Lewis-Did Plato Discover the Estin of Identity

Did Plato Discover the "Estin" of Identity?Author(s): Frank A. LewisSource: California Studies in Classical Antiquity, Vol. 8 (1975), pp. 113-143Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25010686Accessed: 20/05/2009 20:53

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toCalifornia Studies in Classical Antiquity.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25010686?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal

FRANK A. LEWIS

Did Plato Discover the Estin of Identity?*

SUMMARY

(I) The notion of an is of identity in English. Some passages from Plato suggesting the existence of the comparable notion of a special estin of identity in Greek. (II) What in particular would lead Plato to

recognize such a special sense of estin? Forms, participation, and

predication. In the account of ordinary singular predications, a

predicate Y' is true of a subject X just in case X participates in the form the Y associated with Y'. (III) Self-participation. If nothing can participate in itself, then for any forms X and Y, X participates in Y and so is Y only if X is not Y. Even if self-participation is

allowed, still in the majority of cases a subject is not what it

participates in. The difficulty for all theories of predication which wish to explain how a thing can be something which it also is not.

(IV) The is of identity re-examined. Some fallacies which might support the notion, and some arguments against it. (V) Sophist 255e 11-256d10. Plato does not explicitly recognize an estin of iden

tity. Four competing, "equally best" accounts of the grammatical theory he may implicitly be invoking: (i) the estin of identity; (ii) relational terms; (iii) the definite article; (iv) the not of non

identity. (VI) Conclusion. The notion of a special estin of identity has little basis in Plato's text.

*This paper was written during tenure of a Study Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, hereby gratefully acknowledged. I am grateful also to Samuel D. Atkins for reading an earlier version, and to Gregory Vlastos for extensive com ments on the final draft, which have led to a number of improvements in the published

text.

114 Frank A. Lewis

I. TERMINOLOGY AND EXAMPLES

I begin with a commonplace of philosophical writing in English. The following sentences are held to contain different senses, or more cautiously, different uses, of the word is:

1 Arrowby is no more. 2 John is bald.

3 John is the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.

is in 1 is syntactically complete.1 i moreover marks out a distinct sense of the verb, to mean exists or is alive. In 2, by contrast, is is not syntactically complete, and it is difficult to say that the verb

has a distinct meaning of its own.2 Its function rather seems to be as a device of concatenation, connecting the word bald with its sub

ject, the name John. This "empty" role of is in 2 becomes more vivid when we reflect that, in some languages, 2 can be written as

4 bald (John),

where the device of bracketing (and in a fully logical language the difference in style between predicate-letters and variables replacing bald and John: Fx) renders the use of is superfluous.3 2 illustrates the use of copulative is. In 3, philosophers generally agree in

finding another substantive use of is, akin in this respect to its use to mean exists in i, and quite different from the merely copulative use illustrated in 2. This is the so-called is of identity. Thus is in 3, it is alleged, has the meaning is identical with and is not to be treated as

simply another use of the copula as illustrated in 2. It is the contrast between 2 and 3 that will interest us, and I shall say no more about the existential is of 1. The question immediately before us is: does

Greek make a distinction in uses of estin similar to that urged for is in English in discussing 2 and 3? Is there a distinction between

copulative estin and estin as identity-sign? Some examples from Plato suggest that the distinction can be

made out for Greek at least as plausibly as it can be made out for the uses of is in 2 and 3. In the Euthydemus, for example, the sophist Dionysodorus is questioning Socrates on his relation to his step father Chairedemus, who is natural father to Socrates' half-brother Patrocles. Socrates' own father was Sophroniscus. Well then,

Dionysodorus says, Chairedemus is other than a father. Other than

my father, Socrates adds. But after some manipulation, Dionyso dorus offers this conclusion:

Did Plato Discover the Estin of Identity? 115

5 Euthydemus 298a8-9 o Xae tiLos, . .. Epow i(V TrfrpOt, OVK av vraryp eif.'

Since he is other than (a) father, Chairedemus must not be (a) father.

Seen one way, 5 asserts only that Chairedemus is other than a certain father-that is, he is not Socrates' father, Sophroniscus. 5 is meant to say more, however, for it is intended to contradict the fact that Chairedemus is father of Patrocles. That is, 5 is taken to conclude that Chairedemus is no father at all.5 Commentators

generally say that Dionysodorus is following a common practice in Greek of converting a relative term into an absolute.6 Thus, is not Socrates'father is illicitly contracted to is not father, tout court.7 If this is right, there is room for further comment in terms of a distinction between copulative estin and the estin of identity. Taken one way, OVK av I7rrip er in 5 illustrates the estin of identity: Chairedemus is not-that is, is not identical with-Socrates' father,

Sophroniscus (Trar1p here is accompanied by a deleted relational

complement). But OVK &v trcrip ECq7 can also be taken to contain

simple copulative estin (where rarr)p has no modifier), so that

5 denies, contrary to historical fact, that Chairedemus is a father at all. 5 then equivocates on these two uses of estin.8

A natural source for further examples of an estin of identity is the discussion of identity belief, in particular, false identity belief, in the Theaetetus. I consider two passages, in the first of which the occurrence of an estin of identity must on any account be contro versial. Plato's topic is clearly identity and non-identity, yet the

grammar of identity is here peculiarly elusive. Socrates asks Theaete tus whether one can ever mistakenly believe that two distinct

properties-for example, beauty and ugliness-are identical. In the

Greek, Socrates puts the question thus:

6 Theaetetus 190b2-3

'AvaJU.uLviTo-Ko 87r eL 7rIT OTro' Ere T rrpo' (earov orL Travrw

la&Xhov T6 Tro KaXOv aUiTpov eartv, 'i r6 Ti&KOV S&Kaov.

What is the proper syntactical description of the contained sen

tence, T6 . .. KaXov aicrop6v eOTLrv, by which the belief being con sidered is expressed? The proper translation might be: beauty is

ugliness. The English here translates an estin of identity, while

awicp6v is regarded as a noun, but with deleted definite article.9 But there are other possibilities. We might equally well translate:

116 Frank A. Lewis

the beautiful is ugly; where the combination of article with neuter adjective, 7T ... KcaXov, is taken to name some single arbitrary stereotype associated with the property. Or we might translate, anything that is beautiful is ugly, where the definite article is taken as an implicit universal quantifier.'s These possibilities show that the

topic of a passage can be quite clearly that of identity, yet it can be

quite unclear whether or not the sentences in which identity is asserted contain an estin of identity. The syntactic criteria are in certain cases inadequate to decide the question. So in the present example, we cannot tell whether there has been a definite article deleted from the complement of the sentence, and there are

complicating ambiguities in how we regard the definite article attached to the subject-expression.

Other passages are free from such difficulties, and syntactic criteria for an estin of identity seem to be forthcoming straight forwardly. Theaetetus, for example, proposes that the possibility of false identity belief seems plausible in cases of misidentification at a distance. One instance of what he has in mind is this:

7 Theaetetus 191b3-5 ... oTn Evicrr' Ey yiLyvwCo'Kov YCOKpamT, 7r6ppO Ev 6S opov iiXXov

ov oV ytyvWyaK0), f7O7JV EvatVL DoKpa'r ov oiGa. ... that sometimes I, who know Socrates, imagine that another

whom I see at a distance and do not know is Socrates whom I know.

The use of the proper name in the complement here makes this a

fairly straightforward candidate for an estin of identity (cf. 192e8 ff., and the suppressed estin at 188b9-10)."

In another example at Parmenides 157b6, Plato starts from the

hypothesis that one (or the one) is, to ask: what then must be said of

everything else? He begins with a point which, apparently, shows the estin of identity in full use, and in a way that marks it off from

ordinary copulative estin:

8 Parmenides 157b8-c2 OVKOVV rITEPCewp iXXa Too Ev6o Earv, OWVE 6TO EV or, r&aXXa

o0 yap av a&XXa To0 evo rnv .... Otie ,v orrperac ye rorV

TdaracrL 7TO eVO9 T&XXa, XXd I.CETEXEL, 'Ir). Since they are other than the one, the others are not the one; for (otherwise they would not be other than the one....

Yet the others are not wholly destitute of the one, but partici pate in it in a way....


It might seem hard for Plato to write in this way if he were not clear that the estin in OVrE TO E rv OTn ra&Xa ("the others are not the

one," b9) is to be distinguished from ordinary copulative estin. If this distinction is not made, Plato could not easily go on to say that, nonetheless, the others do participate in the one "in a way." By the same token, it is apparently the lack of this same distinction that underlies the argument of the following Stephanus page:

9 Parmenides 158bl-4

OiKOVV ErEpa ovra tov Ev6Os uLEeEEL rd a LETeova Oarov....

Ta 8' TEpa 7To0 Iv6o 7roha 7Too av ET Li el yap /Lrj7E ev /U7yre Ev6O TrhXiEW ?er raaXa rov EVO, vo ove v Ev el.

Now things that participate in the one will be other than the one that they participate in.... And things other than the one will naturally be many; for if the things other than the one were neither one nor more than one, they would be nothing.

