The Late Learners and the new ‘one and many’ problem

The Late Learners passage is the passage that starts at 251a5. As we have seen in Chapter III, at this point in the dialogue the Stranger has arrived at the claim that Being is as mysterious as Not-Being, but that there is hope that if the one appears more clearly to us, so will the other. The passage that immediately follows is puzzling. Without further introduction, the Stranger raises the following question: How can one explain that we call one and the same thing by many names?252 _{This problem apparently arises because some}

people, the so-called Late Learners, reject the common use of calling the same thing by many names — for instance, a man is said to be good, tall and so on — and declare instead that a man is not to be called by any other name than ‘man’, and good by ‘good’. Several interpretations have been given to explain what their problem consists in.253 _{In what}

follows, I shall follow Harte once again, and argue with her that what underlies the Late Learners’ objection about naming is a problem about composition.254

252.Soph. 251a5-6: Λέγωµεν δὴ καθ' ὅντινά ποτε τρόπον πολλοῖς ὀνόµασι ταὐτὸν τοῦτο ἑκάστοτε προσαγορεύοµεν.

253.For an overview of the different interpretations, see Crivelli (2012), pp. 105-108.

254.Harte (2002), pp. 139-144. Harte, however, does not focus on the problem itself, but quickly moves to the first part of the Stranger’s answer that follows, that is, the argument for the claim that some kinds have the capacity to combine with one another whereas some do not.

When pressed by the Stranger, the rationale that the Late Learners give for their attitude is that it is impossible for the many to be one and for the one to be many.255_As

Harte immediately observes, the problem is a familiar one; it is a problem that is usually associated with the Eleatics, and which we have encountered in Chapter III.256 _{For the}

record, the Eleatics hold the view that parts pluralise, that is, that what has parts is not only one, in virtue of being the whole that it is, but also many, in virtue of having many parts, hence the puzzle that the same thing is both one and many. As we have seen in the previous chapter, this is due to the Eleatics’ view that composition is identity. As a result, it is not simply that the whole ‘has’ many parts, but to them, the whole ‘is’ its many parts, hence the consequence that the same thing is both one and many. However, we know that at 250a-251a, the Stranger precisely breaks with the Eleatics’ view by denying that the whole is the mere sum of its parts, and by asserting instead that the whole is a thing over and above its parts. How is it, then, that this one-and-many problem comes again through the back door?257

Perhaps a more fruitful way of setting out the issue is to ask: What, in what has been established by the Stranger at 250a-251a concerning the relation among Being, Kinêsis and Stasis, is liable to the one-and-many problem ?258 _{The Stranger, as we have}

seen, denies that Being is the same as either Kinêsis or Stasis, or that Being is the same as Kinêsis and Stasis taken together, but he has asserted instead that Being is a third kind on top of the other two.259 _{He has spent quite a lot of energy showing that none of the three}

kinds is reducible to the other, and that they must be counted as three in total. Consequently, the problem cannot come from there. But, at the same time, while stressing the separation between the three kinds, and especially, the separation of Being from Kinêsis and Stasis, the Stranger has also underlined the strong connection among them. In particular, despite the fact that Being, Kinêsis and Stasis are three distinct kinds, it is also the case that Kinêsis and Stasis ‘are’, they have being. Furthermore, as we have seen, 255.Soph. 251b6-8: εὐθὺςγὰρἀντιλαβέσθαι [...] ἀδύνατοντάτεπολλὰἓνκαὶτὸἓνπολλὰεἶναι [...]. 256.Harte (2002), p. 141.

257.About the transition between the previous passage and the Late Learners’ passage, Rowe’s translation is here very helpful, for he translatesταὐτὸν τοῦτοby ‘this very same thing’, which, he says, is precisely ‘“what is” (or being), which is still the main topic’. Rowe (2015), n. 84 p. 150.

258.Note that from this point, my interpretation of the Late Learners departs from Harte’s; for Harte does not think that the relation among Being, Kinêsis and Stasis is the relation of a whole that stands over and above its parts.

Kinêsis and Stasis are part of the definition of Being. This sounds like a more promising start for the Late Learners’ one-and-many problem. Indeed, despite each of the three kinds being distinct from the others, they nevertheless form a single nature. First, Kinêsis is not only ‘kinêsis’ but also ‘is’, in virtue of being a part of Being, and likewise, Stasis is not only ‘stasis’ but also ‘is’.260_{Second, we have seen in Chapter II that Kinêsis and Stasis are}

part of the logos of Being, in the sense that each being is either an akineton or a

kinoumenon. Seen in that way, this now sounds very similar to the Late Learners’ problem: talking about Being, we are talking about a single nature which is made of many.261

On Plato’s view about composition, then, the one-and-many problem takes a new form, which is different from that which we encountered in relation to the Eleatics. It is no longer the case that the one-many problem arises because one tries to identify a unity with a multiplicity, but because one positively asserts that there are such things as manyfold natures, that is, things which are one but consist of many. On this point, observe that in the Late Learners passage, the Stranger stresses that the problem is about attributing many names to something which is one.262_{This means that their motive for rejecting that a man}

is called by any name other than ‘man’ is not that they take ‘a man is good’ to entail that ‘man’ is identical to ‘good’. This reading would imply that the view that composition is identity is still on the table, but I have just argued that it is not.263_{Rather, their problem is}

that by saying that ‘a man is good’, one is attributing to the same thing several natures: the nature of man and that of the nature of good. Hence ‘man’ is not just one, but also many. This interpretation of the Late Learners’ problem actually meets the essential predication interpretation.264 _{According to this interpretation, the Late Learners believe that a name}

260.Kinêsis and Stasis are said ‘to be’ as early as 250a11-12.

261.There is a question, in the literature, as to whether the Late Learners would only accept utterances of the form ‘man man’, in which case they could not even form statements, or whether they would also accept formulations like ‘a man is a man’, that is, with the copula. As critics have rightly observed, the Greek is not very helpful on this point, for it is hard to guess whether at 251b8-c2 the verb einaiis voluntarily avoided or whether it is simply omitted, as is allowed in Greek. Given that, in the Sophist, Plato has identified Being as a distinct, further kind, then it is likely that sentences like ‘a man is a man’ involves two Forms, not just one. However, this is another question whether the Late Learners themselves have realised that, which I shall keep clear of. For a defence of the view that the Late Learners do accept statements, see Brown (2008) p. 442 ff. For a defence of the opposite view, see Moravcsik (1962), pp. 58-59.

262.Soph. 251b2.

263.On the basis of the analysis of the problem in terms of composition, I am thus denying that the Late Learners’ problem is to have confused identity with predication.

264.See Crivelli (2012), pp. 107-108. The ‘essentialist predication’ interpretation is the interpretation that Crivelli himself supports.

reflects the things’ own nature. As a result, if something is called ‘man’, it is because its nature is that of a man. On this view, a problem arises each time one and the same thing is called by many names, because this amounts to attributing more than one nature to one and the same thing.

Consequently, the Late Learners’ problem is also a problem about composition, but a different one, a problem that arises from the claim that a whole is a unity over and above its parts. Their reaction to this problem is radical: they simply forbid that ‘man’ is called by any other name than ‘man’. In other words, they bypass the problem by denying that there is anything like a composite object. Of course, as the Stranger is quick to point out, their position raises even more problematic consequences. In response to them, the Stranger undertakes to show not only that there are composite objects, but also that this view of composition is not problematic. Let us now turn to that response.