophanes DK b33 and Empedocles DK b6.) But there are some interesting differences between the two texts both in content and form. The passage in M 9 is a list which moves from monism to pluralisms of increasing complexity, finishing with atomists and then the Platonists and Pythagoreans. Besides the number of types of body involved, the only other discriminating criterion is whether the principles are corporeal or incorporeal.Footnote ⁵ Here in M 10 Sextus has a more complex arrangement, beginning with a division between monism and pluralism and then dividing each according to whether the principles are definite (in kind, for the monists; in number, for the pluralists) and only then into the various infimae species of types of monism and versions of pluralism (see Figure 9.1).Footnote ⁶

Figure 9.1 Schematic representation of S.E. M 10.310–18

This section also differs from M 9 in doxographical content and certainty. For example, the M 10 version records two differing interpretations in the case of both Xenophanes and Empedocles: we learn that according to some Xenophanes is a monist (and DK b27 is cited in support) but according to others he is a dualist (and DK b33 is cited in support). At M 9.359, in contrast, Xenophanes is without doubt a dualist and no dissenting view is recorded. In a similar fashion, in M 10 Sextus records two opinions about Empedocles: that he recognizes four basic elements (for which DK b6 is offered as support) and that he recognizes six (Love and Strife are counted along with earth, air, fire and water). For the latter view, DK b17.19–20 is cited. This second opinion is nowhere to be found in M 9, where the four-element theory is the only one offered (9.362), perhaps because there the topic is specifically questions of ‘body’. Still further differences might also be noted. Along with Xenophanes, 9.359 lists some less well-known philosophers among the dualists,Footnote ⁷ while M 10 offers the less obviously philosophical but undoubtedly well-known pair of Homer and Euripides. M 9.362 lists the Stoics as four-element theorists while M 10 gives a much more elaborate explanation. It includes them as monists of a certain persuasion but describes how this one quality-less body is then transformed into the four familiar elements (10.312–13).Footnote ⁸

Together with the careful record of differing interpretations of various Presocratics, the discussion of the Stoics emphasizes the impression that Sextus is offering a cautious and well-researched picture of the philosophical landscape. He is not, however, interested in giving an exhaustive account which lists all the known or significant philosophers.Footnote ⁹ For the most part, the various possible permutations, of the number of principles and – for the monists – of each one of the four canonical elements (fire, air, water, earth), are left each with just one representative. What matters to Sextus, therefore, is not that we should emerge with a clear and agreed account of any individual philosopher's or school's view; hence, he is quite happy to leave some interpretative issues unresolved. Nor is he concerned that this taxonomy should represent a comprehensive overview of philosophical history. Rather, it is extremely important for the general philosophical problems he wishes to raise that we should be able to populate each option in the schematic division of natural philosophical views with at least one plausible candidate. The overall message is that natural philosophy is characterized by an almighty diaphōnia: concerning not only the number of first principles, but also whether there is indeed a definite number of these first principles and whether the first principles are homogeneous or dissimilar from one another.Footnote ¹⁰ Every possible variation on this theme has found some exponent, but they are all – so Sextus wishes to persuade us – embarked on a thoroughly misguided project.

The doxography may give the impression that what is in question for these discussions of coming-to-be and passing-away is, specifically, some kind of material or corporeal change since the emphasis is on giving a taxonomy of physical cosmological principles. Most notably of all, there is no place in the taxonomy of M 10.310ff. for Plato and the Pythagoreans and their incorporeal principles, although they have certainly been Sextus' targets in other parts of the work and appeared in the discussion of theories of body at 9.364 as holding the view that the primary and most fundamental elements are incorporeal. Moreover, it is clear throughout the rest of this section that Sextus has in mind a notion of coming-to-be and passing-away more general than simple physical or bodily cases. For instance, when he comes in the next section to illustrate what he means by coming-to-be and passing-away by ‘addition and subtraction’ at 323–5, the two examples are most easily classified as arithmetical: the passing-away of ten and the coming-to-be of nine by the subtraction of one, and the passing-away of nine and the coming-to-be of ten by the addition of one. (He contrasts this with the coming-to-be of vinegar and passing-away of wine, which occurs ‘by change’.)Footnote ¹¹ This group of cases as a whole, therefore, is not restricted to material or corporeal contexts but is rather more general. Indeed, at various points in what follows, Sextus seems to want to embrace in his attack those physicists who were prepared to make numbers – incorporeal numbers – important or even fundamental players in their cosmological systems. It is surprising, then, that such ontologies are conspicuously absent from this taxonomy of 310ff. given their inclusion at 9.364 and the fact that they have been the subject of a long discussion in the immediately preceding section of 10. As a result, it is difficult to avoid the impression that this taxonomy has been borrowed wholesale by Sextus from some unnamed source which shares much of the same information as that used in 9 but, in all likelihood, is not identical. There is also a sense that this taxonomy only imperfectly fits Sextus' aims precisely because of its exclusive concentration on material principles. Certainly, there are traces here and there in the more detailed arguments to come of Sextus wanting to include also the kinds of natural philosophy such as the Pythagorean view detailed earlier in the section on number (10.248ff.) which make use of intelligible or even immaterial principles.Footnote ¹² (See, for example, below on 10.331.)

Previous arguments are already sufficient for this topic (10.319–25)

The lesson of the doxographical excursus is spelled out clearly at 319. All of these natural philosophers assume the possibility of coming-to-be and passing-away whatever the various differences between their different natural philosophies. So those differences can from this point forward be ignored: what Sextus has to say next will hit home against every one of them and, indeed, if the taxonomy of their positions is intended to be exhaustive, also against any alternative or variant of such a theory yet to be articulated. This general applicability is presumably what makes Sextus' arguments of the more skilful and more elegant sort in comparison with point-by-point Academic refutation; he has managed to isolate the shared and essential foundation of all this variety of natural philosophical views and attacks it directly.

Next, Sextus warms further to his confident theme by making the case that the preceding sections of Against the Physicists are already themselves sufficient to show that there can be no coming-to-be and passing-away and therefore have undermined all such theory since coming-to-be and passing-away presuppose various necessary conditions which have already been denied. Indirectly, enough has been done already for us to reject coming-to-be and passing-away and, therefore, natural philosophy as a whole.Footnote ¹³ Sextus notes that:

1. (a) whatever comes-to-be and passes-away does so ‘in time’ (ἐν χρόνῳ); but time is not – ‘as we showed above’ (at 10.170ff.) – and therefore nothing comes-to-be and passes away;

2. (b) every coming-to-be and passing-away is an ‘altering change/motion’ (μεταβλητικὴ κίνησις), but we have shown that change/motion is not (10.37ff.);

3. (c) every instance of coming-to-be and passing-away requires an agent and a patient, but we have shown that nothing acts or is acted upon (9.195ff.);

4. (d) if something comes-to-be and passes away then there should be:

   • either (i) something added to something

   • or (ii) something removed from something

   • or (iii) something altering from something,

   • but we have shown that there is no addition or subtraction or change(9.277ff.);

1. (e) if something comes-to-be and passes-away then it ought to touch that from which it is destroyed and that into which it comes to be, but we have shown that there is no touch (9.258ff.).

