"Leave Truth to the police and us; we know the Good; We build the Perfect City time shall never alter; Our Law shall guard you always like a cirque of mountains..." - W.H. Auden, 1900's
"The noblest motive is the public good." - Sir Richard Steele, 1744
"No learned disputants would take the field, Sure not to conquer, and sure not to yield; Both sides deceiv'd, if rightly understood, Pelting eachother for the public good." - William Cowper, 1500's
"The good of the people is the chief law." - Cicero
"[A]nd once they've seen the good itself, they must each in turn put the city, its citizens, and themselves in order, using it as their model....[h]e must labor in politics and rule for the city's sake." - Plato, Republic (540)
"They blame us for not knowing the good and then turn around and talk to us as if we did know it. They say that it is knowledge of the good - as if we understood what they're speaking about when they utter the word "good."...[t]hey have to agree that the same things are both good and bad." - Plato, Republic (505c)
Entities and attributes are two types of existents. An entity is an existent that can exist by itself. "An attribute," writes Branden (1969), "is an aspect or characteristic of an entity which can be isolated and identified conceptually for the purpose of identification," but, as I will show in this essay, "cannot exist independently of the entity." In the above quotes, Plato regards the good as both an attribute of a thing (505c), and as an entity (540). Can it be both? Plato was not the first to elevate attributes to the status of entities, as this error can be traced back to pre-Socratic philosophers.
Parmenides (b 515)
Parmenides was the first philosopher to discover the axiomatic nature of existence: "For it is possible to be, but not possible for nothing to be." (F6) This fragment implies that something, whatever its attributes might be, must exist, but there is not such existent as "nothing," as "nothing" just means non-existence, and non-existence can not exist. The concept of existence is axiomatic, as Ron Merill (1994) shows, because one must accept it to try to disprove it:
"[I]f nothing exists, who is denying it, and to whom is he addressing his denial? Moreover, it is inescapable; one cannot assert anything to be correspondence-true without the assumption that reality exists to which it corresponds."
Fragment 8 furthers Parmenides' metaphysics in his "single story of a way, that it is." The antecedent of the pronoun "it" is any existent. Given that there exists something, Parmenides asserts that nothing "can come to be." He asks "[w]hat necessity would have stirred it up to grow later rather than earlier, beginning from nothing?" Since nothing does not exist, Parmenides concludes that a thing "must either fully be or not." All existents are ungenerated and "imperishable, whole and of a single kind and unshaken and complete." They are "unchanging in the limits of great bonds, ...without start or finish, since coming to be and destruction were banished away and true conviction drove them off." All things remain the same and are "shackled" by Fate to be "whole and unchanging."
Anaxagoras (b.~500) According to Aristotle, Anaxagoras rejects Parmenides' false alternative that things can come to be only from non-existence: "while something can not come to be from nothing, it can come to be from things "already present." Anaxagoras claims that "no thing comes to be, nor does it perish, but they are mixed together from things that are and they are separated apart. And so they [The Greeks] would be correct to call coming to be mixed together, and perishing being separated apart." This idea foreshadows the concept of atoms, formulated by Democritus (b ~460). Anaxagoras's metaphysics retained the concept of existence while giving an account on how things change. Yet, the theory still retained what we call Platonic elements:
"And since the proportions of both the large and the small are equal in amount, in this way too all things would be in everything; not can they be separate, but all things have a portion of everything....But in all things there are many things, equal in amount, both in the larger and the smaller of the things being separated off." (F7)"...But things appear to differ from each other and are called by different names from one another based on what is most predominant in extent in the mixture of the infinitely many [components]. Nothing is purely or as a whole pale or dark or sweet or flesh or bone, but whatever each contains the most of is thought to be the nature of that thing." (F25)
These fragments indicate that while flesh and bone are entities, attributes of things such as "large," "small," "pale," and "dark" are also entities. Flesh and bone are entities that can have the attribute of being pale, dark, large, or small in relation to something else. Democritus retains Anaxagoras' notion of change while looking at attributes differently.
