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Speaking of Something: Plato's Sophist and Plato's Beard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Christine J. Thomas
Christine J. Thomas*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH03755-3592, USA
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Extract

The Eleatic Visitor speaks forcefully when he insists, ‘Necessarily, whenever there is speech, it is speech of something; it is impossible for it not to be of something’ (Soph. 262e6-7). For ‘if it were not of anything, it would not be speech at all; for we showed that it is impossible for there to be speech that is speech of nothing’ (Soph. 263c9-11). Presumably, at 263c10, when he claims to have ‘shown’ that it is impossible for speech to be of nothing, the Visitor is referring back to the Parmenidean puzzles at Sophist 237ff.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 631 - 667
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

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References

1 λóγον ἀναγκαȋον, ὃτανπε⍴ ᾖ, τινòς εἶναι λóγον, μή δὲ τινòς ἀδúνατον. Italics added. Unless otherwise indicated, I follow the text in Platonis Opera vol. 1, E. Duke, W. Hicken, W. Nicoll, D. Robinson, and J. Strachan, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995). I am responsible for translations from the Sophist, though I have consulted translations and notes by Cornford, F. M. Plato's Theory of Knowledge, [PT] (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. 1935), 165-331;Google Scholar and I sometimes follow with only minor modification White, N. Plato: Sophist, [PS] (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. 1993).Google Scholar

2 μηδενòς <δέ> γε ὣν οὐδ’ ἂν λóγος εἲη τò παράπαᐻ ἀπεφήναμεν γὰρ ὄτι τῶν ἀδυνάτων ἦν λóγον ὄνƮα μηδνòς εἶναι λóγον. Even in the case of a false piece of speech (e.g. ‘Theaetetus is flying’), the speech is of something, namely Theaetetus (Soph. 263c5).

3 It is possible that the Visitor refers only as far back as 262e4-7 and means only to recall that he has already ‘mentioned’ or ‘pointed out’ that speech must be of something. Of course, readers will then want to know why Theaetetus agrees so readily to the ‘small point’ articulated at 262e4-7. The answer presumably lies in the arguments offered on behalf of the conclusion that speech must be of something and cannot be of nothing at 237ff.

4 The Visitor is not alone in the Platonic corpus in favoring some kind of tinos requirement on speech and thought. At Republic 478bff, Socrates and Glaucon agree both that someone who believes believes some one thing ἕν γέ Ʈι δοξάζει ὁδξάζων,, 478b10) and also that it is impossible to believe yet to believe nothing. In the Theaetetus, at189a6-8, we are told by Socrates that someone who believes δοξάζων has in his belief some one thing ἕν Ʈι, a thing which is ὄν It is not possible to believe what is not, for believing what is not is not believing at all (Tht. 189a10-13). And again, since belief requires believing some one thing that is, speech must require some one thing that is. For thinking Ʈο διανοεῖσθαι just is ‘speech λóγον which the mind goes through with itself about those things it considers’ (Tht. 189e4-7). At Parmenides 132b7-c7, Socrates and Parmenides agree that thought is of something Ʈινóς and cannot be of nothing οὐδενóς See also Euthyd. 283e7-284c6. Of course, a tinos requirement might very well come to different things across different dialogues. The primary focus of the present paper is the nature of the requirement as articulated in the Sophist. For some discussion of passages from other dialogues, see Fine, G. ‘Knowledge and Belief in Republic V,’ Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 60 (1970) 121–39;Google Scholar Kahn, C. ‘Some Philosophical Uses of ‘‘to be’’ in Plato,’ [TB], Phronesis 26 (1981) 105–34;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Burnyeat, M. ‘Plato on How Not to Speak of What is Not: Euthydemus 283a-288a,’ Le Style de la Pensee (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2002), 40–66.Google Scholar

5 McCabe, M. M. Plato's Individuals, [PI] (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1994), 192–217,Google Scholar and Barney, R. Names and Nature in Plato's Cratylus (London: Routledge 2001), 192–4,CrossRefGoogle Scholar also suggest that the tinos requirement articulates some kind of ontological requirement on significant discourse, though our accounts of the substance of the requirement differ.

