Chapter IV. How Plato Has Accused His Predecessors. From the Theaetetus

[PLATO] ‘AND so from drift and motion and mixture of one with another, all things are “becoming,” though we forsooth speak of them as “being,” not using a right term. [1]For nothing ever “is,” but is always “becoming.” And on this point grant that, except Parmenides, all the wise men in succession were agreed, Protagoras, and Heracleitus, and Empedocles, and the chief poets in either kind of poetry, Epicharmus in Comedy, and Homer in Tragedy, who, when he calls

“Oceanus sire and Tethys mother of gods,” [2]

says that all things are the offspring of flux and motion. Do you not think that this is what he means?

‘I think so.

‘Who then could any longer escape derision, if he disputed against so great an army with Homer for their leader? ‘

Then afterwards proceeding in his argument he further says: [3]

‘One must come then to closer quarters, as the argument in defence of Protagoras enjoined, and by sounding this floating essence observe whether it gives a true or a false note. At all events there has been no small conflict about it with no few disputants.

Far indeed from being small, it is making great advance in Ionia. For the disciples of Heracleitus take a very vigorous lead in this argument.

‘So much the more then, my dear Theodorus, are we bound to examine it, and that from its first principle, as they themselves suggest.

‘Yes, by all means: for in fact, Socrates, about these Heracleitean doctrines, or, as you call them, Homeric and still older, it is no more possible to argue with the men themselves at Ephesus who pretend to be experts than with men in a frenzy. For in absolute accordance with his writings they are always adrift, and as to dwelling upon an argument and a question, and quietly answering and asking in turn, they have less than no power at all; or rather the expression “not even nothing” is preferable in view of the absence of even the least quietness in the men. But if you ask any of them a question, they pull out as from a quiver dark little phrases which they shoot off at you, and if you try to get an explanation of what this means, you will presently be struck with another new-fangled phrase, and will never come to any conclusion at all with any of them, no, nor yet they themselves with one another; but they watch most carefully not to allow anything to be settled either in argument, or in their own souls, thinking, I suppose, that it would be something stationary; and with that they are altogether at war, and drive it out everywhere to the utmost of their power.

‘Perhaps, Theodorus, you have seen the men fighting, but have never been in their company when at peace; for they are no friends of yours. But, I suppose, they explain doctrines of this peaceful kind at leisure to their disciples, whomsoever they wish to make like themselves.

‘Disciples, my good Sir! Such people do not become disciples one of another, but they grow up of themselves, inspired each of them from any chance source, and the one thinking that the other knows nothing. From these men therefore, as I was going to say, you can never get a reason, either willingly or unwillingly; but we must take the matter over ourselves and examine it like a mathematical proposition.

‘Yes, you speak with discretion. As to the proposition then, have we not received it from the ancients, who concealed it from the multitude in poetry, that Oceanus and Tethys, the origin of all things, are flowing streams, and that nothing is at rest; and now from their successors, who in their superior wisdom openly declare it, in order that even their cobblers may hear and learn their wisdom, and may cease from foolishly supposing that some things are at rest and others in motion, and when they have learned that all are in motion, may honour them?

‘But I nearly forgot, Theodorus, that others set forth the opposite doctrine to this, namely,

“That only is unmoved, whose name is All,” [4]

and all other assertions which men like Melissus and Parmenides, in opposition to all these doctrines, stoutly maintain, that all is one and stands self-contained, having no place in which to move.

‘How then, my friend, are we to deal with all these? For going on little by little we have unconsciously fallen between both armies, and unless we can in some way defend ourselves and retreat, we shall pay the penalty, just like those who play across a line in the palaestra, when they are caught hold of by both sides and dragged in opposite directions.’