Democritus (b~460)
Democritus, according to Aristotle, formed the concept of atoms as a solution to a thought experiment. The experiment entails cutting up a physical object an infinite amount of times, such that the infinitely many pieces formed would have no volume or mass. These pieces then could not be put back together to form the original object. Democritus realized that this experiment assumed that bodies were infinitely divisible. He posited that they are not, and consist of indivisible parts called atoms. (F12)
These atoms combine to make everything. Their attributes include size and shape (F5). Democritus claims that attributes of things, all of which consist of atoms, arise because of the attributes of the atoms they consist of:
"[Democritus] makes sweet that which is round and good-sized; astringent that which is large, rough, polygonal, and not rounded; sharp tasting, as its name implies, that which is sharp in body, and angular, bent, and not rounded; pungent that which is round and small and angular and bent; salty that which is angular and good-sized and crooked and equal sided; bitter that which is round and smooth, crooked and small sized, oily that which is fine and round and small." (F20)
While Democritus' explanation of taste sensations is unsatisfactory by today's scientific standards, it is a major advancement over what Anaxagoras would have posited. Anaxagoras would claim that something we call sweet contain things called sweetness, sourness, bitterness, etc., but contains sweetness in the greatest quantity. Democritus does not try to give an attribute an existence apart from the thing that has the attribute. His theory is entirely reductionist he explains the attributes of things by what he thinks they consist of atoms and void (empty space):
"By convention [or, custom], sweet; by convention, bitter, by convention, hot; by convention, cold, by convention, color; but in reality, atoms and void." (F26)
From philosophers from Parmenides to Democritus built on their predecessors achievements and solved the problems left by them. Parmenides recognized that existence was axiomatic, and that nothing can not exist. He could think only that things could come to be only from nothing, and hence things could not come to be. Parmenides hence adopted a Platonic notion of reality: that things are imperishable and immutable. Anaxagoras acknowledged that nothing could not exist, accounted for change, and did not need to hold Parmenides' Platonic element. Yet, Anaxagoras claimed attributes could exist independently from things having these attributes. Democritus used Anaxagoras's notion of change, conceived of atoms, and used a reductionist theory to explain attributes without making Anaxagoras's Platonic error.
At this point, we turn to Plato's early dialogues, and look for passages that imply the existence of forms.
Laches and Charmides
In the Laches, Socrates questions inquires into the nature of courage. Most of the dialogue consists of Socrates showing Laches and Nicias that they do not know what they mean by their concept of courage. For example, Socrates suggests, and Laches agrees, that "every kind of endurance is courage," and that Laches regards "courage is a very fine thing." Socrates then shows that these two descriptions of courage are incompatible, as the activity in which one endures may not be fine (192-3). Such is the nature of the early Platonic dialogues: Socrates shows that people who identify things as courageous (Laches), pious (Euthyphro), or temperate (Charmides) really do not know what they mean by the terms. There is nothing explicitly Platonic in this method of inquiry. When Socrates asks "What is F?", he could be asking what the person means by the concept he labels with the word "F." For example, if F = green, someone's definition of the concept "green" may be the color of things that reflect only light with wavelength in the 480 nm to 520 nm range, while absorbing all other light in the 400 nm to 700 nm range.
Plato is well aware that people can define the terms they use, as Socrates addresses Charmides:
"I give you permission to defining each word the way you like just so long as you make clear the application of whatever word you use." (163d)
Given the context of Plato's future works, are there indications in Plato's early dialogues that Socrates is really asking people to identify F, as if it could exist independently of an entity's having the attribute F? The only indication in the Laches is a joke made by Socrates:
"If you are willing, let us hold our ground in search and let us endure, so that courage itself won't make fun of is for not searching for it courageously-if endurance should perhaps be courage after all." (194a)
By his use of the adverb "courageously," Socrates indicates that courage is an attribute of an action, in this case, searching. But if "courage itself" can make fun of them, or do anything for that matter, this attribute must exist apart from any action. It might be the form of courage that Socrates and Laches are searching for.
Protagorous
In the Protagorous, Socrates questions Protagorous' notion that virtue is a thing composed of justice, temperance, and piety. Socrates speaks of temperance and justice as both attributes of actions:
"What is done foolishly is done in a way opposite to what is done temperately?" (332b,d) He also asks Protagorous if "someone who acts unjustly seem temperate to you in that he acts unjustly?" (333b)
Yet, Socrates also speaks of justice as parts of virtue existing independently of actions that might be just. Socrates claims, and Protagorous agrees, that justice is an entity, and that justice itself is just (330c). So justice is an attribute of an action (a type of entity), according to (333b), but is also an attribute of itself (330c).
Phaedo
Recall that Parmenides' metaphysics dictates that all things that exist have forever existed and will exist forever, without changing. These attributes of entities are the same as those Plato assigns to the Beautiful itself and the Equal itself: each thing in itself, real, and never effected by change. There are "two kinds of existences, the visible, and the invisible,...and the invisible always remains the same" (Phaedo, 78d). "Such, unchanging, is that for which as a whole the name is "to be" (Fragment 19, Plato's Theatetus 180e1).