Plato here infers from the fact that things are other than the one, that they are not one, and from this that there is not one of them, but that they are many. This conclusion is directly traceable to a

faulty inference from the premise /,LTrE ev ... E'r7 ("they are not

one," b3); the fallacy appears to be that of the Euthydemus, and invites description as an equivocation on different uses of estin.

The star passage for the so-called estin of identity in Plato, however, remains that at Sophist 255e8-256d10. I cite here only an extract from the passage, reserving the greater portion of the text for later discussion below. The subject of Plato's remarks is the form

motion; he is discussing the relation of motion to another form Sameness or, to mirror Plato's Greek more closely, the same. Plato offers the following conundrum:

io Sophist 256a3-11 Avi'Ot 87 rraXih rj Kivrf10'tS TEPpov Tabrov ErCV..... Ov raTrOV

apa Erriv.... 'AXXkk& rv aOVr y' r7v ravrov 8&a TO .LETEXEtV aiv TrtavT' arov.... Triv KilV7rotv 8 TravrOv T' elvat Kaat d7

Tavrov 6,Uoho'y7rT'ov Kat ov 8voXEpavretvov.

And again, motion is different from the same.... So it is not the same.... Yet as we saw, motion is the same, since every thing participates in it [the same].... So we must agree without

carping that motion is the same and not the same....

Plato goes on to give his account of why these results are not self

contradictory; I shall discuss his explanation in detail below. It is sufficient to note here how readily the difficulties resolve them

118 Frank A. Lewis

selves, given the notion of an estin of identity: motion is (predi catively) the same as itself (rpOs eaavrv, bl), and motion is not (that is, is not identical with) the same-motion and sameness are two distinct forms.

II. FORMS AND PARTICIPATION

We have surveyed passages in Plato's Greek which the notion of an is of identity in English suggests we explain in terms of the analogous notion of an estin of identity in Greek. Before asking

whether, and in what sense, it is proper to attribute this notion to Plato himself, we should ask Plato's philosophical motivations in

directly confronting, as he does in the Sophist, the linguistic contexts which we have treated. His interest is not merely accidental. Nor is he motivated because he has occasionally stumbled in an argument for want of some such distinction. His interest is rooted in the central concerns of his metaphysics and philosophy of language. In the following two sections, I shall be concerned with developing this

background, beginning with the metaphysical theory. A passage in the Phaedo starts with the distinction between

forms and particulars. Plato distinguishes on the one hand each of the forms, and on the other, everything else that participates in them (rovirwo r&aha LeTaEXa,/3aitvovora) and that has their e7To vvwia-that is named after them. If then Simmias is taller than

Socrates, or shorter than Phaedo, we must say that there is tallness or shortness in Simmias. For this very reason, however, there is

something misleading about the sentence Simmias is taller (okvx & robs prj/.LacrL XE/yeTa o OViT Kai TO ai r190 EXEv). For it is not Sim

mias' nature to be taller. He is taller not by virtue of being Simmias, but in virtue of the tallness which he has (Phaedo 102a10-c9).

What is misleading about the statement that Simmias is tall? When we are asked what it means to say of Simmias that he is tall, we point not to Simmias, but to the tallness which he has. It is tallness that explains the meaning of the predicate tall; and if the

predicate is true of Simmias, it is so because tallness is in him. So we

say that Simmias is tall in virtue of tallness, not in virtue of himself, Simmias.

The passage from the Phaedo shows how the theory of forms can contribute to the account of predication. The theory assigns a form as the meaning of each predicate it treats, and tells us that a

predicate is true of its subject just in case that subject participates in the appropriate form. This same theory is at work also in the Par


menides. At Parmenides 143a4ff, Parmenides is engaged in a proof that if one is (more idiomatically in English, if the one exists), then there are at least three things. The proof is this. If the one is, then it

participates in being. But though the one participates in being, it is not being (At ovo'ia ro ev)-that is, the one and the being which it has are different. So there are at least two things. But the one is not different from being by virtue of the one (To ev), nor is being dif ferent from the one by virtue of the fact that it is being (rxc o-cria

eLvaL). Rather, each is different from the other by virtue of dif ference or the other (sc? EiepW TE KaL aX)Xy). The desired result follows: the different (ro e&Epov, b7) is a third entity alongside the one and being (143b6-7). The interest of this argument for present purposes is in its answer to the question, if A and B are different, what is it for them to be so? The use of the predicate different is to be explained by reference to the entity the different (76 erepov, b7), which is to be distinguished from both of the subjects, being and the one, of which the predicate different is here used.

The full-fledged theory for how the predicate different is to be

explained, however, is reserved for the Sophist. In the passage we are concerned with, Plato has picked out certain of the megista gene, the "greatest kinds," five in number: motion, rest, the same, the different, and being.12 His first concern has been to show that each of these five is a distinct form from all the others. The last whose difference from the others is established is the different itself. This final non-identity now provides the essential clue to uses of the

predicate different. The form the different pervades all the megista gene. Each of the megista gene, therefore, is different from its fellows not by virtue of its own nature, but because each partici pates in the different, which is distinct from each of them: ov 81la rrXv arroV troLv, daA a 8ad TO LereTXELv fL ea5 i rOF Oarepov

(255e5-6)13 The phrase 8La rrv aivrov 4vcrtv seems here a mere variant

for the phrases r-) X or To- X Elvwa of the Phaedo and the Par menides. In each case, there is at work a principle for identifying the entities in terms of which we explain the meaning of a

predicate-tall, or different. In each case, it happens that the

predicate is true of its subject, which then participates in the form which the predicate is taken to name. In each case we have con

sidered, finally, Plato emphasizes the non-identity of the subject and the form in which it participates. It is tempting to hold that this feature is wholly general-that, in the account of ordinary singular

120 Frank A. Lewis

predications of the kind we have considered so far ('Simmias is tall,' 'Motion is different from rest'), the entities in which a subject

participates must always be distinct from that subject itself. As we shall see, however, the existence of any case of non-identity between a subject and a form in which it participates introduces a difficulty which Plato must take in hand.

III. PARTICIPATION AND NON-IDENTITY

I turn first to the more general question: is it always the case that a

subject and a form in which it participates are non-identical? The

question of a ban on self-participation in Plato is to be distinguished sharply from the issue of self-predication, insofar as we understand the latter to be simply a question of the propriety of certain

sentence-forms, The A is (an) A. There are many sentences of this form to whose truth Plato is committed even after the critique of the

theory of forms in the first part of the Parmenides. The point will be

only that-whatever their correct semantic account-such sentences

may not be understood in terms of the standard notion of

participation. Any attempt to attribute to Plato a ban on self-participation,

however, must reckon first with a severe difficulty in methodology. Plato gives no properly explicit general statement of the required principle. What will suffice in its stead? It may be objected that a ban on self-participation is automatic for sentences with non-forms as

subjects, given the stipulation that the predicate of a sentence is to be construed as designating a form. The point that nothing partici pates in itself is here an immediate consequence of the ontological thesis of the gap set between forms and particulars. What then shows that when Plato turns to consider singular sentences with

forms as subjects, he is willing to maintain that in general a form is non-identical with its participants? The fact that we can find a number of cases where subject- and predicate-form are non-iden tical is a far cry from showing that these can be treated as genuine instances of a general principle that nothing can participate in itself.14

Nevertheless, there can be good evidence of a ban on self

participation. We are on firmer ground if such a principle is built into the structure of Plato's reasoning-if Plato treats as natural certain inferences which would be unintelligible without this princi ple to license them. Here is one example; as we shall see, the

passage is also instructive for other reasons:


11 Parmenides 158a3-6 (Plato is now speaking of each of the others than the one)

MeTeXOL 8E YE aiv ro evos6 SrXov 6rTt aiXo 'ov i) ev ov' yap av I.JETEZXEv, dXA' r)v av avro ev. VUv 8e EVi /.LEV elvat rrhxv avIrC) Tr Evi adSivarov 7rov.

[Each] will then participate in the one, being plainly other than

one; for (otherwise ) it would not participate in it, but would be one itself. But in fact nothing but the one itself can be one.