If any one of (a)–(e) truly elaborates a necessary condition of coming-to-be and passing-away and if the relevant preceding arguments have indeed shown the non-existence of that condition, then the game is already up: natural philosophy as a whole is fatally flawed. Sextus is nevertheless very keen to point to this list of necessary conditions in order to display his vast array of ammunition against the physicists even before he goes on in the next section to dedicate various special arguments against coming-to-be and passing-away directly.Footnote ¹⁴

There is surely some tension here between, on the one hand, Sextus' apparent insistence that coming-to-be and passing-away are in some sense foundational and basic concepts for any natural philosophy and, on the other, this new characterization of their relying on – rather than underlying – previously rejected concepts such as addition and subtraction. Perhaps Sextus is comfortable with the idea that natural philosophy in fact relies upon a set of mutually supporting notions, each of which relies on the others in, as it were, a circular set of justifications.Footnote ¹⁵ We cannot with great confidence say what Sextus himself took to be the correct order of priority between these concepts, nor indeed whether he felt it reasonable to assert that there is any such correct order. Nevertheless, he has evidently chosen coming-to-be and passing-away to be the culmination of this pair of books.

Returning to the set of connections outlined at 10.319–25, there are good dialectical reasons for Sextus to be offering a case which is overdetermined in this way. First, should the natural philosophers manage to wriggle out of any one of the difficulties he has already set up, then there may well be another which they cannot similarly avoid. And, considering the inquirer who has not yet decided whether to opt for any particular dogmatic physical explanation, this accumulation of considerations in opposition to all such accounts will, Sextus presumably imagines, eventually lead to epochē and subsequent tranquillity. Second, this section underlines the sense in which this concluding chapter of Against the Physicists caps and ties together the material in the previous two books by giving the strong impression that we have now reached the most basic presumption of all natural philosophy, namely that there is coming-to-be and passing-away, and that the various previous discrete discussions are all importantly prefatory to the undermining of this one central foundational assumption.

Of course, despite the rhetoric of a job already done, Sextus does not for one moment consider his task against the natural philosophers complete at this point. And reasonably so. However plausible a reader has found the various arguments Sextus alludes to in this brief list, there is good reason to think that more work is needed to show just how and in what sense coming-to-be and passing-away presuppose these conditions. We have, in any case, not been given any significant account of what, precisely, Sextus understands by coming-to-be and passing-away and this might well obstruct our immediate acceptance that they have been sufficiently undermined already in this indirect fashion. But anyone expecting a Sextan clarification of what he thinks coming-to-be and passing-away are will be very disappointed. He does not, for example, anywhere in this section make anything like the distinction between absolute and qualified senses of coming-to-be. (Contrast Aristotle's careful analysis of coming-to-be and passing away simpliciter, alteration and growth in GC 1.3–5.) Perhaps we would be misguided to expect a Pyrrhonist, after all, to care overly about making such distinctions but, more importantly, Sextus appears not to think it worthwhile even to set out in any detail the various dogmatists' attempts at any such distinctions. He neither offers his own account nor chooses, even for the sake of argument, one of the various available dogmatic versions. Instead, at this early stage at least, he remains resolutely at a general level of analysis, insisting that his objections are relevant to any case in which one can comprehensibly say ‘Y comes-to-be’ or ‘X passes-away’ or ‘X comes-to-be Y’ or even ‘X comes-to-be Y from Z’, despite its evidently being possible to think that these differing formulas will require distinct metaphysical analyses. As the arguments progress, Sextus does make it clear that he is aware of the various attempts to navigate this difficult metaphysical territory but always, as we might expect, refrains from committing himself to any one particular set of metaphysical distinctions and also from tackling with any great specificity any one particular such analysis in his arguments. Furthermore, he seems very insistent that he should be at liberty to borrow more or less piecemeal, as he wishes and as the occasion demands, from the various dogmatists' ontological and metaphysical terminologies, all the time with a view to showing that any such moves are ultimately doomed to failure.

Direct arguments against coming-to-be (10.326–39). Similar arguments can be used against passing-away (10.344–5)

The possibility of distinct analyses of, for example, ‘absolute’ from other kinds of coming-to-be comes to the fore in the next set of arguments, which contains the real meat of Sextus' direct attacks on the dogmatic acceptance of coming-to-be and passing-away. These turn on the emphatically exhaustive and exclusive division between ‘what is’ (τὸ ὄν) and ‘what is not’ (τὸ μὴ ὄν)Footnote ¹⁶ and, in recognizably Eleatic style, show how neither ‘what is’ nor ‘what is not’ can be the subject of either coming-to-be or passing-away. Sextus begins with and spends most time on his denial of the possibility of coming-to-be, turning only briefly at the end to point out that the very same arguments will hold mutatis mutandis against passing-away. He can therefore allow himself not to give a full account of these symmetrical arguments; we can, if need be, go back and work them through for ourselves (10.344–9).

Having noted that his arguments in the previous two books should already have undermined any confidence in coming-to-be and passing-away, Sextus turns to offer fresh arguments designed to tackle the subject directly (προηγουμένως 10.326).Footnote ¹⁷ He starts with a pair of very general arguments concerning being or ‘what is’ and not-being or ‘what is not’. It is worth noting at the outset that they are extremely close to arguments which Sextus had used in 9.267–76 while rejecting the possibility of ‘being affected’ (τὸ πάσχειν). As we shall see, that section is clearly very much in Sextus' mind at the close of M 10 and he will return on a number of occasions to considerations already aired there. The argument at 10.326 proceeds as follows:

1. 1. ‘What is not’ does not come-to-be because:

   1. (i) nothing belongs to (συμβέβηκεν) not-being and coming-to-be does not belong to that to which nothing belongs (the same argument appears also at 9.276);Footnote ¹⁸

   2. (ii) what comes-to-be undergoes something (πάσχει) but only what is undergoes anything.

2. 2. ‘What-is’ does not come-to-be because:

   • ‘what is’ is already (ἤδη) so has no need (χρεία) of coming-to-be.Footnote ¹⁹

The translation ‘belongs to’ is perhaps not the most lucid way to render Sextus' συμβέβηκεν. Certainly, it would be a little odd to think of ‘coming-to-be’ as a property, say, which belongs to an item in any way. Perhaps a weaker notion is required: not-being is such that nothing belongs to it or can be related to it, certainly not coming-to-be. But the general point of (1.i) is tolerably clear, whatever the translation: ‘what is not’ is absolutely non-existent. There can be no properties of something that does not exist at all. Something that does not exist cannot undergo anything. And there is no non-existent subject whatsoever that might bear any property or undergo any sort of change, including coming-to-be. Note that for now Sextus leaves temporal aspects of this problem aside; later discussions will probe more deeply the problem that ‘what is not’ cannot come to be since before the proposed coming-to-be there is nothing, so to speak, which is about to undergo the process.

The most obvious first response is to note that Sextus here is not interested in making any distinction between different ways in which we might use ‘what-is’ and ‘what-is-not’ and related distinctions between senses in which something might be said to ‘come to be’. He is not, for instance, interested in making a distinction at this point between ‘what is’ and ‘what is not’ in some absolute sense (‘what exists’, ‘what does not exist’) and some other sense, for example when ‘is’ is being used as a copula (‘what is F’ and ‘what is not F’). Such concerns were clearly important in the later archaic and classical periods of Greek philosophy, in texts such as Parmenides' poem, Plato's Euthydemus, Theaetetus and Sophist, and later in Aristotle's developed ontology and account of change.