Republic
In Republic V (476 to end), Plato writes that one who has knowledge "believes in the beautiful itself," can see particular beautiful things that participate in the beautiful itself. Someone who "believes in beautiful things, but doesn't believe in the beautiful itself" merely has opinion. Hence, knowledge, for Plato, is that of "the beautiful itself," and all things in themselves: Beauty, Justice, Courage, Piety, Equality, etc. They are all attributes existing apart from particular entities that "participate in" these attributes, which Plato calls forms (507b). In the Republic, Plato speaks of the "good itself" being the source of understanding (508b). Yet, he also speaks of good as an attribute of things, e.g. "things that are 'both good and bad.' (505c)" Hence, the premise that attributes can exist on their own, first accepted by Anaxagoras, is the foundation of Plato's theory of forms.
Can an attribute of an entity be an entity itself? At this point in the history of philosophy, Anaxagoras and Plato say "yes," and Democritus implicitly says "no." At this point the question of what an entity is is important. At the start of this essay I wrote that an entity is an existent that can exist by itself. This definition is empty without specifying what it means to exist, i.e., specifying the Axiom of Identity. This axiom states that to exist is to be something, that is, A is A. A thing is what it is, itself, rather than something else. This fact is axiomatic because any attempt to deny it requires accepting the principle being refuted: The statement "The axiom of identity of false" implies, since A is not A, that this axiom is not itself, and hence does not have the attribute of being false. As Merrill (1994) says, the axiom is "undeniable and inescapable; if any statement about reality can be both true and false, how can anything be asserted of it?"
If to exist is to be something, what are the "somethings" that an entity is? These "somethings" must distinguish the entity from other entities. An entities' attributes serve this function, hence, an entity is its attributes. The concept attribute is abstracted from the things that have the attribute of being (something), i.e., all entities.
To illustrate my point, consider again to concept of green, as defined above. Referents of the concept "green" are particular aspects of green things. This means that when one speaks of green, he is referring to aspects of particular things. That people can isolate an attribute of somethings, e.g., their color, and talk about it, does not mean that color exists in a separate reality. (Rand (1990), 274-9).
We can apply this concept of attribute, that all attributes pertain to entities, to Plato's discussion of justice in the Phaedo. To say that an action is "just+" (just, plus other attributes) is to name attributes of the action, as an attribute is an aspect or characteristic of an existent. If the action is just+, then by definition of just+, the action is its attributes. Phaedo, when speaking of justice, is referring to a characteristic an action may have. The same goes for speaking of any other attribute: the referent is the aspect or characteristic of something that has that attribute (Rand (1990), p. 274-8).
If an attribute can be, or exist, on its own, apart from an entity, then by the Axiom of Identity, this attribute must be something. Consider again the attribute "green," as defined above. Grass is green, as defined above. Is Green, in itself, green? This is an example of what Meinwald (199?) calls a "self-predication." One might ask whether self-predication statements are just instances of the Axiom of Identity. If this is true, then an entity can exist that is only one attribute. For example, "The Green is green" would mean, if anything that Green is an entity that is green, and nothing else. If Green is green, then it is a thing that can reflect light. If so, it must have the attribute of being a physical entity, so its atoms can reflect light. Anything that is "green in itself" must be visible, and hence Plato's distinction between two types of existence (in the Phaedo) collapses.
One might object to my using green as my example in the above argument. I did so because I was able to define the property rather simply. Plato never defines what he means by Beauty, Justice, Piety, and Courage. but does tell about entities that are these attributes. I readily admit that I can not show Plato's view that X can be x in itself as long as Plato does not define what X is. As long he does not define his terms, he is talking gibberish.
Meinwald claims Plato's statements in the form X is in itself x, self-predication statements, do not mean the same as statements saying that particulars are x. These statements Plato intends to be "tree statements." These statemements "exemplify the limit case of predication of a subject in relation to itself: It is uninformative but safe. (380)" "Self predication sentences will always be true when they are used to make tree predications." (M 385) Meinwald, by his premises, would claim that the statement "The Green is green" does not mean what I claim it does, above. Yet, if the statement is true, as a self-predicated tree statement, it must identify a fact. Yet, it is also "uninformative," it conveys no information, and again Plato is speaking meaningless gibberish that identifies no facts.
