Introduction
The section of the first book of Sextus Empiricus' Against the Physicists which is devoted to the discussion about wholes and parts is the shortest section in this book but deals with an easily recognizable philosophical topic: is a whole just the sum of its parts or is it something more than that? This particular section is the focus of Jonathan Barnes' article ‘Bits and pieces’ (Reference Barnes1988), an article which, as he himself notes, constitutes the heavily revised version of the paper he gave back in 1986 at the Fourth Symposium Hellenisticum in Pontignano. Barnes traces in a thorough way the Presocratic and Platonic inheritance that forms the background to these paragraphs of Sextus' work. He also studies the structure of Sextus' text, comments on its main textual problems and reconstructs its central arguments. Moreover, he analyses in detail the logical puzzles and paradoxes which arise from the whole–parts relation, and which Sextus uses in order to induce a state of perplexity in his readers; these logical puzzles and paradoxes are still, as Barnes argues, a source of reflection for contemporary philosophers.
So, is there anything that remains to be said about this section on wholes and parts? In what follows, I want to focus on some aspects of the whole–parts relation, as it is presented in Sextus' work, that in my view have not been given sufficient attention. In particular, I want to investigate more closely the notion of summnēmoneusis (συμμνημόνευσις) or co-recollection,Footnote 1 with the aim of shedding light on certain neglected doctrines of the Hellenistic philosophers, to whom Sextus principally seems to address his sceptical arguments. But before undertaking this task, let me briefly outline the structure of this section, as I understand it, and also introduce some additional passages in which Sextus raises the same issue.
M 9.331–58: The structure of the argument and some comments
Section M9.331–58 can be divided into two parts:
(i) §331–8: Previous disputes over the definition of wholes and parts.
(ii) §338–58: Questioning the existence of wholes and parts.
(i) §331–8: Previous disputes over the definition of wholes and parts.
Paragraphs 331–8 are clearly marked by Sextus as the first part of this section, which gives a summary account of the views expressed by previous philosophers, first on what a whole is (ὅλον), and then on what a part is (μέρος). Sextus' aim is to show that the dogmatic natural philosophers were not successful in their attempts to define these notions.
§331: The preceding section on addition and subtraction ends, in paragraph 330, with the remark that the topic of wholes and parts needs to be raised in what immediately follows, since it is closely connected to this issue; for when we talk of subtraction, we mean the subtraction of a part from a whole, and when we talk of addition, we mean the addition of a whole, that is to say the addition of parts so that a whole is formed. Thus, if the notions of a whole and of a part are shown to be problematic, then the notions of subtraction and of addition can also be questioned, and subsequently the notions of the passive and of the active. Nevertheless, when Sextus starts the section on wholes and parts, he gives two further reasons why anyone should broach this topic at all: the physicists themselves need to become clear about these basic concepts they are using, and the sceptics need to expose the rashness of the dogmatic physicists. Hence, Sextus takes it upon himself to show first how difficult it is to decide on an adequate definition of wholes and parts.
§332–4: In paragraphs 332–4 Sextus presents the different views developed by the Stoics, the Epicureans and the Peripatetics on what a whole is, by juxtaposing their notion of the whole to that of the total (πᾶν): the Stoics distinguished between the whole and the total, the whole being the finite world while the total being the finite world together with the infinite void surrounding it (§332). The Epicureans talked indiscriminately of the whole and the total, when they referred to all physical bodies together with the void (§333). The Peripatetics also talked indiscriminately of the whole and the total, but they limited their use only to physical bodies, since they did not believe in the existence of the void (§334).
§335–7: Paragraphs 335–7 are devoted to what Sextus calls ‘a small dispute’ (διάστασις βραχεῖα) among the Epicureans, the Stoics and Aenesidemus about what a part is: the Epicureans claimed that a part differs from a whole just as an atom differs from a body, which is a compound of atoms and void; for an atom has no qualities whereas a compound body does (§335). The Stoics defended the view that a part is neither the same as nor other than a whole; for instance, a hand is neither the same as the man whose hand it is, for it is not a man, nor other than the man whose hand it is, since it is included in the conception of a man as a man (§336). AenesidemusFootnote 2 stated that a part is both other than and the same as a whole; for substance is both whole when it is said of the universe, but also part when it is said of a particular animal (§337). Finally, at the end of paragraph 337, Sextus talks of the ambiguity which characterizes the term ‘particle’ (μόριον). That is to say, he distinguishes between (a) the strict sense of ‘particle’ which refers to a part of a part, for instance to a finger as part of a hand which is part of a man; and (b) the wider sense in which ‘particle’ is ‘what fills out the whole’ (τὸ συμπληρωτικὸν τοῦ ὅλου), that is, in which it is simply a synonym of ‘part’ (cf. PH3.100).
§338: In the final sentence of this first part of the section on wholes and parts, at the beginning of paragraph 338, Sextus explicitly says that the survey of the previous philosophical views is over and it is time for the sceptical inquiry itself to begin.Footnote 3
(ii) §338–58: Questioning the existence of wholes and parts.
The second and longer part of this section constitutes the sceptical investigation. However, what Sextus actually does here is not to produce counter-arguments for every single doctrine about wholes and parts advocated by the dogmatists. Rather, Sextus' efforts are clearly directed towards the refutation of the thesis that wholes and parts exist, and more specifically that wholes are filled out by parts.Footnote 4 Thus, by offering a range of counter-arguments against a central and common tenet of the dogmatists, Sextus manages to call it into doubt by reaching an implicit equipollence between his own arguments and what the previous philosophers had to say about wholes and parts. This second part can be divided into four subparts: §338–44, §345–9, §350–1 and §352–8.
§338–44: Paragraphs 338–49 include the arguments which are meant to show that wholes do not exist; having shown this, Sextus claims, we can immediately infer that their correlatives, namely their parts, do not exist either. More specifically, after first phrasing in paragraph 338 the question on the basis of which Sextus structures his sceptical argumentation, namely that if a whole exists it is either other than its parts or the sum of its parts, in paragraphs 339–40 he shows that a whole is nothing other than its parts, while in paragraphs 341–4 he shows that it is not the sum of all of its parts, nor the sum of some of its parts, nor identical to one of its parts.