6 Quine, W. V. ‘On What There Is,’ [OWI], in From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1953), 1–19Google Scholar

7 Owen, G. E. L. ‘Plato on Not-Being,’ [PNB], in Logic, Science and Dialectic, Nussbaum, M. ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1986), 104–37Google Scholar at 120-2; cf., in the same volume, his ‘Notes on Ryle's Plato,’ 85-103 at 94. According to Owen, Plato makes important modifications to his theory of meaning in the Sophist. Owen argues that the Sophist recognizes a distinction between what does not exist and what is not anything at all. Cf. Ryle, G. who suspects that Plato frees himself from the grips of a problematic view of meaning in the Theaetetus, ‘Logical Atomism in Plato's Theaetetus,’ Phronesis 35 (1990) 21–46. Cf. McCabe, PI, 152-61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Gill, M. L. Parmenides, [P] (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. 1998), 99Google Scholar

9 Brown, L. ‘Being in the Sophist: A Syntactical Enquiry,’ [BSSE], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 4 (1986) 49–70,Google Scholar and ‘The Verb ‘‘to be’’ in Greek Philosophy: Some Remarks,’ [VBE], in Companions to Ancient Thought 3: Language, Everson, S. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994), 212–36.Google Scholar Elsewhere Brown allows that Plato distinguishes identity statements from predicative statements, ‘The Sophist on Statements, Predication, and Falsehood’ in The Oxford Handbook of Plato, Fine, G. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press 2008), 437-62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For discussion of various uses of ‘to be’ in Plato's writings, see a collection of works by Kahn, including TB, and ‘Retrospect on the Verb ‘‘to be’’ and the Concept of Being,’ [RVB], in The Logic of Being, S. Knuuttila and J. Hintikka, eds. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co. 1986), 1-28.

10 See Cratylus 387a1-c4 and 387d4-8 where the attempt to use a name that fails naturally to divide and to reveal being is characterized as ‘accomplishing nothing.’ It is not my view, however, that Plato takes the referent of a name to exhaust that name's signification. It is reasonable to view the Cratylus as recording Plato's view that names signify real natures ‘by nature’ and they signify, at the same time, linguistic contents ‘by convention’ where the total signification of a name is given by both its natural and its conventional signification. For brief discussion, see my ‘Inquiry Without Names in Plato's Cratylus,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 46 (2008) 341-64, at 342-7.

11 The commentators whose views I wish to resist tend to focus their discussions on fiction. I follow their example, though I make some brief suggestions about strategies Plato might adopt in order to resolve the problem of content for negative existence statements.

12 A useful resource is the commentary on Aristotle's ‘object of thought argument,’ and the recensio vulgata text and translation of περì ἰδεῶν in Fine, G. On Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato's Theory of Forms (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1993).Google Scholar

13 Note that Aristotle, at least for the purposes of this discussion, treats kinds and particulars on a par. I will suggest later in the paper that Plato considers both sensible particulars and kinds to count as somethings.

14 Here I rely on texts in Gallop, D. Parmenides of Elea, text and translation with an introduction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1984).Google Scholar

15 I follow Owen in discerning five distinct, but related puzzles, PNB, 117-24.

16 See Euthyd. 284b4-5 for the suggestion that there is nowhere that the things that are not are; cf. Tim. 52b3-5.

17 Though our interpretations diverge in important respects, my formulations of the first three puzzles share features in common with McCabe's in PI, 193-9, and G. Rudebusch, ‘Sophist 237-9,’ The Southern Journal of Philosophy 29 (1991) 521-31.

18 See also McCabe, PI, 195-7.

19 For discussion and defense of the Sophist's requirement on statements, see M. Frede, ‘Plato's Sophist on False Statements’ [PSF], in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, Kraut, R. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992), 397–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The terms in a statement might name particulars or kinds or both. ‘Theaetetus is sitting’ is a complex statement in which sitting is said to be among the things that are with respect to Theaetetus. The statement is of Theaetetus, but it contains two terms that pick out beings: ‘Theaetetus’ and ‘sitting.’ The terms are related in a certain way to produce a meaningful, truth-evaluable statement.

20 See McCabe, PI, 197.

21 Tht. 188e3-189b3 also links one, being, and something as requirements on perception and belief. Believing, like perceiving, requires some one thing as an object; and that some one thing is a thing which is. Cf. Rep. 478bff.