Plato's counterfactual in the second half of the first sentence, "if a thing were not other than one, then it would not participate in the

one," would be inexplicable dogma if it were not supported by a

general principle prohibiting the participation by a form in itself.15 The passage also introduces a difficulty that accompanies any

case of non-self-participation. The difficulty is apparent if we study, for example, Cornford's translation. Cornford smooths over an

important and difficult feature of Plato's Greek. He has been content in the main to translate Plato's rTO ev by the one, and Ev

without the definite article by simply one. This policy now changes. What participates in the one, Plato says, is clearly other than one:

8r7jov i'oL aiXXo ov '7 ev. Cornford translates: it will plainly be other than unity. Otherwise, Plato goes on, it will not participate in the

one, but will be one itself: &XX' q)v av aviro ev. Cornford: otherwise it would not have unity, but simply be unity itself. But in fact, Plato

concludes, only the one itself can be one: evit pELv etvaL ITX7v avrm

7Tr EVi adSvaT6v Trov. Cornford: whereas nothing but unity itself can be unity. What has moved Cornford is the disappearance at crucial points in the Greek (underlined in the text) of the definite article. If Cornford were to retain his translation the one for rTo

ev, he would be obliged to write just one where the Greek reports a

simple ev with the article omitted. Instead, Cornford opts in this

passage for the translation unity, which fits smoothly into the

English at all points without ever requiring a definite article. The choice of the translation unity, however, is no less question-begging than if Cornford had simply ignored the omissions of the article in the Greek and translated uniformly by the one. For strictly, the occurrences of Ev without the article should not be translated by the noun unity at all, but by the adjective unitary.16

Cornford's translation seeks to disguise an obvious difficulty. By the principle of non-self-participation, if something participates in the one, it is other than the one-it is not the one. That is to say,

122 Frank A. Lewis

the one does not participate in itself. Itjust is one, and nothing but it is one: evi Ju Ev Elvat 7IrXv aiOr& T) evti &&var6v rrov. Cornford

camouflages the effect of the Greek by switching to the translation

unity in 1 , so that Plato's omission of the definite article appears innocuous. Superficially, however, what Plato writes directly con flicts with the basic principle that whatever participates in the one is one.17

We now see that there is a difficulty attached to any case of

participation where participating form and form participated in are distinct. The fact that a thing participates in the one, for example, explains how it is one, yet-if we drop the definite article, as Plato does three times over in 1 i-requires that it is not one. The contro

versy over self-participation merely raises the question whether this

pattern is completely general for all cases of participation-whether it never fails that a participant form both is and is not the forms in

which it participates. The existence of any case of non-self-participation, however, is

sufficient to raise the question of a distinction between an estin of

identity and a copulative estin.18 The connection comes to the fore in the Sophist. Plato there has demonstrated the non-identity of the

different from the remaining four megista gene. In the case of these four forms, therefore, the different is distinct from the

subjects that participate in it, and Plato's contrast-'not in virtue of its own nature but by participating in the different' (255e5-6)-is entirely appropriate. Plato immediately goes on to explore further cases in which a participant form and the form in which it

participates are non-identical (255e8ff). Motion (and implicitly other megista gene) participates in a variety of forms with which it is not identical. The point that the different is distinct from certain (if not all) of its participants is now seen as a special case of the fact that

any form and certain (if not all) of its participants are non-identical. And the different is the very form in virtue of which these non identities are said to hold.

This, however, is to state the point shorn of the paradox that

appears to accompany it. For as Plato shows, these cases of non

identity commit us to saying that a subject can be any number of

things which it also is not. As one might say with the notion of the is of identity in mind, a subject is predicatively many things with

which it is not identical. Now Plato expressly undertakes to disarm the apparent paradox, in what generally is read as a statement of two different uses of estin. Is this reading of what Plato says correct?

Does Plato have the counterpart of our notion of the is of identity?


IV. THE WHOLE-PART AND RELATED FALLACIES; THE FALLACY OF TRANSLATION

I have tried to sketch the philosophical background against which the treatment of contexts of the form A is both B and not B becomes

of pressing importance to Plato. Granted that some treatment of such contexts is demanded, what shows it is a notion of an estin of identity that for Plato does the needed work? Before we look in Plato's text for an answer to this question, there are some theoretical issues concerning the cogency of the notion of an estin of identity

which must first be raised. The existence of an estin of identity in Greek seems intuitively compelling by analogy with the seeming naturalness of the comparable notion in English, the so-called is of identity, which appears in some sense pre-theoretical, and a non controversial datum of English grammar. Any reasoning along these lines, however, is in danger of committing one or more of a number

of fallacies. It is important to have these fallacies clearly before us, for if we are not on our guard against them we may be convinced that there is an estin of identity in Greek on grounds that make the notion wholly trivial.

The whole-part and relatedfallacies.-We may begin with a ques tion about English grammar. What is it for there to be an is of

identity in English? We have an intuitively clear idea of which the

identity sentences of English are. Thus, we can distinguish our sentences

2 John is bald

3 John is the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo,

on the grounds that only the latter is a statement of identity. What does our ability to discriminate these two sentences amount to? One

way of seeing that they are different is to study their latter halves. bald and the man who broke the bank function quite differently. the man who broke the bank is a singular term,19 and purports to name an individual (if 3 is true, it names John). But it is not ob vious that bald names anything at all, for it is not a singular term. And if we do decide that behind 2 there is to be found a Platonizing sentence

12 John participates in baldness,

where bald is now replaced by a bona fide singular term, we do not

expect to be told that what baldness names is, once again, John.20 Clearly the grounds for classifying 2 and 3 as different kinds

of sentences are strong. 3 is an identity sentence, and 2 is not.

124 Frank A. Lewis

There is then an entirely trivial sense in which anyone will agree to

recognizing an is of identity. An is of identity is any is that appears in a sentence like 3 (and outside such special contexts as is the same

as). What makes this declaration trivial is that it comes without any theory of the internal grammar of the sentences concerned. The

phrase "an is of identity" is here merely shorthand for "an occur rence of is in an identity-sentence," and we still have not been told

what grammatical features they are that make certain sentences but not others identity-sentences. To suppose notwithstanding that we have been given a substantive notion of an is of identity, as a piece of

theory about English grammar, would be to infer from a character ization of a whole sentence, for which one has possibly no internal

analysis, to conclusions about the sentence-parts that properly belong only in a theory of the internal grammar of the sentences of the language. A proper theory of English grammar, however, is not constructed by means of inferences of this sort. To suppose other wise is to commit what I call for short the whole-part fallacy.

Various other arguments again appear to confuse a trivial notion of an is of identity for a substantive one. For example, we have seen how very differently expressions like bald and the man who broke the bank perform. How is it that what appears to be one and the same context, John is . . ., can accept such very different

completions? It is implausible to say that the word John functions

differently in 2 and 3. The difference then must lie in the use of is in the two sentences. This argument overlooks the possibility that the difference lies, not in different uses of the contextJohn is ..., but in the different expressions that are put to completing it. If bald and the man who broke the bank function as differently as they do, why can this not be the only difference that makes 2 and 3 different kinds of sentence? To acknowledge the difference be tween bald and the man who broke the bank, yet still demand that we also recognize different uses of is in 2 and 3, runs the risk of a

fallacy analogous to the whole-part fallacy. In the whole-part fallacy, we infer from the fact that a whole sentence is taken to be an

identity sentence, that it must contain a special is of identity. In the present instance, we infer from the fact that the predicate of a sentence (in 3, the man who broke the bank) functions in a way dis tinctive of identity-sentences, that again the sentence contains a

special is of identity. There is again a wholly trivial sense in which we can happily recognize the existence of an is of identity: for by "an is of identity" we may mean here no more than "an occurrence


of is in a sentence whose predicate functions in a way distinctive of

identity-sentences." To suppose, however, that our argument has produced a substantive notion of an is of identity is in danger of

confusing once more a trivial notion for a substantive one. Notice that if such a theory is not trivial, it is in danger of

redundancy. Methodological economy suggests that we postulate the ambiguity of is only as a theory of last resort, when there are no other clear-cut features for distinguishing the identity sentences of English. If then criteria for the occurrence of an is of identity do come to light, let these be the features distinctive of an identity sentence, and the ambiguity theory can be dropped.

What remains in favor of a substantive theory of a special is of identity? One motivation is the urge for uniformity. What is distinctive to identity sentences should at least be some single feature that is common to them all. In fact, however, there is a

variety of distinguishing features for identity sentences: lexical,21

syntactic,22 and morphological.23 We cannot even preclude the

possibility that the characteristic feature is something that has been

deleted from the sentence: for example, a deleted definite article in

the predicate complement.24 The translationfallacy.-A further fallacy concerns the relations

between one language and another. Suppose that the is of identity is, after all, well-defined for English. What may we infer for the

sentences of Greek whose English translations contain such a use of

is? To suppose that we have been given a good test for a substantive

notion of an estin of identity in Greek is to commit what I call the

translation fallacy. It is to take presumed facts about the language into which one is translating for facts about the language being translated. We can and frequently-perhaps most often-do trans

late between languages without any true theory of grammar for the

language we are translating. Yet any translation scheme we adopt, however tacit or provisional, already embodies some theory of gram mar for the language being translated. To this extent, our transla

tions reveal what was already assumed in our translation scheme, and offer no independent evidence for the properties of the

language being treated. It is clearly possible, for example, on the

basis of the translations we make, to regiment Greek so as to fit the

preconceptions we have from English grammar. Our results, how

ever, will be true of Greek only by virtue of what we take to be true

of English. And if the credentials of an is of identity in English are themselves not altogether certain, we can say only that it is true

126 Frank A. Lewis

by virtue of a certain hypothesis about English-not even by virtue of firmly established facts about English-that there is an estin of

identity in Greek. So conceived, the notion will be entirely trivial. Not all inferences based on our translations between one

language whose properties are known and another whose proper ties are not need be fallacious. The attempt to make translations, and the testing of different translation schemes, can lead to better

knowledge of the language being studied. But the fact, if it were a

fact, that the is of identity is well-defined for English would not of itself guarantee the existence of a special estin of identity in Greek.