§339–40: Sextus argues against the thesis that a whole is other than its parts on the basis (a) of the evidence of our senses (κατ᾽ ἐνάργειαν), and (b) of how we conceive of it (κατὰ νόησιν). It is clear, Sextus argues, that if all parts of a whole are destroyed, or even if just one of its parts is destroyed, the whole is destroyed, too; for instance, we observe that if a part, or for that matter all parts of a statue are destroyed, there is no longer a statue. Moreover, a whole is nothing other than its parts, since we conceive of it as that from which no part is missing, but also as relative to its parts, assuming that correlatives must coexist and be inseparable from each other.
§341–4: Next, Sextus argues against the thesis that a whole is the sum of its parts, or the sum of some of its parts, or identical to one of its parts. It is not identical to one of its parts, since it is obvious that the head, or the neck or the hand of a man are not each identical to the whole man (§341). Also, a whole is not the sum of some of its parts for two reasons: first, because the rest would not then be parts of the whole, which is absurd; and second, because a whole is conceived of as that from which no part is missing (§342). Also, a whole is not the sum of all its parts, for in that case the whole would not be something over and above its parts, just as a fist is nothing but a hand clenched, or separation is nothing but things separated; and the parts would no longer be parts of a whole either (§343). Finally, if wholes do not exist, parts, too, as the correlatives of wholes, do not exist either; for just as the right does not exist if the left does not exist, and the above does not exist if the below does not exist, parts, too, do not exist, if wholes do not exist (§344).
§345–9: But although the main argument may be said to have finished here, there is a further issue that Sextus wants to raise: thus far he has been discussing the relation between wholes and parts in so far as wholes are conceived of as being filled out by parts, in a rather general sense; here he zooms in on what it actually means to say that parts ‘fill out’ or even ‘completely fill out’ (συμπληρωτικά) the whole. If we grant that a whole is its parts, do the parts fill out the whole, do they fill out one another or do they fill out themselves? They cannot be said to fill out the whole, because they are the whole; they cannot be said to fill out one another, because they are not parts of one another, just as the different parts of a man, for example his left and his right hand, are not parts of one another but subsist separately; and finally, it would be absurd to say that they fill out themselves, because they are not parts of themselves. Therefore, wholes do not exist, if a whole is nothing other than its parts nor the sum of its parts (§345–7). At this point Sextus adds as an appendix another possible objection that is relevant to his subject: since a part such as the head fills out a man, that is a whole, being a part of him, and since a man is conceived of as a man with a head, the head can be said to fill out itself and be a part of itself; in this way, the head is said to be greater than itself, since it is filled out by itself, and lesser than itself, since it fills out itself (§348). And the same applies in all other cases of parts filling out wholes, for instance of a palm being a part of the cubit (§349). So, the notion of ‘filling out’ cannot be used in a coherent way, and Sextus dismisses all these cases as absurd and contrary to our common notions.
§350–1: Paragraphs 350–1 deal with the parallel case of a sentence and its parts, or more specifically the case of the first line from the Iliad and the individual words in it. Sextus devotes more space to the investigation of this same example in his treatise Against the Grammarians 1.131–41. The difficulties here, according to Sextus, arise when we ask of what exactly a particular word in this line can be said to be a part. For if it is a part of the whole line, then it is also a part of itself, since the line is conceived of as including it; and if it is a part of the rest of the line, then it turns out to be a part of something in which it is not included, which sounds absurd.
§352–8: Paragraphs 352–8 present Sextus' dismissal of an alleged attempt by the dogmatists to rebut the sceptical arguments concerning the non-existence of wholes and parts. According to Sextus, some unnamed dogmatists, in response to the difficulties raised concerning the existence of wholes and parts, used to argue that the external perceptible objects are not themselves wholes or parts but that it is we who apply to them these terms (§352). The ‘whole’ and the ‘part’ are both relative terms, because the ‘whole’ is conceived of in relation to the ‘part’ and the ‘part’ is conceived of in relation to the ‘whole’; relative terms are in our summnēmoneusis, that is, in our co-recollection; therefore, the ‘whole’ and the ‘part’ are in our co-recollection, and it is our co-recollection that predicates these terms of the external perceptible objects (§353). Sextus immediately offers a reply to this: it is absurd to argue that the head or the neck are not parts of the external man but reside in our co-recollection; for if the head and the neck are in us, the whole man should also be in us (§354). But perhaps someone further argues that the whole man is in fact in us, and his parts are not the external head or the external neck but our own conceptions of these (ἔννοιαι); for the whole man is itself a concept of ours (ἐννόημα) (§355). To this Sextus replies that it does not manage to settle the issue, since even if the whole man is a concept of ours or in our co-recollection, we may still ask whether he is other than his parts or the sum of his parts; but it has been shown that neither of these holds (§356). No whole exists, therefore, and consequently no part exists, since these are correlatives (§357). So, now that the efficient principles have been dealt with, Sextus states that it is time to investigate the material ones (§358).
M 9.331–58 and related texts
M 9.331–58 is not the only text in which Sextus is concerned with wholes and parts in his work Against the Mathematicians. I have already mentioned the passage in the Against the Grammarians (M 1.131–41), which focuses on the relation between sentences and their parts. In addition, Sextus talks more generally about the whole–parts relation in his Outlines of Pyrrhonism and devotes two sections to it, one in the second book (PH 2.215–18) and one in the third book (PH 3.98–101). Both of these sections are much shorter than our section, but it is worth noting the similarities and differences between them. In PH 2.215–18 Sextus discusses logical doctrines and argues against the possibility of dividing a whole into parts, a topic with which he does not deal at all in M 9.331–58. On the other hand, PH 3.98–101 treats wholes and parts from the same perspective of natural philosophy as in our section, though in a less detailed manner and without mentioning the views of previous philosophers.