Consider other things Plato speaks of as existing on their own: the Equal, the Greater, and the Smaller (Phaedo, 75c). These are relationships. Two entities that have the same quality, e.g., mass, volume, must have them in a certain quantity, e.g., 5 kg, 17 cm3. These physical entities have attributes of mass and volume that are intrinsic to the objects, but can not exist apart from them. Neither "5" nor a "mass of 5 kg" can exist by themselves, but 5 kg of peanut butter can. "Greater" can not exist, but one lump of peanut butter can have a greater mass than another. Consider motion: one lump of peanut butter can move faster than the other with respect to a slice of bread. The motion exists; it is motion of entities: the peanut butter lumps. The attribute of mass and the relationship of one thing's mass and motion to another can not exist without the primary entities that have the mass.
Entities do not "possess," or "partake," or "participate in" certain attributes, they are those attributes. The above possessive language implies that the attributes being possessed are entities themselves. Sometimes the distinction is easy, e.g., for the concepts color and justice: The grass is green; the act is just. Rather than saying that a table has length, one must say that it is [an as yet to be determined length].
Consider motion again. For example, an electron exhibits circular motion when it is in a magnetic field. Is motion an attribute of the electron in a magnetic field and circular an attribute of the (attribute) motion, or is [circular motion] an attribute of the electron in a magnetic field? Note that I slipped a Platonic element in my example: the word "exhibits" leads people down the Platonic road just as "partakes" and "participates in" does. In reality, an electron moves, or traces out, in a circular path when it is in a magnetic field. The path, not the motion, is circular.
Bunge (1977) cites an important application of the above precision in language. He speaks of the "ancient biological conundrum: which is prior, the organ or the function." "The proposition: 'The function of organelles of kind A is to synthesize proteins of kind B.' can be phrased as 'All organelles A synthesize some protein B.'" The old conundrum implies that the function is an entity, something beyond an attribute of the organ: what the organ does (64).
Attributes are of entities and relationships are between or among the attributes of entities. A relationship between two entities is that of an attribute both entities have (e.g., height, college major) and the nature of the relationship is determined by the nature of this attribute (6'2", physics). We can mentally isolate attributes and make general statements about them. Physicists speak of conservation of momentum and energy, yet momentum and energy are attributes of entities. Mario Bunge (1977, 62) puts it clearly: "[T]here are no universals in themselves but only properties that are universal in a given set of individuals."
References
Aristotle. Metaphysics Z. In Metaphysics Books VII-X. Trans. M. Furth. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company 1985.
Branden, N. The Psychology of Self-Esteem. New York: Bantam, 1969.
Bunge, M. Treatise on Basic Philosophy Volume 3, Ontology 1: The Furniture of the World. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1977.
Curd, P. ed., McKirahan, R.D., Trans., A Presocratics Reader, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995, 1996.
Forman, F. The Metaphysics of Liberty. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989.
Meinwald, C., Goodbye to the Third Man. In The Cambridge Comapanion to Plato., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 199?.
Merrill, R. Axioms: The Eight-Fold Way, Objectivity, 2, 3, 1994.
Plato. Charmides. In Laches and Charmides. Transl. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981.
____. Laches. In Laches and Charmides. Transl. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981.
____. Meno. In Five Dialogues. Transl. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981.
____. Phaedo. In Five Dialogues. Transl. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981.
____. Republic. Transl. G.M.A. Grube. Rev. C.D.C Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992.
Rand, A. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Expanded 2nd Edition. New York: Meridian, 1990.
Appendix
Response to Professor Ledbetter's Comments on my paper:
Attributes as Entities in Pre-Socratic and Platonic Philosophy
1. "In the above quotes, Plato regards the good as both an attribute of a thing (505c)..." The first comments are that I could have explained assertions more, assertions that I thought were clear. Having read about A.'s predications, I understand how I could have done this better than I did then.
2. How does the following fit into my thesis? "Phaedo Recall that Parmenides' metaphysics dictates that all things that exist have forever existed and will exist forever, without changing. These attributes of entities are the same as those Plato assigns to the Beautiful itself and the Equal itself: each thing in itself, real, and never effected by change. There are "two kinds of existences, the visible, and the invisible,...and the invisible always remains the same" (Phaedo, 78d). "Such, unchanging, is that for which as a whole the name is "to be" (Fragment 19, Plato's Theatetus 180e1)."
In the last line I forgot to indicate that Curd and McKirahan had this qoute as Plato quoting Parmenides. I was making the connection between Parmenides' and Plato's mataphysics, and that they both held (what I call) attributes to be entities. I believe I made clear in sentence 2 of the paragraph, but perhaps I leave to much implied in in my head.
