Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Deriving An Anti-Essentialist Protocol From Plato's Sophist


Abstract: I will contend that the association of the term "Platonism" with essentialist doctrines is obscene, wrongheaded, and fails to appreciate the anti-essentialist subtlety contained within Plato's dialogues.  Throughout the following, I endeavor to show that the exchanges among Plato's Visitor and Theaetetus are not manufactured or intended to demonstrate the inadequacies of essentialist projects, but rather to lay bare the impossibility of such projects.  

     Throughout the following, I will maintain that from Plato's remarks throughout Sophist, one may derive an endorsement of an alternative model of meaning or reference, a model wherein terms are not incautiously quarantined and their references or significances interrogated in isolation, bereft of context or application, i.e. as names of things, but instead a model which (1) prioritizes the collaborative structure of ordinary grammar and discourse as an activity among participants which “accomplishes” something, i.e. it satisfies some immediate objective or task, and it is this total linguistic practice which confers intelligibility upon terms (2) in prioritizing the necessarily-collaborative structure of grammar, our Visitor – and it will be assumed throughout that the Visitor represents Plato's perspective – rebukes the essentialist project, or a Theory of Forms, via an interrogation of speech acts which demonstrates the necessary interdependence of verbs and nouns, the consequence of which is: the effort to locate or establish any essences of verbs or of things in isolation, is unintelligible. Specifically, I will maintain that the following argument may be legitimately derived from Plato's remarks throughout Sophist:
(i) a conservative construal of the Theory of Forms entails an intelligible correspondence between some discrete term and some discrete entity, concept or state-of-affairs. To be a form means to be discrete, independent, essential, and unreliant upon other things.
(ii) that a term may successfully correspond to some thing, concept or state-of-affairs is fundamentally inseparable from how a term comes to correspond to some thing, concept or state-of-affairs.
(iii) insofar as a term may or does correspond or “refer”, how a term comes to correspond to some thing, concept or state-of-affairs necessarily involves an accompanying plurality of additional interdependent terms, and an accompanying objective of some sort, all of which transpire within a total cultural-linguistic practice.
(iv) Any specification and intelligibility of “forms” is thus contingent upon association, viz. upon successful collaboration, combination or “blending” of one form among other forms (and related grammatical operators, i.e. pronouns, adverbs, etc) within a total linguistic practice.
(v) So: forms are never really independent or discrete; they are always and necessarily contingent.
(vi) So: forms are not really forms.
     Point (i) should be appreciated as follows: there are many interpretations and ways of understanding Plato's notion of Forms, and I will outline none of them here. I contend (i) is a conservative construal because any Theory of Forms must at least entail (i). While many interpretations of the Forms may add to (i), none may subtract from (i).
     I maintain further that the above perspective represented in i – vi should help to better elucidate the more explicit objective of the dialogue, viz. to properly delineate the practice of philosophy from sophistry, to determine what sorts of practices are symptomatic of each. Accordingly, Plato's central project throughout seems a rebuke of the Theory of Forms, and to qualify any attempts to establish concrete or transcendent essences of things as mere sophistry, distinct from philosophy or “true refutation”. 1
     A few key reminders to the reader: firstly, the following is not an attempt to give any exhaustive treatment of the Sophist; its themes are many, and as this paper is of limited scope, it will focus on critical passages to the exclusion of much of the text. That said, every effort has been made to preserve and appreciate the original context from which each of the selected passages was excerpted. Perhaps more importantly, I have deliberately selected passages which are no longer points of contention throughout the dialogue, viz. the Visitor and Theaetetus consider the issues contained within said passages to be more or less settled. This strongly suggests that Plato took such conclusions quite seriously, and did not regard them as tentative or provisional.
     I will remain relatively neutral concerning questions whether Plato explicitly intended to confer upon his readers any lessons specifying the authority of ordinary language, or whether his primary objective was to critique the practice of philosophy itself, i.e. to caution the budding philosopher against a susceptibility to engage in the incautious wordplay of mere sophistry. Rather, I'm suggesting a model of language and reference – and an argument supporting such a model – which may be legitimately derived from the dialogue, one that is corrosive of the Theory of Forms. While it is but one possible interpretation of the text among many, the anti-essentialist perspective outlined herein is so glaringly the centerpiece (or, perhaps, the neglected stepchild) of Sophist that it deserves to be taken seriously. We are here interrogating a quite meandering, tangential and experimental discussion; to even suppose that Plato had in mind any singular, isolable objective is probably to miss the point altogether.