22 Cf. McCabe, PI, 197-9.

23 Plato is not the first to suggest that speech and thought require number. Consider a fragment attributed to Philolaus, ‘all things that are known have number ἀριθμóς. For without this it is not possible to think or to apprehend anything whatever.’ For some discussion of the fragment and Philolaus’ view, see Nussbaum, M. ‘Eleatic Conventionalism and Philolaus on the Conditions of Thought,’ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 83 (1979) 63–108;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hussey, E. ‘The Beginnings of Epistemology: From Homer to Philolaus’ in Companions to Ancient Thought 1: Epistemology, Everson, S. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990), 11–38.Google Scholar

24 Here I reproduce White's translation, PS, 27.

25 As I see it, the Sophist's solutions to the problems of falsity lie in part in rejecting the reasoning and conclusions of the fourth and fifth puzzles, leaving the first three intact.

26 See Heinaman, R. ‘Being in the Sophist,’ Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 65 (1983) 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar [BS] for defense of the claim that Plato's idea of being in the Sophist contains, at least in part, a notion of existence. See also Brown, BSSE, for defense of the view that Plato is concerned with existence (and with nonexistence) at various points in the Sophist. For useful discussion of the richness of the notion of being in Plato and in other classical Greek authors, see Kahn, TB and RVB; and Furth, M. ‘Elements of Eleatic Ontology,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 6 (1968) 111–32.Google Scholar

27 For a sampling of discussions and defenses of the view that τὸ μὴ ὄν is not equivalent to ‘what does not exist,’ see Owen, PNB; McDowell, J. ‘Falsehood and Not-Being in Plato's Sophist’ [FNB], in Language and Logos, Nussbaum, M. and Schofield, M. eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1982), 115–34;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Malcolm, J. ‘Plato's Analysis of to on and to mê on in the Sophist,’ [PA] Phronesis 12 (1967) 130–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Remarks on an Incomplete Rendering of Being in the Sophist,’ Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 67 (1985) 162-5; and Lewis, F. ‘Plato on ‘‘Not’’’ [PON], California Studies in Classical Antiquity 9 (1976) 89–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 The appeal to the Parmenides raises an interesting question: Why isn't the kind one among the greatest kinds of the Sophist? See McCabe, PI, 231-243, for defense of the view that the oneness or unity of a being, in the Sophist, is constituted out of that being's basic sameness and difference relations.

29 See McCabe, PI, for extended discussion of a version of this claim. Though I would refrain from endorsing some of the details of her position, I am in agreement with McCabe's basic point that an individuating role is assigned to the ‘greatest kinds’ of Plato's Sophist.

30 For an intriguing study of the Stoic notion of something Ʈι and its origins in the Stoics’ critical examinations of Plato's Sophist, see Brunschwig, J. ‘The Stoic Theory of the Supreme Genus and Platonic Ontology’ [ST] in his Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy, Lloyd, J. trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994), 92–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Brunschwig appeals to the passages at 247ff., but he denies that the source of the Stoic notion can be found in 237dff.. An excellent discussion of the Stoics can also be found in V. Caston, ‘Something and Nothing: The Stoics on Concepts and Universals’ in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 17 (1999) 145-213.

31 For discussion of the ‘mark’ of being and its implications for the immutability of forms, see Moravcsik, J. M. E. ‘Being and Meaning in the Sophist,’ Acta Philosophica Fennica 14 (1962) 23–78;Google Scholar Keyt, D. ‘Plato's Paradox that the Immutable is Unknowable,’ Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1969) 1–14;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Owen, G. E. L. ‘Plato and Parmenides on the Timeless Present,’ repr. in Logic, Science and Dialectic in Nussbaum, M. ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1986) 27–44;Google Scholar Vlastos, G. ‘An Ambiguity in the Sophist,’ App. I, in Platonic Studies, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1981), 270–322;Google Scholar and Brown, L. ‘Innovation and Continuity: The Battle of Gods and Giants, Sophist 245-249,’ in Method in Ancient Philosophy, Gentzler, J. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998), 181–207.Google Scholar