It is therefore highly unlikely that Sextus was unaware of the difficulties of dealing in an undifferentiated and apparently simple way with the pair: ‘what is’ and ‘what is not’. He has nevertheless chosen to open his discussion with what might well appear to be a set of dusty, if not discredited, arguments. But there is a good reason for this. In using this starting point, Sextus encourages the reader to think that any answer to Sextus' problems that has a chance of success will have to offer a sophisticated and plausible account which distinguishes various ways in which we might say that something ‘is’ or ‘comes-to-be’. (So, for example, it might be possible to accept the truth of (1.ii) in the sense of ‘absolute’ coming-to-be, genesis e nihilo, but deny that it rules out the possibility of something that already is coming-to-be in some other sense.) This successful account must be able to explain both cases of beginning and ceasing to exist and cases of a persistent subject's becoming or ceasing to be some particular way rather than another. These initial salvos, clearly indebted to a long tradition of arguments stretching back at least as far as Parmenides, will allow Sextus to open up the subject to further analysis and warm up the reader for the remaining, more nuanced, arguments. As he moves on, it so happens that we do indeed come across quite a variety of what look to be technical metaphysical terms or distinctions perhaps motivated ultimately by some desire to react to this blunt Eleatic challenge. At one point, for example, while constructing a possible dogmatic response to his concerns, Sextus refers to the Peripatetic distinction between potentiality and actuality (340). Elsewhere, he uses ὑπόστασις, ‘substance’ or ‘reality’, a term relatively common in his works, in a way which suggests that it too is being borrowed from some dogmatic account of change (335: ἐκβαίνει τῆς ἰδίας ὑποστάσεως, ὅτε τρέπεται καὶ γεννᾶται, ἢ μένει μὲν ἐν τῇ οἰκείᾳ ὑποστάσει …). Even the contrast in 329 between some persisting substance (οὐσία) and its exchange of properties (ποιότητες) points to a determinate metaphysical outlook of some kind.Footnote ²⁰ Obviously without endorsing any of the metaphysical distinctions suggested by such terms of art, Sextus shows that he is certainly aware of the range of manoeuvres the dogmatists have allowed themselves in response to these first bare puzzles about being and not-being. He does not waste time explaining these distinctions or even attributing them to any particular dogmatic school, presumably because he is trying to give the overall impression that whatever the terminology used or the distinctions employed, all such accounts, however baroque or inventive, fall foul of the same basic problems. That even the introduction of such distinctions turns out to be of little benefit to the plausibility of the dogmatists' case is also, evidently, something which Sextus would be quick to emphasize. In retrospect, therefore, or on a second reading, the apparently antique and naive arguments at 326–7 are revealed as a considered statement of a persistent and fundamental difficulty in the face of repeated but mistaken attempts at evasion.

The structure of the argument from 328–39 is complicated. In the main, Sextus continues his usual tactic of offering a series of exclusive and – apparently – exhaustive possibilities and then denying each. Here, he begins by claiming that coming-to-be occurs in one of the following two ways: alteration or composition.

• Either (a) alteration: from one thing, via metabolē (as a piece of wax may become soft from hard or some liquid may change from wine to vinegar);

• or (b) composition: from many things via synthesis (as a chain may be formed from a number of rings or a house from bricks).

These two are not, unfortunately, exhaustive. Sextus seems to associate composition with coming-to-be and dispersal solely with passing-away (for example, the destruction of a wall at 10.347–9), perhaps in order to generate a neat and tidy set of pairings. It is, however, quite possible to imagine a case of coming-to-be not by composition, but through its opposite: dispersal. We might imagine, for example, that a marble sculpture might come to be through dispersal from a block of marble as various portions of the rock are gradually chipped away and only some sections are left behind. (It is perhaps worth noting that Sextus' discussion of statuary seems confined to the use of bronze which is melted and then poured into a mould.)Footnote ²¹ Or we might imagine the coming-to-be of a text as portions of the wax poured over a wooden tablet are scraped away by a stylus.Footnote ²² All the same, nothing disastrous follows for Sextus' arguments from this apparent oversight and we can easily construct, if necessary, Sextan arguments to cope with the new possible variations.

Sextus himself presses on in 10.333–7 to deny the possibility of (a), again by offering a series of apparently exhaustive possibilities: this alteration can occur only through (a.i) growing, (a.ii) shrinking or (a.iii) staying the same. Paragraphs 338–9 briefly discount (b). The details of this argument will concern us shortly, but it is worth noting first a further contrast at work here. Paragraph 328 begins by noting various possible examples of coming-to-be observed ‘among the appearances’ (ἐν τοῖς φαινομένοις) while 331 considers the possibility also of analogous cases ‘among the intelligibles’ (ἐν τοῖς νοητοῖς). It is not perfectly clear whether by ‘intelligibles’ Sextus means to refer to immaterial imperceptible items such as number-principles or, perhaps, material imperceptible items such as Epicurean atoms. Perhaps we are to imagine him trying to encompass both possibilities. But whatever the precise reference of the term, Sextus of course leaves the extension of coming-to-be to intelligibles as merely hypothetical, while reporting without any qualms that perceptible things do indeed appear to come-to-be: these are phainomena with which the Pyrrhonist is faced constantly and are what the dogmatists will turn to rely on later at 340ff. But the brief excursus on the intelligibles at 331 certainly interrupts the otherwise clear flow of thought from the dilemma between cases of phenomenal alteration and composition. Why complicate matters with even this passing reference to intelligibles coming-to-be?

In 331 Sextus revisits considerations very like those we have already encountered at 326–7 and returns to a dilemma which denies coming-to-be for both what is and what is not. Clearly, he felt the need to offer something to ward off the objection that he has ignored the possibility of intelligibles coming-to-be and passing-away, by focusing entirely on perceptible instances. But the material he offers here in order to ensure that he includes that possibility is admittedly somewhat repetitive and threatens to disrupt the clarity of his exposition. As we saw when considering the taxonomy of physical theories at the beginning of this section, Sextus' primary interest is in discounting the possibility of any coming-to-be or passing-away of the sort generally asserted by natural philosophers or cosmologists. And it is therefore examples of this sort, namely examples of perceived cases of physical coming-to-be, which are offered by his imagined dogmatic opponents at 10.340. Nevertheless, Sextus is obviously aware that he ought not to leave an escape route for those who held that there were imperceptible intelligible existents somehow involved in processes of coming-to-be and passing-away, and this comment is an indication that he wishes to undermine those ideas too. By the beginning of 332, however, the overall sequence of thought is reasserted and Sextus concentrates on the three possible means of ‘coming-to-be from one’: growth, shrinkage and staying in the same state. Intelligible objects and the question of whether anything intelligible might come-to-be or pass away are neglected from this point onwards. The discomfort apparent here in integrating discussion of coming-to-be involving intelligible objects is therefore perhaps related to the omission of Plato and the Pythagoreans from the initial doxography. Sextus clearly is aware that there are some philosophers who might think his general emphasis on perceptible coming-to-be and passing-away leaves untouched their own preferred principles or ignores their positing of the involvement of non-perceptible intelligible things in cases of coming-to-be or passing-away. So he is aware that something also needs to be said about these cases. But nevertheless the greater emphasis in this entire section is on perceptible objects and their purported comings-to-be and passings-away.

The argument against alteration quickly dismisses the possibility of coming-to-be through growth or shrinkage by noting that these either collapse into species of the next possibility: composition (e.g. growth might be thought of as the addition of new materials to make a greater composite) or else violate some very basic principles denying coming-to-be from nothingness or passing-away into nothingness. In short, when, for example, an acorn comes to be an oak tree, this is probably best thought of as a case of composition. Various things in the acorn's environment are assimilated over time into the formation of a new and larger composite: the oak tree. We had better not accept the alternative, namely that the growth is not caused by the assimilation of other already existing matter, since then the growth of an oak tree from an acorn somehow would increase the total amount of material in the universe and would therefore involve a case of coming-to-be from what is not. Similarly, shrinkage cannot involve some absolute diminution in what is, rather than a loss of certain elements of a composite which nevertheless continue to exist in some form. No natural philosopher worth taking seriously would want to violate the very basic principles of conservation.Footnote ²³ Coming-to-be and passing-away by means of composition are then left to be dealt with a little later, at 338–9.