Grammar, Predication and Intelligibility:

Plato makes much of the notion of predication throughout Sophist, carefully highlighting the centrality of predication throughout ordinary grammar and thereby demonstrating that a proper appreciation of the necessity and value of subject/predicate relations may relieve confused thinkers – i.e. essentialists – of many difficulties. Describing the philosophical missteps of “elderly” thinkers, Plato's Visitor counsels Theaetetus that
“They can grab hold of the handy idea that it's impossible for that which is many to be one and for that which is one to be many. They evidently enjoy forbidding us to say that a man is good, and only letting us say that that which is good is good, or that the man is a man. You've often met people, I suppose, who are carried away by things like that. Sometimes they're elderly people who are amazed at this kind of thing, because their understanding is so poor and they think they've discovered something prodigiously wise.” 2
     Line 1 above represents a reproach of naïve essentialism while simultaneously endorsing an appeal to ordinary language. Clearly, a description of one lake as consisting of many gallons of water represents no inconsistency, just as a description of many celestial bodies may likewise comprise a description of one solar system. Does one see just one driveway, or the many tiny rocks which compose the driveway? Such static disjunctions are altogether unnecessary, as statements concerning driveways and rocks are ordinarily uttered or exercised in accord with some immediate objective or utility, i.e. in response to peculiar questions concerning either rocks or driveways.
     Line 2 further underscores the commonplace philosophical confusion between the “is” of predication and the “is” of identity, anticipating our contemporary analytic/synthetic distinctions. That said, its strategic placement within the narrative – immediately following a typically-exhaustive (and – in my estimation – intentionally fruitless) exploration contrasting “that which is” against “that which is not”, “sameness” and “difference”, “largeness” with “smallness”, etc, and immediately prefacing a lengthy examination of verb-noun and subject-predicate participation – emphasizes the necessity of an attention to the operations of language generally, and to the centrality of predication specifically; tautologies of the general form “man is man” or “good is good” are vacuous and tell us nothing. While there is not sufficient space here to quibble over the value of tautologies, or precisely which statements effectively count as analytic statements, it should suffice to say that, insofar as such statements, e.g. “water is H2O”, are useful or engender some response or behavior, it is because such statements are enclosed within some context, circumstance, expectation or objective which confers intelligibility upon them; the value is not contained exclusively within such statements. I will return to this point in the sections which follow.
     Predicating speech acts – whether descriptive, referential, or both, e.g. “Man is good”, “Theaetetus sits”, “All humans have heads”, “the book is there” – on the other hand, contain information and possess causal capacity whether or not they are true. More importantly, predicating speech acts describe relations, and, as we shall see, Plato offers a way of securing both the sense and the ontological legitimacy of such relations without the need to appeal to any essences. Note also that the remainder of the above passage openly mocks those who confusedly “think they've discovered something prodigiously wise”, and – considered in the broader context of the proposed objective of the dialogue, i.e. to delineate philosophy from sophistry – it strongly suggests a repudiation of essentialism, or at least an essentialism which proceeds from a misunderstanding of speech acts.
     Beginning at 261c, Plato again turns his attention to grammar and predication, viz. to the necessary conditions of intelligible speech, highlighting that a written or uttered sequence of names or nouns “lion stag horse” or a series of verbs “walks runs sleeps” 3 fails to produce intelligible speech:
“So no speech is formed just from names spoken in a row, and also not from verbs that are spoken without names.” 4
Plato herein underscores that such sequences neither describe nor refer; they simply do not count as speech. 5 He then supplies a simple example of a predicating statement which does satisfy basic requirements of intelligibility, “man learns”. 6 Critically, Plato qualifies the import of such statements:
“And he doesn't just name, but accomplishes something, by weaving verbs with names. That's why we said he speaks and doesn't just name.” 7
     This short but remarkable passage highlights the necessary presence of objectives, contexts and circumstances exterior to any correspondence between a word and that to which it refers; it demonstrates that even when speaking does “name”, it doesn't just name: it “accomplishes something”, i.e. it satisfies petitions or objectives, it confers information relevant to some circumstance.
     The above remark should be appreciated in tandem with its complement: while the former highlights the necessity of collaboration or participation among verbs and nouns in order to achieve intelligibility, the following underscores the consequences of subtracting a term from neighboring grammatical or situational operators, expecting the term in isolation to retain a static, concrete significance:
“To dissociate each thing from everything else is to destroy totally everything there is to say. The weaving together of forms is what makes speech possible for us.” 8
     This is a startling observation: what is the central methodology and objective of those attempting to establish a Theory of Forms, if not to “dissociate each thing from everything else”? Plato's remark suggests that such a project is self-refuting and has no chance of success: both association among terms and dissociation presuppose failure. The intelligibility of forms is contingent upon the successful collaboration among forms – viz. verbs (to know, to learn) and nouns (man, tree) – from which it follows that “forms” cannot be construed in any classical sense, i.e. as discrete, independent or essential. Plato's remarks from a preceding section add greater clarity to the self-refutation implicit in essentialist projects:
Visitor: “Moreover, the greatest absurdity of all results from pursuing the theory of those very people who will not allow one thing to share in the quality of another and so be called by its name.”
Theaetetus: “How so?”