Equally, the fact that the identity-sign is well-defined and all its

properties known for certain logical languages does not of itself

guarantee that the notion of a special is of identity must appear in

any proper grammatical theory of English. It will be useful to consider one further example of the

translation fallacy. As we shall see below, Plato regards what I shall call a participation language as the vehicle of the most philosophical illumination, in which the philosophical commitments of one's

language are most clearly exhibited, and which is free of the

ambiguities and other eccentricities of ordinary Greek. In the

participation language, identity and non-identity are expressed unequivocally by the idioms metechei tautou and metechei thaterou. Sentences in participation language containing these expressions may be translated into sentences of ordinary Greek in which the verb estin appears. We will be guilty of the translation fallacy, however, if, on the grounds of these translations alone, we call such occurrences of estin an estin of identity. For nothing has yet been said about the translation scheme which underlies the translations

we have made. In particular, nothing shows we must choose a translation scheme which recognizes different senses of estin. The fact that the grammar of identity sentences in participation lan

guage is fully known of itself has no consequences for our theory of

ordinary Greek.

Arguments against the is of identity.-I have indicated a number of fallacies which might lead one to suppose that English does admit the notion of a special is of identity. This is not yet to show that the notion itself is mistaken. Nevertheless, there are good grounds for

supposing that the notion of a special is of identity has no proper place in the account of English. It is implausible, as we have seen

(p. 125 supra), that the is of identity is the sole feature distinctive of

identity sentences. Suppose, therefore, that in general the is of


identity co-occurs with other features that mark the assertion or denial of identity. Then where other markers for (non-) identity also occur, it is gratuitous to suppose that is is ambiguous into the

bargain. To claim, however, that is is ambiguous where no other markers for identity appear raises two questions. First, if is has a special sense for identity once, it should have it always at

appropriate occurrences in any identity sentence. Thus for the sake of a small class of cases in which other markers for identity are

lacking, we are asked to reserve a special sense for is at appropriate occurrences in every identity sentence in the language. Why not rather say that-in some few, exceptional cases-the whole sentence is ambiguous, and that the syntactic criteria for identity have failed?

The notion of a special is of identity, secondly, seemed appropriate, if at all, in cases where other markers for identity or non-identity are lacking. But the number of such cases may be smaller than

imagined. It is often a fact about the world, and not a fact about the

grammar of a sentence, that it asserts or denies an identity (cf. n. 24).

v. SOPHIST 255e8-256dio I turn now to the passage at Sophist 255e8ff in which Plato is said to undertake the disambiguation of the Greek word estin. In this pas sage, Plato discusses the relation of a single form, motion, to each in turn of the four remaining megista gene-those "greatest kinds" he has singled out for special notice at 254c3ff. I give only the bare bones of the passage; the numerals indicate those sentences I extract and translate for purposes of further discussion below.

13-27 Sophist 255e11-256d10 (Motion and rest) ... KivrloqL, s~ Esorr rTavaTrralTaCv erepov

oardoreo [13] ... 0 oird raS ap' Erriv [14] ...

'leEa 6& ye [15] 8id TO6 treXeLV Tv ov6rTo [16]

(Motion and the same) ... ir KivllrQ) eprEpov Taro EIr v [17] ...

O) ravrov apa roniv [18] 'AXXd ui7rv oairr y' 'jv Travrov [19] 8ta r6 To eEiXetL ai 7Trdr'

AtTO0 [20].... Triv KiVIcrLV 6r7 Tar6ov T elvaL KaL FL7 TaTvr6v [19, 18] oAo

Xoyr-4Tov KaL or 6v(XepavTEov. ov yadp oTav erWJev avrrTv

Tavrov Kal fiL7) rTa'ov, 61iO0ow eip7rKat.LEV, dA' 6o6rav i.Lv

128 Frank A. Lewis

'rar6ov, 6ta rqv ,L0e~eLv Taitrov Trpos eavrnv [21] ovirco Xyouev, orav 8e gJr raVr6v, 8La rqfv KOLVwOiaV ai Oarripov [22], 8L' Xv

adro~wp1o/LEV7) TOVrOt yEyovev OVK iKEIVO dXX' ET?OV, wOrE a&ioXopLoxevvr 7 ral, vroOv yeyovev OOK KEVO &X' ,repov, HG'e

op6Os aoi XeyeratL TrakL ov ravrov . . .

(Motion and the other) ri Kiv7)i"5 EOTLV Erepov ro0 erepov [23], KaOaTrep TavTroiv TE Iv aXXo Kai r orrdarewo . ..

OvX eTepov ap' erTi 7Tr) KaL Tepov [24, 25] Kara TOr wvi6 Xoyov. (Motion and being) ... rr)v Kiv7OrLv ETpov eiva TOf iivros [26] ... ... *7 Kiv7)CrtL OvTwr OVK OV EcTL Kai Ov [27, 28], Treif7rp roV)

ovTros IeETXEL [29] (Motion and rest)

13 Motion is other than rest

14 Motion is not rest

15 Motion is 16 Motion participates in being (Motion and the same) 17 Motion is other than the same 18 Motion is not the same

19 Motion is the same 20 Everything participates in the same 21 Motion participates in the same with respect to itself 22 Motion participates in the other (with respect to the same) (Motion and the other) 23 Motion is other than the other

24 Motion is not other

25 Motion is other

(Motion and being) 26 Motion is other than [the] being 27 Motion is not being 28 Motion is being 29 Motion participates in being

In this passage, Plato confronts a series of pairs of sentences,

14 and 15,25 18 and 19, 24 and 25, and 27 and 28, wishing to say that both members of each pair are true. To show that both can be true, he uses the method of paraphrase. His most extensive discussion concerns sentences 18 and 19. Thus, the non-puzzling sentence

17 Motion is other than the same

leads directly26 to the puzzling sentence


18 Motion is not the same.

18 is conjoined with the sentence

19 Motion is the same;

18 and 19 may both be called puzzling in honor of this puzzling conjunction. The two puzzling sentences are then treated by trans lation into participation language: respectively,

22 Motion participates in the other (with respect to the same),

and

21 Motion participates in the same with respect to itself.

Plato's procedure here is to state first a non-puzzling original, 17, from which he derives the puzzling sentence 18. 19 too is under

written when it is first introduced by the general explanation 20 that everything participates in the same. The language of partici pation is of special use to Plato as the last court of appeal in settling the consistency or otherwise of the target sentences 18 and 19: hence the importance of the participation sentences 21 and 22. Even where the special participation language is not invoked, however, Plato uses the same method of paraphrase in terms of

equivalent but non-puzzling sentences, to show that his target sentences also, despite first appearances, are harmless.

Plato thus attempts in general to show that the puzzling sentences that make up each pair of puzzling sentences are each derived, in a

relatively law-abiding way, from originals which do not give rise to contradiction. If Plato can show this, his own purposes are achieved. But there is also the hope that we can gain some insight into the manner in which these various derivations are carried out-the

theory of grammar which underlies them. Clearly, if the derivations are at all principled-as they must be, if Plato's strategy of display ing equivalent, but non-puzzling, originals is to be at all convinc

ing-such hopes are not unreasonable. Before we evaluate these hopes, however, we must distinguish

two different forms of the view that Plato adopts a notion of an estin of identity. The stronger view is that Plato actually tells us that it is a distinction in uses of estin which underlies his various

derivations, so that the results of the derivations do not, despite appearances, contradict one another. Plato makes no such explicit statement. There remains the weaker thesis, that only a theory of different uses of estin in fact explains the way Plato's derivations are

130 Frank A. Lewis

carried out, or in fact explains why there is no contradiction in the results. We shall be concerned with only this weaker thesis, in which Plato's practice is taken as the evidence for his theory.

My argument will be that the attribution to Plato of a theory of different uses of estin is under-determined by the evidence, which is

compatible with a number of different, and competing, accounts of

why the derivations in the text proceed as they do, and of why the results 18 and 19, 24 and 25, and 27 and 28, do not form incon sistent sets of statements. The weaker thesis that Plato discovered but did not explicitly introduce the notion of an estin of identity is refuted if we can show that the theory of an estin of identity is only one among a number of competing, equally best, accounts of the

grammatical theory Plato might implicitly be invoking in the pas sage at hand.

i. The estin ofidentity.-I begin with the view that Plato's treatment of the puzzling sentences in our passage must presuppose the notion of an estin of identity. On this view, Plato derives the puzzling sentence 18 from its original 17 by rewriting is other than by is not. 18 in turn goes into the participation sentence 22 by replacing is not

by participates in the other (than). These derivations clearly isolate the words is not in the target sentence 18. The puzzling sentence 19, meanwhile, is transformed into the participation sentence 21 sim

ply by treating is, which is rewritten by participates in (this move was already prepared for when 19 was first introduced in company with the general explanation 20 that everything participates in the

same). The treatment of estin in the two puzzling sentences 18 and 19 is then markedly different. The participation version metechei thaterou for is not in 18 shows that estin here is to be regarded as the sign for identity, in contrast to the use in 19, which is

paraphrased by simple metechei. 18 and 19 differ apparently only by the addition in 18 of the word not; but since they contain dif ferent uses of estin, the two sentences do not conflict. The partici pation language of 21 and 22 settles once for all the vagaries of natural language. The vagaries here are not so very great-a simple distinction in uses of estin settles the present difficulty. Participation language, however, has the virtue that it removes the

ambiguous expression entirely from the language. The same story shows why 24 and 25, and 27 and 28, do not

conflict, although Plato generally omits translation into participa tion language now that the general point is established.27

ii. Relational terms.-Here now is a different account of Plato's


diagnosis of the ills of natural language which recourse to the

participation language can cure. On this view, Plato takes up the familiar problem of relational terms. His argument exploits the fact that is the same in 19 is a contracted form, and represents an original is the same as itself, which is not given in the text. is other than the same in 17, meanwhile, is rewritten as is not the same in 18 in order to produce the apparent conflict with 19.28 The conflict is resolved

with the expansion of 19 in participation language as 21: partici pates in the same with respect to itself. No attention is given in this account to possible variations in the use of estin. In the participation language versions of the two puzzling sentences, restoration of the relational complements is sufficient to remove any suggestion of contradiction.29