In the meantime, one final possibility remains for ‘coming-to-be from one thing’: 334–8. The central idea of this possibility ought to be promising: something remains through a process of coming-to-be or passing-away, thereby avoiding the violation of any principles of conservation. But Sextus soon pounces on a difficulty: what precisely is it to ‘remain’ through a process of coming-to-be? He puts pressure on this difficulty in characteristic fashion by asking whether or not the thing that remains (τὸ μένον) alters and changes (334). Clearly, the dogmatist will feel pulled in both directions. On the one hand, because of the pressure not to assert objectionably that there is coming-to-be from what is not or passing-away into what is not, he is trying to find something to persist through a process of coming-to-be, to exist both before the process begins and once it has ended. On the other hand, whatever persists must, if it is to undergo any sort of change, in some sense be different once the process has ended from before the process began. It is no surprise, therefore, that this is precisely the tension which Sextus exploits.

The structure of the argument of 334–8 is extremely elegant. Sextus offers a sequence of four successive dilemmas, immediately denying one arm of each and then generating the next dilemma from the remaining alternative. Gradually the dogmatists' options are denied one by one. On the present hypothesis, generation is asserted to be from one thing. In that case, Sextus argues …

A1 is immediately rejected:

A2 is also rejected by first offering another dilemma:

C1 is rejected:

Then C2 is rejected by offering a third dilemma:

Before moving through the rest of the argument, let us note that this section of the argument is an excellent example of Sextus' current overall approach to metaphysical terminology. Even in this one sentence there is a clear avoidance of repetition. There is little reason, for example, to imagine any distinction between the two phrases translated as ‘its own substance’ (using the two adjectives ἰδία and οἰκεία); indeed the argument would not function properly by outlining an exclusive and exhaustive dilemma if there were intended any significant difference. Similarly, there is little impetus to attempt a distinction between two familiar words for ‘form’: εἴδος and μορφή. In part, of course, the variation may be merely a stylistic choice but there may also be a tactical reason. The terminological variation invites us to accept that this argument stands against a broad range of dogmatic metaphysical accounts and therefore its force is quite general. Had Sextus chosen to cast the argument using items recognizable as exclusively Stoic or Peripatetic terminology, it would not have been obvious that the case is not simply ad hominem or pertinent only to a particular metaphysical scheme. In addition, to the extent that at this period metaphysical terminology had become more or less shared property between the major schools, Sextus' attempt at an all-encompassing attack will be that much more effective.

Returning to the argument, first E1 is rejected:

Then E2 is rejected by offering yet another dilemma:

G1 and 2 are then rejected together, by a reference to a previous discussion:

The conclusion to this long and elaborate argument is perhaps something of a disappointment, being little more than yet another back reference to a point apparently already established in the last two books. But Sextus is evidently confident that the important argumentative work done in those earlier sections is sufficiently robust that he does not need to repeat himself at this juncture: the dogmatists' attempt has collapsed into a problem the sceptic has dealt with some time ago. This is another instance in which Sextus stresses the interconnected failings of the dogmatic project and hence the interconnections within the anti-dogmatic riposte. It is also another invitation to the reader to review and reconsider earlier material. Most likely, we are referred once again to the stretch of argument at 9.267–76, a text which we have already noted as having significant links with 10.326–7 and which we will have reason to mention on more than one further occasion in examining what follows in M 10 (particularly 10.341–2 and 10.346; see below): it is clearly something of a reference point for Sextus in composing this entire section. In short, the argument in M 9 rests on the principle that opposite properties cannot simultaneously exist in a given subject, so that, for example, an iron bar cannot simultaneously be hard and soft in the same respect (9.271–2). So it is impossible for a hard iron bar to become soft if its hardness, so to speak, remains. This will give Sextus one half of his conclusion. What is needed in addition is the claim that a hard iron bar cannot become soft if its hardness does not remain and in order to secure this second conclusion some extra argument is needed. We can presume that the possibility that something might come to be ‘with the first form not remaining’ is ruled out on the grounds that then there would be, in effect, no persistent subject of the change. And in that case it is impossible to think that any change has occurred. This is the force of an earlier section of the argument, [F] above, which discarded as a potential case of coming-to-be any circumstance in which the supposed subject departs from its own substance; this is made equivalent to its passing away into what is not.Footnote ³²

This long series of dilemmas has been constructed in order to establish that there can be no coming-to-be ‘from one thing via change’. On any possible analysis of what this claim might amount to, it turns out that this one thing, the proposed subject of the change, either has to perish or else somehow accept the simultaneous presence of opposite properties. Neither alternative looks very promising. There now remains the other alternative offered back in 328, namely coming-to-be ‘from many via composition’. This is dealt with very swiftly. Sextus asserts that composition cannot adequately account for coming-to-be, apparently on the assumption that composition is to be understood narrowly as simply the placing together of two or more things. The examples we were offered in 330 are perhaps worth recalling. Composition describes cases such as the manufacture of a chain through the collocation of links, of a house by the collocation of bricks, and of a robe by the weaving of woof and warp. It is important for Sextus, then, to insist that the hypothesis of coming-to-be in this manner must not imply or rely on any notion of change of the sort just dismissed in the elaborate dilemmatic argument. Rather, the dogmatist must refer only to the combination of things that both pre-exist and persist after the purported coming-to-be without themselves undergoing any change.

With this in mind, Sextus simply asserts that the mere combination of two things in this way cannot of itself generate a new third item. He accepts that his argument here is brief and refers the reader to a ‘more accurate’ account of the substance of human elsewhere, but the general principle is clear. If we think of the example of a chain, the notion would be that nothing new has come-to-be in the putting together of the links. Each link pre-existed the chain and each link remains unchanged in itself once they have all been placed together. So we have a staunchly reductive account of, for example, what a chain is: it is merely a number of links placed together, nothing more. Similarly, we are to think that a house is nothing over and above, or in addition to, the various bricks and the like that are placed together as it is made.

There is a pleasing similarity between Sextus' argument here and Aristotle's concerns about atomism. Like the account being attacked here in M 10, Aristotle thinks that the atomists cannot give a satisfactory account of (absolute) coming-to-be since they must analyse all change in terms of the coming together and dispersal of otherwise unchanging and everlasting atoms. His criticisms are perhaps best found in GC 1.2. For example:

Aristotle thinks that he can reject the atomist idea that all absolute coming-to-be is merely aggregation or dissolution without thereby being forced to accept that there is no change except alteration. His hylomorphic analysis will, he thinks, allow him to distinguish between changes to the matter or form and changes to the accidental properties of a given matter–form composite.Footnote ³³ Now, there is no reason to suppose that Sextus has Aristotle in particular in his sights, but a comparison between the two positions may be helpful. In response to such an Aristotelian view, Sextus would presumably claim that he has already, in the previous discussions of change in general and of ‘coming-to-be from one thing by alteration’, adequately discounted an alternative to the atomist-like analysis of coming-to-be as mere aggregation. So Sextus is presumably confident that he is entitled at this point to describe the relevant cases of coming-to-be in language that points very clearly to physical material composition (συνελθόντων, σύνθετον 338; cf. σύνθεσις and ἐπισύνθεσις at 328–30). As part of that earlier dismissal of coming-to-be through alteration, of course, he had been careful to show that his concerns applied also to the sort of analysis which deals – as Aristotle thinks we should – in the business of substrates and exchanging forms or properties. Aristotle's preferred alternative has already been shown to be wanting. If that leaves only the atomist-like analysis which someone like Aristotle himself thinks is wrong-headed, then Sextus' job is done. In effect, an Aristotelian opponent has already rejected the one remaining alternative to his own flawed position and now has no means of escape from the sceptics' trap.