Visitor: “Why, in referring to anything they cannot help using the words 'being' and 'apart' and 'from the others' and 'by itself' and any number more. They cannot refrain from these expressions or from connecting them in their statements, and so need not wait to refute them; the foe is in their own household, as the saying goes, and, like that queer fellow Eurycles, they carry about with them wherever they go a voice in their own bellies to contradict them.” 9
     We here again note that intelligibility requires predicating sentences featuring multiple “forms”, all of which are surrounded by a total linguistic practice wherein terms derive their significances by virtue of their ability to “share in the quality of another” adjacent term. Forms – by their very nature – are construed as independent, wholly elemental and cannot “share in the quality of another” thing; and Plato here qualifies this essentialist pursuit as “the greatest absurdity of all”. Misunderstanding that the intelligible expression of any single term requires the cooperation of an entire family of terms, i.e. a grammar employed by a culture with objectives, the essentialist fails to notice that that which can be meaningfully said exhausts what can be thought:
Visitor: “Aren't thought and speech the same, except that what we call thought is speech that occurs without the voice, inside the soul in conversation with itself?”
Theaetetus: “Of course.” 10
To review: any Theory of Forms, any existence or identification of forms, requires intelligibility. But intelligibility presupposes articulation, i.e. any specification of discrete forms, or any conceptual differentiation among supposed forms, cannot be achieved but through articulation. But articulation (specification, description, differentiation) presupposes a grammar – viz. a total linguistic practice – wherein the intelligibility of a term, or a term's ability to effectively describe or reference some thing, event or state-of-affairs, is necessarily contingent upon a collaboration among forms. This, in turn, destroys the possibility of any intelligible correspondence between a discrete term and a discrete thing, event or state-of-affairs.

Relation, Entailment and Consequences for a Theory of Forms:

Upon qualifying the necessity of verb + noun participation in order to achieve anything like intelligibility, Plato thereby – in my estimation – opens the floodgates: if the verb “to know” necessarily requires a conjoining or association with some noun, e.g. “man”, in order to obtain intelligibility, then we may – at the very least – conclude that Plato himself concedes that the verb “to know” or “knowing” requires a one-place predicate (as we call it in logic). Consider the following:
(∃x)(Rx)
     This says: “There exists some x (a person) such that x is Related” (or, perhaps, “x is related to relation”). It is a problematic statement, because it is not a statement at all: “relation” is far too broad, bereft of criterion, and while it seems to entail some species of association, it could entail virtually anything: x is related to air because he breathes it, x is related to the earth because he walks on it, and so on ad infinitum. And an uncircumscribed entailment is no sort of entailment whatsoever. Thankfully, no one attempts to speak in such a fashion, as such would not amount to speech. Relation composes the bedrock of our perception and speech, is not some independent or general “thing” unto itself requiring a definitional account to justify its use, and is ordinarily made clear via the specification of things related, expressed in appropriate or meaningful circumstances. Relations involve the fundamental apprehension of contrasts and associations which necessarily precede definitions or even the formalization of concepts, those bedrock elements which permit anything like an “account” of phenomena to even develop. Even the statement (∃x)(∃y)(Rxy & Ryx) (assuming x & y are persons) presents challenges: it tells us that x and y are related, but little else: x and y could be neighbors, or cousins, or Koreans, or could share similar occupations, or anything else.
     But if we specified a relation to some degree, e.g. (∃x)(Mx) (wherein M indicates “married”), the specification “marriage” meaningfully narrows relation: it tells us that x is related to another human in a romantic or sexual fashion, rather than in a strictly genealogical way, or many other possible ways. On any interpretation, we might concede that this statement is – on its own – sufficiently meaningful; but as the concept “marriage” of necessity entails a relation with someone other than xx cannot be married to himself – we are all the same licensed to infer from (∃x)(Mx) that
(∃x)(Mx) ⊃{(∃y)(My) & (Mxy & Myx)}.
     That is: if there exists some person x that is married, then there must exist some person y, such that x is married to y. We might say that the relation is sufficiently contained within (∃x)(Mx); it specifies the relation without the need for further inferences or unpacking. Better, we might say that (∃x)(Mx) is an abbreviated form of {(∃x)(∃y) (My) & (Mxy & Myx)}, and that the two statements are – among proficient language users – virtually isomorphic.
     Now: what occurs if we apply this same principle to other verbs of relation, e.g. to the verb “to know”? That is, consider the simplistic: (∃x)(Kx) (K indicates “knows”). This statement says: “there exists some x such that x knows”. As in the previous statement concerning the relation of “marriage”, we should be licensed to infer:
(∃x)(Kx) ⊃{(∃y)(Kxy)}
     That is: “insofar as x knows, then there must exist some y such that x knows y. But whereas the one-place predicate in (∃x)(Mx) is sufficiently meaningful unto itself – it merely tells us something concerning x's relationship status – (∃x)(Kx) is vacuous: it tells us nothing. More importantly, notice also that y in (∃y)(Kxy) could be absolutely anything; a human, a trade, a skill, or anything else. While (Mxy & Myx) – implicit in (∃x)(Mx) – specifies a particular type of interpersonal association or arrangement, the statement (∃x)(Kx) ⊃{(∃y)(Kxy)} – because it is bereft of any criterion concerning y and therefore vacuous – fails to establish anything like a relation. While it renders explicit the logical necessity of some object, skill or capacity, no meaningful relation may be said to herein obtain. That is: the expression of a logical requirement which demonstrates the necessity of a second-place predicate in order for relation to obtain is not itself a specification which counts as a relation.
