The argument for the claim that composition is restricted

The next passage is the first of a series of arguments which take us up to the end of 259. It is here that the Stranger first introduces the ‘communion of kinds’, that is, the claim that some kinds combine with one another whereas some do not. This conclusion is reached after having examined three options: (i) nothing has the power to combine with anything; (ii) everything is capable of combining with everything; (iii) some things have the capacity to combine with other things whereas some do not. Although the outcome of the argument is clear — there is no doubt that the Stranger adopts (iii) — it is not clear how, and how successfully, this conclusion is reached. In particular, many critics have found the argument against (ii) problematic.265_{In what follows, I shall argue that this passage is no}

longer problematic as soon as one understands that the three options on the table are three options dealing with composition, thereby confirming our analysis of the Late Learners’ problem as a problem about composition.266_{In this way, I am once more following Harte’s}

reading.267_{According to Harte, (i) corresponds to the denial of composition; (ii) to the view}

that composition is unrestricted, that is, to the view that given any two things, there exists a

265.See for instance Crivelli (2012), p. 115.

266.Note that Moravcisk (1992) has anticipated this solution. P. 180, he writes: ‘If we interpret the two kinds blending as the claim that the Forms Motion and Rest partake of each other, then the conclusion is a non sequitur. But if we interpret it mereologically then the conclusion follows.’

composite of those things; (iii) to the view that composition is restricted, that is, that only some things are related to one another as wholes and parts.268 _{Harte does not, however,}

explain how the argument works. I shall consider this presently.

The crux of the passage is to understand that behind (i)-(iii) there are actually the three views about composition encountered earlier, namely: what leads to (i) is the denial of composition; what leads to (ii) is the view that composition is identity, that is, the view that the whole is the mere sum of its parts; and finally, what leads to (iii) is the view that the whole is a unity over and above its parts, that is, the view that denies that composition is identity. With this in mind, let us start with (i). (i) corresponds to the second option about composition in the Hot and Cold passage, and to the first option at 250a-251a. In both cases, the Stranger wants to know what is meant by Being. Since we are considering the view that there is no such thing as composition, only two options remain: either Being is one and the same thing as the Hot/Cold—Kinêsis/Stasis, or it is something distinct and unrelated. As is clear from these passages, the view that Being is the same as the Hot/ Cold—Kinêsis/Stasis is rejected: the supporters of the Hot and the Cold reject it because it is incompatible with dualism; later, the Stranger and Theaetetus reject it because Kinêsis and Stasis are opposites. Now, what if the second solution were chosen, namely, what if Being and the Hot/Cold or Kinêsis/Stasis were not the same, but distinct? Then we would have precisely what is described in the first hypothesis of the communion of kinds, namely: nothing would have a share in Being, for, again, there is no composite object, everything is either the same or is utterly distinct and unrelated.269_{The Stranger vigorously}

attacks the absurd consequences of this view, and points out that none of the thinkers previously mentioned, be they the Giants, the Friends of the Forms or even the thinkers examined at 242, could endorse it.

Turning to (ii), let us see how this is related to the view that composition is identity, and how this helps to understand this passage. In brief, the argument runs as follows:

P1: everything has the capacity (dunamis) to combine with everything P2: if (P1), it follows that Kinêsis rests and Stasis changes

P3: it is impossible for Kinêsis to rest and for Stasis to change C1: P1 is false.

268.I shall come back to what options (i)-(iii) mean in what follows. 269.See Soph. 251e9.

The argument raises two problems: a major one, which has troubled most critics, and a second one which has been noticed by some scholars only.270_{The major problem concerns}

(P3): there seems to be at least one respect in which Kinêsis does rest, namely,qua being an intelligible entity. Hence, (P3) should be qualified. But if (P3) does not hold, then (C1) does not follow. The second problem is about the move from (P1) to (P2). As it is articulated, (P1) is a modal claim: it establishes the capacity (dunamis) of everything to combine with everything. From (P1), the Stranger derives (P2), namely: if everything has the capacity to combine with everything, then it follows that Kinêsis and Stasis combine with one another, and hence, it follows that Kinêsis rests and Stasis changes. However, this move is not obvious, for it does not directly follow from the claim that everything can

combine with everything that everything actually does combine with everything. As a result, it seems that the Stranger could perfectly well hold that, on the one hand, everything has the capacity to combine with everything, including Kinêsis and Stasis, and on the other hand, maintain that despite Kinêsis and Stasis having this capacity, they are, nevertheless, among the things that do not exercise this capacity in relation to one another and do not combine. On this reading, (P2) and the rest of the argument do not necessarily follow from (P1). From the text however, it is clear that the Stranger does not consider this possibility, and that he assumes that anything having the capacity to combine also does combine.