32 What sorts of things count as beings, as somethings? Genuine kinds or forms (e.g. difference, justice) clearly qualify. But the mark of being applies to individual souls as well (246e9). Moreover, the speech that is of something at 263ff. is of Theaetetus. Though I cannot defend the proposal here, it strikes me as unsurprising that a generous conception of beings (as any something that participates in, among other things, being, sameness and difference) coincides with Plato's willingness in the Sophist to permit the communion of kinds and to commit the philosopher to the view that being includes both the changing and the unchanging (249c10-d4). See McCabe, PI, for discussion of Plato's evolving metaphysics of individuals. On her view, Plato ultimately counts ‘forms, particulars, monads, numbers, kinds, whatever’ as individuals for which a single, general account of individuation might be possible (301ff.). Moreover, the ‘mesh of identity’ articulated in the Sophist (being, being one, being the same and different, and being able to possess properties) determines basic individuals quite generally. Frede, PSF, appears to allow that somethings are beings and that Theaetetus can count as a something and a being, but not in all of the same ways that a kind counts as a being. Theaetetus can be by being related to other beings (i.e. by participating in kinds). The kind difference can also be in itself; it can be without being relative to other kinds.

33 Being may, of course, go beyond merely existing. For discussion of the view that Plato believes that ‘existence-with-predication, or being a subject for attributes, is indeed the most common property, which applies to everything there is,’ see Kahn, TB, 123. Cf. Frede, PSF.

34 Quine, OWI, 4

35 Of course, not everyone is persuaded by Quine's considerations. See, recently for example, Priest, G. Towards Non-Being: The Logic and Metaphysics of Intentionality (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 A second possibility is that the tinos requirement articulates an ontological requirement on significant discourse, but not an existence requirement. Perhaps, for example, discourse must be of an ontological something but, like the Stoics after him, Plato countenances both existent somethings and non-existent somethings. Though this interpretation is distinct from mine, it is not necessarily a competitor of the relevant sort. For even if the somethings include existent and nonexistent entities, the question is whether or not Pegasus is among those entities. The question is ‘Is Pegasus a something?’ The answer to that question, for Plato (even if not for the Stoics), might still be ‘no,’ depending on the criteria for somethinghood. For discussion of possible connections between Plato's Sophist and the Stoic notion of something, see Brunschwig, ST.

37 Much more is required fully to account for the contents of statements. For example, some one of the things that are must be said of the object of discourse. In the Sophist's sample subject-predicate statement (‘Theaetetus is sitting’), some one of the beings that are kinds is said to be with respect to a something that is a particular being.

38 I count Owen among those commentators motivating some version or other of this first challenge. He suggests that the first few puzzles rule out talk not about the nonexistent, but about subjects which are predicatively nothing, where what is predicatively nothing is what, for any predicate ‘F,’ is not F. Yet what is predicatively nothing, he argues, is not to be identified with what does not exist. According to Owen, a centaur, for example, does not exist, but it is nevertheless predicatively something since, ‘we can describe our centaurs. They have hooves, not fishtails; they are made of flesh and blood, not tin; and they are fictitious, not found in Whipsnade Zoo,’ PNB 121.

39 I raise this possibility as a potential problem for my interpretation, though entanglement with the problem of nonbeing is, of course, the very position that Quine, OWI, Brown, BSSE and VBE, and Gill, P, seem to think Plato eventually finds himself in.

40 Brown, VBE and BSSE. Cf. Kahn's more general discussions of ‘to be’ in Plato and in other Greek authors, TB and RVB. Kahn does not straightforwardly claim that what it is to exist in classical Greek philosophy differs from what might be offered in contemporary accounts of existence; rather he focuses on the point that the Greek concept does not permit marking a clear distinction between existence claims and predications, or between veridical uses of ‘is’ and existential or copulative uses. Moreover, on his view, the copulative use is the core, fundamental use. According to Kahn, there are explicit statements of existence (even if rare) in classical Greek authors; it's just that ‘a Greek reader would normally hear the existential verb as pregnant with the incomplete copula,’ TB, 123, and existential uses of the verb ‘to be’ serve to introduce a subject for further predication, RVB 9-10.

41 Brown, VBE and BSSE. Interestingly enough, Kahn sees the prominence of the copulative use of the verb ‘to be’ as insulating Greek thinkers from the problem of nonbeing: ‘The functions of einai as instrument of predication were so fundamental that the same verb could not easily be seen as forming a self-sufficient predicate. In Greek linguistic intuition, ‘There is no Zeus’ (ouk esti Zeus) means that Zeus is not a subject for any predication, that there is nothing true to be said about him. The Greeks are thus untroubled by the modern puzzle of negative existentials, which arises from the temptation to assume that ‘Zeus does not exist’ says something which is true of Zeus,’ RVB, 12.

42 On Owen's view, Plato is addressing those who would agree that ’Ʈò μῂ ὄν’ should be understood as equivalent to ’Ʈò μηδαμῶς ὄν’ (at 237b7 and 237c2) or ‘that which isn't anything at all.’ According to Owen the puzzles arise from the equation of ‘‘‘what is not’’ not with ‘‘what does not exist’’ but with ‘‘what is not anything, what not-in-any-way is’’: a subject with all the being knocked out of it and so unidentifiable, no subject,’ PNB 122. In response to Owen's proposal, Heinaman records perplexity about Plato's apparent dialectical opponents, those interested to defend the possibility of speech that is of an unidentifiable subject, ‘One wonders who these strange people may have been and what their motives were,’ BS 3n.7. My own view is that Owen is on the right track in one respect. Plato in fact identifies what is not with what in no way is; but, pace Owen, Plato also identifies what in no way is with what does not exist. The puzzles reveal clearly that the reason one cannot speak of what does not exist is that what does not exist in no way is. There is no identifiable object in the case of what does not exist. What does not exist has no properties and lacks any sort of being whatsoever. What does not exist is nothing. There is no speaking of what does not exist. Plato is then left to address the problem of content for discourse containing empty terms. In maintaining the various elements of my interpretation, I am defending a version of what Owen calls a ‘common-place view,’ PNB, 108.

43 Owen characterizes PA in PNB, 108-9. Though there is by no means agreement about how to formulate what I am calling ‘the first challenge,’ Owen's PNB provides the locus classicus for commentators who wish to deny that the Sophist's puzzles arise out of difficulties concerning speaking of what does not exist. For further discussion, see works cited in notes 26 and 27.

44 I follow Owen's translation here with slight revision, PNB, 229.

45 Owen goes on to claim that it is only incomplete sentences (sentences which require complements) of the form ‘X is…’ and ‘X is not…’ that are clarified in the solution to the puzzles, so it is incomplete uses of ‘to be’ that are at issue in the original puzzles. Unlike Owen, Frede does not consider the two uses of an incomplete ‘is’ to divide into the uses of ‘is’ in predication and identity statements, PSF. Rather, he thinks, Plato attributes two ways of being to things. Something can be what it is by itself or it can be by being appropriately related to something else. Like Owen, however, Frede suggests that the puzzles at 237ff. rest on confusing what is not with what is nothing whatsoever (but not with what does not exist), and that Plato's resolution of the puzzles saves discourse about what is not by rejecting the identification. See also Kahn, TB, 130 n. 18, and RVB, 21. My view, on the other hand, is that the first three puzzles rely on an identification of what is not with what does not exist (i.e. with what is nothing at all), and that Plato embraces their results: there is no naming or attributing properties to what does not exist. Plato nevertheless saves false statements (and false beliefs), in part, by showing how statements are not simply complex names and how false statements, then, are not simply complex names of what does not exist. Plato also makes clear that there are many ways of understanding the claim that a false statement is discourse concerning what is not. As far as the analysis of false statements is concerned, one could follow Frede and accept that, for Plato, to speak falsely is ‘to say something that is not altogether nothing, but something that is; in fact, it can only be called ‘not being’ insofar as it is, namely different from what is with reference to the given subject,’ PSF, 421.

46 As part of a defense of her view that Plato makes and clarifies some existence claims in the Sophist, Brown offers several responses to Owen, BSSE, 61. Heinaman, BS, also defends the view that appeals to being in the Sophist are sometimes appeals to existence.

47 PA might also, even naturally, be read to articulate only the weak claim that our capacity to become utterly confused about what is and what is not provides some hope that any clarity achieved at all will shed some light on both. My interpretation would satisfy a weak version of PA.

48 For discussion of whether or not negative predications are illuminated in Plato’s Sophist, see Frede, PSF; Lewis, PON; McDowell, FNB; and Bostock, D. ‘Plato on ‘‘is not,’’’ Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984) 89–119.Google Scholar Frede attempts a reading of the Sophist according to which a strong version of PA might be satisfied. But even on his interpretation, the dialogue's proposed analysis of negative predication is largely extrapolated from its texts and not explicitly on display.

