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OX F OR D ST U DIE S IN A NCIEN T PHIL O S OPH Y
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OX FOR D ST UDIE S
IN A NCIEN T
PHIL OSOPH Y
E DI T OR : V IC T OR CA S T ON
a s s o c i at e e di t or : r ac h a na k a m t e k a r
VOLU M E L X II
su m m e r 2 0 22
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A DVISORY BOA R D
Professor Rachel Barney, University of Toronto
Professor Gábor Betegh, University of Cambridge
Professor Susanne Bobzien, All Souls College, Oxford
Professor Riccardo Chiaradonna, Università degli Studi Roma Tre
Professor Alan Code, Stanford University
Professor Brad Inwood, Yale University
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Professor Stephen Menn, McGill University and Humboldt-­
Universität zu Berlin
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Professor Jessica Moss, New York University
Professor Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago
Professor Marwan Rashed, Université Paris-­Sorbonne
Professor David Sedley, University of Cambridge
Professor Richard Sorabji, King’s College, University of London,
and Wolfson College, Oxford
Professor Raphael Woolf, King’s College, University of London
Contributions and books for review should be sent to the Associate
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CON T EN T S
Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
richard neels
1
Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras41
suzanne obdrzalek
That Difference Is Different from Being:
Sophist 255 c 9–e 2
michael wiitala
Is Plato a Consequentialist?
christopher bobonich
85
105
Aristotle’s Argument for the Necessity of What We
Understand167
joshua mendelsohn
Aristotle on Digestion, Self-­Motion, and the Eternity
of the Universe: A Discussion of Physics 8. 6 and De somno233
wei wang
Giving Gifts and Making Friends: Seneca’s De beneficiis
on How to Expand One’s Sphere of Ethical Concern
allison piñeros glasscock
Hierocles’ Concentric Circles
ralph wedgwood
261
293
Archaic Epistemology: A Discussion of Jessica
Moss, Plato’s Epistemology: Being and Seeming333
matthew evans
Index Locorum
363
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OPPOSITES AND EXPLANATIONS
IN HERACLITUS
richard neels
1. Introduction
Heraclitus was clearly interested in opposites.1 He was also
interested in explaining the cosmos and its constituents.2 In fragment
B 1 he promises to explain the nature of each thing (ἐγὼ διηγεῦμαι,
I would like to thank Keith Begley, Victor Caston, Patricia Curd, Tom Davies,
Daniel Graham, Mahadi Hassan, David Hitchcock, Tyler Hopkins, Mark Johnstone,
Howard Jones, Melle van Duijn, and an anonymous referee for Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy for their helpful comments on various drafts of this paper.
1 Heraclitus was famous in antiquity for claiming that opposites were identical.
See Aristotle, who claims that Heraclitus—­or at least followers of Heraclitus—­
transgressed the Law of Non-­Contradiction by claiming that opposites are ­identical:
Top. 8. 5, 159b30–3; Phys. 1. 2, 185b19–25; Metaph. Γ. 7, 1012a24–b22. It should be
noted that Aristotle calls this the ‘Heraclitean account’ (τὸν Ἡρακλείτου λόγον) in the
Physics passage. Elsewhere he shows sensitivity to the fact that Heraclitus may have
meant something different from what he appears to say about the identity of opposites
(Metaph. Γ. 3, 1005b23–5). Some modern scholars have also argued that Heraclitus
thought that opposites were identical. See K. Popper, ‘Back to the Presocratics’,
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 59 (1958), 1–24 at 13; C. Emlyn-­Jones,
‘Heraclitus and the Identity of Opposites’, Phronesis, 21(1976), 89–114; J. Barnes,
The Presocratic Philosophers (London, 1982), 57. The issue with this view is that
none of the extant fragments identifies opposites in such a way that transgresses the
Law of Non-­Contradiction. The more popular view today seems to be what is
known as the Unity of Opposites—­or what I call the standard view. See n. 4 below
for prominent advocates of this weaker view.
2 By explanation, I mean an account of why something is thus and so. See B. van
Fraassen, The Scientific Image (Oxford, 1980), ch. 5, who argues that explanations
are answers to why-­questions. Heraclitus never poses why-­questions specifically, but
his fragments are puzzling so as to induce why-­questions in his reader. See also R. J.
Hankinson, Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought [Cause and Explanation]
(Oxford, 1998), 3–4 for an account of explanation particularly relevant to early Greek
philosophy. Finally, see J. Moravcsik, ‘Heraclitean Concepts and Explanations’, in
K. Robb (ed.), Language and Thought in Early Greek Philosophy (La Salle, 1983),
134–52. Moravcsik argues that there are three levels of explanation in very early
Greek thought: (1) explanation in terms of origin, (2) explanation in terms of constituency, and (3) explanation in terms of a thing and its attributes (134). According
to Moravcsik, Heraclitus’ writings represent a shift from the second to the third
level of explanation (135). I am in agreement with Moravcsik’s general thesis,
though this paper attempts to give much more detail to Heraclitus’ theory and
method of explanation.
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2
Richard Neels
κατὰ ϕύσιν διαιρέων ἕκαστον) and to show how things are (ϕράζων
ὅκως ἔχει).3 But how exactly do opposites feature in Heraclitus’
explanation of the cosmos? Most scholars believe that Heraclitus
espoused a so-­called ‘unity of opposites’ doctrine.4 According to
this standard view, Heraclitus claimed that opposites were somehow
united and that opposites permeate the world to some extent. So,
3 I have adopted the standard Diels-­Kranz number of the fragments found in
H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th edn [Fragmente] (Berlin,
1951), but am using the Greek text from D. W. Graham, The Texts of Early Greek
Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics
[Texts] (Cambridge, 2010), where available, and Diels–­Kranz otherwise. Translations
are also generally from Graham, though I have made significant variations throughout.
4 The view in its modern conception was initiated by G. S. Kirk, Heraclitus: The
Cosmic Fragments [Cosmic Fragments] (Cambridge, 1954), esp. at 69. Most scholars
since Kirk have followed his view or something very similar to his view. See, for
example, G. Vlastos, ‘On Heraclitus’, American Journal of Philology, 76 (1955),
337–68 at 367; G. E. R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy (Cambridge, 1966), 96–102;
M. Marcovich, Heraclitus: Greek Text with a Short Commentary, 2nd edn [Heraclitus]
(Sankt Augustin, 2001), 158–9; M. C. Stokes, One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy
(Washington DC, 1971) at 97; A. P. D. Mourelatos, ‘Heraclitus, Parmenides and the
Naïve Metaphysics of Things’ [‘Naïve Metaphysics’], in E. N. Lee, A. P. D. Mourelatos,
and R. M. Rorty (eds.), Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented
to Gregory Vlastos (Assen, 1973), 16–48 at 33 and 35; C. Kahn, The Art and Thought
of Heraclitus [Art and Thought] (Cambridge, 1979), 192; E. Hussey, ‘Epistemology
and Meaning in Heraclitus’, in M. Schofield and M. Nussbaum (eds.), Language
and Logos: Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy Presented to G. E. L. Owen
[Language and Logos] (Cambridge, 1982), 33–59 at 38; D. Wiggins, ‘Heraclitus’
Conception of Flux, Fire and Material Persistence’, in Schofield and Nussbaum
(eds.), Language and Logos, 1–32 at 10; G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield,
The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1983), 188–9; T. M. Robinson,
Heraclitus: Fragments (Toronto, 1987), 81 and 86; M. M. Mackenzie, ‘Heraclitus
and the Art of Paradox’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 6 (1988), 1–37 at 7–8;
D. O’Brien, ‘Heraclitus on the Unity of Opposites’, in K. I. Boudouris (ed.) Ionian
Philosophy (Athens, 1989), 298–303; P. Curd, ‘Knowledge and Unity in Heraclitus’,
Monist, 74 (1991), 531–49 at 539; Hankinson, Cause and Explanation, 29;
E. Papamichael-­Paspalides, ‘The Concept of One in Heraclitus’, Revue de Philosophie
Ancienne, 23 (2005), 41–54 at 42; A. Long, ‘Wisdom in Heraclitus’, Oxford Studies
in Ancient Philosophy, 33 (2007), 1–17 at 1–2; J. Warren, Presocratics (Berkley, 2007),
67–70. There are three notable exceptions. For alternative views that break from the
standard view, see R. Dilcher, Studies in Heraclitus [Studies] (Hildersheim, 1995),
103–16; C. Osborne, ‘Heraclitus’, in C. C. W. Taylor (ed.), Routledge History of
Philosophy, vol. i: From the Beginning to Plato (London, 1997), 80–116 at 92–6;
D. W. Graham, ‘Heraclitus’ Criticism of Ionian Philosophy’, Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy, 15 (1997), 1–50. Graham expanded and revised his argument
in D. W. Graham, Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian Tradition of Scientific
Philosophy [Explaining the Cosmos] (Princeton, 2006.) I will make reference to the
expanded and revised version of his argument in this paper. Osborne and Graham in
particular make notable advancements in our understanding of Heraclitus’ use of
opposites. I discuss these views in Section 2 below.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
3
on this view, Heraclitus was encouraging his readers to comprehend
the hidden connectedness of opposites and, perhaps, the connectedness of all things.5 I will argue that the standard view is incomplete. Opposites are indeed connected, and I believe Heraclitus (and
his Ionian predecessors) recognized this feature of the world.