In particular, in the first two paragraphs of this small section (PH 3.98–101), just as in M 9.331–58, Sextus connects the discussion on wholes and parts with the investigation about addition and subtraction. He aims here, too, to show that wholes and parts do not exist, and he starts by claiming that wholes do not exist, if they are to be understood either as something other than their parts or as the parts themselves. He even uses the same argument in favour of the view that a whole is nothing other than its parts; if the parts of a whole are destroyed, the whole is also destroyed. Finally, in order to show that the whole does not exist if the parts are the whole, he uses one of the examples in M 9.343, namely that separation is nothing other than the things separated. Now, in the last two paragraphs of this section (PH 3.100–1) Sextus claims that parts, too, do not exist, if they are to be understood either as parts of a whole or of one another or each of itself. He claims that parts do not exist as parts of a whole, since a whole is nothing other than its parts; they do not exist as parts of one another, since a part cannot be included in that of which it is a part; they do not exist each of itself, since something cannot be both greater and less than itself. That is to say, Sextus uses here the same arguments as in M 9.345–9. But, I think, there is a difference: Sextus' line of reasoning in the Outlines of Pyrrhonism is presented in a much clearer way than that in Against the Physicists, where the added material confuses at points the overall structure of his argument. Is it because the section in the Outlines of Pyrrhonism was written after that in Against the Physicists, or is it simply because of its short length irrespective of its time of composition? This question touches upon the more general issue of the connection between the two treatises, an issue that of course cannot be settled just on the basis of the sections on wholes and parts.
Wholes and parts are mentioned fleetingly in other passages both of Sextus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism and of his Against the Mathematicians (cf. PH 3.45–6, 85–96; M 1.162–8; 3.35–6; 4.24–33; 9.258–64, 308–19). Some of these passages focus on different topics from those in M 9.331–58, some on similar ones. In what follows I refer to and make use of those relating more closely to Sextus' treatment of wholes and parts in our section.
Wholes and parts as correlatives
Let us next study in more detail Sextus' discussion about wholes and parts in M 9.331–58. Given what we already know from other ancient sources, the first part in which Sextus presents the Hellenistic philosophers' views does not contain many surprises (M 9.331–8). Brief though they may be, the accounts which Sextus lists cannot be thought of as misrepresenting what the Hellenistic philosophers actually had to say on this topic, even if at times it takes some work to fully reconstruct the relevant doctrines and unravel their implications.Footnote 5 But there is still sufficient reason for being cautious about Sextus' report; for it seems that, although he may have had reliable evidence for the opinions he attributes to these philosophers, he chooses to place them in a context, namely that of the topic of wholes and parts, which most probably was not their original one and may have not reflected accurately the intentions of their proponents. For instance, in paragraphs 332–4 the doctrines presented seem to be only marginally relevant to the topic of wholes and parts; for their proponents, namely the Stoics, the Epicureans and the Peripatetics, were interested in identifying the items that constituted the basic wholes and parts in their cosmology, rather than in settling logical and metaphysical questions about the notion of a whole and of a part.
More intriguing is what we find in the second part with respect to Sextus' dialectical arguments in favour of the thesis that wholes and parts do not exist (M 9.338–58). First, as I have said, Sextus argues against the thesis that a whole is other than its parts. To this end, he uses two different kinds of arguments, namely arguments based on the evidence of the senses (κατ᾽ ἐνάργειαν) and arguments based on how we conceive of the notions of a whole and of a part (κατὰ νόησιν). More specifically, he gives two arguments based on the evidence of the senses: we observe that when all the parts of a whole are destroyed, for instance of a statue, the whole does not exist any longer; also, we observe that even when just one part of a whole is destroyed, again the whole does not exist any longer, at least not as a whole. Sextus, then, continues with two arguments based on how we conceive of the notions of a whole and of a part: according to the first argument, a whole is conceived of as that from which no part is missing; if a part of a whole is missing, the whole does not exist. Now the second argument adds to Sextus' discussion about wholes and parts something which plays a significant role in this section, namely the idea that wholes are relatives (πρός τι), because they are always conceived of in relation to their parts, and the same holds also for parts. Let me quote this argument in full (M 9.340):
And again, the whole is a relative; for it is conceived of as a whole in relation to the parts, and just as the part is a part of something, so also the whole is a whole made up of certain parts. But the relatives must coexist with each other and be inseparable from each other. Therefore, the whole is not other than its parts nor separate from them.
This is the first occasion on which Sextus talks about wholes and parts as correlatives; if a whole exists, its correlative, namely its parts, also exists, and the other way round.
The same idea features some paragraphs later, though this time Sextus does not explicitly state that wholes and parts are correlatives. This second passage comes at the end of the series of arguments that are meant to defuse both the claim that the whole is other than the parts and the claim that the whole is the sum of the parts. So, Sextus here concludes that wholes do not exist, and the same applies in the case of parts (M 9.344):
And again, just as, when ‘right’ does not exist, ‘left’ also is non-existent, and when ‘above’ is not conceived of neither is ‘below’ conceived of, in the same way, if the whole does not exist, the parts are not conceived of as parts, nor will any parts exist.
The examples used in this passage are indicative; the example of ‘left’ and ‘right’, which we also find in the parallel passage from the Against the Grammarians (M 1.136), as well as the example of ‘above’ and ‘below’ are standard examples of correlatives that coexist and cannot be conceived of separately from each other. In the same way, Sextus claims, if wholes do not exist, then their parts cannot exist nor be conceived of as parts.
The third occasion in which Sextus makes use of the fact that wholes and parts are correlatives is in the very last paragraphs of our section, in which he tries to dismiss the dogmatists' attempt to deal with the sceptical arguments against the existence of wholes and parts. According to Sextus, some unnamed dogmatists, faced with certain puzzles about wholes and parts, claimed that the external perceptible objects are neither wholes nor parts; rather, it is we who predicate the terms ‘whole’ and ‘part’ of them. For the terms ‘whole’ and ‘part’ are conceived of only in relation to each other and thus are correlatives; and since relatives are only in our co-recollection (συμμνημόνευσις), and our co-recollection is in us, wholes and parts are only in us (M 9.353):
For the whole was a relative; for it is in relation to its parts that it was conceived of as whole. And again, parts are relatives; for it is in relation to the whole that they are conceived of as parts. But relatives are in our co-recollection and our co-recollection is in us. Hence the whole and the part are in us. External perceptible objects are neither wholes nor parts, but things of which we predicate our own co-recollection.