This relational analysis can, in part, be extended to the remain

ing cases. The qualification is due to the fact that now the two

puzzling sentences are derived not from different sentences, but from one and the same original. Thus in each case only one

puzzling sentence can be derived by deletion of the relational

complement, and the other must be derived by different means. In

23, Motion is other than the other, the word other appears twice, once relationally-is other than-in the nominative case, and once non

relationally, with the addition of the definite article and in the

genitive case, acting as the complement of the relational expression is other than. 25 comes from 23 by deleting the relational comple

ment: thus is other than the other is contracted to simply is other.

24 is derived by rewriting is other than in 23 by simple is not, by changing the case of the relational complement other, and deleting the definite article. The result is that other in 24, which represents an original relational complement in 23, now has the syntax of the relational nominal other (than) in 23 and 25. Again, however, display of the original, 23, in which both the relational nominal other and its relational complement (than) the other are explicitly set forth, resolves the conflict between the two derived sentences.

Friends of the is of identity may object that the conjunction of

24 and 25 is unintelligible unless we recognize that is changes its role in the two sentences from copula to identity-sign. Plato too, therefore, must recognize a special estin of identity if he is to be able to distinguish 24 from the genuine contradictory of 25. There is no evidence in the text that Plato would concede this point. We may or

may not find the notion of a special is of identity intuitively com

pelling; but nothing in the text shows that Plato relies on such a

132 Frank A. Lewis

notion. On the contrary, the elegance of his position may be just that, so far from contradicting one another, 24 and 25 are both derived by different means from one and the same original, 23, which no one finds puzzling.

A relational argument may also underlie the derivation of 28 from 26. Thus, we delete other than being in 26, and rewrite is by the nominal predicate, is (a) being (the indefinite article seems

mandatory in English). The nominalization, being, may retain the relational character of the form is from which it is derived. is in 26 is completed syntactically by other than being; the same comple

ment is implicit in the derived sentence 28.30 It follows again that the two derived sentences 27 and 28 are not in conflict, despite their surface syntax, since both are derived by different means from a

single original, 26.31 The relational treatment of is, and of its nominalization, being,

may seem somewhat strained. It has some plausibility, however, in

light of the feeling often expressed in the secondary literature that possibly all uses of is in Greek are incomplete either syntactically (so that is is a truncated form of is F for some F), or semantically (where is has the meaning: is F, for some F).32 The derivation of 28 from

26 requires only that this feature of is be transferred to the nominali

zation, being. Nevertheless, some considerations weigh against the relational

reconstruction of Plato's derivations. If such an analysis were right, Plato could not offer a general solution to the problem of how a

subject can participate in something which it is not, but pursues instead a rather contrived puzzle connected with relational terms.

The remark at 255e4-6, therefore, that the different is itself different from various forms that participate in it, introduces the

problems of how a subject can participate in-not any form but

only-those relational forms which it is not. There would moreover be little point to the remark towards the close of Plato's discussion, that there are many things which a subject is, but innumerably

many which it is not (256e5-6): "innumerably many" presumably includes all forms which a subject is not, not merely the relational ones. External considerations then go against a relational recon struction. On strictly internal grounds, however, such a reconstruc tion is as capable as any other of explaining Plato's treatment of the

puzzling sentences in the text. iii. The definite article.-Here is a further, competing attempt to

identify the grammatical eccentricities which in Plato's view a


proper participation language will eliminate. Plato's treatment in this account is addressed to difficulties in the use of the definite article in ordinary Greek. Take the sentence 23, Motion is other than the other. Sentence 24, Motion is not other, is obtained from 23, as

before, by rewriting is other than by is not, and by deleting the definite article from the other, and changing the genitive to a nominative.

(The second target sentence, 25, Motion is other, is reached by dele tion of the relational complement in 23.)

It is the treatment of the definite article that should most

occupy our attention here. 23 and 24 are both used to deny the

identity of two items. This interpretation of 23 is unproblematic, since 23 contains the lexical item other (than). In 24, the words other than have been deleted; in their place, some syntactic marker is

required-standardly, the addition of the definite article in the

predicate: Motion is not the other.33 Plato, however, assimilates the

syntax of other in 24 to that for other than in 23. He is then able to

play off 24 and 25. 24 is saved from contradiction with 25 only if we recall that, like 25, 24 is derived from 23 and meant to be

equivalent to it. The omission of the definite article must then have a different

value in 24 and 25. In 25, as in 23, the omission of the article is standard for the use of other (than) in a nominal predicate (compare, for example, Ev 4 E'XyeTo eTepov eivaL (cr4poo'vOr crofioa,

Protag. 333a). other thus follows the general rule for relational nominal predicates derived from an adjectival form (compare the use of the comparative adjective in nominal form: OVlKOV Lv CiOV ir6hX ivo dvScp6os, Rep. 368e).34 More generally still, any nominal

predicate usually lacks the article (for example, OVK dyaOov TroXv

KoLpaviq, Homer Id. 2. 204).35 In 24, however, omission of the article is deviant. The derivation of the sentence shows that it is intended to be equivalent to 23, asserting the non-identity of motion and the other. Without the definite article, however, there is

nothing to distinguish 24 from the negation of a truncated form of

23 with unspecified relational complement. Nothing distinguishes the use of other in 24 from the standard use of other (than) in 23 and 25.

These difficulties do not always arise. They do not arise in the derivation of 14 from 13. rest is morphologically a noun in Greek, and has a distinct adjectival form. rest then does perfectly well

without the definite article in both 13 and 14. 14 is an identity sentence on grounds of a distinctive morphological feature, and

134 Frank A. Lewis

there is no danger that the syntax of rest in 14 will be assimilated to that of the adjective resting.

In 24, however, the definite article is deleted, and without

knowing the derivation of the sentence, we cannot distinguish the use of other from its use in 25. Similarly in 27 the fact that being lacks the definite article invites confusion with the use of being in 28.

The difficulty with the same is the symmetrical opposite. The

difficulty is not that the article is deleted when its presence is

required, but that the article is never deleted. (It is presumably a lexical requirement on Greek autos that in the meaning same it

must be combined with the definite article.36) Use of the article cannot then serve as a syntactic marker for an assertion of identity when other lexical or morphological features are missing. Only contextual considerations can distinguish the use of the same in 19, Motion is the same-derived from Motion is the same as motion from its use in 18, Motion is not the same, which as its derivation shows is intended to assert the non-identity of motion and the same.

iv. The not of non-identity.-The fact that the conjunction of, for example, 18 and 19 is true seems to conflict with the notion that the result of adding a word for not to a simple singular sentence should be its contradictory. All three accounts so far have assumed that if 18 and 19 are not contradictories, then there is a feature in common to both sentences, which is ambiguous in at least one of them. It happens that in paraphrasing 18 and 19 different readings

of the potentially ambiguous feature are required. Accordingly, divergent readings of the ambiguity are promised by ov... 6. . OiO Eip71KatJEV (256all-12), and the promise is made good with 21 and 22. This reasoning overlooks the possibility that, if 18 and 19 are not contradictories, this may be because of the ambiguity of a feature which occurs in just one of 18 and 19. This will happen, for

example, if not is ambiguous, or if there are different ways in which not may be combined with a given sentence. So it need not even

happen that one and the same feature is glossed or otherwise

explained in more than one way in the text.37 Only one gloss need be given, for example, if Plato's point is that 18 is not unam

biguously the negation of 19. In this case, Plato must give the inter

pretation of 18 under which it is not the negation of 19, but he is not also required to give the alternative reading of 18. And in fact the participation sentences 21 and 22 give only the readings on which 18 and 19 are not contradictories. ov ... 6lpoi o Eiprj KacfEV on this account does not promise divergent paraphrases of


some ambiguous element in common to 18 and 19,38 nor do 21 and 22 supply such paraphrases.

Yet a fourth version, accordingly, of the theory behind Plato's derivations claims that just one sentence of each pair of target sentences contains a feature which is potentially ambiguous. Thus, none of 18, 24, or 27 is unambiguously the negation of the sentence with which it is in each case paired. Plato does not distinguish two kinds of is, while holding a uniform theory of negation. Rather, he has a single view of is, but believes that the result of adding not to a sentence can be understood in two different ways.

The description of Plato's derivations consistent with this view can be simply done. In each case, the predicate (is) not X is handled in participation language by appeal to the form the different or the other: (is) not the same, for example, in 18 becomes (participates in) the other with respect to the same in 22. This treatment is already foreshadowed in the paraphrase in ordinary language of (is) not

by (is) other than in, for example, 17. Once the sentences containing not have been replaced by their paraphrases in terms of other than, the appearance of contradiction between the various target sen tences vanishes.

This view of Plato's derivations at 255eff also has support in the text from considerations outside the immediate context. The discussion that begins at 255e8 appears complete by 257a, where Plato adds a typical coda directed at any remaining unbelievers

(a8-12). The ensuing section at 257bff clearly takes up a new

topic.39 Plato's examples-'not large,' 'not beautiful,' and so forth

suggest that he is now considering ordinary negative predications of the sort 'Socrates is not beautiful.' If we regard this later section as

complementary to its predecessor, then the major topic of the earlier section too in Plato's eyes is a particular kind-but a different kind-of negative sentence. If the two sections are complementary in this way, Plato is able at 257bff to supply what was missing in the earlier section, and give the alternative interpretation of not on which the puzzling negative sentences 18, 24, and 27 would be the genuine contradictories of the sentences with which each is

paired. I regard it as fundamental to Plato's treatment of not that it

does recognize and treat separately two distinct kinds of not.4 If Plato had not proceeded in this way, he could have seen that his notion of the different at 255eff is complex, asking to be divided up into the notion of the same, together with a use of not. This use

136 Frank A. Lewis

of not would be indistinguishable from its use in ordinary predica tive contexts. Instead, Plato sees two interlocking uses of not. That elaborated at 255eff is the core use, and its definition becomes an

ingredient in the later definition of the second variety of not at 257bff. (The link is provided by the so-called parts of the different at 257cff, each of which is defined in terms of the difference of each of a set of forms from some specified form.) Thus Plato treats not in contexts of non-identity as primitive in the account of yet a second kind of negation. He is debarred, therefore, from regarding the not of non-identity as merely another instance of negation at

large.41 Plato's discussion at 255eff introduces some preliminary ma

chinery for the further variety of not elaborated at 257bff. The two kinds of not are complementary, for together they exhaust the possible interpretations of the ambiguous sentences 18, 24, and 27 in the earlier section. But Plato's work at 255eff also helps defend participation against the puzzle that a subject can participate in and so be something which it also is not. A proper understanding

of not in this context draws the teeth of the paradox threatening participation, as well as contributing to the general treatment of

negation which the dialogue offers. If it is true that Plato treats separately two kinds of not, the

likelihood is correspondingly diminished that he gives separate treatment to two kinds of is. For if he had distinguished an as of

identity from an is of predication, we would expect him to carry the distinction through to negative contexts. Given a theory of two uses of is, Plato could have held a uniform theory of not. But his theory of not is not uniform, and it is implausible to suppose that he has a

theory of the two uses of both of not and also of is. On this showing, Plato's is not a theory of different uses of is; it is a theory of different uses of not.

CONCLUSION

Plato nowhere explicitly recognizes a special estin of identity. The case for his implicitly adopting such a notion is necessarily indirect. Ackrill acknowledges the difficulty in his classic 1957 article, and offers the following condition to deal with it:

If [Plato] in fact glosses or explains or analyses the meaning of a word in one way in some contexts and in another way in


others, and if this occurs in a serious philosophical exposition, then it may well be right to credit him with 'recognising an

ambiguity'.42

Is it clear that the condition Ackrill sets down is met? Precisely what is disambiguated in the puzzling target sentences 18 and 19, 24 and 25, 27 and 28? Ackrill found the answer plain; and his answer is echoed confidently by Vlastos:

... the is is the sole constituent common to the three ambiguous sentences [he means the conjunctions of the puzzling sentences 18 and 19, 24 and 25, 27 and 28] which could account for the

ambiguity in each.43

I have tried to show that this answer is false. The evidence of the text at 255e-256d supports equally well a number of competing accounts of the difficulties which Plato sees himself as tackling. Plato

may hold a theory of the different senses of estin, or be concerned with problems over the use of relational terms, or with different uses of the definite article, or finally with different uses of not. None of these alternatives has any better basis in the immediate text than any other, as I have tried to show.

It may be said that wider considerations remain in favor of

attributing a theory of an estin of identity to Plato. The notion itself is so obvious a datum of grammar that-once faced with examples

Plato could hardly have missed it. It is difficult to see that the notion is as non-controversial as this argument tries to make out. On the

contrary, the argument may draw much of its plausibility, as we have seen, from any of a number of fallacies which confuse a trivial notion of an is or an estin of identity-which we can cheerfully concede-for a substantive one.

Nor do Plato's own philosophical concerns require a special estin of identity. Plato wishes to defend the possibility that a subject can be something which it is not, perhaps as part of a defense of the

general apparatus of participation. His needs here, however, are served as well by a theory about the definite article in Greek, or by a

theory of the different uses of not, as they are by a theory of the ambi

guity of estin. Plato's other concerns in the Sophist, moreover, suggest that he is more likely to hold a theory of the different uses of not.

The claim that Plato recognizes a special estin of identity should then be treated with some caution. Such a notion is not required by Plato's own background philosophical interests. It is not forced on

138 Frank A. Lewis

us by general considerations of Greek grammar. Finally, the notion is not indicated by Plato's actual discussion, either explicitly or

implicitly. On the basis of the text at 255e-256d alone, we should

perhaps best withhold judgement concerning what theory Plato relies on in handling his problem sentences. External considerations

suggest that Plato holds a theory of the different uses of not.

Nothing, however, indicates that he is predisposed in favor of a notion of a special estin of identity.

University of California Los Angeles

NOTES

'The contrast between complete and incomplete is borrowed from Owen

(1) 71, n. 1, and (2) 223-225; the distinction can also be put as that between one- and two

place uses of the verb. But as Owen also recognizes, the assumption that these traditional contrasts do in fact define a distinction between copulative and existential uses of the verb as

they are hoped to do is "dubious for English, and false for Greek" (Kahn [1] 247); Kahn (1) 247ff and (2) 80ff argues that the traditional dichotomy between existential and copulative is rests on a confusion between syntactic and semantic criteria.

2For comments on the sense in which is as copula does have meaning, see Kahn (2) e.g. 198, 395, 399.

3Compare the so-called nominal sentence (or "pure" nominal sentence), which lacks any verb or copula, in both Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages; cf. Meillet, Benveniste, Schwyzer-Debrunner 622f, and for critical remarks on the alleged status of the nominal sentence without verb as a primitive I.-E. sentence-type, Kahn (2) 61ff, 85ff, 201, and Appendix B.

'With Gifford, I discard Schanz' emendation, and read es), a9, with T. Cita tions from Plato elsewhere will follow Burnet's text.

5Cf. a7r&rtwp in the continuation of the argument, b3 below; if after all Chairedemus is a father, and Sophroniscus is other than he, then Sophroniscus cannot be a father, and Socrates cannot be his son.

'Cf. Bonitz, 109, Sprague ad loc., and Scheibe, 47.

'The explanation is less persuasive transferred to English than it is for Greek. In English, *is notfather is ungrammatical, and we must add either the indefinite article-is not

afather-or (for example) the possessive adjective-is not myfather. In either case, the effect of the Greek is lost. Greek has no real equivalent of our indefinite article, and can also dispense

with the possessive adjective. It follows that the sentence oi 7rriop urrv, said (for example) by Socrates of his step-father Chairedemus, can be used to deny blood ties between the two, without also denying that Chairedemus fathered Patrocles. In other contexts, however, the sentence may assert of a man that he is childless. Thus Dionysodorus' procedure is unappeal ing but not, strictly, a violation of Greek grammar.

"I comment on this analysis of 5 infra, n. 24. "For apparent omissions of the articide of this sort, see Stallbaum on Plato

Hipp. Ma. 293e and Rep. 505c, Bury, additional note on Phlb. 1 lb, and Heidel and Burnet on

Euthyphro 10d12-13. Cf. also Parmenides 158a3-6 (= 11 infra), and Sophist 255a4 (but con


trast b5), 256c8 (= 24 infra), and 256d8 (= 28 infra), cf. 259a8-bl. Other examples are in Kiihner-Gerth I, 591 and 608, despite the assertion p. 592 that the article is required in the

predicate for statements of identity. 'lThese two uses of the article are noted by Webster, 24: "In its full develop

ment, ... the definite article with the neuter participle or adjective signifies a particular member of a class, any member of a class (and therefore all members), a standard member of a class (and

therefore very nearly the quali y virtue of ich it is a member of the class)" (my italics). Cf. Kuhner Gerth I, 589-590, and Gildersleeve, No. 563.

"Cf. n. 22 infra. "These are usually referred to as the megista gene, the greatest kinds, and I

follow the practice here. Strictly, however, they represent only a selection from among the forms to which Plato would give that designation (rwv peywrcv e?yoievwv &rra, 254c3-4).

"Plato's statement is anomalous if we try to apply it to the different itself. Does the different participate in itself or does it not? Neither alternative apparently will do. I discuss the passage further, n. 14 infra.

"Cf. Parmenides 143bl-3, 157b8-c2, 158bl-2, and Sophist 259a6-9. Sophist 255e5-6 is a particularly tantalizing example. Here, as we have seen, each of the megista gene is said to be different from its fellows not by virtue of its own nature, but because it participates in the different: o6 &d r"rv antroM crwv, XX uid 6 OpeXE&v raf ison ra ixtarpow (255e5-6).

Plato's statement carefully avoids commitment to a notion of self-participation. Again, how ever, it falls short of a general assertion of the contrary principle that nothing may participate in itself. The statement fits happily all those forms which are other than the different but

participate in it: here the second alternative, 'participates in the different,' succeeds, the first, 'by virtue of its own nature,' fails, as Plato requires. But the passage is no evidence at all for

how we are to treat the different itself, for Plato's combination of alternatives fails to cover this crucial case. In the case of the different, if the second alternative succeeds, so also must the first. Plato's statement may be revised in two ways. (1) If there is a ban on self-participation, we

will reverse alternatives in the case of the different. Each form other than the different is different from the others by participating in the different, and not in virtue of its own nature; the different is different from the rest in virtue of its own nature but not because it participates in itself. On this interpretation, the alternatives are regarded as mutually exclusive. Equally, however, (2) we might say that in the case of the different both alternatives are satisfied: the different is different both in virtue of its own nature and because it participates in the different. So long as these doubts are unresolved, the passage is not conclusive evidence either for a

principle of non-self-participation or for its contrary.-This passage is also discussed by Vlastos (2) 340, n. 13.

"Cf. also Parmenides 142b5-c7. Against the implication of these passages, however, must be set Parmenides 16leff, where in constructing a sense in which to on partici pates in ousia and to me on participates in me ousia, Plato apparently does countenance cases of

self-participation. The passage is discussed by Vlastos (2) 339. "Cornford's translation of the Greek recurs frequently: see the versions of the

sentence by Schleiermacher (1817), Taylor (1934), Warrington (1961), and Vlastos (2) 335-336. In objecting to translations of this sort, I do not wish to deny that 1 is best under stood as raising questions of identity and non-identity: thus in its omission of the definite

article, 1 perhaps best belongs with the cases assembled in n. 9 supra. This classification, however, represents a conjecture by reference to the surrounding context as to what Plato means by the words he uses; it is not a straightforward translation. The implications of the

surrounding context, moreover, in this instance are by no means dear: cf. n. 17 infra. "There are signs that the difficulty is not merely a superficial one. Thus Plato

almost immediately repeats the premiss that things participating in the one will be other than the one in which they participate (158bl-2, cf. 9 supra). He goes on, as we have seen (p. 116

supra), to conclude that things other than the one are, if not one (nor yet nothing), then many. But had Plato been observing the distinctions Cornford makes for him, he would have found no plausibility to the inference that what are not unity must-on that account-be many.

140 Frank A. Lewis

"8If Plato is not concerned to uphold a general ban on self-participation, our

problem still exists in a form which is not local to Plato's notion of participation, but is raised

by any theory of predication which allows us to attribute to a subject something other than that

subject itself. This problem in turn is a variant on the familiar one-many problems which are

again in Plato's mind in the Sophist. (1) Plato's culminating paradox of being at Sophist 249eff draws attention to the question how one form can ever be some other form with which it is not identical. Within the theory of forms, the predicate of a true sentence identifies the entity in virtue of which that predicate is true of its subject. If then the subject of a given sentence and the

entity identified by its predicate are non-identical, the predicate cannot be true of its subject m virtue of the subject. But being is identical with neither motion nor rest. So it is not in virtue of

being (KOara ri7v aro qiwo'rw, 250c6-7) that being either moves or rests. This comment antici

pates the important point below, that (for example) motion is not differentfrom another form in virtue of motion itself (255e4 and ff). (The details of Plato's remark at 250c6-7 are in other

respects elusive. Plato is silent on whether or in what sense it is true either that being moves or that it rests. The paradox which the Visitor finds at c9ff seems to depend on nothing more than his willingness to suppress the qualification Kara' rifv cairo, sriwv at c6-7: assuming that

moves and rests must be treated as contradictory predicates, how can it happen that being neither moves nor rests tout court? It is nonetheless reasonable to assume that one purpose in

setting the puzzle is to mark an outstanding problem: how can a subject have a property which it itself is not?) (2) The Late Learners too ask how a thing can be called by anything other than its own name-how one thing can be many (251a5ff). Plato's formulation of their views is so

sketchy that it is unclear why a serious philosophical puzzle exists (for the problems in stating exactly the difficulty the Late Learners wish to urge, cf. Moravcsik, 57-59 and Frede, 61ff). Nevertheless (3) the Late Learners are expressly included (25 dl-2) in the great question Plato puts at 251c8ff to all theorists of being: how much blending is there between forms? If we deny that any form blends with any other, this is tantamount to denying that a thing can ever be called something else (oL I1q8fSv &crVTeS KowVOVi wa7raO trro; i~epov Odirepov w7poo-ry

opEVEL, 252b9-10). In contrast to the Late Learners, therefore, we know something of the

philosophical commitments of those who deny there is any blending. As Plato portrays them, they accept the consequence of a notion of blending-if blending is possible, then it will

explain predication-but they deny that the concept has application. (4) At 255, finally, after

proving the non-identity of the various megista gene, Plato notes that each megiston genos is

differentfrom its fellows in virtue of a form, the different, from which each is distinct. With this

example before us, Plato goes on to show how in general a form can be something which it also is not. Again, therefore, it is reasonable to ask if the demonstration will introduce the notion of a special estin of identity, in contrast to the estin of ordinary predication.

'9I mean: a singular term in the philosopher's sense. It is also singular in the

grammarian's sense. Not all grammarian's singulars, however, are singular in the philoso pher's sense; for the philosopher, a term is singular if and only if it purports to refer to a

single individual-if and only if it occupies a position open to the bindable variables of quanti fication theory (Quine, 217ff).

"Other things also distinguish 2 and 3. The logical properties of identity symmetry, transitivity, and reflexivity-permit various transformations on and inferences from 3 which do not arise with 2. The symmetry of identity in particular is reflected at the

syntactic level by the fact that the distinction between subject and predicate is-at least in

third-person cases-often hard to make. It is perhaps best replaced by the distinction between

topic and comment, as Kahn suggests ([2] 119-20, cf. 39f and 144). "is other than in 17 for example, is a lexical marker for (non-) identity. "So, for example, the use of the definite article in 3 and 8, and the appear

ance of a proper name in the predicate in 7. estin with the personal or demonstrative pronoun as predicate has the same effect (Kahn [2] 119f); cf. also the use of the superlative in the predi cate (examples in Kuhner-Gerth I, 591).

:3Identity is marked in 13, for example, by the use of the noun rest, as distinct


from the adjective resting. Here the syntactic difference is underscored by the morphological contrast.

"For example, 1 l, 24, and 27; compare n. 9 supra. Notice also that there are sentences asserting or denying identity which are not identity sentences by any grammatical criteria. 5 was proposed above as tentatively illustrating the ambiguity of estin between

ordinary copula and identity-sign. Two points must now be made. (1) As we saw, in the sense in which OrVK &v Warmrp en) (*is notfather) is true of Chairedemus, irrml p has suffered deletion

of the relational complement aKCpTrorv, while in the sense in which the predicate is false of Chairedemus, no such deletion is to be supposed. The remarks on redundancy above now

suggest it is superfluous to add that estin also changes its sense between the two interpretations. (2) Is it true in any case that-under whatever interpretation-5 is an identity sentence? Since it is a matter of empirical fact that a man has exactly one father, it is intelligible to read 5 as

denying the identity of two individuals. But no distinctive grammatical feature marks the sentence as an identity sentence. As Kahn remarks ([2] 400, n. 33). " -aortXe/ i&rt 'He is king' is a statement of identity in ancient Persia, or in any society with only one king; but it is an

ordinary use of the nominal copula in Homer, where many nobles bear the tite Pao-etAs." Yet "surely the grammar of the sentence is the same in either case."

2514 and 15 form an anomalous pair in this group, and I shall disregard this

pair in what follows. 15 takes the form it does perhaps for the reason suggested by Vlastos (2) 292f; the interpretation of 15 is considered further by Owen (2) 254-255, and Frede, 56-57.

"2tpa, 255e14, cf. 256a5, c8, and omKoiv, d8. The clauses with &x (256b1, b2) also serve to connect a sentence with its paraphrase.

"This is in essentials the account given by Ackrill, 207-212, cf. Crombie, 499, Moravcsik, 51, Brocker, 466, and most recently Vlastos (2) 288ff and nn., and 336 and n. 5.

28It may be objected that an estin of identity is covertly introduced into the account with the move from 17 to 18. I do not concede, however, that this is the correct

analysis of 18, or (whether the analysis is correct or not) that it is the point on which Plato's own theorizing is fixed. Note that a more complicated view of the derivation of 18 from 17 is also possible, on which-on any account-estin is treated uniformly as copula throughout. On this new view, 18 like 19 is reached (in part) by the simple conversion of a relative term to an absolute. Thus suppose is other than the same in 17 is contracted to just is other. is other is then transformed to is not the same to produce the apparent conflict between 18 and 19. 18 is treated in participation language by rendering is not the same by participates in the other, and by restoring the completion with respect to the same. In this account, it is only the difference in implied rela tional complements in 18 and 19 (respectively (the same as) the same and (the same as) itself) that can rescue the two sentences from contradiction one with the other.