However, I do not think the demonstration of this fact was his primary goal in composing the opposites fragments. The central issue
with the standard view is that any clear formulation of a unity of
opposites principle is too restrictive to make complete sense of
Heraclitus’ interesting and varied statements about op­pos­ites.6
In place of the standard view, I argue that Heraclitus’ treatment
of opposites was a reaction to the way opposites were being used by
his Ionian predecessors, Anaximander and Anaximenes.7 Opposites,
for the earlier Ionians, seem to have been explanatory principles:
fundamental explanantia. The physical world, which includes events,
stuffs, and things, was explained by a limited set of oppositional
pairs (e.g. hot and cold, condensation and rarefaction). Heraclitus’
treatment of opposites, I submit, is best understood in relation to
these earlier schemes of philosophical explanation. I will argue that
Heraclitus was the first Ionian to treat opposites not as explanatory
principles but as philosophical problems in need of explanation.
Heraclitus’ opposites are related to his philosophical explanation of
the cosmos insofar as they are (a) negatively, explananda in need of
explanantia and (b) positively, the clearest expression of the interdependent nature of the metaphysical structure of the cosmos and
things in it. Heraclitus appears to have held a principle of non-­
5 For example, Kirk writes: ‘The Logos is undoubtedly connected with the
opposites, in fact it is the unity which underlies them and which binds together into
one nexus all the components of the apparently discrete phenomenal world’ (Cosmic
Fragments, 188–9). He also claims that ‘The Logos is the formula, structure, plan,
of each and all things . . . As such it results in the fact that “all things are one” . . .
because they all connect up with each other because of this common structure’
(70, emphasis original).
6 I defend this claim below in Section 2. See Dilcher, Studies, 103–8 for another
critique of the essential connection thesis. He points out that ‘it is equally easy to
state this idea of unity-­in-­opposites and to apply it to any opposition that [we] might
encounter, as it is exceedingly difficult to explicate with any reasonable precision
in what way these opposites actually “coincide.” The formula cannot be directly
elicit­ed from any Heraclitean fragment. The relevant fragments present “op­pos­
ites” of the most diverse kind and are as varied in their formulation as they could
conceivably be’ (104).
7 Anaximander and Anaximenes were residents of the Ionian city of Miletus,
while Heraclitus lived in the nearby Ionian city of Ephesus.
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4
Richard Neels
well-­foundedness, according to which there are no metaphysically
foundational entities, and to a principle of reciprocal de­ter­min­
ation, whereby the cosmos and its parts are caught in a web of
explanatory interdependence. In the end, the opposites too are part
of this web of metaphysical interdependence and, as such, are both
explananda and (non-­fundamental) explanantia in the cosmos.
2. Preliminaries on explanation and opposites
Fragment B 1 is taken by most to have been the opening of Heraclitus’
book. It will prove a helpful place to begin understanding what
Heraclitus thought about explanation:
τοῦ δὲ λόγου τοῦδε ἐόντος αἰεὶ ἀξύνετοι γίνονται ἄνθρωποι, καὶ πρόσθεν ἢ ἀκοῦσαι,
καὶ ἀκούσαντες τὸ πρῶτον· γινομένων γὰρ πάντων κατὰ τὸν λόγον τόνδε ἀπείροισιν
ἐοίκασι, πειρώμενοι ἐπέων καὶ ἔργων τοιούτων, ὁκοῖα ἐγὼ διηγεῦμαι, κατὰ ϕύσιν
διαιρέων ἕκαστον καὶ ϕράζων ὅκως ἔχει. τοὺς δὲ ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους λανθάνει ὁκόσα
ἐγερθέντες ποιοῦσιν, ὅκωσπερ ὁκόσα εὕδοντες ἐπιλανθάνονται. (22 B 1 DK)
Of this logos which holds always, humans prove to be uncomprehending,
both before they hear it and after hearing it for the first time. For although
all things come to be in accordance with this logos, they are like the inexperienced experiencing words and deeds such as I explain when I distinguish each thing according to its nature and show how it is. Other humans
are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful
of what they do when they are asleep.8
Perhaps the most striking feature of this fragment is Heraclitus’
novel use of the Greek term logos.9 Prior to Heraclitus, the term
logos was used to indicate a structured account of events.10 Heraclitus
claims that ‘all things’ (πάντα) come to be in accordance with the
8 This fragment is preserved for us by both Sextus Empiricus (M 7. 132–3) and
Hippolytus (Haer. 9. 9. 3). Both Aristotle (Rhet. 3. 5, 1407b14–15) and Sextus claim
that B 1 is the opening of Heraclitus’ book.
9 Most interpreters have supposed that the term refers to some cosmic principle.
For example, see Kirk, Cosmic Fragments, 39. This has been challenged by some who
claim that it simply refers to Heraclitus’ account (i.e. his book). The most notable
proponent of this view is perhaps M. L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the
Orient [Orient] (Oxford, 1971), 124–9. For my part, I agree with M. Johnstone, who
argues for a middle position. See M. Johnstone, ‘On “Logos” in Heraclitus’ [‘Logos’],
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 47 (2014), 1–29. I deal with the philo­soph­ic­al
significance directly in Section 5 below.
10 See Johnstone, ‘Logos’, 13–17.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
5
logos of which he speaks. Furthermore, the logos holds always
(ἐόντος αἰεί ). At the very outset, Heraclitus seems to commit himself to a cosmos that has a stable structure.11 Furthermore, he
seems optimistic that the stable structure of the cosmos renders
the cosmos intelligible and explicable, even though he seems to
think this is a very difficult task.
Let’s examine some of the verbs contained in this fragment.
Heraclitus claims to ‘explain’ (διηγεῦμαι) things. (I gloss ἕκαστον as
‘things’, since the ‘each’ refers to the ‘all things’ (πάντα) earlier in
the fragment.) διηγεῦμαι has the sense of describing something in
detail to someone who isn’t in the know.12 He also claims to show
how things are (ϕράζων ὅκως ἔχει). ϕράζειν has the sense of showing
or telling someone a piece of information.13 It was often used prior
to Heraclitus in the sense of showing or telling someone the way to
get somewhere.14 It was also used in the sense of relaying a command from a place of authority.15 Hence the term connotes the passing on of reliable, practical information from a source of authority.
Finally, Heraclitus promises to differentiate (διαιρέω) things according to their nature (κατὰ ϕύσιν). διαιρέω has the sense of division or
taking things apart.16 Heraclitus’ term for nature or phusis seems to
mean something like a thing’s metaphysical character.17 The main
11 Of course, this has been the subject of great controversy. However, I believe it
is safe to say that most scholars today doubt Heraclitus held a theory of radical flux
whereby everything is always changing in every respect. See Graham, Explaining
the Cosmos, 113–22 for a summary of the debate over the last century. I take it
that the standard view today regarding flux is that Heraclitus’ cosmos does change
but that the change is orderly and the order is stable. In Heraclitus’ own words:
‘Changing, it rests’ (μεταβάλλον ἀναπαύεται, B 84a). See Graham, Explaining the
Cosmos, 129–37 for an account of flux in Heraclitus’ stable world.
12 For later uses of the term see Ar., Birds 198 and Antiph., Against the
Stepmother, 13.8. See also Kirk, Cosmic Fragments, 41, who implies that the term for
Heraclitus means ‘explanation’ in a strong sense of the term.
13 E. Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect (Norman, 2012) includes
­‘display’, ‘indicate’, ‘instruct’, and ‘direct’ as translations of this term.
14 See Hom., Od. 11. 2 and 14. 3.
15 See Hom., Il. 10. 127 and Od. 10. 549.
16 Kirk claims that this term ‘means something more than merely “judging”, and
implies a process of analysis’ (Cosmic Fragments, 41). This is, of course, a precursor
to the great notion of diairesis in Plato and Aristotle. See Plato, Soph. 253 d 1–3 and
Arist., Pr. An. 1. 31.
17 Phusis prior to Heraclitus meant something like ‘visible characteristic’. See
Hom., Od. 10. 302–6. Pindar, writing around the same time as Heraclitus, also used
the term ‘phusis’ to reference visible characteristics. See Pind., Isthm. 4. 50. However,
Heraclitus elsewhere claims that ‘a nature tends to be hidden’ (ϕύσις κρύπτεσθαι ϕιλεῖ,
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6
Richard Neels
verb of the clause is ‘explain’ (διηγεῦμαι) and Heraclitus uses the
participle ‘differentiating’ (διαιρέων) most plaus­ibly to indicate his
means of explanation. If this is right, Heraclitus is interested in
explaining things according to their nature by differentiating them.
These words apply to ‘all things’ (πάντα) referenced earlier in the
fragment. So, it seems safe to say that Heraclitus was interested in
explaining the way things are. But I do not think he was merely
interested in cataloguing and describing the existents of the world.
Elsewhere, in B 50, he claims that ‘all things are one’ (ἓν πάντα εἶναι,
with Diels). Significantly, Heraclitus calls the world ‘kosmos’ in the
sense of an ordered whole.18 All this strongly suggests that Heraclitus
saw himself as explaining the structure and nature of all things
(πάντα) which constitute the cosmos (κόσμος).
It is difficult to know exactly what Heraclitus took to constitute
the class of ‘things’. We might think it is all ‘things’ in a robust
sense whereby things are the bearers of properties. But I think this
is too strong for a Presocratic thinker writing before the incredibly
nuanced discussions of Plato and Aristotle. Instead, I propose we
treat ‘all things’ (πάντα) as referring to all the aspects of the cosmos:
things, properties, stuffs, and events. At any rate, these are what he
discusses in his fragments. All these aspects of the cosmos have a
B 123). I take this to indicate Heraclitus has metaphysical character (i.e. something
closer to an essence) in mind rather and not just a loose description of visible characteristics. See A. P. D. Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides, revised and expanded
edn (Las Vegas, 2008), who states that ‘The term clearly carries for [Heraclitus] a
sense of real constitution or inner nature’ (6). See also K. Begley, ‘Heraclitus against
the Naïve Paratactic of Mere Things’, Ancient Philosophy Today, 3 (2021), 74–97,
for an interpretation of Heraclitus according to which his interest in phusis is in
terms of essences. For a more thorough analysis of the term ‘phusis’, see my ‘Phusis,
Opposites and Ontological Dependence in Heraclitus’ [‘Phusis’], History of Philosophy
Quarterly, 35 (2018), 199–217 at 200–3.
18 See C. Kahn, ‘Anaximander’s Fragment: The Universe Governed by Law’, in
A. P. D. Mourelatos (ed.), The Pre-­Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (Princeton,
1993; originally published, 1974), 99–117. He states: ‘Precisely con­sidered, the
kosmos is a concrete arrangement of all things, defined not only by a spatial dis­pos­
ition of parts, but also by the temporal taxis within which opposing powers have
their turn in office’ (111). In B 30 Heraclitus refers to the world as κόσμον τόνδε.
This is the first known philosophical use of the word κόσμος (although it is possible
it was used before Heraclitus). See also G. Betegh and V. Piano, ‘Column IV of the
Derveni Papyrus: A New Analysis of the Text and the Quotation of Heraclitus’, in
C. Vassallo (ed.), Presocratics and Papyrological Tradition (Berlin, 2019), 179–220 at
198–200.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
7
character—­a nature or phusis—­and Heraclitus seems interested in
explaining how all these aspects hang together as an orderly whole.
B 1 has an analytic flavour. Heraclitus promises to break down
(διαιρέω) the cosmos into smaller components in order to reveal
the nature of its parts (ἕκαστον). This may give us the sense that
Heraclitus intends to explain the cosmos by division. However,
this is only partially true. If we turn to the extant fragments, we
will see that Heraclitus spends as much time synthesizing discrete
parts of the cosmos as he does analysing the cosmos into its parts.
Some of the most famous fragments speak to Heraclitus’ synthetic
project. B 50 claims that ‘all things are one’ (ἓν πάντα εἶναι, with
Diels) and B 41 claims that ‘thought . . . steers all things through all
things’ (γνώμην . . . ἐκυβέρνησε πάντα διὰ πάντων). I think B 10 provides a clear statement of Heraclitus’ balanced interest in synthesis
and analysis:
συλλάψιες ὅλα καὶ οὐχ ὅλα, συμϕερόμενον διαϕερόμενον, συνᾶιδον διᾶιδον, καὶ ἐκ
πάντων ἓν καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντα. (22 B 10 DK)
Collectives: wholes and not wholes; brought together, pulled apart; sung
in unison, sung in conflict; both from all things one and from one all
things.19
The point, I think, is that Heraclitus saw himself explaining the
way the cosmos is and why it is that way. I will have a great deal
more to say about the details of Heraclitus’ scheme of explanation
below. For now, let it suffice that he seems to have thought that he
needed to analyse the cosmos into its parts and synthesize its parts
into a whole in order to explain the cosmos and its parts.
But now let’s turn to the opposites so we can begin to inquire
into their relation to Heraclitus’ scheme of explanation. To begin,
it will prove useful to examine just a few of the opposites fragments in brief.20 Much more can and has been said concerning the
following fragments. I will simply focus on features relevant to our
question. My initial goal here is twofold: (1) to provide a glimpse
19 I discuss this fragment in much more detail in Section 5 below.
20 See the ‘Table of Opposites in Heraclitus’ Doctrine on the Logos’, in
Marcovich, Heraclitus, inserted between pages 160–1, for a useful introductory
guide to the opposing terms in Heraclitus. For each pair of opposites, Marcovich
lists their ‘Reason for Unity’. But in the end, he finds eleven different reasons for
the unity of various opposites. Marcovich does not attempt to explain how the
eleven different reasons are related to one another. I take this as evidence that
Marcovich has not given a full explanation of Heraclitus’ use of opposites.
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Richard Neels
of the richness and variety of the fragments concerned with op­pos­
ites and (2) to show that the standard view—­that Heraclitus is
merely displaying the internal connection of opposites—­is unable
to account for that variety and richness. If this is true, then the
standard view cannot account for how the opposites feature in
Heraclitus’ explanation of the cosmos. I don’t mean to suggest that
the standard view is incompatible with these fragments, but just
that it fails to bring out what is most interesting about opposites
and indeed what seems to be Heraclitus’ point in repeatedly referring to them.
First, consider fragment B 57:
διδάσκαλος δὲ πλείστων Ἡσίοδος· τοῦτον ἐπίστανται πλεῖστα εἰδέναι, ὅστις ἡμέρην
καὶ εὐϕρόνην οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν· ἔστι γὰρ ἕν. (22 B 57 DK)
The teacher of the multitude is Hesiod; they believe he has the greatest
knowledge—­who did not comprehend day and night: for they are one.21
I begin with this fragment because it is, perhaps, the strongest evidence for the standard view. As is well known, Hesiod treated the
divinities Day and Night as distinct entities.22 Heraclitus appears
to be correcting this by claiming that they are one, that is, day and
night are opposing parts of a single meteorological process. The
deeper point seems to be this: what-­it-­is-­to-­be-­day and what-­it-­is-­
to-­be-­night are connected by being conceptually interdependent—­
they belong to a single conceptual sequence. So, it does appear that
Heraclitus recognized that opposites were connected. But it does
not follow that this was a new discovery on Heraclitus’ part,23 nor
does it follow that this was Heraclitus’ only or even primary interest in opposites. The interpretive strategy of the standard view has
been to take this somewhat clear expression of a principle and read
it onto all the other instances of Heraclitus’ opposites. But we shall
21 Dilcher, Studies, 109 takes an even stronger stance against the standard view.
He argues that the ἕν cannot refer to day and night since day and night are feminine
nouns and ἕν is neuter. Dilcher thinks this is good evidence against any notion of
unity of opposites in Heraclitus. But this might be wrong, since it is possible, at
least in slightly later Greek prose, for a neuter noun to refer to two feminine ones.
Compare e.g. the use of the neuter ταὐτόν at Arist., Pol. 1. 7, 1255b16–17 (οὐ ταὐτόν
ἐστι δεσποτεία καὶ πολιτική Ross).
22 See Mourelatos, ‘Naïve Metaphysics’, 33–4.
23 I think it is implausible that Anaximenes, for example, could use rarefaction
and condensation as he does without realizing that the two processes are ­conceptually
connected.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
9
see just how restrictive this move is when we examine other
instances of Heraclitus’ opposites in their own right.
Consider fragment B 61:
θάλασσα ὕδωρ καθαρώτατον καὶ μιαρώτατον, ἰχθύσι μὲν πότιμον καὶ σωτήριον,
ἀνθρώποις δὲ ἄποτον καὶ ὀλέθριον. (22 B 61 DK)
Sea is the purest and most polluted water: for fish drinkable and healthy,
for men undrinkable and harmful.24
On the surface, Heraclitus is making the true observation that seawater is both pure and polluted. This is a judgement of value:
­seawater is both good and bad. But Heraclitus is obviously not supposing that seawater is both A and not-­A at the same time and in
the same respect. He specifies that seawater has these properties
relative to different species. For fish, it is good to drink, but for
humans, it is not good to drink. The deep meaning of the fragment
seems to indicate something about value: opposing values are
dependent on different kinds of subjects.25 This is an interesting
and important philosophical insight concerning opposites and
­values. Now, according to the standard view, the meaning of the
fragment must merely be that these opposites, as with all opposites,
are connected; so, this fragment shows that purity and pollution
are connected. But this seems to miss the deep insight concerning
kind-­relative value, an insight that has to do with opposites but
that cannot be cashed out in terms of the standard view.
Here is another fragment concerning opposites:
οὐ ξυνιᾶσιν ὅκως διαϕερόμενον ἑωυτῶι ὁμολογέει. παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη ὅκωσπερ
τόξου καὶ λύρης. (22 B 51 DK)
They do not understand how disagreeing with itself it agrees with itself:
reciprocal structure as of a bow or a lyre.26
24 This fragment is also preserved by Hippolytus (Haer. 9. 10. 5). Hippolytus
claims ‘[Heraclitus] says that the polluted and the pure are one and the same thing
and that the drinkable and the undrinkable are one and the same thing’ (καὶ τὸ μιαρόν
ϕησιν καὶ τὸ καθαρὸν ἓν καὶ ταὐτὸ εἶναι, καὶ τὸ πότιμον καὶ τὸ ἄποτον ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτό).
25 This thought resurfaces in a few other fragments: B 9, B 13, B 11. For a further
discussion of this insight concerning value, see Neels, ‘Heraclitus on the Nature of
Goodness’, Ancient Philosophy, 41 (2021), 1–22.
26 This fragment is preserved for us by Hippolytus (Haer. 9. 9. 2). There is some
disagreement over the word παλίντροπος; some scholars prefer παλίντονος (i.e. back-­
stretched), since the term was known in ancient times as a Homeric epithet for ‘bow’
(τόξον). Furthermore, Plutarch, who cites the fragment three times, once renders it
παλίντονος. Marcovich, Heraclitus, and Kirk, Cosmic Fragments, support παλίντονος,
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Richard Neels
The opposites cited in this fragment are disagreement and agreement, and the claim is that something can agree with itself while
disagreeing with itself. This principle is applied to a bow and a lyre
as illustrative examples of the principle. It is clear to see how a bow
and a lyre disagree while agreeing with themselves. Take a bow.
The stave and string are at odds with one another in that they exert
opposing forces on one another. However, the bow agrees with
itself in that these opposing parts constitute the very nature of the
bow. So, at least for some objects, the opposites present in them are
constitutive of the very nature of the objects in question. But again,
the standard view must conclude that this fragment is merely saying
that disagreement and agreement are connected. Again, this misses
a rich philosophical insight about opposites and their role in constituting the nature of various objects.27
Finally, consider the following fragments together:
ψυχρὰ θέρεται, θερμὰ ψύχεται, ὑγρὰ αὐαίνεται, καρϕαλέα νοτίζεται. (22 B 126 DK)
Cold things warm up, hot things cool off, wet things become dry, dry things
become moist.28
πυρὸς θάνατος ἀέρι γένεσις, καὶ ἀέρος θάνατος ὕδατι γένεσις. γῆς θάνατος ὕδωρ
γενέσθαι καὶ ὕδατος θάνατος ἀέρα γενέσθαι καὶ ἀέρος πῦρ καὶ ἔμπαλιν. (22 B 76
b–­c DK)
The death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air the birth of water.
It is death for earth to become water, and death for water to become air,
and death for air to become fire and contrariwise.29
B 126 contains a true observation about changing opposites: cold
and hot, wet and dry are connected in terms of change. B 76 contains a set of elemental transformations. I believe the two fragments resonate thematically. The opposites listed in B 126 happen
to be what later Greeks associated with the four elements listed in
while Kahn, Art and Thought, and Graham, Texts, support παλίντροπος. For my
part, I am happy to leave the text as it has been handed down to us as παλίντροπος.
27 See Neels, ‘Phusis’, for more details on other fragments that seem to illustrate
the same insight concerning opposing properties and their role in constituting
objects. Importantly, rivers (B 12) seem to bear this oppositional structure.
28 This fragment is preserved by Tzetz., Scholia ad exeg. in Iliadem, 126 Hermann.
29 Diels, Fragmente, provides three variants of this fragment together. I have provided a combination of the second (from Plutarch) and third (from Marcus
Aurelius). Graham, Texts, places these two together, but they may very well have
been disparate quotations. I think it is helpful to see the two together, but I do not
think my philosophical point rests on this precise composition.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
11
B 76.30 The fragments, if they do go together, suggest that the
elem­en­tal stuffs which constitute material reality change and in
virtue of this change things become warm or cool, wet or dry.31
This, again, is a deep philosophical insight about reality. But on the
standard view, B 126 merely indicates that cold and hot, wet and
dry are connected and B 76 merely indicates that death and birth
are connected. While it is true that these opposites are connected,
the interpretive strategy of the standard view misses the rich connection between elemental transformations and the changes between
opposing properties. I don’t mean to suggest that scholars who
accept the standard view can’t also recognize these various insights;
however, the standard view does not explain how Heraclitus’ concern
about the unity of opposites relates to his other concerns about
opposites.
There are two alternatives to the standard view that are worth
considering. Catherine Osborne has argued that for Heraclitus
‘[i]dentity, similarity, difference, opposition’ are ‘all determined by
the significance acquired in context’.32 She states that, according to
Heraclitus, ‘what counts as the same and what counts as opposed is
decided by a significance acquired in a social or temporal context,
and is not determined absolutely by a fixed or material constitution
in the entities we observe’.33 This view goes a long way towards
breaking from the standard view. It is particularly good at explaining fragments like B 61 concerning seawater. However, it does not
seem to be able to make good sense of a fragment like B 51 concerning the bow and the lyre. The opposition inherent in and the
resulting identity of the bow and the lyre do not seem to be context
dependent, and they do, in fact, seem to have a fixed constitution:
without certain material conditions, the bow and the lyre fail to be
what they are. Furthermore, oppositions qua opposites don’t
seem to be determined by context: hot and cold may be relative to
30 This is most clearly seen in Arist., GC 2. 3.
31 See my discussion of Daniel Graham’s view later in this section. See also
G. Betegh, ‘On the Physical Aspect of Heraclitus’ Psychology’ [‘Physical Aspect’],
Phronesis, 52 (2007), 3–32, who incorporates Heraclitus’ soul into the physical flux
of elements. On Betegh’s view too, there is an association between the elements and
the elemental properties, including mental properties. There may be some disagreement about the precise relations of the properties to the elements, but that there is
a relation seems to be agreed on by most scholars.
32 Osborne, ‘Heraclitus’, 94.
33 Osborne, ‘Heraclitus’, 80.
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Richard Neels
context, but qua opposites they seem to be relative merely to one
another. While I think Osborne captures something Heraclitean
and while her interpretation does much better than the standard
view in accounting for deep philosophical insight, it cannot fully
account for the variety of opposites. As such, it fails to provide a
satisfying solution to the relation between Heraclitus’ opposites
and his philosophical explanation of the cosmos.
Daniel Graham presents another alternative to the standard view:
opposites are the same just in the sense that opposite things or stuffs turn
into one another . . . They are, moreover, quantitatively equivalent in the
sense described, by bearing a determinate ratio to one another. To say that
opposites are the same is simply to say that they are transformationally
equivalent.34
Graham’s interpretation of Heraclitus’ use of opposites works well
with fragments like B 126 and B 76. But Graham’s thesis cannot
make sense of the opposing values of seawater in B 61 or of the
opposing forces of the bow and the lyre in B 51. These fragments
cite opposites that have nothing to do with transformation. Graham
doesn’t force a false thesis on Heraclitus, but as with Osborne, the
interpretation does not account for the variety of opposites.
Heraclitus’ opposites clearly have something to do with his
explanation of the cosmos. I have argued that there are multiple
philosophical insights concerning opposites in the world. The
insights do not seem to be reducible to the single thesis ‘opposites
are essentially connected’. So, we are left with two problems: how
exactly do Heraclitus’ opposites feature in Heraclitus’ explanation
of the cosmos? And what unifies Heraclitus’ interest in opposites?
To answer these questions, I believe it is helpful to examine
how opposites were used in philosophical explanations prior to
Heraclitus.
3. Opposites in Heraclitus’ predecessors
Heraclitus was preceded by two other Ionian thinkers: Anaximander
and Anaximenes. Both thinkers appealed to opposites in their
explanations of the cosmos. In what follows, I present a sketch of
34 Graham, Explaining the Cosmos, 129.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
13
Anaximander’s and Anaximenes’ ideas, which I take to be, for the
most part, uncontroversial.
According to Anaximander, there is something called the apeiron,
which seems to be a sort of primordial entity from which all things
are generated. Aristotle claims that the apeiron is Anaximander’s
arche —
̄ his starting point of metaphysical ex­plan­ation.35 Anaximander
seems to have constructed a cosmogony based on the apeiron:
ϕησὶ δὲ τὸ ἐκ τοῦ ἀιδίου γόνιμον θερμοῦ τε καὶ ψυχροῦ κατὰ τὴν γένεσιν τοῦδε τοῦ
κόσμου ἀποκριθῆναι καί τινα ἐκ τούτου ϕλογὸς σϕαῖραν περιϕυῆναι τῶι περὶ τὴν
γῆν ἀέρι ὡς τῶι δένδρωι ϕλοιόν. (12 A 10. 7–10 DK)
[Anaximander] says that the part of the everlasting [i.e. the apeiron] which
is generative [γόνιμον] of hot and cold separated off [ἀποκριθῆναι] at the coming to be of the world order and from this [ἐκ τούτου] a sort of sphere of
flame grew around the air about the earth like bark around a tree.36
It is hard to know with certainty, but it seems that this bit of testimonia is evidence that there are two stages of cosmic generation.
First, a ‘generative part’ (γόνιμον) of the apeiron separates off from
the apeiron itself. Second, this mysterious part of the apeiron produces physical contrarieties (hot and cold) as well as physical stuffs
(fire, air, and earth).37 It seems that Anaximander’s entire cosmos
is explained by these physical stuffs and their opposing properties.
From Theophrastus (quoted by Simplicius), we learn that from
the apeiron things come to be, but also that it is into the apeiron that
things perish. Consider Anaximander B 1, which is embedded in a
paraphrase from Simplicius:
ἐξ ὧν δὲ ἡ γένεσίς ἐστι τοῖς οὖσι, καὶ τὴν ϕθορὰν εἰς ταῦτα γίνεσθαι κατὰ τὸ
χρεών· διδόναι γὰρ αὐτὰ δίκην καὶ τίσιν ἀλλήλοις τῆς ἀδικίας κατὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνου
τάξιν, ποιητικωτέροις οὕτως ὀνόμασιν αὐτὰ λέγων. (12 B 1 DK)
35 By ‘metaphysical explanation’ I mean an explanation for why things are thus
and so. Note that metaphysical explanations do not preclude anything physical. See
Arist., Phys. 3. 4, 203b6–28. Simplicius claims that Anaximander is the first to
introduce the term apeiron as an archē (In Phys. 24. 13–16 Diels). We don’t know for
certain whether Anaximander himself used the term archē, but Aristotle is right to
point out that the apeiron is a metaphysical principle in the sense that it is the metaphysical ground for everything.
36 A 10 DK is a testimony from pseudo-­Plutarch, Strom. 2. Though it is, on the
whole, clearly a testimony and not a verbatim quotation, Graham, Texts, thinks the
words italicized are verbatim quotations.
37 Simplicius tells us that ‘[Anaximander’s] contrarieties are hot, cold, dry, moist,
and the others’ (ἐναντιότητες δέ εἰσι θερμὸν ψυχρὸν ξηρὸν ὑγρὸν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα, In Phys.
150. 24–5 Diels). It isn’t clear here what Simplicius means by ‘the others’.
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Richard Neels
From what things existing objects come to be, into them too does their
destruction take place, according to necessity: for they give recompense and
pay restitution to each other for their injustice according to the ordering of
time, expressing it in these rather poetic terms.38
According to the standard interpretation of Anaximander, the most
basic entities are the elemental powers, which participate in a system
of retaliation with one another, such that if one opposite becomes
too powerful, it is overtaken by another opposite. According to
Aëtius, Anaximander thought that meteorological events are consequences of wind (A 23). But we also learn that wind is accounted
for by elemental powers in strife: ‘Anaximander [says] wind is a rush
of air when the most fine and moist parts of it are moved or dissolved
by the sun’ (Ἀναξίμανδρος ἄνεμον εἶναι ῥύσιν ἀέρος τῶν λεπτοτάτων
ἐν αὐτῷ καὶ ὑγροτάτων ὑπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου κινουμένων ἢ τηκομένων, A 24).
Presumably the sun has the power to heat and thereby dry out the
moisture in the air, causing the air to move and become wind. Wind
accounts for the meteorological phenomena, but the striving of
opposing powers accounts for wind. If this is correct, Anaximander
seems to have treated the opposites as fundamental explanantia
with reference to the rest of the physical world.39 Graham writes:
‘In Anaximander we see a closed system of explanation, in which a
set of items, apparently including elem­ental stuffs and their contrary properties, accounts for all the phenomena of experience.’40
Since the opposites seem to pose the ultimate physical explanation
of the physical stuffs and their operations, I believe it makes most
sense to suppose that for Anaximander the war of opposites is the
most basic principle of explanation for this world. The apeiron
38 The italicized words are generally thought by scholars to be original to
Anaximander.
39 C. Kahn supports this view (Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology
[Anaximander] (New York, 1960), 178). Vlastos too seems to suggest this when he
speaks of ‘the opposites which constitute this world’ (‘Equality and Justice in Early
Greek Cosmologies’ [‘Equality and Justice’], Classical Philology, 42 (1947), 156–78
at 169). G. Freudenthal claims that the statement ‘the basic constituents of
Anaximander’s world are equal opposite powers’ is ‘uncontroversial’ (‘The Theory
of Opposites in an Ordered Universe: Physics and Metaphysics in Anaximander’
[‘Theory of Opposites’], Phronesis, 31 (1986), 197–228 at 198). Graham, on the
other hand, argues against this pure power ontology (Explaining the Cosmos, 42).
But he still promotes, as do I, the interpretation that the powers are the ex­plana­tor­
ily basic factors in Anaximander’s thought.
40 Graham, Explaining the Cosmos, 42.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
15
may explain why the opposites and their stuffs exist at all,41 but it
is the opposites that provide the ultimate explanation why stuffs
are the way they are and behave the way they do.42
I turn now to Anaximenes, who is generally thought to be one of
Anaximander’s rough contemporaries.43 According to the testimonia, Anaximenes provides an explanation of the physical world by
means of two opposing processes, rarefaction and condensation:
διαϕέρειν δὲ μανότητι καὶ πυκνότητι κατὰ τὰς οὐσίας. καὶ ἀραιούμενον μὲν πῦρ
γίνεσθαι, πυκνούμενον δὲ ἄνεμον, εἶτα νέϕος, ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον ὕδωρ, εἶτα γῆν, εἶτα
λίθους, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ἐκ τούτων. (13 A 5. 3–6 DK)
[Air] differs in essence in accordance with its rarity (μανότητι) and density
(πυκνότητι). When it is thinned (ἀραιούμενον), it becomes fire, while when
it is condensed, it becomes wind, then cloud, when still more condensed, it
becomes water, then earth, then stones. Everything else comes from these.44
Here, as with Anaximander, Anaximenes in a way treats opposites
as the fundamental explanantia of the physical world. It is true that
Aristotle claims Anaximenes’ arche ̄ is air, but the real explanatory
power seems to come from the opposing processes that account for
the differences in essence of the various stuffs into which air can
transform.45 This is not to say that the opposites are of the same
sort for Anaximenes and Anaximander or that they account for the
physical world in the same way. For Anaximander, it seems opposing powers explain the physical world, while for Anaximenes opposing processes explain the physical world. But it does seem that both
attempted to offer an explanation of the cosmos by appealing to
fundamental opposites. To put it simply, for both Anaximander
and Anaximenes, stuffs, things, and events in the physical world are
explananda and certain opposites serve as their explanantia.
41 This interpretation of the apeiron is supported by Vlastos, ‘Equality and
Justice’, but contested by Freudenthal, ‘Theory of Opposites’.
42 Some may think that cosmic justice is a fundamental, explanatory principle for
Anaximander. However, it seems to me that Anaximander’s opposites are self-­
regulating as a matter of necessity. Cosmic justice simply is the self-­regulating war
of opposites.
43 Diogenes Laertius (2.3) and Simplicius (In Phys. 24. 26 Diels) claim that
Anaximenes was the student of Anaximander. But these later reporters loved to
arrange all historical philosophers into long chains of teachers and students, often
without any real evidence.
44 This testimony is provided by Simpl., In Phys. 24. 26–25. 1 Diels.
45 Arist., Metaph. Α. 3, 984a5–7.
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Richard Neels
Anaximander and Anaximenes seem to be concerned with
explanatory fundamentality.46 Their respective opposites appear
to be fundamental explanantia for the rest of the physical world.
As such, we can classify their views in line with Metaphysical
Foundationalism. According to foundationalists, the entire cosmos
is explained by one or more metaphysically foundational (i.e. absolutely fundamental) entities.47 Explanations flow in one direction
from the foundational entity/entities through the varying levels of
46 In the terms of modern metaphysics, we might say they are concerned with
grounding. Grounding relations are generally thought to be ‘in virtue of’ relations,
such that when y holds in virtue of x, x grounds y. If x grounds y, then x is more
fundamental than y and x explains y. While these early thinkers are clearly not concerned with the finer points of grounding relations being debated today, their systems of explanation seem to follow the general pattern of grounding as expressed
above. See F. Correia and B. Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding
the Structure of Reality [Metaphysical Grounding] (Cambridge, 2012) for a recent
anthology on ground. There is a current debate concerning the precise nature of
ground; for a sample of this debate, see G. Rosen, ‘Metaphysical Dependence:
Grounding and Reduction’, in B. Hale and A. Hoffman (eds.), Modality: Metaphysics,
Logic, and Epistemology (Oxford, 2010), 347–83; C. S. Jenkins, ‘Is Metaphysical
Grounding Irreflexive?’, Monist, 94 (2011), 267–76; J. Schaffer, ‘Grounding,
Transitivity, and Contrastivity’, in Correia and Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical
Grounding, 122–38. K. Fine, ‘Guide to Ground’ [‘Guide’], in Correia and Schnieder
(eds.), Metaphysical Grounding, 37–80; K. Koslicki, ‘Varieties of Ontological
Dependence’, in Correia and Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical Grounding, 186–213;
M. J. Raven, ‘Ground’, Philosophy Compass, 10 (2015), 322–33; J. Zylstra, ‘The
Essence of Grounding’[‘Essence’], Synthese, 196 (2019), 5137–52. The notion
of grounding I believe to be at work in Anaximander is endorsed by Raven,
‘Ground’. According to Raven, ‘Ground is . . . supposed to serve a certain job
description: it is the common factor in diverse in virtue of questions, the structuring relation in the project of explaining how some phenomena are “built”
from more fundamental phenomena, and a key part of a venerable tradition concerned with metaphysical explanation’ (324, emphasis original). He also explains
that ‘ground is metaphysical because it concerns the phenomena in the world
itself, but also explanatory because it concerns how some phenomena hold in
virtue of others’ (326, emphasis original). We might worry that it is anachronistic to interpret these thinkers as being concerned with grounding. However, the
idea is not that they are consciously employing a concept of grounding, but
merely that they seem to have had some basic notion of ontological and ex­plana­
tory fundamentality, and that this notion, untheorized among these early Greek
philosophers, is the same one contemporary metaphysicians interested in
grounding investigate.
47 Raven, ‘Ground’, summarizes foundationalism: ‘if explanations must begin,
then so too any grounded fact must ultimately be grounded in facts which themselves are ungrounded . . . [this] entails that this ordering terminates in minimal
elem­ents, like an explanatory chain beginning from unexplained explainers’ (327).
These unexplained explainers are foundational entities.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
17
fundamental entities to the derivative entities.48 Anaximander’s
metaphysical foundation or arche ̄ is the apeiron, and Anaximenes’
is air insofar as these pose the existential conditions for the cosmos.
These, in turn, ground the existence of the opposites, and, in the
words of Simplicius, ‘everything else comes from these’ (τὰ δὲ ἄλλα
ἐκ τούτων). The opposites are existentially derivative from the foundation, but the opposites are fundamental to the rest of the physical
world (observable stuffs, things, and events). In short, their re­spect­
ive opposites do all the explanatory work with respect to the nature
of the physical world. In sum, Anaximander and Anaximenes
accepted two principles concerning opposites and explanations: (1)
the physical stuffs, things, and events in the world are explananda,
and certain opposites are their explanantia, and (2) these opposites
are explanatorily fundamental in the physical world, and everything
else in the physical world is explained with reference to them.49
4. Opposites as explananda
When we turn to Heraclitus, we see a change in how opposites are
featured, but it is difficult to see clearly what that change amounts
to.50 In Anaximander and Anaximenes, the featured opposites are
48 A contemporary expression of this principle is called a Strict Partial Order:
explanatory relations are irreflexive, transitive, and asymmetric. See M. J. Raven,
‘Is Ground a Strict Partial Order?’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 50 (2013),
193–201. Anaximander’s and Anaximenes’ explanations do appear to follow a Strict
Partial Order. According to this view, chains of grounding obtain. In the grounding
chain, X → Y → Z, X is foundational and non-­derivative; Y and Z are derivative,
though Z is more derivative than Y; and Y is fundamental with respect to Z, but
derivative with respect to X.