To the dogmatists' position Sextus raises, as I have said before, the following objection: it would be absurd to claim that the parts of a man, for instance his head or his neck, are only in our co-recollection; then, the whole man would also be only in our co-recollection, which is absurd. To this objection, however, the dogmatists could still have been able to give a reply, as Sextus himself confesses; for they could have argued that both the whole man and his parts, such as his head and his neck, are mere concepts (M 9.354–5):
In reply to them one must say, firstly, that it is absurd to claim that the neck or the head are not parts which fill out the external man but of our own co-recollection. But if the head and the neck fill out the man and the neck is in us, the man will have to be in us, which is absurd. Hence the whole and the parts do not reside in our co-recollection. Yes, someone will say, but the whole man is in us by way of co-recollection and is filled out not by the external neck and the external head, but again by the conceptions (ἔννοιαι) which correspond to these parts. For in fact the whole man himself is a concept (ἐννόημα) of ours.
Still, Sextus insists, even if the whole man and his parts were mere concepts, the difficulty concerning the whole–parts relation would remain; for we would still need to address the question whether or not our conception of the whole is other than our conception of its parts. Therefore, Sextus suggests that it could also be shown, following again the same reasoning, that the concept of a whole does not exist; and since the concept of a whole and that of its parts are correlatives, the concept of its parts does not exist either.
These are the three occasions in our relatively short section from the Against the Physicists in which Sextus talks about wholes and parts as being correlatives. In fact, the view that wholes and parts should be understood as correlatives is never questioned by Sextus, although this is clearly a view expounded by the dogmatists. Similarly, in the relevant section of his Outlines of Pyrrhonism (3.98–101), Sextus treats wholes and parts as correlatives: after presenting a compressed form of some of the arguments which we find in our section and which aim at proving that wholes and parts do not exist, Sextus ends by saying that a whole and its parts are destroyed together, since they are correlatives (PH 3.101):Footnote 6
If, then, the so-called parts are parts neither of the whole nor of themselves nor of one another, they are not parts of anything. But if they are not parts of anything, they are not parts; for correlatives are destroyed together.
But when Sextus talks of wholes and parts as correlatives, does he think of any specific ancient philosopher?
Treating wholes and parts as correlatives could be said to have a long tradition. To start with Plato, he did not call parts ‘relatives’ (πρός τι) when he defined them as parts of wholes (e.g. Tht. 204a7–205a10; Prm. 137c6, 142d6–8, 144e8, 157c4–5) and did not include wholes and parts in the semi-technical passages in which he gave examples of pairs of correlatives (Prm. 133c–134d; Smp. 199cd); on the other hand, he spoke of them in relation to each other and he may have thought of them as interdefinable. Aristotle, too, did not explicitly talk of wholes and parts as correlatives, but when in the seventh chapter of his Categories he wanted to illustrate his formal account of relatives, he used examples of wholes and parts; for instance, he talked of a head being called someone's head and of a hand being called someone's hand as relatives (Cat. 8a26–8).
I very much doubt that Plato and Aristotle are the unnamed dogmatists to whom Sextus refers in M 9.352. Besides, when in the first part of our section he presents the different views on wholes and parts defended by previous dogmatic philosophers, he limits his survey to the philosophers of the main Hellenistic schools, the Epicureans and the Stoics. Hence, I think that one should search among these schools in order to identify the dogmatists whose theories he primarily addresses when in the second part he constructs his dialectical arguments against the view that wholes and parts exist. Indeed, the last paragraphs of Sextus' text are, I think, quite helpful in revealing the identity of his main interlocutors here. I refer especially to Sextus' dialectical exchange with the dogmatists who allegedly claimed that wholes and parts are only in our co-recollection, and are therefore mere concepts. But what does it mean precisely that wholes and parts, and in general all relatives, are only in our co-recollection? Also, who are the dogmatists who may have advocated such a theory?
Summnēmoneusis: the evidence and its function
To better understand what Sextus means in the last paragraphs of the section on wholes and parts when he talks of our co-recollection, we should study first the few other passages in which he uses the term ‘summnēmoneusis’. In fact, although Sextus uses this term seven times in our section, there are only five other occurrences of the term in the rest of his works:
1. In the second book of the Against the Physicists, in the section on motion,Footnote 7 Sextus claims that, according to some dogmatists, motion is a concept which we do not acquire simply by our senses, but by reason through the senses, and in particular by way of co-recollection (κατὰ συμμνημόνευσιν) (M 10.64):Footnote 8
In other words, Sextus claims here that in observing a body which currently occupies a certain place, we remember that this particular body occupied in the past a different place, and thus we form the concept of motion.But those who maintain that it is not grasped by sense, but by reason through sense, say that every motion comes about by way of co-recollection; for by recalling that this particular body was formerly in that particular place but now is in this, we grasp the conception of motion and of having moved. But memory itself is the work not of any irrational sense but of a power of reason. It follows, therefore, that motion is not grasped by sense but by reason.
2. Again, in the second book of the Against the Physicists, and in particular in the section on time,Footnote 9 Sextus paraphrases Aristotle's doctrine that time has passed when we have a perception of the before and after in motion (Ph. 4.11.219a22–b2), by stating that time is some kind of co-recollection (συμμνημόνευσίς τις) of the first and later in motion (M 10.176):Footnote 10
Sextus does not give us any further indication as to how he understands the function of co-recollection in this case. Given what he says about motion, however, we may infer that, according to his interpretation, Aristotle claimed that in observing a later stage of a change we remember together with it what has come earlier, and thus we form the concept of time.Aristotle said that time is the number of the first and later in motion. But if time is this, some kind of co-recollection of the first and later in motion, what is at rest and motionless will not exist in time.