3. "Hence, the premise that attributes can exist on their own, first accepted by Anaxagoras, is the foundation of Plato's theory of forms." Do I mean the premise that Forms can be uninstantiated? Is it crazy that there are such attributes?
4. "Can an attribute of an entity be an entity itself? At this point in the history of philosophy, Anaxagoras and Plato say "yes," [Why?] and Democritus implicitly says "no."[Why?]"
This passage is from page 7 of my paper. I spent most of the paper up to this point showing "why". Is my writing really this opaque? On page 3 I wrote:
"These fragments indicate that while flesh and bone are entities, attributes of things such as "large," "small," "pale," and "dark" are also entities. Flesh and bone are entities that can have the attribute of being pale, dark, large, or small in relation to something else. Democritus retains Anaxagoras' notion of change while looking at attributes differently."
Also: "Democritus claims that attributes of things, all of which consist of atoms, arise because of the attributes of the atoms they consist of: [quote by Democritus]....Anaxagoras would claim that something we call sweet contain things called sweetness, sourness, bitterness, etc., but contains sweetness in the greatest quantity. Democritus does not try to give an attribute an existence apart from the thing that has the attribute. His theory is entirely reductionist he explains the attributes of things by what he thinks they consist of atoms and void (empty space)..."
And: On page 6, and in other illustrations of Plato's notions of "things [I call them attributes] in themselves," I write, "Yet, Socrates also speaks of justice as parts of virtue existing independently of actions that might be just. Socrates claims, and Protagorous agrees, that justice is an entity, and that justice itself is just (330c). So justice is an attribute of an action (a type of entity), according to (333b), but is also an attribute of itself (330c)."
5. Plato does not think that because....it must be a separate entity. "That people can isolate an attribute of somethings, e.g., their color, and talk about it, does not mean that color exists in a separate reality." I was just showing how people think about things....nonessential.
6. Accusation of question begging: "Plato never defines what he means by Beauty, Justice, Piety, and Courage. but does tell about entities that are these attributes." Would in not be question begging if I wrote "partake" instead of "are"? This question begging only if I have not proved that attributes are not entities.
7. X is itself x is a tautology? Isn't a tautology an application of the Identity Axiom? "Yet, if the statement is true, as a self-predicated tree statement, it must identify a fact." Does this not mean that the statement is informative? The truth of the Identity Axiom is informative....this can be a whole other paper, so let's not get off track.
8. "If Green is green, then it is a thing that can reflect light. If so, it must have the attribute of being a physical entity, so its atoms can reflect light. Anything that is "green in itself" must be visible, and hence Plato's distinction between two types of existence (in the Phaedo) collapses. Paraphrase: Plato and Meinwald are talking gibberish Not so easily, only if 'green' means the same thing when attributed to a form as when attributed to a sensible particular.
Paraphrase: Plato and Meinwald are talking gibberish. Name calling is not an argument.
I was not calling the people names, I was identifing their statements as meaningless because the concepts used in them lack referents in reality. As I wrote: "I readily admit that I can evaulate Plato's view that X can be x in itself as long as Plato does not define what X is."
I am not going to argue with air. I can not say that their statements to not correspond with reality because they say nothing about reality, i.e., they are "uninformative." Yes, as commented, and I anticipated this comment, that only if 'green' is as I defined it and it means the same when used for particulars and for forms. Well, I ask, what does "X is x in itself" mean? All Meinwald has said to me is "No, Plato does not mean that (what I said about green), but something else..." which she does not go into. Perhaps it's not that I think Plato and Meinwald's views are not true, but only that I do not think they are true.
9. But you need to deal with why Plato thinks there must be forms - what motivates him? Yes, a good question and one I might have said I would answer when I began the paper. Do I "need to deal with this" in order to, uh, get a bigger picture of the problem of universals? This HUGE! Interestingly, I appeal to common beliefs in this section, and show what people are really talking about. I ground their concepts in perceptual concretes, or maybe even building Aristotle's categories that I had not read about yet.
10. Why can't a property be an entity? Where is the burden of proof here? OK, I wrote the paper, I asked for it. But above I think I established that people like Meinwald have the burden of proof--in proving the positive, that a property can be an entity. Well show me one, I'm still waiting.
11. "Attributes are of entities and relationships are between or among the attributes of entities." Mere assertions will not do...You quote conclusions without defending them...You cannot take Rand's or any one elses mataphysics for granted, but you must defend yourself [on] the views you take.
These are not mere assertions. While you might disagree with my arguments, and even if they are just wrong, I still tried (and hard) to defend them. I still: