The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy
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Absolutely all these things will be with you throughout your life. (B110.1–3)
Which raises an obvious question: How could Empedocles have supposed that his account of a complex and changing physical cosmos would be able to supply Pausanias with a reliable understanding when Parmenides had denied the possibility of achieving a completely reliable account of such matters?
The answer, I think, lies in Parmenides’ own assertion (in DK 28 B 16) that the noos of mortals varies in accordance with the mixture (krasis) or physical condition of their wandering “limbs” or sense organs (see p. 255). Since, on Empedocles’ account, all bodies emit and receive “effluences” (aporroiai) to and from one another (cf. DK 31 B89 and 90), our physical constitution seems to be determined to a significant degree by the nature or natures of the things that exist all around us. So if Parmenides was right to link thought with our bodily conditions (and, as we have seen, both poets and philosophers alike had stated that mortals “think what they meet with”), then we can conclude with equal justice that our thought is determined by all the things that are “present” to us:
…intelligence (mêtis) among men grows according to what is present. (B 106) Insofar as they have changed in their nature, so far changed thoughts are always present to them. (B108)29
And precisely because thought is shaped by circumstances, we must exercise good judgment with respect to the particular things we “meet with,” including the messages others might wish to impart to us:
For narrow devices are spread throughout their limbs,
But many wretched things strike in, and blunt their meditations … (B2.1–2)
From these [words/ideas] you will acquire many others, for these themselves
Will grow to form the character, according to the nature (physis) of each.
But if you reach out for different things,
Such as the ten thousand wretched things which blunt men’s meditations,
Truly [these ideas] will abandon you quickly … (B110.4–8)
For Empedocles, then, excellence in thought – the degree to which individuals can gain “wealth in their thought organs” – depends on the extent to which their “mix of ideas” corresponds with the realities themselves (more precisely, with the particular “ratio” or logos of the mixture that defines a thing’s specific nature).30
In addition, as Theophrastus puts it, Empedocles makes sense perception “a result of the like”:
By earth we see earth; by water, water;
By aether, shining aether; but by fire, blazing fire;
Love by love and strife by baneful strife. (B109)
Perhaps as a consequence of identity in material, there is a symmetry between the effluences themselves and the pores in the individual sense organ that receives them (which explains why one sense faculty is incapable of perceiving the qualities detected by the others).31 Acuity in perception, like acuity in thought, is also accounted for in terms of correspondence between the mixtures in the things and those in the perceiver (Theophrastus, Sens. 11). In short, Empedocles provides an account of sense perception and thought that ties both processes to the rational structure (logos) and physical nature (physis) of the things themselves. When combined with the commonly held view that our thoughts are shaped by physical conditions, these considerations provided Empedocles with excellent reason to offer the prospect of a fully reliable knowledge of the natural world.
Three features in Empedocles’ account of cognition have a special importance for later Greek thinking about knowledge. First, while many early thinkers appear to have assumed that “like knows like” in some sense, Empedocles states the principle in terms of an isomorphism between the knowing mind and its object, an idea that assumes major importance in the theories presented by Plato32 and Aristotle.33
Second, for Empedocles as to some degree for Heraclitus and Parmenides before him, knowledge consists in the grasp of the nature (physis) and rational structure (logos) of a thing.34 The concept of the physis of a thing had played a key role in the transition from the world of ancient common belief and imagination to philosophy and science.35 When used in connection with individual phenomena, physis designated:
… that cluster of stable characteristics by which we can recognize that thing and can anticipate the limits within which it can act upon other things or be acted upon by them.36
And when used in connection with the cosmos as a whole, physis supplied the early Greek philosophers with a framework for thinking about the physical realm in its entirety, either as one primordial substance from which all existing things originally came into being, or as a basic element or set of elements that represented, at bottom, what all things really are.
The concept of the “nature,” “essential nature,” or “what it is” of a thing will play a fundamental role in classical accounts of knowledge. On a number of occasions in Plato’s early dialogues Socrates will affirm as a general principle that we must first discover the essential nature of a thing – its ti estin or “what it is” – before we attempt to determine what other features it might possess.37 Both Plato and Aristotle will characterize knowledge in the most basic sense of the term as a matter of grasping in thought a thing’s essential nature or ti estin.38 This emphasis on grasping a thing’s nature also explains the frequency with which “giving a logos or account” enters into a number of proposed definitions of knowledge,39 since being able to explain “what a thing is” is quite plausibly regarded as a necessary condition for being said to know what it is.