The reference to the discussion of the ‘substance of human’ is also worth some thought. Commentators generally take this to be another reference to a text clearly on Sextus' mind, namely M 7.263ff. and the long section on whether it is possible to know what a human is, which contains a number of arguments dedicated to particular attempts at a definition. Some of these, to be sure, do appear to have something to do with notions of composition. So, for example, Sextus discounts attempts which in his eyes merely enumerate certain properties of a human (e.g. ‘mortal rational animal’) since the common combination of properties is distinct from the thing of which these are the properties (see e.g. 7.269–82, 295). But Sextus has a different point to make here in M 10. He has in mind not the question of how we come to have the concept of a human (as elsewhere he explains the acquisition of the concept of centaur via the putting together of human and horse: e.g. M 3.40–2; 8.58–60; 11.250–1), but rather the question of what a human is: the physicists' attempt to explain the nature of a human. Sextus' claim on that score is that the nature of human is to be explained neither as a soul, nor as a body, nor – and this is presumably the most important point – as the combination of the two. Perhaps the closest claim to this to be found in what we have is a point implicit in the argument about Socrates' death (9.269) which resurfaces at 10.346–7, particularly if we are to bear in mind a Platonist notion of a living person as in some sense a composite of a body and soul (for more discussion, see below). But if we are to imagine an argument along the lines of the analysis we have been offered of a chain, then it is easy to see how an argument might be constructed for the view that it is absurd to accept that a human is not a soul and also not a body, but nevertheless say that it is the combination of a body and a soul. Indeed, there is some evidence that critics of Socrates were interested in this very question. Plutarch's Adversus Colotem 1118c–1119b spends some time responding to the Epicurean Colotes' attacks on Socrates for not being able to say clearly what he is. (Adv. Col. 1119b suggests that the Epicureans took their cue from Plato, Phdr. 230a.) Part of Plutarch's response is that it is perfectly natural and not at all debilitating to begin to wonder, for example, ‘Am I a blend or mixture of soul and body, or rather a soul which uses the body as a rider uses a horse and not something composed of both a horse and a man?’ (Adv. Col. 1119a). It is certainly not difficult to imagine a general Platonist interest in such questions – themselves potentially significant in ethical terms – which might in turn fuel sceptical objections.Footnote ³⁴ But whatever the precise reference of Sextus' comment here, the general argumentative strategy against coming-to-be by composition is perfectly straightforward. Less contentious examples, such as the coming-to-be of a chain, are easily constructed. For example: given that the chain is neither link 1, nor link 2, nor link 3 … how can it be that the chain is link 1 + link 2 + link 3 …? It has to be said, nevertheless, that there is something evidently unsatisfactory about such an argument and we are left to imagine what Sextus would have to say to other kinds of example. Take the case of a robe; it is not obviously absurd to say that a robe is neither the woof nor the warp but is a combination of the two.Footnote ³⁵ What response might Sextus be able to give? If, in a generous mood, we are not inclined to think that he has simply overlooked such an objection, then we should say something like the following: perhaps Sextus is aware of this omission from his text and, with further arguments not expressed here, would be prepared to fight this particular battle if required; or perhaps Sextus is at this point prepared to leave some of the possible dialectical responses to his arguments without an explicit and full answer, leaving the reader to rely on Pyrrhonist resources already acquired in reading thus far. In any case, it would presumably take a dogmatist a lot of work to persuade him to accept a metaphysical distinction between an item's essence or nature and its material composition.

Attempted dogmatic responses (340–3)

The military image of the dogmatists' citadel under siege, found first at 9.2, resurfaces when Sextus imagines how they might respond to his attacks. Their first move is the decidedly uncourageous decision not to meet the sceptics on the open field of rational argument, but instead to retreat to examples from plain evidence (οἱ δὲ δογματικοὶ μὴ πρὸς νοῦν ἀπαντῶντες πάλιν ἐπὶ τὰ ἐξ ἐναργείας ὑποδείγματα συμφεύγουσιν, 10.340).Footnote ³⁶ They offer a list of examples of various ‘evident’ cases of coming-to-be: hot water becomes cold, a piece of unsculpted bronze becomes a statue, an egg becomes a chick, a baby is born, some grass can be pressed into juice.Footnote ³⁷ In each case the dogmatist stresses that prior to the coming-to-be the subject in question is not what it will be later, resulting in some clumsy-sounding phrases: the hot water, not being cold (sc. when it is hot), becomes (sc. later) cold.Footnote ³⁸ Furthermore, although they are supposed to be mere descriptions of what is evident, these examples seem to be already combined with a degree of dogmatic metaphysical analysis built in, as it were, which points forward to the preferred explanation of how the change occurs. Most obviously, the egg is said to be ‘a chick in potentiality, but not in actuality, but it is said to be a chick in potentiality until it [sc. the chick] exists in actuality’ (10.340).Footnote ³⁹ As Sextus goes on to explain, this type of analysis might allow the dogmatist a response to the general sceptical worry that coming-to-be cannot take place because it must be undergone either by what is or by what is not, with either alternative proving to be problematic. By distinguishing a substrate (the bronze) or a potential but not yet actual existent (the chick), the dogmatist can attempt to say that there is no difficulty in saying that ‘what is not’ comes to be (e.g. a statue comes to be, but only from what is not a statue – the bronze – not from nothing at all) or that ‘what is’ comes to be (the chick comes to be but, prior to its coming-to-be, it ‘is’ only potentially).

Before we turn to Sextus' reply, we should note the unusual terminology of ‘potentiality’ and ‘actuality’ in this last example of the chick and egg. It is not unusual in ancient philosophy in general, of course, since the apparatus of ‘potentiality’ and ‘actuality’ is quite familiar Aristotelian material. But these terms are unusual in Sextus' works: ἐντελέχεια occurs only here in this example and Sextus' response and in M 1.315. That latter reference lists the word as an Aristotelian ‘technical term’ (ἐπιστημονικὴ λέξις) and wonders how the grammarians can be said properly to understand it. There is no doubt, therefore, that Sextus is aware that he has introduced at this juncture a specifically Aristotelian term of art even if there is good reason to think that here in M 10.340–2 it is meant to stand also simply as an example of a general dogmatic tactic for analysing coming-to-be. But beyond this, it is extremely difficult to draw any further conclusions about Sextus' knowledge of Aristotelian metaphysics in general, let alone the more specific question we might have wanted to ask about his knowledge of any particular treatises.Footnote ⁴⁰ The example of bronze and a statue is a familiar Aristotelian illustration of the distinction between matter and form or potentiality and actuality, but the example of the chick and egg as an illustration of the potentiality/actuality distinction seems to have no clear Aristotelian background.Footnote ⁴¹ Quite possibly, Sextus himself is responsible for imagining the deployment of this particular piece of Aristotelian analysis for this specific example or he has borrowed it from a medical or biological source. (It is also perhaps worth noting that Sextus does not come back explicitly to the chick and egg example in his response at 341–3, although he refers to all the others: the water, the statue, the baby and the juice. Instead, his response is a very general concern about the potentiality/actuality account of coming-to-be.)

We can make more progress in explaining how Sextus goes about countering these various dogmatic examples. He takes them in three distinct categories. The first covers two examples: of hot water becoming cold and of the lump of bronze becoming a statue. These examples are subjected to a treatment based on the exclusivity of being and not-being that has been used in various guises already (e.g. 326–7) and will return once again with the added complication of temporal considerations in the next section (346ff.). In short, Sextus asks how it is that hot water can become cold if it is hot and not-cold; surely something cannot be both hot and cold? Similarly, how can a lump of bronze which is a lump of bronze and not a statue come to be a statue? The overall sense of his complaint is clear; however, the way in which he phrases his argument is puzzling and it is hard to shake the feeling that there is either something wrong with the transmitted text or else Sextus has lost his precise grip on what he should be saying. Certainly, the argument is rather intricate and therefore demands some closer attention.