The interpretation I shall now suggest offers a solution to both problems. Let us first rephrase (P1) in the following way, so that it captures the relation of composition: that everything has the power to combine with everything means that everything can be related to everything as a part to a whole or as a whole to a part. In other words, (P1) amounts to the view that composition is unrestricted, that is, it amounts to the view that anything can be related to anything as a part to a whole or as a whole to a part. That composition is unrestricted is linked to the view that composition is identity in the following way: if composition is identity, then composition is unrestricted.271_{Let us explain that. Within the}

context of the dialogue, the view that composition is identity corresponds to the third option examined both in the Hot and Cold passage and at 250a-251a. It is introduced along with the question whether Being is the same as the couple Hot/Cold or as the couple Kinêsis/Stasis. The view that composition is identity has two consequences. First, it entails

270.For the second problem, see Harte (2002), n. 42. p. 143. 271.See Harte (2002), p. 138 ff.

that composition is ontologically innocent, that is, that the whole is nothing over and above its parts but is entirely reducible to them. Consequently, regardless of whether composition takes place between somexs or not, it does not affect the number of existing entities in the world, for it makes no difference whether there exists a fusion of thosexs or not, there will only bexs, and not xs+the whole. But this view has a second consequence, which directly follows from the first one. If composition is identity, then there can be a composite object formed from anything, for the commitment to the whole involves no further commitment than the already accepted commitment to the existence of the parts.272 _{This is a}

consequence that is well-known in contemporary mereology. To quote Cotnoir, for instance: ‘whenever there are some things, there exist a fusion of them’. Even the most improbable fusion, like a trout-turkey, exists, for under the view that composition is identity, nothing further than a commitment to the existence of the parts is needed to grant the existence of a whole composed of them. This is because the whole is nothing over and above the parts, but is just the parts.273 _{To put it differently, under the view that}

composition is identity, ifxandyexist, it is redundant to say that there exists a fusion ofx

and y.274

Consequently, on the view that composition is identity, once it is granted that there are such things as Kinêsis and Stasis, then it follows that there exists a whole whose parts are Kinêsis and Stasis, for this does not require any further commitment than the initial commitment to the existence of Kinêsis and Stasis. As a result, by acknowledging that Kinêsis and Stasis are, we thereby commit ourselves to there being a whole formed of Kinêsis and Stasis. We thus have here the answer to the second problem we mentioned earlier, namely: on the view that composition is identity, the move from ‘everything has the capacity to combine’ to ‘everything does actually combine’ is licensed, and hence the move from ‘Kinêsis and Stasis can combine with everything’ to ‘necessarily Kinêsis and Stasis combine with one another’ is licensed. Now, we must consider why it is not possible that Kinêsis and Stasis combine with one another. The reason is the same as the one given at 250c4-5, discussed in Chapter III. Here the Stranger denies that Being is a whole that is identical to its parts, Kinêsis and Stasis, because there cannot be a whole composed of

272.See also Lewis (1986), p. 34: ‘when we believe in the parts it is no extra burden to believe in the whole’. 273.The trout-turkey is one of Harte's (2002) favourite examples.

274.Cotnoir, in Cotnoir&Baxter (2014), p. 7: ‘whenever there are some things, there is a whole composed of them’.

opposites, like Kinêsis and Stasis. Indeed, consider what would happen, under the view that composition is identity, if there were a whole that was the same as its parts, Kinêsis and Stasis. Since they are opposites, nothing can be the same as both Kinêsis and Stasis, it is either the one or the other. In other words, such a whole would be either the same as Kinêsis or the same as Stasis, but it could not be the sum of the two. In one case, where Being is the same as Kinêsis, it would thus entail that Kinêsis is related to Stasis as a whole to its parts, and in the other case, where Being is the same as Stasis, it would entail that Stasis is related to Kinêsis as a whole to its parts. But remember that the whole is identical to its parts. As a result, if Kinêsis was the whole and Stasis a part of it, it would entail that Kinêsis is the same as Stasis, and thus that Kinêsis rests, and in the other case, it would entail that Stasis is the same as Kinêsis, and hence changes. Neither of these consequences is acceptable, and the hypothesis is dismissed. We thereby have our solution to the first problem.

The last two options remain to be considered: composition is not identity and composition is restricted. We have an example of two kinds which are not related as parts and whole, namely Kinêsis and Stasis. But we also have examples of kinds which are so related: Being is related to Kinêsis and Stasis as a whole to its parts.