This is what Plato says in the Theaetetus.Passing next to the Sophist,he speaks again concerning the physical philosophers his predecessors as follows: [5]

‘It seems to me that Parmenides, and every one who has ever yet adventured upon a trial of determining the number and nature of things existent, have discoursed to us in an easy strain. How? Each seems to me to be relating a sort of fable to us, as if we were children. One says that existences are three, and some of them are sometimes warring in a manner with one another, and then becoming friends again they exhibit marriages, and births, and rearing of offspring: another says that they are two, moist and dry, or hot and cold, and he makes them dwell together and marries them. But all the Eleatic tribe in our part, beginning with Xenophanes and still earlier, assume that all things so-called are one, and so proceed with their fables. But certain Ionian and Sicilian Muses afterwards conceived that it is safer to combine both principles, and say that “being” is both many and one, and is held together by enmity and friendship. For it is ever separating and being united, as the more strong-minded Muses assert; but the weaker relax the perpetual continuance of these conditions, and say that in turn the universe is now one and friendly under the influence of Aphrodite, and then many and at war with itself through some discordance. But whether in all this any of them has spoken truly or not, it would be hard and offensive to find fault in such important matters with famous men of antiquity.’

Then after a few sentences he adds: [6]

‘Well then, though we have not discussed all those who give precise definitions about “being” and “not-being,” nevertheless let it suffice: and on the other hand let us look at those who speak otherwise, in order that we may see from them all that it is by no means easier to say what “being” is than what “not-being” is.

‘We must proceed then to consider these also.

‘Moreover it seems that among them there is, as it were, a kind of war of the Giants, through their disputing with one another about the nature of “being.”

‘How?

‘One side are for dragging all things down from heaven and from the invisible to earth, actually grasping rocks and oaks in their hands. For they lay hold of everything of this kind, and stoutly maintain, that “being” belongs only to that which admits some kind of contact and handling, defining body and “being” as the same, and should any one else say that a thing without body has “being,” they utterly despise him, and will not listen to anything else.

‘Truly they are terrible men that you speak of: for I too ere now have met with many of them.

‘For this reason those who dispute against them defend themselves very cautiously from some high place in an unseen world, contending that certain intelligible and incorporeal “forms” are the true “being.” But the corporeal atoms of the other side, and that which they call the truth, these shatter in pieces by their arguments, and call them a floating kind of “becoming,” instead of “being.” And between the two armies, O Theaetetus, there is always a mighty battle joined on these subjects.

‘True.’

So far, then, has Plato censured the physical philosophers who preceded him. And the kind of opinion which he himself was for introducing on the matters in question we have declared in the preceding Books, when we were showing his agreement with the Hebrew doctrines and with the teaching of Moses in regard to ‘Being.’

But come, let us examine in our argument Plato’s own successors also. It is said that Plato, haying established his School in the Academy, was the first called an Academic, and was the founder of the so-called Academic philosophy. And after Plato Speusippus, the son of Plato’s sister Potone, succeeded to the School, then Xenocrates, and afterwards Polemon.

And these, it is said, began from his own hearth at once to undo the teaching of Plato, distorting what had been clear to the master by introducing foreign doctrines, so that you might expect the power of those marvellous dialogues to be extinguished at no distant time, and the transmission of the doctrines to come to an end at once on the founder’s death: for a conflict and schism having hereupon begun from them, and never ceasing up to the present time, there are none who delight to emulate the doctrines which the Master loved, except perchance one or two in all our lifetime, or some others very few in number, and themselves not altogether free from false sophistry; since even the earlier successors of Plato have been blamed for such tendencies.

Polemon’s successor, it is said, was Arcesilaus, and report says that he forsook the doctrines of Plato, and established a sort of alien and, as it is called, second Academy. Forhe declared that we ought to suspend judgement about all things, for all are incomprehensible, and the arguments on either side equal each other in force, also that the senses and reason in general are untrustworthy. He used, for instance, to praise this saying of Hesiod,

‘The gods have spread a veil o’er human thought.’ [7]

He used also to try to make some paradoxical novelties. After Arcesilaus, Carneades and Cleitomachus are said to have abandoned the opinion of their predecessors, and become the authors of a third Academy.[8] ‘And some add also a fourth, that of the followers of Philo and Charmides: while some reckon even a fifth, that of the disciples of Antiochus.’

Such were the successors of Plato himself: and as to their character take and read the statements of Numenius the Pythagorean, which he has set down in the first Book of his work entitled Of the revolt of the Academics against Plato,to the following effect. [9]