     What is the lesson here? Expressing “x knows” is (somewhat) like saying “x is related”; without the specification of some associated object, skill or capacity – which completes the calculus of association – we are only permitted to derive the logical necessity of some second-place predicate, but not just any second-place predicate, e.g. not just a semantically-vacuous variable. Accordingly, asking questions concerning any essence of “knowing” or “relation” independent of some object, skill or capacity makes no sense. Rather, it is via the “weaving together of verbs and names”, i.e. predicating speech acts – and in this instance, the necessity of a second-place predicate – that intelligibility is conferred. Accordingly, in light of the above observations, we may better negotiate Socrates' famous solicitation of Theaetetus concerning the essence of knowledge:
...that is not what you were asked, Theaetetus. You were not asked what one may have knowledge of, or how many branches of knowledge there are. It was not with any idea of counting these up that the question was asked; we wanted to know what knowledge itself is. – or am I talking nonsense?” 11
     That is: the Theaetetus of Sophist might have answered, “Yes, Socrates: such questions are quite nonsensical.”
     So: a relation without specification is no sort of relation whatever. The essentialist might ask: “But if the verb “to know” specifies a relation, precisely what sort of relation does it specify?” This is a confused question: the relation simply does not obtain without (at least) three components: what knows, what is known, and the connecting verb “to know”. This ensemble completes the verbal specification; it does not denote a relation – there are no species of independent or priorly-existing relations to denote – but, rather, it composes relation. If relation cannot obtain sans apprehension or specification, it makes no sense whatever to ask which priorly-existing varieties of relation such apprehensions or specifications as “x knows y” specify, denote or correspond to; there simply are no earlier existing varieties of “relation”.
     “Jacks knows karate” completes the specification of the relation “knowing”; Jack can or cannot answer questions about karate, he can or cannot execute certain maneuvers associated with the discipline karate. It may be discovered that Jack was lying, i.e. that he cannot answer questions about karate, or doesn't know much karate, or can't execute certain maneuvers, but these discoveries simply highlight the fact that the relation “Jack knows karate” is not at all obscure; while there may exist some remaining ambiguities concerning whether Jack knows more karate than Jill, or more about karate, these ambiguities can be easily settled via a sequence of follow-up questions and responses. And notice that such follow-up questions do not “clear up” any ambiguities concerning the relation “to know” itself; these follow-up questions concern quantities of what is known, not the relation itself, and transparently employ the verb “to know” throughout such questions, which presupposes the intelligibility of the term. All proficient language users – save the notable exception of academic philosophers – understand such terms in appropriate contexts.
     Some simple statements featuring just a subject and a one-place predicate, e.g. (∃t)(St) or “Theaetetus sits”, are sufficiently intelligible without the addition of any second-place predicate, i.e. they more-or-less adequately describe some imaginable state-of-affairs without ambiguity. In short, the predicate “sits” in such a statement requires no additional object; it merely qualifies the subject “Theaetetus”. That said, the intelligibility of such statements may often be contingent upon the context, situation or the circumstances under which such statements are uttered. For example, if the statement “Theaetetus sits” is uttered as a response to the question “how far is the Embarcadero”, the former statement will surely lack intelligibility; “Theaetetus sits” is incommensurable with any candidate-response which might satisfy the petitioner's needs in such an instance, and so accomplishes nothing. Accordingly, the intelligibility of a statement presupposes circumstances appropriate for that statement's application or utterance, i.e. intelligibility is contingent upon contexts accommodative of such statements.
     Thus, establishing the necessity of a one-place predicate to achieve coherence or intelligibility does not suggest that Plato regarded one-place predicates as always sufficient conditions for intelligible speech – it would be silly to expect Plato to comprehensively list or highlight the number of predicates or qualifications in accord with each peculiar combination of verbs and nouns necessary to accomplish a meaningful speech act throughout all circumstances. Instead, it means that Plato concedes the necessity of predication generally in order to achieve intelligibility, and that the peculiarities of predication throughout ordinary grammar are not subordinate to any prior categories or independently-existing species of relation.
     Concerning which of the Forms are able to effectively “blend” and which are unable, our Visitor likens the combinatorial possibilities of complimentary forms to letters of an alphabet, asking
Visitor: So does everyone know which kinds of letters can associate with which, or does it take an expert?”