49 This isn’t to say that Anaximander and Anaximenes don’t have their differences with respect to their schemes of explanation, but I do think it is safe to say
that they held these principles in common. It’s worth pointing out that this in­ter­
pret­ation fits nicely with Aristotle’s argument that the ‘physicists’ used contraries to
explain change in the cosmos (Phys. 1. 5, 188a27–31).
50 Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy, tries to make sense of Heraclitus’ new approach
within the tradition of appealing to opposites: ‘while Heraclitus’ theory was exceptional in that he particularly emphasised the interdependence or “unity” of op­pos­
ites, it was typical in so far as he too analysed the data of experience generally into
pairs of opposites’ (17). However, Lloyd does not discuss exactly how and why
Heraclitus analysed the data of experience into opposites. Furthermore, it seems
Heraclitus treated the pairs of opposites as data of experience rather than analysing
the data of experience by means of opposites (esp. B 126: ‘cold things warm up’
(ψυχρὰ θέρεται)).
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Richard Neels
few and of the same order. For Heraclitus, the opposites are numerous and varied. This discrepancy suggests an implicit criticism on
the part of Heraclitus, but it is difficult to see what the criticism
might be.51
Many scholars have suggested that Heraclitus’ B 80 is an implicit
criticism of Anaximander, and so it is worth examining this line of
thought:52
εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τὸν πόλεμον ἐόντα ξυνόν, καὶ δίκην ἔριν, καὶ γινόμενα πάντα κατ᾽
ἔριν καὶ χρεών. (22 B 80 DK)
It is necessary to know that war is common, and strife is justice, and all
things come to be in accordance with strife and necessity.
While Anaximander in B 1 (quoted in Section 3 above) says that
the opposites pay for their injustice, Heraclitus claims that the striving of opposites is justice. Some interpreters see this as evidence
for the single unity of opposites thesis in Heraclitus: op­pos­ites are
essentially connected.53 But if this is a criticism of Anaximander,
surely Heraclitus’ point is merely semantic and not substantial, since
both Anaximander and Heraclitus seem to be claiming that a war
or strife of some sort is the proper course of the cosmos.54 Hence
it does not seem that B 80 really is a criticism of Anaximander
after all; it even seems to be a point of agreement. To be clear, there
are differences. For Anaximander, this strife has a beginning (insofar as he thinks there is a beginning to the cosmos). For Heraclitus,
strife is eternal. Furthermore, Anaximander’s retaliation of opposites
51 According to Graham, Explaining the Cosmos, Heraclitus contributes to the
development of early Ionian natural philosophy by solving the problem of primacy
in what Graham calls the Generating Substance Theory (see esp. chs 4 and 5).
Graham’s view helps to situate Heraclitus in the development of Ionian science.
However, it does not fully explain why Heraclitus used opposites in the way he did.
52 See Kirk, Cosmic Fragments, 240; Vlastos, ‘On Heraclitus’, 358; Mourelatos,
‘Naïve Metaphysics’, 35; Kahn, Art and Thought, 206.
53 Mourelatos argues that, for Anaximander, the ‘opposites are essentially incompatible’, but for Heraclitus, ‘they are one, they are internally or conceptually related
by being opposed determinations within a single field’ (‘Naïve Metaphysics’, 35).
But Anaximander’s opposites would also have to be ‘opposed determinations within
a single field’ by the same logic.
54 Kahn writes, ‘The elements feed one another by their own destruction, since
what is life to one is death for its reciprocal. The first law of nature is a lex talionis:
life for life’ (Anaximander, 183). There is a debate concerning whether or not, for
Anaximander, the opposites govern themselves (Kahn, Anaximander, 167–8; Vlastos,
‘Equality and Justice’, 156–8) or whether the opposites require the apeiron to govern
them (Freudenthal, ‘Theory of Opposites’, 208).
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
19
is just, but not all strife is just on his account. For Heraclitus, strife
as such, seems to be just. So, what is Heraclitus’ implicit criticism
of the way opposites are featured in the intellectual milieu of
his day?
Here is my suggestion: while Heraclitus’ predecessors explained
the physical world by means of a simple set of fundamental op­pos­
ites, Heraclitus proliferates examples of many different pairs of
opposites to make the point that we cannot so simply explain the
world by reducing our explanantia to a pair (or limited set of pairs)
of opposites.55 Perhaps we could even read Heraclitus’ numerous
and varied instances of opposites as an argument of indifference
against his predecessors.56 An indifference argument uses a lack
of reason to establish a definite conclusion. Such arguments are
not foreign to Presocratic thinkers before and after Heraclitus.57
Heraclitus’ implicit criticism of Anaximenes could plausibly be
construed thus: ‘Why pick rarefaction–­condensation as the fundamental explanatory pair of opposites when there are a number of
other opposites?’ Heraclitus cites numerous pairs of opposites that
could rival Anaximenes’ opposites as contenders for fundamental
explanantia: wet–dry, war–peace, life–death. It stands to reason that
we could just as plausibly construe a fundamental principle out of
each of these as we could out of Anaximander’s or Anaximenes’
opposites. At the same time, it is implausible to think that all
op­pos­ites could equally be fundamental. For simplicity’s sake, just
consider Anaximander’s and Anaximenes’s opposites: hot–­cold,
rare–­dense. Both sets are equal contenders to be fundamental
55 It is possible that Parmenides (presumably writing after Heraclitus, although
we don’t know for certain) made a similar point about the use of opposites in his
predecessors. See Parmenides, 28 B 8. 53–61 DK.
56 I would like to thank Victor Caston for this suggestion. I appeal to the work of
S. Makin, Indifference Arguments (Oxford, 1993). The main form of an indifference
argument is this: (1) There is no more reason for p than there is for q; (2) either both
p and q are true or neither p nor q is true. Independent argumentation is required to
determine which disjunct in the initial conclusion is warranted.
57 It is thought that Anaximander appealed to an indifference argument when he
reasoned that the earth is stable and at the centre of the universe, since it has no
more reason to be at one side than it does to be at the other (Anaximander, A
26 DK). See Makin, Indifference Arguments, 101–5 for an analysis of Anaximander’s
indifference argument. Democritus, writing after Heraclitus, employed indifference
arguments to conclude that atoms are partless and that there exists an infinite var­
iety of atoms. See Makin, Indifference Arguments, 49–84 for an extensive analysis of
indifference arguments in Democritus.
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Richard Neels
explanantia. But both can’t be fundamental. Either rare–­dense
explains hot–­cold (as Anaximenes thinks) or hot–­cold explains
rare–­
dense (as Anaximander thinks).58 Neither individually is
right (according to Heraclitus); and both can’t be right. And so,
neither set of opposites can serve as the fundamental explanans of
the cosmos.59
His further point, I think, is that opposites require an ex­plan­
ation as much as the physical world does. Indeed, we experience
them as evident in the physical world (e.g. cold things warm up),
and it stands to reason that we need an explanation why they behave
the way they do. Thus, we cannot merely treat them as explanantia;
we must also treat them as explananda. I reconstruct the argument
as follows:
1. There are many sets of opposites of a varied sort that are
equal contenders to be taken as fundamental explanantia.60
2. We have no more reason to choose one set of opposites
(e.g. hot–­cold) over other equal contenders as a fundamental
explanans.
3. Either these sets of opposites are all fundamental explanantia
or none is.
4. It is implausible that all these sets of opposites are fundamental explanantia.
5. Hence, none of these sets of opposites is a fundamental
explanans.
6. Everything is either a fundamental explanans or an explanandum.
7. Therefore, all sets of opposites are explananda.61
58 At least, this is true on a foundationalist framework for explanation. It need
not be true on a coherentist framework.