3. In the section on physical change of the third book of his Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus argues in favour of the non-existence of change, by considering first the possibility that change is perceptible and then that it is intelligible. He claims that it is not the case that change is perceptible, because the senses are affected simply by their objects, whereas change involves co-recollection (συμμνημόνευσιν ἔχειν) of something in an earlier and later stage of a change (3.108):Footnote 11
Sextus, again, does not explain in detail the function of co-recollection. It is reasonable to suppose, though, that the concept of change, just like the concepts of motion and time, is formed, according to him, by observing something at a certain state and by recalling together with it its different state at a previous stage.Furthermore, if change exists it is either perceptible or intelligible. But it is not perceptible, for the senses are simply passive, while change seems to involve co-recollection of both that from which it changes and that into which it is said to change.
4. In his Against the Grammarians, while arguing against the existence of long syllables in a way very similar to the present argument about wholes and parts, Sextus presents a view according to which we conceive of long syllables by way of co-recollection (κατὰ συμμνημόνευσιν) (M 1.129, trans. D. Blank Reference Blank1998 modified):Footnote 12
That is to say, in perceiving the sound which is now being uttered, we remember the sound which has already been uttered, and we conceive of both together as a long syllable; the long syllable is thus conceived of as a whole in relation to the first and second sound from both of which it is constituted.But if they say that the long syllable is conceived by way of co-recollection (that is, we grasp the sound now being said while remembering the one said before and we conceive a long syllable as the compound of both of these), if they say this, they will precisely be granting that such a syllable is non-subsistent.
5. In the first book of his Against the Logicians, Sextus once again talks of co-recollection, this time in the context of a discussion which he himself compares to that of wholes and parts (M 7.276–80). The topic here is the relation between the term ‘man’ and properties such as ‘animal’, ‘rational’ and ‘mortal’, a relation which is similar, according to Sextus, to that between a man and his physical parts, for instance his hand, his head or his leg; just as the whole man cannot be the sum of his physical parts, Sextus argues, ‘man’ cannot be the combination of properties. More specifically, Sextus' argument seems to be that ‘man’ cannot be the combination of ‘animal’, ‘rational’ and ‘mortal’, because they are not all present together at all times; in the case of ‘rational’ he explicitly refers to the fact that men are rational only at some times, while in the case of ‘mortal’ he points out that it is by co-recollection (κατὰ συμμνημόνευσιν) that we conceive of a man as mortal (M 7.279, trans. R. Bett Reference Bett2005, modified):Footnote 13
The use of co-recollection in this text is slightly different from the ones previously discussed: in observing perhaps that we are now young and healthy, we are reminded of other people like us who used to be alive but then died; we thus figure out that people like ourselves are mortal, although we are still alive and it is only the end of our life that is affected by mortality.At any rate, mortality is not a property of us as soon as we are men but is grasped by way of co-recollection. For on observing that Dion and Theon and Socrates, and in general particular men like us, have died, we reason that we too are mortal, even though having died is not yet present to us (after all, we are alive).
What do these five texts tell us about the function of co-recollection? It is a mental process which is initially triggered by our perception of something; on the basis of this perception, we recollect something else; by simultaneously having both the current perception and the memory of the previous experience, we conceive of something different which is not perceived about the thing which is perceived; and thus, we form a concept. To grasp better how co-recollection functions, let us take the case of motion: we first observe something in a certain place; we recollect that the same thing previously occupied a different place; simultaneously having both the perception of the thing in its current place and the memory of the same thing occupying a different one makes us conceive of it as having moved; so, we come to form the concept of motion. That is to say, to conceive of motion it is not adequate simply to perceive something; rather, what is required is simultaneously to perceive it in one place and to remember it being in a different one. For we cannot perceive motion, since perception can register only instantaneous events, not events over time; to form the concept of motion the rational function of recollection is needed.
It still remains to be understood, though, how this mental process of co-recollection is applicable to the account of wholes and parts as correlatives. In his Outlines of Pyrrhonism (e.g. PH 2.117–20, 125, 169), Sextus points out that correlatives, for instance ‘left’ and ‘right’, are always grasped simultaneously (συγκαταλαμβάνειν), since grasping the one always presupposes grasping the other, too. However, this is clearly different from what we have said concerning the function of co-recollection, which is meant to result in the formation of the concepts of a whole and of a part. For in the case of wholes and parts the following mental process of co-recollection seems to be at work: we perceive a part, for instance a man's hand, and we come to form the concept of the whole man, by remembering together with the current perception previous perceptions of his other parts. Thus, the process of co-recollection is here required, because in this case we cannot at the same time perceive every part that constitutes a man, for instance his back; however, by perceiving a particular part of a man and by simultaneously having the memory of previous experiences of other parts, we can conceive of the whole man by way of co-recollection.
Summnēmoneusis and the Stoics
Divided views
But who are the dogmatists who introduce the mental process of co-recollection in their philosophical system? In particular, who are the philosophers to whom Sextus refers in the last paragraphs of our section, and who allegedly claimed that wholes and parts, and in general all relatives, are mere concepts that we come to form by way of co-recollection? Von Arnim (SVF 2.80) includes paragraphs 352–3 of the section on wholes and parts among Chrysippus' fragments; but this, of course, does not settle the issue.
Barnes (Reference Barnes and Mignucci1988: 252–3) disagrees with Krämer (Reference Krämer1971: 101) and refuses to accept that there were any dogmatists, or for that matter any Stoics, who defended the view that relatives are nothing but concepts, mere mental constructs. In particular, he argues against the claim that it is the Stoics to whom Sextus refers in the second book of his Against the Logicians, in which he reports that some dogmatists had to admit that relatives are not real but only in thought (M 8.453–4, trans. R. Bett Reference Bett2005 modified):Footnote 14
Moreover, demonstration is a relative (πρός τι). But relatives are only conceived of – they are not also real; so demonstration too is only in thought and not in reality. And that things which are relatively disposed (πρός τί πως ἔχοντα) are in fact preserved only in thought, and do not also have reality, is possible to show from the dogmatists' confession. For in sketching ‘relative’ they are in agreement in saying ‘Relative is what is conceived of in relation to another thing.’ But if it had a share in reality, they would not have presented it like that, but rather like this: ‘Relative is what has reality in relation to another thing.’ Therefore relatives do not exist at all in the things that there are.