Sextus' response at 10.341 is as follows:

The first surprising claim is that the hot water does not become hot ‘by being’, presumably ‘by being hot’.Footnote ⁴⁴ This might appear odd because in the original presentation of the dogmatists' point at 340 there was never any question of the hot water becoming hot at all. Rather, the hypothesis was the rather more straightforward idea that some hot water becomes cold (τὸ γὰρ ὕδωρ θερμὸν ὄν, μὴ ὂν δὲ ψυχρόν, γίνεται ψυχρόν); this, after all, is what we are most likely to think can be shown through plain empirical evidence. If the received text is retained, Sextus must be making a rather complicated point in reply. Not only does he rule out the idea that the hot water might become cold (because it is not cold, and hot water can never be cold hot water) but he also rules out a further possibility that the dogmatists had not themselves suggested, namely the idea that the hot water might come to be hot. It cannot do so simply because it is hot. Wherever you look, then, there is no coming-to-be to be found here. Hot water cannot come-to-be because it is, namely is hot; hot water cannot come-to-be cold because it is not cold.

It might be possible to understand the claim about the statue in a different way. In the case of the water, the careful inclusion of the predicates makes it reasonably clear that what Sextus denies is two possibilities for the hot water to come-to-be in some way: it cannot come to be hot and it cannot come to be cold. It would be difficult to understand the text to deny, for example, that some cold water cannot come-to-be because it is not; the subject throughout must surely be ‘the water which is hot and not cold’ (τὸ γὰρ θερμὸν ὕδωρ καὶ οὐκ ὂν ψυχρόν). In the case of the statue, however, the point may be different. At least, if the definite article is retained and we read ‘the statue’ (ὁ ἀνδριάς), Sextus would now appear to deny (i) that the bronze can come-to-be, because it is (perhaps: is bronze) and (ii) that the statue can come-to-be, because it – the statue – is not (perhaps: does not exist). This argument would then be a close parallel to the opening general argument against coming-to-be at 10.326–7.

This is the best interpretation of Sextus' argument available if we leave the text as it has been transmitted. Sextus, perhaps rightly, deals differently with the two examples which were listed without distinction by the imagined dogmatists as cases of apparent coming-to-be. It may be a little odd for him to take care to deny something that the dogmatists had not themselves bothered to claim, namely that the hot water comes to be hot, but we may feel comfortable with this as another instance of Sextus' often exhaustive approach.

There is therefore no requirement for us to interfere with the transmitted text, but there are nevertheless various ways in which this section might be altered by very slight textual emendations to produce a different and perhaps tidier overall argument. For example, it is possible to replace the second ‘hot’ (θερμόν) in the sentence just quoted with ‘cold’ (ψυχρόν).Footnote ⁴⁵ (Perhaps the mistake could be put down to a scribe with an over-zealous drive for finding balancing opposite properties to go with the balancing ‘by being’ and ‘by not being’.) Then the argument in the case of the water would be the more obvious: ‘the water, being hot and not being cold, cannot by its being [sc. hot] become cold, nor by its not being [sc. cold] become cold’; the apparent cooling hypothesized by the dogmatists is ruled out in two ways by the single fact that the supposed subject of the coming-to-be is marked as hot. It is impossible for there to be, so to speak, cold hot water: in this sense hot water is not and cannot be cold. Some support for this form of argument can be found elsewhere in Against the Physicists, indeed in a text which, as we have already seen, is in all likelihood in Sextus' mind when composing these final pages. At 9.271–6, during his discussion of ‘acting and being acted upon’, Sextus considers a very similar case of some hard iron being softened. The iron is agreed to be hard ‘by nature’ (φύσει). There, the argument proceeds (271–2):

The overall idea is that the hard iron cannot become soft since it cannot be both hard and soft and if hard iron were to become soft then there would have to be some compresence of hard and soft. In that sense, ‘what is’ cannot be affected if to do so would make it take on any properties contrary to those it has now: it cannot be what it is not. Nor, says Sextus, can ‘what is not’ undergo any affection since qua what is not it can have no properties (9.276). We might further notice that this section of M 9 was clearly in Sextus' mind when composing the end of M 10 since, as we shall shortly see, the example of the impossibility of Socrates' death occurs just before the example of the hard iron (at 9.269) and will turn up, slightly modified, just after the present section at 10.346.

In short, some support can be marshalled in favour of emending the text at 341 both from the general run of the argument and from such parallels as the case of the iron. We might also hope that some assistance in making a decision will be offered by Sextus' immediately subsequent analysis of the case of the bronze and the statue. The transmitted text of 10.341 reads:

This would have to be translated and understood as follows: ‘Neither does the bronze come to be by being bronze, nor does the statue come to be by not being.’Footnote ⁴⁷ We can assume that the first clause is intended to mean that the bronze does not become a statue by being bronze, but it is not clear what the second clause might mean. By not being what does the statue not come to be? By not being simpliciter? By not being a lump of bronze? If these difficulties are thought intolerable, there is good reason to support Heintz's deletion of the definite article before ἀνδριάς. Accepting Heintz's deletion, now the argument reads:

This gives us a closer parallel for the case of the water and a comprehensible response to the dogmatists' starting hypothesis of an apparent change from a lump of bronze to a bronze statue. But it is admittedly somewhat awkward that ‘statue’ is specified in the second but not the first limb of the dilemma.

The difficulties in construing the argument precisely may well mark textual difficulties caused by various scribes faced with the potentially confusing pairs of opposites or repeated predicates and balancing positives and negatives. Charity would ask us not to think Sextus himself was confused. It is nevertheless rather difficult to come up with a clear, plausible and consistent set of arguments for the two examples which is directly motivated by the presentation of the dogmatists' case at 10.340 without making some change to the text. Our choice will therefore be guided to a large extent by more general presumptions about the level of precision, clarity and attention to detail to be expected from Sextus. All the same, despite the various uncertainties, it is tolerably clear what sort of argument he was trying and it is of a sufficiently familiar form that we can perhaps move on without too much further concern.

The second response is reserved especially for the potentiality/actuality analysis. Sextus asks whether in what is actual there is ‘more’ (πλεῖον) than in what is potential. A predictable dilemma then follows: if there is more in what is actual than what is potential then when an actual chick comes to be from an egg this additional something has come to be from what is not; but if there is no more to what is actual than what is potential then in fact nothing has come to be. On the face of it, this is a crude response and might give further support to doubts over whether Sextus had himself spent any time reading carefully Aristotle's explanation of this distinction. Certainly, it looks back to Sextus' arguments against coming-to-be through increase or growth back at 333: what is actual is understood to be somehow an increase on what is merely potential. This increase is being conceived, it seems, in physical terms: there is somehow simply more ‘stuff’ there once the potential has become actual. But if the dogmatist is unhappy with this perhaps crude understanding of there being ‘more’ once the potential is actualized, it would be up to him to make clear precisely in what sense of ‘more’ we should understand this characterization.