Theaetetus: “It takes an expert.”
Visitor: “What kind?”
Theaetetus: “An expert in grammar.” 12
     Clearly, Plato's multiple references to grammar, syntax, naming and speech throughout the text are not at all incidental, but suggest a model of language – and an associated philosophical method – intended to effectively dispense with the difficulties and confusions which often accompany any consideration of the Forms. In the above passage we are reminded that, sans some grammatical expertise possessed by both speaker and listener, nothing akin to a Form may be either articulated nor recognized.
     If such verbs are relational, i.e. if – by virtue of their very appearance – they adequately specify a peculiar relation or state-of-affairs which obtain between some subject and some object, then it is clear that some second-place predicate is necessary to secure meaning, as such relational verbs presuppose both subject and object. In this respect, the statement “Theaetetus sits” is quite unlike the statement “Theaetetus knows”; while the former simply describes Theaetetus's physical posture, and implies little beyond the physical boundary of the subject “Theaetetus”, the latter statement necessarily transcends the boundaries or conditions of the subject “Theaetetus”, and implies some peculiar relation between Theaetetus and some x. Said another way, while the verb “to sit” adjoined to some subject satisfies a criterion of propositional intelligibility, the verb “to know” adjoined to some subject without an accompanying second-place predicate demonstrably fails to satisfy this criterion.
     To review: the articulation of forms requires the “weaving” together of verbs and nouns (and other grammatical operators), which is called predication. All predicating statements invoke relations. But there exist no general “forms” of relation itself, or any articulable varieties of relation which might precede specifications of relation established via predicating statements. Some predicating verbs – e.g. “to sit” – require only a one-place predicate, while others – e.g. “to know” – require a second-place predicate in order to achieve intelligibility. Accordingly, the Theory of Forms, i.e. the entire epistemological project concerned with locating a precise correspondence between the verb “to know” and some unique or “independent” species of relation is fundamentally confused.

Relations and Their Ontological Status:
Visitor: “And we need to use every argument we can to fight against anyone who does away with knowledge, understanding and intelligence but at the same time asserts anything at all about it.”
Theaetetus: “Definitely.”
Visitor: “The philosopher – the person who values these things the most – absolutely has to refuse to accept the claim that everything is at rest, either from defenders of the one or from friends of the many forms. In addition he has to refuse to listen to people who say that that which is changes in every way. He has to be like a child begging for “both”, and say that that which is – everything – is both the unchanging and that which changes.” 13
     By invoking the concepts of knowledge or understanding as coherent objects of analysis, Plato insists that one openly concedes the fundamental intelligibility of such concepts; to search for something or to analyze something presupposes the intelligibility and specification of some discrete object or target. By invoking knowledge throughout a range of circumstances or speech acts, we do not name or identify some thing; rather, via acts of predication, e.g. “Jack knows karate”, we describe a relation which obtains between a subject (Jack) and something else (an object, an ability, etc), and this relation amounts to a capacity, i.e. the relation – which is itself not a physically-extended “thing” – possesses causal efficacy.
I'm saying that a thing really is if it has any capacity at all, either by nature to do something to something else or to have even the smallest thing done to it by even the most trivial thing, even if it only happens once. I'll take it as a definition that those which are amount to nothing other than capacity.” 14
     Consider the statement “Jack is taller than Jill”; it expresses a relation of height which obtains between Jack and Jill. While relations are not extended, physical things or entities, such relations nevertheless possess being, insofar as such relations effectively account for some phenomena, or comprise some causal difference. This relation of height may reward or disadvantage Jack or Jill in accord with the accomplishment of a variety of tasks: Jack must behave differently than Jill in order to trespass an opening through which Jill passes easily. Similarly, the perception of this relation may also influence the behavior of other entities: Jill's liability in height might render her an easier or more palatable target for some predator when contrasted with Jack's more physically-imposing presence. One might manufacture countless examples: while the statement “Bill is Polish” – which expresses Bill's relation to Poland – might afford Bill unobstructed access to his nation of origin, it may also invite the derision of a bigot convinced that persons of Polish origin are somehow compromised. But Jack's legs might be severed, or Jill might grow taller than Jack, or Bill's Polish citizenship might be revoked; in each of these instances – and innumerable others – the relation may “do something to something else” or may have something “done to it”, i.e. the relation itself possesses causal efficacy or causal vulnerability.
     The reality or being of such relational capacities (to know, to understand, or anything else) is not contingent upon any prior securement of essences, as essences concern a thing's identity, i.e. that which a thing just is. Relations, we might say, are essentially unessential; because relations are necessarily composite, involving different species of contrasts between a plurality of subjects, objects, features, skills, tasks or events for some creature in accord with its objectives, it makes no sense to speak of relations as independent things possessing any essence. A relation which is “there” for one organism may be “absent” for another; but this fact obviously does not devalue the ontological status of relations.
     As previously outlined, it would be futile to search for any essence of “relation” itself; the varieties of possible relation are virtually infinite in number, and are creature-specific. While the perception of a relation – e.g. the relation of height between Jack and Jill, the similarity or difference in color between blossom and leaf – may be available to one organism, that relation might be quite unavailable to another organism for whom that relation affords no behavioral possibilities, i.e. an organism whose objectives or concerns are exterior to the perception of such relations. Where no possibility of a behavior – e.g. of reward or risk in the negotiation of a task or terrain – is involved, no such relations will be available for that organism. The difference in color between blossom and leaf is a relation which is there for the honeybee (which sees in color, and for whom the blossom offers nourishment and behavioral possibilities), but is not there for the dog (which sees in black and white, and for whom the blossom represents no nourishment and no behavioral possibilities).
     As such, asking “what are the total number of relations present” or “what is really constitutive of relation” concerns the total number of possible contrasts and comparisons, or the total number of possible differences resident within some experiential ensemble. But asking “what is the total number of differences here really” or “what is really constitutive of difference in all cases” are vacuous solicitations which only possess the surface features of a question.
The Visitor continues:
Visitor: “So that which is indisputably is not millions of things, and all of the others together, and also each of them, are in many ways and also are not in many ways.”
Theaetetus: “True.”
Visitor: “And if anyone doesn't believe these contrarieties, he has to think about them himself and say something better than what we've said. But if he thinks he's recognized a problem in it and enjoys dragging the argument back and forth, then he's been carried away by something that's not worth much of anyone's attention – ...that is, we should leave pointless things like this alone. Instead we should be able to scrutinize it step by step. When he says that what's different is the same in a certain way or that what's the same is different in a certain way, we should understand just what he means, and the precise way in which he's saying that the thing is the same or different. But when someone makes that which is the same appear different in just any old way, or vice versa, or when he makes what's large appear small or something that's similar appear dissimilar – well, if someone enjoys trotting out contraries like that in discussion, that's not true refutation.” 15
     This passage is remarkable in a number of ways. We have already seen that that which is amounts to a capacity, i.e. an ability to cause something or to be effected by something. Here, Plato concludes an exhaustive discussion concerning relations of difference or similarity, noting in Line 1 that that which is might legitimately be said to consist of every “thing” together (e.g. as an ensemble), and also each thing individually, as well the various ways each thing is and is not. The “ways” things are or are not involve predicating statements describing relations, and such relations possess capacity, and so possess being.
     On this model, the predicating statements “blossom x is red” and “blossom x is taller than blossom y” each describe a relation which both is and is not: the relation between blossom and redness does not obtain for the colorblind canine, and the relation of height between blossoms x & y does not obtain for some creature whose body scale relative to the size of the blossoms precludes any comparative perception of height. Similarly, the statements “these two x blossoms are the same” and “these two x blossoms are not the same” both – by virtue of describing a relation which obtains for some perceiving organism – legitimately represent that which is; while the former may indicate a relation of sameness of color or species, the latter may point toward the simple fact that the two blossoms cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
     In Line 2, Plato underscores that “trotting out contraries”, e.g. suggesting a relation of difference or similarity among two things without any qualification, results in nonsense: if difference or similarity obtained everywhere or in just “any old” 16 circumstance, then the possibility of any “correct” attribution of difference or similarity concomitantly dissolves; bereft of any criterion concerning measures of comparative difference or similarity – however arbitrary the criterion might be – contrastive ascriptions make no sense. Further, Plato insists that a “step by step” scrutiny should adequately reveal the precise sense in which two things are said to be same or different, and that if an individual cannot grasp the above and continues “dragging the argument back and forth” without qualification, then “we should leave pointless things like this alone”. For example, while the remark that ice is both similar and dissimilar to liquid water might represent an apparent contradiction to a confused or duplicitous thinker – i.e. a sophist – Plato here urges an appreciation of and attention to the speaker's intentions as a method to dissolve such confusions.
     To review: any conservative construal of a Theory of Forms concerns what is, or what “is real”. All predicating statements invoke relations. Many perceived relations, or predicating statements describing such relations, possess causal efficacy or capacity, i.e. they may “do something to something else” or may have something “done to” them. That which possesses capacity possesses being. Accordingly, any metaphysical theory or model is not contingent upon traditional ontological models of physicality or reference, viz. a discrete correspondence between a single term and some discrete, isolable “extended” entity, but is rather a matter of whether things, ensembles or events appear before for some perceiving organism as a discrete event which might in turn influence that organism's behavior.

Naming and Reference:

     We are now in a position to better evaluate the rather weak claim in (i), that a conservative construal of any Theory of Forms entails an intelligible correspondence between some discrete term and some discrete entity, concept or state-of-affairs. While we have already demonstrated the infeasibility of such a model, we have yet to explicitly dispense with traditional notions of reference. I will not here attempt to catalog the range of philosophers who've embraced such an erroneous model, but it should suffice to say that any “picture theory” concerning the operations of language, i.e. a view shared by Augustine, Locke and many others, is defective. Again, consider 262d:
...he doesn't just name, but accomplishes something, by weaving verbs with names. That's why we said he speaks and doesn't just name.” 17
     In the above quote, we again note Plato rebuking a peculiar theory concerning the operations of language, i.e. that the primary task of a grammar is to uniquely name or correspond to objects in the world. Accordingly, let's soberly consider the notion of naming or “reference”. We employ the term liberally throughout philosophical contexts, but rarely pause to reflect properly upon what is contained within or implied by the term. To avoid equivocation, we herein do not mean the act of “referring” to the phonebook or the Internet; we're primarily interrogating the philosophical use of the term, i.e. whether a word, concept or sentence refers to or corresponds with some thing or some state-of-affairs in the world. We are here exploring the term “to refer” as it relates to the act of indicating, which might be accomplished via some written or spoken sentence, or via an act of ostension, e.g. wherein one says “tree” while physically pointing toward or indicating some specimen of tree.
     The philosophical notion of reference is often reflexively accepted as an entirely empirical affair: either a term immediately corresponds with some physical entity, or some sentence appropriately models the structure of some event or state-of-affairs; a simple matter of measuring or contrasting the constituents of some proposition against whatever that proposition endeavors to suggest or affirm. But I will submit that rarely is it noticed that the very acts of “referencing” or “indicating” are accomplishable solely by virtue of a grammar which has evolved the very notions or concepts of reference, indication or correspondence. That is: the very notion of “reference” itself belongs to grammar, and the act of referencing anything whatever presupposes a shared grammar accommodative of some act which might be (a) intended or self-articulated as an act of reference by some individual, and (b) interpreted by some other as an act of reference. If this is the case, it would seem that a total linguistic practice occupies a position of some priority, or precedes any possibility of reference, and, accordingly, precludes the possibility of any supposedly isolable term from referring just to any isolable entity. Acts of reference or indication are broader-reaching, non-exclusive and more diffuse than any immediate gesture might possibly betray; in attempting to reference a solitary entity or state-of-affairs, we implicitly depend upon and access a total cultural-linguistic practice. Again, this fact dissolves any possibility that our conservative construal of a Theory of Forms might ever be true.
     Even if the speaker's intention is to reference or indicate some solitary object or event, if reference succeeds, i.e. if the listener grasps the speaker's intention, such success is accomplished only by virtue of a total linguistic practice; it is not merely a one-to-one correspondence which obtains between an isolated word “tree” and an isolated object called a “tree”; the word “tree” is always employed in tandem with various grammatical operators, i.e. the term “tree” is never isolated, but always surrounded. Additionally, reference is ordinarily couched within some broader objective exterior to a mere one-to-one correspondence between word and object; acts of reference intend to accomplish something or to satisfy some objective. Moreover, even if the written or spoken term “tree” – isolated and bereft of context – is apprehended, it is apprehended because it is implicitly surrounded by a broader family of grammar which lends intelligibility to it.
     But notice that words do not ever appear before subjects truly isolated or bereft of context; if a word is apprehended or recognized as a word, then it is – ipso facto – implicitly enclosed within a context. Insofar as a word appears for some subject as an intelligible word, as opposed to some insignificant sound or meaningless scrawling, an intelligible backdrop of adjacent grammatical operators is necessarily implied; this is what intelligibility means. As such, a word necessarily acquires its significance from that which is not immediately present.
     Note that this is just as true of syntax and grammar: the characters “b”, “a” and “t” unto themselves do not signify or mean anything. Place these characters together in this sequence, and one perceives the word “bat”, and one's inclination is to suggest that this sequence of characters now successfully accomplishes reference. But one may “bat” one's eyes, or swing a baseball “bat”, or fear the vampire “bat”, and a subject encountering the spoken or written word “bat” – isolated and bereft of context – could not possibly discern which use was intended; divorced from any backdrops or contexts, the term has no particular use or meaning, no accompanying intention or reference. Objects – whether terrestrial surface features or syntactical characters – acquire their respective intelligibilities or significances by virtue of surrounding objects.
     As Wittgenstein points out, acts of ostension – e.g. indicating the identity, utility or color of an object for a child – are informed by the contextual circumstances of the utterance, i.e. the objectives involved. One learns what a word is for via a range of illustrations and demonstrations, and via corrections of misapplication, e.g. “no: the object itself is not called 'blue'; blue is its color”. What a word does, and how it does this, i.e. how the cultural processes of training and technique conspire to permit referential speech acts, cannot be conveniently divorced from what a word represents. Again, what a word is for is intimately connected with a total cultural and linguistic practice, i.e. what Wittgenstein called “forms of life”.
     Any theory of reference must account for the necessary conditions satisfactory for the completion of referential speech acts. But such conditions are necessarily historical; the success of present speech acts involving reference is contingent upon the rich and varying history of a word's application, the long arc of a grammar's development, and the individual training of both speaker and recipient. While such conditions are not easily amenable to explicit quantification, the theorist must concede that the subtraction of such conditions would be tantamount to a subtraction of intelligible speech, and that the omission of such conditions from one's account greatly impoverishes any theory of reference.
     Accordingly, this does not bode well for Forms construed as essences, or for discrete words unto themselves immediately “corresponding” to any essences, solitary things or states-of-affairs. The entire idea that the effective use of a term is somehow “unintelligible” in the absence of an ironclad definition which accounts for all applications of a term, or the idea that the use of a term like “justice” or “knowledge” should enjoy a faithful one-to-one mapping in reference to some discrete species of relation or state-of-affairs, is – in light of the above observations – a transparently naïve philosophical preoccupation. The verb “to know” – uttered by some subject in tandem with some object, skill or activity, e.g. “Jack knows karate” – possesses causal capacity, viz. it has an uncontroversial, long-cultivated use or utility among proficient language speakers; it “accomplishes something”. The effective or successful application of any term is the product of a collaborative historical-cultural process whereby useless terms fall out of favor, and new terms are engineered, introduced and culturally inculcated. The appropriate application of all such terms shifts and transforms in accord with the tides of cultural objectives and individual perspectives. It is the uniquely philosophical preoccupation with establishing essences which imports confusion into an otherwise understandable model of language. That “knowledge”, or “justice”, or “behavior” might not indicate any static, immovable state-of-affairs or relation does not diminish the coherent use of such terms, as such misguided expectations presuppose that intelligibility or actuality is predicated solely upon some prior essences, while ignoring the basic utility of successful grammatical exchanges. In short, it is that expectation itself – rather than the common use of such terms – which lacks coherence.
     In light of the above remarks concerning the necessary conditions of reference, let''s briefly revisit 252b – c:
Visitor: “Moreover, the greatest absurdity of all results from pursuing the theory of those very people who will not allow one thing to share in the quality of another and so be called by its name.”
Theaetetus: “How so?”
Visitor: “Why, in referring to anything they cannot help using the words 'being' and 'apart' and 'from the others' and 'by itself' and any number more. They cannot refrain from these expressions or from connecting them in their statements, and so need not wait to refute them; the foe is in their own household, as the saying goes, and, like that queer fellow Eurycles, they carry about with them wherever they go a voice in their own bellies to contradict them.” 18
     The subtle importance of the above passage ought not be overlooked. Concerning acts of reference, Plato explicitly highlights the logical necessity of a total linguistic practice involving a multiplicity of forms in order to achieve an intelligible act of reference; that the very articulation or identification of sameness or difference, essence or independence necessarily requires an accompanying plurality of forms. Accordingly, if properly understood, the essentialist's project is self-refuting; the myriad processes and the necessary conditions which confer intelligibility upon a term or concept negate the possibility of a term's “independence”. Returning full circle to the passage with which we began the present investigation, it is perhaps easier to now appreciate the import of
To dissociate each thing from everything else is to destroy totally everything there is to say. The weaving together of forms is what makes speech possible for us.” 19
     One cannot help but detect a strong affinity between such remarks and those of Wittgenstein concerning the accompaniment of a broader linguistic practice, and the history and background of grammatical training which necessarily informs basic acts of reference:
'I set the brake up by connecting up rod and lever.' – Yes, given the whole of the rest of the mechanism. Only in conjunction with that is it a brake-lever, and separated from its support it is not even a lever; it may be anything, or nothing.” 20
     When we maintain “x refers to y”, or “the subject n of this proposition corresponds directly to a human named Nancy whose existence is empirically-verifiable”, we participate in so much more than is immediately apparent in an act of reference. Plato's point is that the very notion of studying a term or a concept in isolation, divorced from any instantiations, contexts or examples, is not merely a wrong-headed endeavor; it is fundamentally impossible, and the supposition that such could be accomplished is the product of delusion, i.e. of failing to calculate those additional variables which inform but are not always immediately visible or apparent in a speaker's statement.


1Plato, Ed. John M. Cooper, Complete Works, “Sophist” (1997, Hackett, Indiana), 259c
2Ibid, 251c
3Ibid, 262b - c
4Ibid, 262a
5Ibid, 262b
6Ibid, 262c
7Ibid, 262d
8Ibid, 259e
9Ibid, 252b - c
10Ibid, 263e
11Plato, Ed. John M. Cooper, Complete Works, “Theaetetus” (1997, Hackett, Indiana), 146e
12Plato, Ed. John M. Cooper, Complete Works, “Sophist” (1997, Hackett, Indiana), 253a
13Ibid, 249d
14Ibid, 247e
15Ibid, 259b - c
16Ibid, 259d
17Ibid, 262d
18Ibid, 252b - c
19Ibid, 259e
20Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (1953, Blackwell, Cambridge), §6

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