Barnes is perfectly right that, on the basis of this passage, it is not at all clear that we should go along with Sextus and accept that the dogmatists were committed to the thesis that relatives are only in thought. It is reasonable, however, to infer both from this text and from the last paragraphs of our section on wholes and parts that Sextus thinks that the dogmatists' view about relatives has some bearing on the issue whether or not relatives are mere concepts.
On the other hand, Baltzly Reference Baltzly1998 argues extensively in favour of the thesis that the unnamed dogmatists to whom Sextus ascribes the view that wholes and parts are mental constructs are indeed the Stoics. Baltzly's arguments are drawn from Stoic physics, and in particular from the Stoic theories of continuous matter and time. However, as Baltzly himself admits, his evidence offers us helpful insights into the possible motivations of the Stoics for advocating such a doctrine but is inconclusive. For what the Stoics actually said about infinity and the continuum does not necessitate the view that wholes and parts are mere concepts; it simply suggests that it would have been intelligible for them to embrace it, or at least that it makes sense why the Stoics could have been misunderstood by ancient doxographers as the proponents of such a view.
So, modern scholars are divided on this issue. But are there further reasons for believing that the mental process of co-recollection is a Stoic doctrine? No other author apart from Sextus uses the noun συμμνημόνευσις, and very few authors use the verb συμμνημονεύειν, which means ‘to remember something or to refer to something along with something else’. Of these authors most are late, for instance Didymus the Blind, Gregory of Nyssa, Michael of Ephesus, Eustathius of Thessaloniki and George Pachymeres, while in the case of earlier authors, namely Plutarch and Galen, we have only single occurrences of the verb in the whole of their work.Footnote 15 Hence, the four occurrences of the verb συμμνημονεύειν in Marcus Aurelius' Meditations (Med. 3.10.1.1; 8.5.1.3; 9.22.1.3; 10.31.1.7) are, I think, indicative of the fact that this was a Stoic term. Indeed, in one of these passages Marcus Aurelius uses συμμνημονεύειν to refer to the mental process of paying attention to the whole in order to be reminded of the fact that we, as human beings, are parts of it (Med. 9.22; trans. A. S. L. Farquharson Reference Farquharson1944):Footnote 16
Make haste to your own governing self, to that of the whole, and that of this man. To your own, to make it a righteous mind; to that of the whole, to remind yourself (συμμνημονεύσῃς) what it is of which you are a part; to this man's, that you may observe whether it is ignorance or design, and may reflect at the same time that his self is of one kind with your own.
However, since this passage does not concern the formation of the concepts of a whole and of a part, it has little in common with those discussed above from Sextus' works. In addition, the fact that Marcus Aurelius is the first Stoic philosopher in whose writings we find the verb συμμνημονεύειν raises another difficulty; for even if we manage to establish that the notion of co-recollection is Stoic, it may still be unclear, owing to our scarce evidence, whether the terms συμμνημονεύειν and συμμνημόνευσις were used only by the late Stoics or whether they were used by the early Stoics as well.
No reason to exclude the Stoics
Now, given that the mental process of co-recollection gives rise to concepts, perhaps it would be helpful to examine what our ancient sources report about the Stoic philosophers' theory of concept formation. In fact, there is a much-quoted text in which we find a fairly detailed account of how, according to the Stoics, human beings manage to form their conceptions (ἔννοιαι) and preconceptions (προλήψεις) of things (Aëtius 4.11.1–3, trans. Long & Sedley Reference 409Long and Sedley1987):Footnote 17
When a man is born, the Stoics say, he has the commanding-part of his soul like a sheet of paper ready for writing upon. On this he inscribes each one of his conceptions. The first method of inscription is through the senses. For by perceiving something, e.g. white, they have a memory of it when it has departed. And when many memories of a similar kind have occurred, we then say we have experience. For the plurality of similar impressions is experience. Some conceptions arise naturally in the aforesaid ways and undesignedly, others through our own instruction and attention. The latter are called ‘conceptions’ only, the former are called ‘preconceptions’ as well.
So, according to the Stoic doctrine of concept formation, which is very similar to what Aristotle had said on the same subject at the beginning of his Metaphysics (1.1.980a27ff.) and at the end of his Posterior Analytics (2.19.99b36ff.), human beings form individual memories (μνῆμαι) on the basis of their sense impressions and store them in the soul; many similar memories result in what is called ‘experience’ (ἐμπειρία), and this constitutes the indispensable basis of our concepts, and in general of all human knowledge. Hence, in forming our concepts we depend heavily on our memory, but this mental process of concept formation is considerably different from what we have been discussing concerning the formation of concepts by way of co-recollection. According to this general theory, we form a concept on the basis of similar impressions that we have stored in our memory; for instance, by repeatedly having the impression of a man we form the concept ‘man’. On the other hand, when we form concepts by way of co-recollection the function of this mental process is more complicated; for, as we have said, it involves perceiving something, on this basis recollecting something else, simultaneously having both the current perception and the memory of the previous experience, and finally conceiving of something different which is not perceived about the thing which is perceived. The Stoic general theory of concept formation, therefore, does not exclude the possibility that the Stoics introduced in their system the mental process of co-recollection.