The third response covers the cases of the birth of a baby and the extraction of juice from grass. Both of these, we are urged to agree, are simply cases of something pre-existent and hidden being moved and revealed rather than genuine cases of coming-to-be. The juice was in the grass but has now been moved so that it is separate from the fibrous matter. The baby was undoubtedly in the pregnant woman and when born simply becomes evident, much like someone stepping out from the shadows. Sextus does allow his opponent to object that this is not entirely the point: whether or not there was some period of time at which the baby, say, was already present but not yet evident, it is nevertheless true that the baby was generated from the mother (καὶ βρέφος ἐκ τῆς ἐγκύμονος γεννᾶται, 10.343). This is simply brushed aside by Sextus with a rhetorical question wondering about its relevance. The relevance, however, is clear even though Sextus may choose not to dwell upon it. We might object that it will not do for Sextus simply to say that the baby was ‘already there’ and did not therefore come to be. To make this plausible Sextus would, it seems, need to have some kind of embryological theory of his own in which there is no conception as such but merely the growth and later birth of already existing children. Such a view would seem to ask us to accept that a mother's second child, say, is already present but hidden while the first gestates and is then given birth. Sextus' case is much better if, rather than relying on some such dogmatic embryological theory of his own, he is instead merely pointing out that if this example is to count as a clear and evident example of coming-to-be (one of τὰ ἐξ ἐναργείας ὑποδείγματα) then it is unfortunate that it relies on a particular view of something clearly non-evident, namely conception.Footnote ⁴⁹ If it is legitimate simply to assert a dogmatic view on the truth of something which cannot (or at least could not in his day) be observed, then Sextus is no less entitled to assume something different and contrary: the dogmatist's ‘plain and evident example’ turns out to rely on a particular assumption about something non-evident and therefore can be easily challenged or disregarded.

Temporal puzzles and conclusion (10.346–51)

The next arguments are attributed to an unnamed group of thinkers who approach the problem of coming-to-be and passing-away from a temporal perspective. The only person named in this section is Diodorus Cronus (at 10.347) and some of the arguments are clearly related to or reused from earlier sections which bear a distinctively Diodoran stamp. Two examples are offered: the problem of Socrates' death (10.346) and, at greater length, the explicitly Diodoran example of the problem of the dismantled wall (10.347–9). Paragraph 10.350 draws the general moral of the two examples.

Sextus spends more time with the problem of the wall for perhaps two reasons. First, the construction of a house from stones has already figured in these arguments as a possible example of coming-to-be by composition (10.330) and this example offers a pleasing mirror image by concentrating on the difficulty of accounting properly for the demolition of such a structure. Second, it is not implausible to imagine Sextus recalling at this point his description of the sceptics' project at the beginning of M 9 as like the undermining of a tower's walls during a siege. That was supposed to encapsulate the notion of a sceptic digging away at the foundations of a dogmatic physical system, removing the ‘primary assumptions’ (αἱ πρῶται ὑποθέσεις, 9.2) and thereby causing the whole edifice to fall. It is a neat example of the sceptic's insistence that everything should be subjected to his questioning that at the end of these books the process referred to in this metaphor is itself shown to depend on dogmatic physical assumptions, namely that it is possible for a tower to be undermined and collapse. Sextus has no qualms about returning to the example at the end of his two books and himself undermining the comparandum he had offered at the beginning as a metaphor for his own project.

Sextus begins the first example with a curious hypothetical premise: ‘If Socrates died …’ (10.346). Of course, Sextus' intention is to cast doubt on the reasonable assumption that Socrates did die by raising difficulties for the assumption that it is possible for something, or someone, to pass away. (So this argument provides the counterpart to the concerns raised in 10.343 against the possibility that a baby might be born or come to be.) But it is also significant that Sextus has chosen to cast this argument not in general terms about ‘someone’ passing away, but about one person in particular: Socrates. To be sure, ‘Socrates’ is often used as an example in philosophical arguments with no particular reference to the famous philosopher, but there may be a special relevance here.Footnote ⁵⁰ The question whether Socrates died is not such a surprising one, at least perhaps not for a Platonist. A Platonist of a certain persuasion might, after all, argue that if, as is claimed in the Phaedo, the soul is immortal and if, as might again be a reasonable Platonist claim, each of us ought to think of himself principally as an immortal soul, then there is a reasonable sense in which Socrates – the immortal soul – does not die when the cup of hemlock has been drained. It is in any case not implausible that some such debate might lie behind these remarks if we remember Sextus' recent reference to an argument about whether a person (ἄνθρωπος) is a body, a soul, or some compound of the two (10.338).Footnote ⁵¹ If Socrates is his soul and a soul is immortal then he does not die. If, on the other hand, Socrates is a compound of a body and soul, and death – perhaps following the initial definition at Phaedo 64c which Sextus himself notes at M 9.198 – is the moving apart of body and soul, then the following problem might also have to be faced:

Socrates must be either dead or alive and he cannot be both. But he cannot die when he is alive, nor can he die when he is already dead. So Socrates cannot die. No doubt, there is something decidedly sophistic about the argument but it is not easy to say precisely what. A brief look back at the first appearance of this form of argument in M 9.268–9 also reveals some important characteristics of its reuse here.Footnote ⁵³ The M 9 version wonders if Socrates ‘dies when he is or when he is not’ (ὢν θνῄσκει ἢ μὴ ὤν). Had he wished, Sextus could simply have repeated the same concern in M 10: he could have wondered if dying is an absolute passing away into not-being and perhaps ruled out Socrates' dying ‘when dead’ by insisting that it is impossible for ‘what is not’ to undergo anything. Indeed, when summing up the overall picture from this argument and its successor, at 10.350, Sextus does rely on the strong premise that to pass away is to exist no longer and argues that in that case neither can what is pass away (because at that time it is) nor can what is not (because at that time it is not). In the present argument, however, Sextus wants to rely only on the thought that living and being dead are exclusive and exhaustive states; there is no explicit talk of Socrates' ‘being’ or ‘not-being’.

The argument appears to turn on a denial of the possible simultaneity of certain states of affairs (note the repeated ‘when’, ὅτε), so Sextus had better be careful with his tenses. In fact, there is a rather complicated story to be told about the role played by different tenses in Sextus' presentation of the argument here and elsewhere. For example, the earlier appearance of this argument at M 9.268–9 puts everything in the present tense. The argument about the wall which follows at M 10.347 is also in the present tense. In contrast, the whole argument here in M 10 is cast in the past, beginning with the hypothesis: ‘If Socrates died (ἀπέθανε), he died either when he was alive (ἔζη) or else when he was dead (ἐτελεύτα).’Footnote ⁵⁴ Both verbs in the disjunction are imperfect, contrasting with the aorist ἀπέθανεν, since Sextus wants to offer the two possible states Socrates might have been in at the point in time at which he died; his death is imagined as the end-point of two possible ongoing states. The dismissal of the two possibilities requires more intricate work with the tenses: ‘Socrates did not die (οὐκ ἀπέθανε: aorist) while alive (ζῶν: a present participle) for he was alive (ἔζη: imperfect) and he had not died while alive (ζῶν οὐκ ἐτεθνήκει: a present participle and a pluperfect).’ This last point is of course correct: it is no doubt always true to say of some living person that he ‘has not died’ and Sextus has carefully crafted his claim to rely on this foundation.

There are two points to note here. First, Sextus seems to have helped himself to something which supports his case without canvassing all the other possibilities. In particular, there is a reasonable distinction to make between two senses of ‘to die’: (i) referring to a momentary event which is the end of a life and (ii) referring to a temporally extended process of the failure of vital functions.Footnote ⁵⁵ For example, although ‘Socrates had not died when alive’ is true, as is the related ‘Socrates has not died when alive’, we might be less happy to accept as necessarily true the related but distinct ‘Socrates was not dying when alive’ (referring perhaps to a process of passing away). The salient point here is clear in the distinction between imperfect and aorist tenses, but it is more generally the distinction between verbs with ‘complete’ or ‘perfective’ aspect and those with ‘incomplete’ or ‘imperfective’ aspect. A similar point might be made about the argument cast in present-tense terms, if these are taken to have a present continuous sense. It is not obvious nonsense, for example, to say ‘Socrates is dying while alive.’ Further, although it is something odd to say in English and, presumably, similarly odd in Greek, it is not evidently illegitimate to say ‘Socrates died when alive’, meaning that the moment of Socrates' death should be thought of as the final limit of his life.Footnote ⁵⁶

Sextus leaves part of his dismissal of the second arm of his dilemma unstated: ‘nor … when he was dead’ (οὔτε δ' ὅτε ἀπέθανεν) for then he would be dead twice over. Nor what? Presumably: ‘Nor did Socrates die …’, since the original dilemma was put in terms of a disjunction of possibilities for when Socrates died (ἀπέθανε) and Sextus would therefore reuse the very same verb precisely to emphasize the absurdity of the double death it would apparently involve. But we might notice that what is rejected here, namely ‘Socrates died when he was dead’ (ὅτε ἀπέθανεν), is possibly distinct from the hypothesis originally advanced when Sextus was setting out his dilemma, which used an imperfect tense for the second verb (ὅτε ἐτελεύτα).Footnote ⁵⁷ If that imperfect tense is stressed it is perhaps not so easy to see an absurdity: ‘Socrates died when he was dying’ is again perhaps an odd thing to say, but it is not necessarily absurd. It might mean that Socrates' life came to an end after an extended period of its passing away.