49 See, for example, Malcolm, PA, 165, who suggests that such an inference would be ‘flagrantly fallacious.’

50 Heinaman regards the inference from the existence of a form to its having many properties as ‘perfectly correct’ BS, 7-8. Brown, BS and VBBE, interprets the move as an inference, though one that leads to paradox in some cases. Where she thinks the inference is problematic, I agree with Heinaman that it is explicitly defended by Plato as metaphysically grounded and correct.

51 See also Kahn, TB and RVB. Kahn does not consider passages from the Sophist in any detail; but he defends the view that Greek authors generally, and Plato in particular, saw existential uses of ‘to be’ as pregnant with predicative uses. ‘X is’ can unfold, then, ‘naturally and non-fallaciously’ into ‘X is F’ for select, but unspecified values of F, TB, 130 n. 18.

52 Brown VB, 226

53 Brown BSSE, 68. Cf. Owen ‘Aristotle on the Snares of Ontology’ in LSD, 264-5.

54 Heinaman appears to make a similar point in the appendix to BS, 16.

55 And possibly ‘change’ and ‘rest.’

56 For defense and discussion, see Frede, PSF.

57 Assuming the context of the dialogue, a context in which Theaetetus and sitting both exist.

58 Brown characterizes the inference as moving from ‘X is’ to ‘X is something.’

59 Brown suggests that Plato's concept of existence is somehow different from our own, such that his concept licenses inferences from ‘X is F’ to ‘X is’ and from ‘X is’ to ‘X is F’ (or ‘X is something’), but ours does not. I am not sure I fully understand the proposal. But she seems to suggest that Plato's concept differs from ours in allowing completions where we would not. So, if the sentence ‘Pegasus is’ (i.e. ‘Pegasus exists’) is complete in the way that Brown suggests it is, then it allows for completion in the same way that ‘Jane is teaching’ allows for completion. When Jane tells us she is teaching, we can ask, ‘Oh really, what are you teaching?’ She might respond ‘physics.’ But it is difficult to make sense of the idea that an existence claim can be completed, given the model. When someone says ‘Pegasus exists,’ we cannot ask ‘What does Pegasus exist?’ or ‘What is Pegasus existing?’ To be fair to Brown, she acknowledges that there seems to be no parallel question to ask in the case of existence, but she takes this as further evidence that Plato’s conceptual scheme is different from our own. Brown VBBE, 225. See also Kahn, TB and RVB.

60 Ultimately Plato has some resources for countenancing contentful fictional discourse that is not of or about the nonexistent. Here my results differ also from those of, for example, Owen, Frede, and Kahn. They see Plato as simply rejecting as confused the idea that ‘what is not’ could be understood as ‘what is not F for any value of ‘‘F.’’’ My view is that Plato intends moderately to clarify the general notion of what is not as including at least three elements: what does not exist, what is not F for select values of F, and what is not identical with something else. Moreover, Plato wishes clearly to claim that there is no discourse or thought of what does not exist where what does not exist is to be identified with what is not F for every value of ‘F.’ On my view, then, he embraces the results of the first two puzzles of the Sophist and he is left struggling to resolve the third puzzle (while he resolves the fourth and fifth puzzles). One advantage of this approach is that it preserves a minimal parallelism of three elements — existence, predication, and identity — in his discussions of both what is and what is not.

61 See Inwagen, P. van ‘Reply to Reviewers,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (1993) 709–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 See Inwagen, P. van ‘Meta-Ontology,’ Erkenntnis 48 (1998) 233–50,CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a defense of, among other things, the following three claims: (i) being is the same as existence, (ii) being is univocal, and (iii) the single sense of being is captured in the existential quantifier of formal logic.

63 The discussion offered here is by no means a complete survey of Plato's treatment of mythical or poetic discourse. I mean only to establish that there is a good deal of evidence for thinking that Plato's strategies for accounting for meaning in myth are complex and varied, but do not require or even suggest an utterly unconstrained ontology.

64 I follow the Grube-Reeve translation with minor revision, Plato: Republic (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. 1992)

65 Portions of my discussion of myth in Plato are indebted to Brisson, Luc Plato the Myth-Maker, Naddaf, G. trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1998).Google Scholar Cf. Moor, K. F. Platonic Myth: An Introductory Study (Lanham, MD: University Press of America 1982).Google Scholar

66 See also Sophist 262d2-3, where we are told that the person uttering a name ‘gives an indication about what is, or comes to be, or has come to be, or is going to come to be.’ The point seems to be that it is possible to name past, present, and future objects, that they are available somehow, at present, to be named as members of the ontology; cf. Heinaman, BS, 12-13. The treatment of the educational myths of the Republic does not offer a strategy for dealing with truly empty terms, then, but it does suggest how Plato might deal with some negative existence claims, such as ‘Socrates does not exist.’ The sentence is, strictly speaking, false since Socrates exists so long as his immortal, rational soul exists. Still, the sentence is of something and might be used, then, to express something true about Socrates, namely that he is disembodied. Presumably the sentence ‘Pegasus does not exist’ will need to be handled in some other way.

67 Plato's allegorical discourse might be analyzed in a similar fashion, not as preserving information about a particular event, but as communicating more general truths about, for example, the human condition.

68 Translation is J. B. Skemp's with revisions by Ostwald, M. Plato: Statesman (Indianaoplis: Hackett Publishing Co. 1992).Google Scholar

69 The translation, with revision, is from Zeyl, D. Plato: Timaeus (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co. 2000).Google Scholar

70 David Charles attributes a similar position to Aristotle. Aristotle is said to account for a compound thought with the ‘kind’ goat-stag as its content by appeal to the combination of simple thoughts involving the kinds goat and stag. See Charles, D. ‘Aristotle on Names and Their Signification’ in Companions to Ancient Thought 3: Language, Everson, S. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994), 37–73;Google Scholar and Charles, D. Aristotle on Meaning and Essence (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002), 78–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Modrak, D. Aristotle's Theory of Language and Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001), 47–8.Google Scholar

71 Socrates remarks that he is more concerned with self-knowledge than with undertaking the unenviable task of generating such accounts for popular myths. Aristotle also recommends against analyzing myths, Meta. 1000a5-18.

72 This final strategy for accommodating fiction is a sort of prototype of Russellian and Quinean paraphrase and carries with it the advantages and disadvantages of a paraphrase approach. According to Quine, ‘If in terms of pegasizing we can interpret the noun ‘‘Pegasus’’ as a description subject to Russell's theory of descriptions, then we have disposed of the old notion that Pegasus cannot be said not to be without presupposing that in some sense Pegasus is,’ OWI, 8. The result for ‘Pegasus does not exist’ is useful, since we can understand the sentence truthfully to express something like ‘It is not the case that there is a marvelous steed with wings.’ But the results for ‘Pegasus flies’ are less satisfactory. Although the sentence meaningfully expresses ‘There is a marvelous steed with wings and it flies,’ the sentence is false, despite the fact that it reports accurately about the content of the fiction. ‘Pegasus is fictional’ is perhaps more difficult, since it is not clear how exactly to paraphrase the sentence to capture either the anticipated meaning or the anticipated truth-value. Plato does not account for content to the point of perfect clarification of nonexistence claims, claims within fiction, or claims about the fictional status of some purported object. As I have suggested, Plato's efforts to deal with the problem of content are limited. Still, I hope to identify some tendencies in his dialogues that make it possible to uncover his views of the ontological commitments wrapped up in fictional discourse. For a different strategy altogether, see Durrant, M. ‘Plato's Quinean Beard: Did Plato Ever Grow It?’ Philosophy 73 (1998) 113–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar According to Durrant, Plato develops the view that sentences containing empty terms can be meaningful, despite failing to express propositions. He speculates that Plato adopts a view according to which a simple subject-predicate sentence expresses a proposition only when it meets a requirement of presupposition (i.e. only on the presupposition that there is a corresponding true existential proposition).

73 That Plato conceives of language as largely a tool for dialectical inquiry into being is partly supported by his discussion of the function of names in the Cratylus (388b10-390d5).

74 For helpful discussion of an early version of the paper, thanks to Gail Fine, Terry Irwin, Sam Levey, Sydney Shoemaker, and audiences at Westpoint Military Academy and Dartmouth College. I am also grateful to two anonymous referees and to the editors of Canadian Journal of Philosophy for constructive comments. My warmest thanks to Iris Levey.