29For the relational analysis of 256ab see Campbell ad loc., Shorey on Rep. 454b, Arangio-Ruiz, translation of Sophist 256ab and note ad loc., and Gosling, 218ff. Owen (2) 258, n. 63 suggests Plato is interested in treating not is but the same at 256ab, but I am uncertain how he would regard the relational analysis sketched here. As Owen notes, it is surely odd, if estin is the primary target of Plato's endeavors here, that the word is omitted in the crucial sentence at a 1 Iff where Plato attaches analysans to analysandum, and must be supplied from the preceding sentence. Cf. Gosling, 219.

30The derivation of estin on (= copula + participle) from estin is an instance of

periphrasis as defined by Kahn (2) 126-147; it is a limiting case of that construction, in that the source verb from which the participle is derived is identical with the verb which serves as

copula in the derived, periphrastic form. 28 illustrates what Kahn calls copulative periphrasis, and Plato here no doubt exploits the analogy with the surface syntax of preceding sentences, for example, 25 Motion is other (= N cop. N). Since the participle on in 28 represents the source verb estin in 26, it is not unreasonable that in the second use too, the verb should be (implicitly) relational in character. Similarly, Frede, 56-57 argues that estin and tou ontos at 256al (cf. 15) are both contractions of the two-place use of estin in estn heterou tou staseos at 255e 1 1-12 (= 1 3),

142 Frank A. Lewis

and retain the relational character of their source. Similar arguments for the use of the forms tou ontos, einai, and onta at 256e3 are offered by Runciman, 84-85, cf. Owen (2) 233, n. 20, and Gosling, 215. The periphrastic construction with participle occurs elsewhere in Plato: einai + perfect passive participle (gegonos), Politicus 274e, Laws 696d; more particularly, einai + on, Tim. 38c, Laws 894a, cf. egigneto + on, Soph. 237a.

3'It may seem perverse to offer 26 as the original of 28, when eirewrep at 256d9 explicitly binds 28 so closely to 29 (I owe this objection to Gregory Vlastos). Against this, however, it might be maintained that the connection between 28 and 29 does not preclude a role also for 26. Thus 29 does no more than articulate the implications already present in 26: cf. the grounds on which a thing may be said to participate in ousia at Parmenides 161e3ff.

'For these alternatives, cf. Kirwan, 360.

"Kiihner-Gerth, 592, but see the exceptions in n. 9 supra. Kuiihner-Gerth I, 591.

"SKuhner-Gerth I, 591, Schwyzer-Debrunner, 24. The principal exceptions are precisely where the predicate indicates an item asserted (or denied) to be identical with the

subject: for example, Rep. 347e: TO 8&cawov Mcrr TO TOV Kpe&rrovon aVc'4pov. See Kihner

Gerth I, 592. For other exceptions, cf. p. 134 and n. 36 infra. "Kuhner-Gerth I, 593. Cf. the use of tounantion and thateron (in the meaning

one of two) as nominal predicates with the definite article. From this use of auto comes the nominalization to tauton with reduplicated definite article: Sophist 254c, Theaetetus 185c10, 186a5-6; to thateron, otherness, also occurs, perhaps by analogy with to tauton: Sophist 250c, 254c?

(to te tauton kai thateron).

37I here adapt a remark of Ackrill's, quoted infra pp. 136-137. 38For doubts whether ov .. . Ool s eLpjKagLev does promise paraphrases, cf.

Owen (2) 258, n. 63. 3"Lee, 268f, cf. 287f claims that the break between sections does not occur

until 257c5, after the examples at 257bc. He would, however, agree with the view for which I am arguing, that two different kinds of not are treated in the two sections (cf. in particular his n. 31).

40Cf. Moravcsik, 73, and Lee, passim. Details of how the second use of not for

ordinary predicative sentences is to be understood are the subject of wide controversy, and I shall not discuss them here.

4"There is also, I should claim, a third set of cases which Plato gives no indica tion how he would treat. These are the assertions of the lack of blending between forms (&f"eucm, 251d6, cf. 254d7-8, avappoware, 253a2, oi 6xeraU, 253c1). Plato does not discuss the use of not these expressions conceal. Nor does he spell out whether a lack of blending between forms indicates that their extensions are totally or only partly disjoint, although one

may guess that the former is intended. 4Ackrill, 208. 4"Vlastos (2) 290, n. 46.

REFERENCES

Ackrill, J. L. "Plato and the Copula: Sophist 251-259," Journal of Hellenic Studies, 77 (Part I) (1957), 1-6. Reprinted in R. E. Allen, ed. Studies in Plato's Metaphysics, New York, 1965, 207-218, and in Vlastos (1) below. References in this paper are to the Allen reprinting.

Arangio-Ruiz, V. Platone. II Sofista. Bari, 1951.

Benveniste, Emil. "La phrase nominale," Bulletin de la Societe de Linguistique de Paris, 46 (1950), 19-36. Reprinted in Problemes de Linguistique Ginirale, Paris, 1966, 151-167.

Bonitz, H. Platonische Studien. 3rd. ed., Berlin, 1886. Brocker, Walter. Platons Gesprache. 2nd ed., Frankfurt am Main, 1967.


Burnet, J. (1) Platonis Opera. Oxford Classical Texts. Oxford, 1900. (2) Plato's Euthyphro Apology of Socrates and Crito, edited with notes. Oxford, 1924.

Bury, Robert Gregg. The Philebus of Plato. Cambridge, 1897.

Campbell, Lewis. The Sophistes and Politicus of Plato. Oxford, 1867. Cornford, Francis M. (1) Plato and Parmenides. New York, 1957. (2) Plato's Theory of Knowledge.

New York, 1957. Crombie, I. M. An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, II: Plato on Knowledge and Reality. London

and New York, 1963. Frede, Michael. Prddikation und Existenzaussage. Hypomnemata, Heft 18, G6ttingen, 1967.

Gifford, Edwin Hamilton. The Euthydemus of Plato. Oxford, 1905. Gildersleeve, B. L. Syntax of Classical Greek, with the cooperation of C. W. E. Miller. New York

etc., Part I, 1900, Part II, 1911.

Gosling, J. C. B. Plato. London and Boston, 1973.

Heidel, William Arthur. Plato's Euthyphro. New York. 1902.

Kahn, Charles H. (1) "The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Concept of Being," Foundations of Language, 2 (1966), 245-265. (2) The Verb 'Be' in Ancient Greek. Dordrecht, Holland, 1973.

Kirwan, Christopher. Review of Vlastos (1) below, Philosophical Quarterly, 22 (1967), 358-361. Kuihner-Gerth. Ausfurliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache by Raphael Kuihner, Part Two

(Syntax) ed. by Bernhard Gerth, in 2 vols. Hannover and Leipzig, 1898-1904.

Lee, E. N. "Plato on Negation and Not-being in the Sophist," Philosophical Review, 81 (1972), 267-304.

Meillet, A. "La phrase nominale en indo-europeen," Memoires de la Societe de Linguistique de

Paris, 14 (1906), 1-26. Moravcsik, Julius M. E. "Being and Meaning in the Sophist," Acta Philosophica Fennica, 14

(1962), 23-78. Owen, G. E. L. (1) "Aristotle on the Snares of Ontology," in R. Bambrough, ed., New Essays

on Plato and Aristotle. London and New York, 1965, 69-95. (2) "Plato on Not-being," in Vlastos (1) below.

Quine, W. V. Methods of Logic. 3rd. ed., New York, 1972. Runciman, W. G. Plato's Later Epistemology. Cambridge, 1962. Schanz, M. Platonis Opera. Leipzig, 1875.

Scheibe, Erhard. "Uber Relativbegriffe in der Philosophie Platons," Phronesis, 12 (1967), 28-49.

Schleiermacher, F. Platons Werke. 2nd. ed., Berlin, 1817.

Schwyzer, Eduard. Griechische Grammatik, Vol. II, completed by Albert Debrunner, Munich, 1950.

Shorey, Paul. Plato: The Republic, 2 vols. London and New York, 1930 and 1935.

Sprague, Rosamund Kent. Plato: Euthydemus. New York, 1965.

Stallbaum, G. Plato: Opera Omnia. Gottingen, 1829.

Taylor. A. E. The Parmenides of Plato. Oxford, 1934. Vlastos, Gregory. (1) ed., Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays I: Metaphysics and Epistemology.

New York, 1971. (2) Platonic Studies. Princeton, 1973.

Warrington, John. Plato: Parmenides Theaitetos Sophist Statesman. London, 1961. Webster, T. B. L. "Language and Thought in Early Greece," Mem. Proc. Manchester Lit. Philos.

Soc., vol. 94 (1952-53), no. 3, 17-38.

Lewis-Did Plato Discover the Estin of Identity

Documents

Transcript of Lewis-Did Plato Discover the Estin of Identity