Second, the fact that we have a pair of arguments – this past-tense argument at M 10.346 and the present-tense version in M 9.268–9 – might offer further pointers to the source of the argument's general inspiration. Sextus himself should be well aware of the fact that concerns had been raised over the relationship between present- and past-tense descriptions of a change or state of affairs. Diodorus Cronus has already in this book been credited by Sextus with the view that true past-tense propositions need have no direct correspondence with an equivalent true present-tense proposition (M 10.97–8). For example, the fact that ‘Helen had three husbands’ is now true does not require us to believe that ‘Helen has three husbands’ was ever true. All this is related closely to Diodorus' insistence that we should not say of anything that it ‘is moving’ but only that it ‘has moved’ (M 10.85ff.); the latter can be true without the former also ever having been true. (When Sextus himself attempts to respond at M 10.96, 99–100, it seems he would prefer to accept either both as true or both as false.)Footnote ⁵⁸ Such concerns about the relationship between tenses and aspect in discussions of change might suggest that Diodorus is the source for the Socrates argument not only at M 9.268–9 but also here at M 10.346 as well as for the argument about the wall which follows it at M 10.347 and is explicitly attributed to him. Unfortunately, Sextus' introduction of the second example of the wall seems to rule out this possibility. We are told at the beginning of 347: ‘[Diodorus] Cronus too (καὶ ὁ Κρόνος) offered an argument to the same effect but with a different example.’ The implication is that on Sextus' view the preceding example of Socrates' death is certainly not directly Diodoran. Still, at the very least we should say that Sextus' treatment of the Socrates argument is heavily indebted to Diodoran methods and interests. Even more speculatively, Sextus may, by offering this pair of arguments, be showing here that unlike Diodorus he has no interest in distinguishing between claims and arguments cast in the past tense and those in the present. At any event, we would be right to think that Sextus' general engagement with Diodorus' concerns lies behind this brief argument at M 10.346 no less than the more extended one to follow.Footnote ⁵⁹

The problem concerning the destruction of a wall, which Sextus does explicitly attribute to Diodorus, is analogous to that of Socrates' death and again brings together various strands of thinking that have been at work both in this section against coming-to-be and passing-away and also throughout M 10 as a whole. The wall cannot pass away when its component stones are fitted together, for that is what it is for the wall to be and ‘if it is then it cannot be passing away’ (εἰ ἔστιν, οὐ φθείρεται, 10.349). Similarly, the wall cannot pass away when the stones are no longer fitted together since in that case the wall already no longer exists and ‘nothing which does not exist can pass away’ (τὸ δὲ μὴ ὂν οὐ δύναται φθείρεσθαι, 10.349). The crucial starting premise is that the stones in a wall must either be together or else dispersed; we can conceive of only these two moments and of no third possibility in between (10.348). The argument is not immediately very convincing, but it is worth exploring the possible dialectic between Sextus and a recalcitrant dogmatist. Imagine a dogmatist who is prepared to do more than rely on the earlier tactic of using the plain evidence of the senses: ‘Look! There used to be a wall here, but now there are just these stones.’ Instead, he is willing to take on Sextus' arguments and provide some kind of answer to the temporal location of the passing away. First, the dogmatist might object that Sextus has wilfully overlooked the obvious and most important stage in the envisaged process: namely, a stage at which some of the stones have been dispersed and some are touching. It is not true that we can conceive only of T₁: a moment when all stones are touching, and T₃: a moment when they are all dispersed, since there is also T₂: a moment when some are touching and some are dispersed. This allows us to talk of the wall's passing away since the crucial stage T₂ is after T₁ but before T₃. If we wish, we could specify any number of moments between T₁ and T₃ arranged in order according to a gradually increasing proportion of dispersed stones. All in all, this perspective encourages us to think not of there being some single particular state by virtue of which it is true to say at that time that the wall ‘is passing away’ but to think of its being true to say that the wall ‘is passing away’ just if there is some appropriate sequence of stages of increasing dispersal. At the end of the process it will be true to say that the wall has passed away.

Sextus can respond in various ways to this alternative picture. First, he might require his opponent to concede that, on this analysis, it turns out not to be true at any particular moment that the wall ‘is passing away’. By ‘moment’ he will mean an indivisible temporal point because the dogmatist will have to concede that any extended period in the purported dismantling of the wall will have to be further analysed into component temporal parts under pressure from a version of the original Sextan argument: ‘It is not true that the wall passes away in period P since during P either the wall is or is not; and if it is it cannot pass away and if it is not it cannot pass away …’ Strictly speaking, therefore, it is not true ever to say that the wall is passing away since this cannot be true of any given present instant. If it is true at all, it is true only in the sense that ‘at this moment a greater proportion of the stones in the wall are dispersed than at some prior moment’. There are clear parallels to be drawn here between this extension of the argument and some interpretations of Zeno's paradox of the arrow and Aristotle's attempted response.Footnote ⁶⁰ And, closer to home, there are some clear relationships between the imagined dialectic over the possibility of rescuing some sense in which we might say ‘the wall is being destroyed’ or, at the very least, ‘the wall has been destroyed’ and some earlier Diodoran material. Consider, for example, the Diodoran argument at M 10.85–90 for the conclusion that it is not true to say of anything that it ‘is moving’, only that is ‘has moved’. Further, the Diodoran argument at 10.87: ‘If X moves, it moves either in the place where it is or in the place where it is not’ has an obvious temporal analogue here in the thought that ‘If X passes away it either passes away when it is or when it is not.’ That connection is made all the stronger since in the case imagined here the passing-away consists precisely in the moving apart of the stones in the wall.

Second, Sextus could have chosen to focus the argument still further on the particular interaction between one stone and another. He has already wondered about the sense in which any one thing can ‘touch’ another (M 9.258–66, just before the first appearance of the problem of Socrates' death at 9.269) and could raise various doubts about whether any two stones in the wall can be ‘being separated’. In doing so, he would cast doubt on the dogmatists' attempt to make the passing-away of the wall a process comprising various smaller events of pairs of stones coming apart. Third, the dogmatist's response is implicitly committed to the idea that a wall passes away when a certain proportion of its stones are dispersed. This is an obvious target for a sorites argument.

In various ways, therefore, although Sextus' argument as stated here is perhaps not the strongest independent case against the possibility of passing-away one might wish for, like the previous brief argument about Socrates it evidently looks back to ideas and arguments from earlier in the work against the natural philosophers. It is not implausible to think that the reader might be encouraged and expected to supplement the arguments here with the resources supplied by those earlier discussions and to recognize the manner in which this attack on the most fundamental assumptions of the natural philosophers is related to the considerations already launched against its more specific points.