Indeed, there are many other mental processes to which the Stoics referred in their attempt to analyse and explain our human ability to form concepts. In the section of the Against the Physicists which comes immediately after the section on wholes and parts, namely the section on body, Sextus enumerates some of the mental processes on the basis of which concepts are formed (M 9.393–5);Footnote 18 and a similar passage can be found in the Against the Logicians (M 8.59–60). According to the Stoics, Sextus claims, concepts are formed either by direct encounter with things that are manifest (κατ᾽ ἐμπέλασιν τῶν ἐναργῶν) or by transference from them (κατὰ τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν ἐναργῶν μετάβασιν). In the latter case, we can distinguish different kinds of mental processes: by way of resemblance (καθ᾽ ὁμοιότητα), for instance when from Socrates' portrait we form an impression of Socrates though he is absent; by way of composition (κατ᾽ ἐπισύνθεσιν), for instance when from a man and a horse we form the concept of a Hippocentaur; by way of analogy (κατ᾽ ἀναλογίαν), or more specifically by way of increase (κατὰ παραύξησιν) and by way of diminution (κατὰ μείωσιν), for instance when from a man of an average size we form the concept of a Cyclops and of a pygmy respectively. This list of concept-formation processes is not presented by Sextus as exhaustive, and there is no reason to suppose that it is. After all, there is a passage in Diogenes Laertius (7.53), in which more mental processes of a similar kind are added; namely, by way of transposition (κατὰ μετάθεσιν), for instance when we talk about eyes on the chest, and by way of opposition (κατ᾽ ἐναντίωσιν), for instance when we talk about death, conceived of as the opposite of life.Footnote 19 Hence, it is tempting to suggest that the mental process by way of co-recollection could also have been in the Stoic list of mental processes by which we come to form our concepts.
It could nevertheless be suggested that Sextus' dogmatists should be identified with the Epicureans, who may have had better reasons to talk about co-recollection. The basis of such an objection could be found in the theories of signs developed during the Hellenistic period. Our ancient sources (e.g. Sextus Empiricus, PH 2.97ff.; M 8.151ff.) distinguish two kinds of signs; namely, commemorative (ὑπομνηστικά) and indicative (ἐνδεικτικά). Briefly stated, the distinction between them is the following: commemorative signs are supposed to reveal something temporarily non-evident on the basis of previous observation, memory and experience, while indicative signs are supposed to reveal something naturally non-evident by means of theoretically grasping the necessary relations between things on the basis of rational inferences. For instance, smoke is a commemorative sign of fire, whereas motion is an indicative sign of the existence of the soul. Reflecting for a moment on the English translation of the term ὑπομνηστικὰ σημεῖα as com-memorative signs, we immediately think of a possible connection between this kind of sign and the mental process of co-recollection; we perceive something and simultaneously recollect something else. Moreover, on the basis of what we learn from Philodemus' work On Signs, it seems that the Epicureans would have favoured the inductive inferences of commemorative signs. It is highly unlikely, however, that the distinction between commemorative and indicative signs can be attributed to the Epicureans; for the way in which the distinction is discussed in our sources suggests that it originated in a dispute between the ancient medical schools of the Empiricists and the Rationalists.Footnote 20
But even if we were to assume that it was the Epicureans who introduced the mental process of co-recollection, notwithstanding the fact that there is no evidence to that effect, nothing could exclude the possibility that the Stoics, too, used it. For there should be no doubt that memory played a significant role in Stoic epistemology, though this topic has been generally neglected in the modern literature on Stoicism. I have argued elsewhere that the use of memory seems to have been at the centre of an important debate between the Stoics and the Sceptics.Footnote 21 For the purposes of this paper, it is sufficient to remark briefly that, according to the Stoics, the use of memory is not irrational but crucially involves a power of reason; this, after all, would be in agreement with what Sextus claims in the second book of his Against the Physicists (M 10.64) about the mental process of co-recollection, namely that it involves not only our senses but our reason too.
Plotinus criticized Zeno's definition of memory as a storehouse of impressions (M 7.373), because he believed that such a position implies the corporeality of memory, and thus of the soul, but also presents memory as something passive. There are many passages in the Enneads in which Plotinus repeats that memories, just like impressions, are not affections (πάθη) but activities (ἐνέργειαι) of the soul; they should not be seen as imprints on some corporeal substratum, for they exist not because of impressions being stored in the soul, but because of the soul's capacity to form, store and retrieve impressions.Footnote 22 I have argued that Plotinus' criticism is not entirely justified. It is true, of course, that the Stoics defined sense impressions as affections and not as activities; but although memory in the sense of a storehouse of impressions may be said to be passive, memory as an act of remembering by retrieving the appropriate impression stored in one's memory presupposes what the Stoics called ‘assent’ (συγκατάθεσις). In other words, although one's memory may retain both true and false impressions, in an actual act of remembering, assent is presupposed and the impression which one retrieves needs to be a true impression for this to count as a case of remembering. It is in this sense, therefore, that the ancient Greek verbs ‘to remember’ (μνημονεύειν/μεμνῆσθαι) are success words, just like the ancient Greek verbs ‘to know’ (γνωρίζειν/ἐπίστασθαι). Hence, in his Academica (2.21) Cicero has the Antiochean Lucullus defending the Stoic position that it is one thing, for instance, to have a sense impression of something white and another to perceive that something is white; and in a later passage he draws the following conclusion (Cicero, Acad. 2.38, trans. C. Brittain Reference Brittain2006):Footnote 23
In fact, by not allowing people to perceive and assent, there's a sense in which the Academics actually rob them of their minds … But there are other consequences, too: neither memory, nor conceptions, nor the arts can exist without assent.
It seems, therefore, that on the Stoic view the use of memory does involve reason; the fact that the notion of co-recollection is not based only on sense perception but also on some kind of reasoning could thus help to rebut any objection suggesting that the Stoics were not the ones who introduced the mental process of co-recollection, on the ground that memory for the Stoics is allegedly passive or irrational.
Misguided attribution to the Stoics
But do we have any positive evidence which actually associates the Stoics with the view that wholes and parts, and in general all relatives, are mere concepts? In his fourth Ennead, Plotinus wonders whether the Stoics believed that what they called the ‘somehow disposed’ (πως ἔχον) is real or only in thought (4.7.4.8–15, trans. A. H. Armstrong Reference Armstrong1984, modified):Footnote 24
But if they hold that life and soul are nothing but the breath, what is this ‘somehow disposed’ which they are always talking about, in which they take refuge when they are compelled to posit another working principle besides bodies? If, then, not every breath is soul, because there are innumerable soulless breaths, but they are going to assert that the breath being somehow disposed is soul, they will say either that this somehow disposed and this disposition belong to the class of real beings or that it does not. But if it does not, then soul would be only breath and the somehow disposed a mere word.
In this connection, let me refer again to Sextus' passage from his Against the Logicians (M 8.453–4), in which he reports that some dogmatists had to admit that relatives are not real but only in thought. For in that passage, as in other passages,Footnote 25 Sextus starts the discussion with the notion of something being relative (πρός τι) and soon moves to the notion of something being relatively disposed (πρός τί πως ἔχον). But although by Sextus' day these notions seem to be used interchangeably, we should first draw the distinction between the ‘somehow disposed’ (πως ἔχον) and the ‘relatively disposed’ (πρός τί πως ἔχον) and then try to figure out whether it was really the Stoics who considered relatives as only in thought.
There is no doubt that the somehow disposed and the relatively disposed constitute two of the four Stoic so-called categories, namely the third and the fourth. The doctrine of the Stoic categories is quite difficult to understand, even at a basic level, and thus a matter of considerable controversy.Footnote 26 To gain at least a rough idea of what the four Stoic categories represent, let me list them and then give examples which the Stoics themselves most probably used in order to illustrate them. The four categories are the following (e.g. Simplicius, in Cat. 66.32–67.19; Plotinus 6.1.25.1–3): substance (ὑποκείμενον), the qualified (ποιόν), subdivided into the commonly qualified (κοινῶς ποιόν) and the peculiarly qualified (ἰδίως ποιόν), the somehow disposed (πως ἔχον), and the relatively disposed (πρός τί πως ἔχον). It seems that the Stoic categories are a classification of characterizations of things: either we characterize a thing as a certain matter; or as a certain matter being qualified in a certain way, for instance as a human being (Simplicius, in Cat. 212.26: ‘the grammarian’), and this is the commonly qualified, or as Socrates, and this is the peculiarly qualified; or as a certain matter being somehow disposed, for instance as virtue, that is the soul being disposed in a certain way (Seneca, Ep. 113.2); or finally, as a certain matter being relatively disposed, for instance as being the man on the right or the son of somebody. Hence, both the somehow disposed and the relatively disposed are real things and there is no way that the Stoics would have claimed that they are only in thought. But, then, how can we make sense of Sextus' and Plotinus' remarks?
We are immediately struck by the fact that the Stoics included in their list of four categories the relatively disposed and not the category of relatives, as Aristotle previously had done. Indeed, Simplicius reports that, according to the Stoics, not all relatives belong to the category of the relatively disposed;Footnote 27 all of the relatively disposed are relatives, but not all relatives are among the relatively disposed (in Cat. 166.15–29, trans. Long & Sedley Reference 409Long and Sedley1987):Footnote 28
To put what I am saying more clearly, they [the Stoics] call ‘relative’ all things which are conditioned according to an intrinsic character but are directed towards something else; and ‘relatively disposed’ all those whose nature it is to become and cease to be a property of something without any internal change or qualitative alteration, as well as to look towards what lies outside. Thus when something in a differentiated condition is directed towards something else, it will only be relative: for example tenor, knowledge, sense-perception. But when it is thought of not according to its inherent differentiation but merely according to its disposition relative to something else, it will be relatively disposed. For son, and the man on the right, in order to be there, need certain external things. Hence without any internal change a father could cease to be a father on the death of his son, and the man on the right could cease to be the man on the right if his neighbour changed position. But sweet and bitter could not alter qualitatively if their internal power did not change too. If, then, despite being unaffected in themselves they change because of something else's disposition relative to them, it is clear that relatively disposed things have their existence in their disposition alone and not through any differentiation.
Therefore, the Stoics seem to have thought that, in contrast to some other relatives, the relatively disposed are characterizations of real things that do not have a basis in the individual things thus characterized.Footnote 29 Could it be, then, that the Stoics' opponents were confused in two respects? First, they misinterpreted the Stoic texts as implying that the relatively disposed are only in thought, because for the Stoics the relatively disposed do not have a basis in the individual things; and second, they failed to distinguish between relatives and the relatively disposed and thus concluded that for the Stoics all relatives, just like all the relatively disposed, are mere concepts. Sextus' passage may be said to confirm this, though I am perfectly aware that my suggestion is rather conjectural.
Conclusion
To conclude, even if Sextus misinterprets the Stoics when he attributes to them the view that all relatives, and thus wholes and parts, are mere concepts, it still is the case that the Stoics are the most probable candidates to be the dogmatists with whom Sextus converses in the last paragraphs of our section from the Against the Physicists. In other words, what I have argued for is that the section on wholes and parts in the Against the Physicists ends with Sextus being engaged in a debate with Stoic views, or at least with what he considers the Stoics, or some of the Stoics, to have claimed about wholes and parts as relatives.Footnote 30 But this is not, I think, the only part of this section which bears the marks of Stoic philosophy. For instance, we also find here the Stoic example of the fist (e.g. PH 2.81; Alexander, in Top. 360), which is used in order to show that the case of the whole being nothing over and above its parts is analogous to a fist being nothing but a hand clenched (M 9.343). Besides, the whole–parts relation seems to have been important for all areas of Stoic philosophy: for physics, obviously for the reasons which are presented in the text under discussion; for ethics, since in our actions we should always take into consideration the fact that we are parts of the whole cosmos; and for logic, since division, for instance, crucially involves an understanding of the whole–parts relation. And Chrysippus is reported to have written a work with the title On Parts, a work which contained at least five books (Plutarch, Comm. Not. 1081F). The critical study of Sextus' text, therefore, provides us with valuable information about the ancient Greek understanding of the notions of a whole and of a part, including that of the Hellenistic philosophers in general, and of the Stoics in particular.