Thirdly, as is clear from his injunction to Pausanias in B3, Empedocles accepts the possibility of a fully trustworthy grasp of the truth from a variety of different sources:
But come, consider by every device, how each thing is clear
Neither holding any vision as having greater trust (pistin) than hearing,
Nor the echoes of hearing over the clarities of tongue,
Nor hold back trust (pistin) from any of the other limbs which offer
a passageway for thinking (noêsai)
But think (noei) each thing in the way it is clear. (B3.4–8)
In fact, each of the conceptions of knowledge embraced by earlier thinkers finds a place in his account: like the Ionian inquirers, Empedocles undertakes to know the causes and principles of the things whose existence we discover through sense perception; like Heraclitus, he regards knowledge as a matter of grasping in thought the logos and physis of things; and like Parmenides, he holds that through pure meditation and analysing the logos in our breast, we can acquire fully trustworthy indicators of the truth. In articulating the idea of a plurality of sources of knowledge, Empedocles also anticipates the highly pluralistic view of knowledge presented in Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, Posterior analytics II. 19, and Nicomachean ethics VI.
NOTES
1 Cf. Iliad 1.343–44: “Nor does [Agamemnon] think of what lies before and after so the Achaeans might safely wage war beside their ships”; similarly Il. III. 107–10; XVIII.250; Od. XX.350ff.; XXI.85; and XIV.452.
2 Cf. Theognis, 141–42; Solon, frs. 1, 13, 16; Pindar, Olympian VII.25–26; Nemean VI.6–7; VII.23–24; XI. 43–47.
3 The text is uncertain. DK reads peri tôn aphaneôn, peri tôn thnêtôn saphêneian men theoi echonti, hôs de anthrôpois tekmairesthai, but others omit the phrase peri tôn thnêtôn (concerning things mortal). I follow LSJ in inserting dedotai (it is given). Heraclitus (DK 22 B78) and Philolaus (DK 44 B6a) also contrasted divine with human knowledge.
4 Cf. Burnet [20] 3; Guthrie [15]29; Barnes [14] 5; Lloyd [III] 49; McKirahan [10] 73–75; Cohen, Curd, and Reeve [7] viii; among many others. See the balanced remarks by Algra in this volume p. 60.
5 Plato, Phaedo 96a7–8. For Anaximander and historiê, see Aelian, Varia historia III. 1; 17 and Diogenes Laertius II. 1; for Xenophanes, see Hippolytus in DK 21 A33.
6 Among them: musical harmonies (as in Philolaus DK 44 B6a, A24), geometrical solids (cf. Aristotle, Metaph. XIV.3 1091a15), the powers in t
he soul (Philolaus, B13), or the cosmos as a whole (cf. Aristotle, Metaph. 1.5 986a).
7 See further Cherniss [87] 10, Vlastos [186] 82 and G. Vlastos, Plato’s Universe (Seattle, 1975).
8 See, for example, in this volume Huffman’s account of Philolaus pp. 81–2 and Taylor’s discussion of the epistemological issues raised by Protagoras and Democritus pp. 189–96. On the importance assigned to truthfulness by Homer and Hesiod, see Most in this volume p. 342.
9 See p. 226 and Broadie in this volume p. 211.
10 Diels-Kranz, following H. Fränkel (Hermes 60 (1925) 185ff.), opted for the iden of Sextus’ text over the geneto in Plutarch. The latter reading, however, has been recently defended by Hussey [246] and brings a greater degree of unity to Xenophanes’ comments. On this reading, Xenophanes is concerned throughout to deny the existence of any individual endowed with a special gift for knowledge of the deepest truths. The various interpretations of B34 are reviewed in Lesher [189].
11 Cf. Herodotus 11.44 where saphes knowing goes hand in hand with direct observation, and the contrast between saphêneia and tekmairesthai in Alcmaeon DK 24 B1.
12 Scholars have given widely divergent answers to these questions. The present account focuses on Heraclitus’ remarks about nature as a cosmos energized and governed by the force of fire/Zeus/strife/opposition. I say little about the classic view of Heraclitus as a proponent of the theory of constant change, primarily because I regard it as a distortion of Heraclitus’ ideas introduced by Plato and Aristotle. For discussion of this issue, see Kirk [233].
13 Assuming, following Marcovich [234], that gnômên (intelligence) refers to an existing intelligent being rather than to an “opinion” or “judgment” in the person who knows.
14 This is a controversial claim. Many have read B35, “Men [who are lovers of wisdom’] must indeed be inquirers (historas) into many things,” as a statement in support of inquiry. But: (1) as Marcovich noted ([234], 26), historas meant “acquainted with,” “versed in,” “knowing,” and did not specifically designate the fact-finding travel and observation of the Ionian philosopher-scientists; (2) no fragment or ancient report suggests that Heraclitus himself ever conducted any “fact-finding inquiry”; and (3) since the logos is common to all things, it could be discovered at work in the most familiar settings.
15 It might be argued that a distinction between what appears to be the case and what is actually taking place must have been obvious to many early thinkers, but Heraclitus is still the first thinker we know of to draw a distinction between being familiar with the perceptible qualities of an object and understanding its true nature.
16 Virtually no aspect of Parmenides’ poem is free of textual or interpretive controversies. The account presented here attempts to render the proem and doxa sections consistent with the doctrines presented in B2–8. A variety of approaches to Parmenides are presented and criticized in Tarán [276]; Mourelatos [309]; KRS; Gallop [272]; and Coxon [270].
17 According to Theophrastus (Sens. iff.) Parmenides also sought to account for sensation and thought in terms of a mixture of the (sun-related) hot and the cold. B16 affirms that “As is at any moment the mixture of the wandering limbs, so noos is present to men….” For a discussion, see Vlastos [321] and Laks in this volume p. 255.
18 This is especially true if (as proposed by Bicknell [484]), we assign B10 with its many references to the sun, moon, stars, and aether to the proem rather than to the main account.
19 It is sometimes suggested that noos and noein in Parmenides’ poem should be understood as an intuitive form of awareness much closer to knowing, recognizing, or being acquainted with than to any process of discursive thought or thinking (Coxon [270] 174; Mourelatos [309] 6870; along with many others). But in B2.2 Parmenides refers to the “routes of inquiry which are ‘there for’ (or ‘available for’) noêsai,” and since one of the two ways-the “is not” way-is described as “beyond learning,” it could never have been a way “available for knowing.” Moreover, noos can err, as is clear from B6.4–6. Indeed, without some possibility of an erroneous noos or noêsis, it would be hard to understand why the god dess would bother to warn the youth at B7.2 to keep his noêma from the “is-not” path of inquiry. What I take to be the correct view is defended by Tarán [276] 80–81, and Barnes [14] 158–59.
20 See the extended discussion of this point in Mourelatos [309].
21 Guthrie [15] 419–24 argues that the first instance of logos with the unmistakable meaning of “reason” does not occur until a century after Parmenides.
22 The scenes in the Odyssey (XXIII.107ff. and XXIV.324ff.) in which Odysseus is recognized, first by Penelope and later by Laertes; the various points of correspondence are discussed in Lesher [494].
23 Most notably in Plato (cf. Phaedo 66, Rep. VI 490 and VII 533–34).
24 For a broadly similar assessment of Parmenides’ cosmology, see Graham in this volume p. 168, and for a different interpretation of it see Sedley p. 123.
25 Cf. Xenophanes B35: “Let these be accepted, certainly, as like (eoikota) the realities”; and Plato’s use of the phrase eikota myth on (likely story) at Tim. 29d, 49c and elsewhere.
26 By KRS, Barnes [14], and Long [304], among others.
27 Apatêlos is not “false” but “deceptive” or “deceitful.” As Simplicius explains, ”… he calls this account ‘seeming’ (doxaston) and ‘deceptive’ (apatêlon), meaning not that it is simply false (pseudê haplôs) but that the perceptible has fallen off from intelligible truth to what is apparent and seeming” (A34).
28 I regard Peri physeôs or On nature as distinct from the Katharmoi or Purifications. The two-poem view is defended by Wright [358) and Kingsley [105], among others. Osborne [364], Inwood [357], and McKirahan [10] argue, inconclusively so it seems to me, that both poems formed part of a single work.
29 As Theophrastus explained (Sens. 10, A86), Empedocles’ identification of thought with blood (B105) can be understood in this connection: “That is why we think especially well with the blood, for in this all the elements are especially mixed.”
30 For Empedocles’ identification of the nature of a thing with the logos of the mixture of its elements, see Aristotle, De an. 1.4 408a13–23 and Metaph. I.9 993a15–24 (A78).
31 Theophrastus, Sens. 1 (A86). For detailed discussions of Empedocles’ accounts of thought and sense perception, see Verdenius [498], Long [366], and Wright [358].
32 See Phaedo 79d; Tim. 47b, 90a-e; Rep. VI 500c.
33 See De an. 111.5 429a; NE VI.l 1139a.
34 Cf. kata physin in Heraclitus DK 22 B1.4–5, and physis in Parmenides DK 28 B10. Parmenides never asserts that “what is” (to eon) has a physis – almost certainly because, as B8.10 asserts, “what is” can never “grow” (phyn). But he clearly does think that “what is” has a fixed and definable nature (cf. B8.4: “whole, of a single kind, unwavering, and complete”). Empedocles evidently agrees with Parmenides when in DK 31 B8 he regards physis as merely a name given to things by men, but in B1 10 he describes the process of learning as forming “character, according to the physis in each.”
35 Vlastos, Plato’s Universe (see n. 7), 19.
36 Vlastosibid.
37 Cf. Plato, Gorg. 501a; Laches 190d; Charmides 176b; Prot. 360–361; Meno 71b, 80d, and roob-c, Lysis 223b7; Hippias major 304d8-e2; and Rep. I 354a-b.
38 Cf. Plato, Symp. 211c; Rep. VII 520c; Tht. 175e; Cr at. 440a; for Aristotle, cf. (ti estin), VII. 1 1028a36–37: “we think we know each thing most fully when we know what it is (ti estin), for example, what man is, or what fire is, rather than when we know its quality, quantity, or its place.”
39 Cf. Plato, Meno 98a; Rep. VI 510c; Tht. 201d ff.; Aristotle, APo II.8-10.
ANDRÉ LAKS
12 Soul, sensation, and thought
Soul, sensation, and thought: a separate chapter could be devoted to each of these items. But, beyond considerations of space, there is a rationale for broaching them together, for these three notions are in so
me sense correlated. It is on certain aspects of this correlation that I shall focus. The first part of this chapter concentrates on the soul, and its relationship to the two other terms. The second part specifically will be devoted to the relationship between thought and the senses. Since an important aspect of the latter question bears on epistemology, some overlap with J. Lesher’s contribution to this volume (Chapter 11) is unavoidable. However, I have tried to draw attention to “physiological,” rather than epistemological problems. As it turns out, this emphasis may not be too artificial because, as we shall see, there is a question as to whether the early Greek philosophers’ interests in the relationship between thought and the senses was not primarily physiological rather than epistemological, in a sense of the term “physiological” that remains to be spelled out.
1. TOWARD THE SOUL
Aristotle, criticizing the Platonic tripartition of the soul (psyche) in the Republic but following up some indications of the Timaeus,1 distinguished four psychic functions: nutritive, sensory, locomotive, and intellectual (De an. II.2 413a21 ff.). That the soul digests and even that it is the source of motion sounds strange to us, but we are familiar with the view that it perceives and thinks. These are still included in the Cartesian construal of the soul.2 To early Greek philosophers on the other hand, such an idea was far from obvious. They could talk about cognitive faculties without any reference to the soul. Empedocles’ physical poem is a remarkable example of this. Although it contains one of the most elaborate treatments of perceptual mechanisms and thought processes to be found in early Greek thought, Empedocles makes no reference to psychê. It may be that this term, in as much as it was felt to be linked to “breath” (i.e., “vivifying breath”),3 was not especially suited to Empedocles’ views. For in contrast to most authors, he referred the most accomplished form of intellectual life not to dryness but to a certain kind of moisture, namely blood (DK 31 B105).4 But we also find the soul marginalized in Anaxagoras. While elevating the “intellect” (nous) to the status of highest principle, he clearly uses psychê in the traditional, Homeric sense of “life”: B12, “all that has psychê” only means “all living things.” This is also the case in the only occurrence of the word in Empedocles, which comes from the religious poem Katharmoi (Purifications): B138, in the context of ritual sacrifice, speaks of “drawing off life (psychê) with bronze.”