59 This isn’t to say that they cannot be explanantia at all, just that they cannot be
fundamental explanantia.
60 Note that my formulation of the argument does not rest on the claim that all
sets of opposites for Heraclitus are equal contenders for fundamental explanantia.
It is simply the case that at least some sets of opposites are equal contenders to be
fundamental explanantia. And this is enough to secure the argument. I do not spell
out which sets these are, nor need I for the argument to work.
61 One may wonder why I slide from ‘these sets’ in the premises to ‘all sets’ in the
conclusion. The answer is simple: in the initial premises, we are considering sets of
opposites that are plausible contenders as fundamental explanantia. All remaining
sets (e.g. possibly up–­down) are not fundamental explanantia by default. So, the
move from ‘these sets’ to ‘all sets’ is warranted by this default exclusion.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
21
Note that being an explanans is compatible with being an
explanandum—­something can explain something else while requiring an explanation itself.62 But being a fundamental explanans is
incompatible with being an explanandum—­fundamental explanantia are unexplained explainers. Of course, Heraclitus did not formulate this argument. However, I do think it is plausible that the
conclusion is Heraclitus’ and that the argument captures his
­reasons for holding that conclusion. Two things strike me as true:
(1) Anaximander and Anaximenes did choose a limited set of op­pos­
ition­al pairs to explain the entire cosmos; and (2) they are wrong for
arbitrarily choosing one set of opposites or several sets from a
number of equally plausible pairs of opposites. I think Heraclitus
was aware of (1) and saw the truth in (2). I submit that this reconstruction makes good sense of why Heraclitus cited so many varied
pairs of opposites. It also makes good sense of why many of his
pairs of opposites are presented in a puzzling fashion.
If this is right, we have a partial answer to the question ‘How do
opposites feature in Heraclitus’ explanation of the cosmos?’ Our
initial answer is that they are not fundamental explanantia; they are
explananda. I want to be clear. I do not think the negative argument exhausts Heraclitus’ interest in opposites. I will have more to
say about Heraclitus’ positive interest in opposites in Section 7
below. Before I do so, it is worth pointing out that if I’m right and
Heraclitus saw the opposites as explananda, and if I’m right that
Heraclitus is interested in explaining the cosmos, then he must have
thought there was an explanans for the opposites. But what is the
explanans for the opposites now conceived as explananda?
5. Against a metaphysical foundation
When dealing with Heraclitus’ predecessors, I argued that they were
foundationalists of a sort. Foundationalists hold the belief that
everything in the cosmos is either directly or indirectly explained
by a foundational entity or a set of foundational entities. Foundational
62 For example, a water molecule both explains the properties of blood plasma
and is explained by its subatomic particles. The water molecule is both an explanans
(with respect to blood plasma) and an explanandum (with respect to the subatomic
particles).
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Richard Neels
here means ‘absolutely fundamental’. What is regarded as foundational is something that explains other things but is not itself
explained by anything else. Does Heraclitus have a foundational
entity or set of foundational entities? For Heraclitus, there seem to
be four potential candidates for a non-­cosmogonical, foundational
principle of explanation for the cosmos: fire, logos, God, or the cosmos itself. However, I will argue that none of these candidates can
satisfy the conditions necessary to be considered a foundational
principle of explanation.
Fire is cited in B 30 as something that might appear to be a foundational principle. Heraclitus identifies the cosmos with an ever-­
living fire, and many have interpreted this literally.63 According to
this material monist view, Heraclitus thought all things are fire as
substratum and the changes in the cosmos are mere accidental
changes of this basic substance. If this is true, then Heraclitus’
theory of elemental change is reduced to the alterations of a more
basic stuff: fire. But this view does not square well with Heraclitus’
theory of radical elemental change. We saw from B 76 that the
elem­ents transform into one another such that the birth of one
elem­ent is the death of another element. Importantly, fire is also
part of this birth–­death cycle. Heraclitus says that ‘the death of fire
is the birth of air’ (πυρὸς θάνατος ἀέρι γένεσις). If the fire of B 30 is
ever-­living (ἀείζωον), it cannot be the same fire spoken of in B 76 of
which death (θάνατος) is predicated. At the very least, I think it is
safe to say that elemental fire is not what everything is made of and
therefore not a metaphysical foundation in that sense.
However, fire might be foundational in another sense. Consider
fragment B 90:
πυρός τε ἀνταμοιβὴ τὰ πάντα καὶ πῦρ ἁπάντων ὅκωσπερ χρυσοῦ χρήματα καὶ
χρημάτων χρυσός. (22 B 90 DK)
All things are an exchange for fire and fire for all things, as goods for gold
and gold for goods.
63 Aristotle is famous for his material monist interpretation of Heraclitus and other
Presocratics. See Metaph. A. 3, 983b6–18 and 984a5–11. Barnes, The Presocratic
Philosophers, 45–8, has argued more recently that Heraclitus is a material monist
who supposed that all things are actually fire in altered guise. See Graham,
Explaining the Cosmos, 122–9 (esp. at 127), for an extended argument against the
material monist view. See also H. Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of Presocratic
Philosophy (Baltimore, 1935) and id., ‘The Characteristics and Effects of Presocratic
Philosophy’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 12 (1951), 319–45.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
23
Heraclitus does seem to give a privileged status to fire. For this
reason, some have argued that fire has metaphysical primacy over
the other elements. Charles Kahn, for example, has argued that fire
is the original element out of which all the elements are born and
into which all the elements die.64 Indeed, fragment B 31 seems to
indicate that the elemental transformations begin with fire and are
called the ‘turnings of fire’ (πυρὸς τροπαί ). But metaphysically speaking, the elements still seem to exist in a closed cycle of trans­form­
ation. The essences of the other elements are no more ­dependent
on the essence of fire than the essence of fire is ­dependent on the
other elements. Furthermore, this again does not square well with
B 30, which claims that the cosmos always was, is, and will be fire.
For these reasons, I think it makes most sense to suppose that fire
itself is not a metaphysical foundation for the cosmos; instead, it is
a symbol for the cosmos as a dynamic, regulated entity.65
Instead of fire, some might claim that the logos is a foundational
principle of explanation for Heraclitus.66 We saw that in fragment
B 1 Heraclitus claims that the logos, whatever it is, holds forever
(τοῦ δὲ λόγου τοῦδ᾿ ἐόντος αἰεί). He also claims in B 1 that all things
come to be in accordance with the logos (γινομένων γὰρ πάντων κατὰ
τὸν λόγον τόνδε). In B 2, he claims that the logos is common (τοῦ λόγου
δ᾿ ἐόντος ξυνοῦ), even though most humans have a private understanding of the world. In B 50, Heraclitus says: ‘It is wise for them,
having listened not to me, but to the logos [τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας], to
agree that all things are one’ (οὐκ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας
ὁμολογεῖν σοϕόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι, with Diels). Many scholars have
interpreted Heraclitus’ logos as a cosmic law.67 The greatest evidence seems to come from the second occurrence in B 1, in which
Heraclitus claims that all things come to be in accordance with the
logos. There is a problem with interpreting Heraclitus’ logos as a
64 Kahn, Art and Thought, 132–8.
65 In taking fire as a symbol for organized, cosmic change, I follow Graham, who
says that fire is ‘fundamental just by being symbolic of the constant change that the
elements undergo’ (Explaining the Cosmos, 127). Interestingly, Kahn, Art and
Thought, 136, also claims that Heraclitus chose fire as his primary element for meta­
phor­ic reasons.
66 Most recently R. McKirahan, Philosophy before Socrates, 2nd edn (Indianapolis,
2010), 133, and P. Curd, ‘The Divine and the Thinkable: Toward an Account of the
Intelligible Cosmos’ [‘Intelligible’], Rhizomata, 1 (2013), 217–24 at 236–8.
67 Graham, Explaining the Cosmos, 143–4; McKirahan, Philosophy before Socrates,
136; Curd, ‘Intelligible’, 237.
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Richard Neels
cosmic law: rendering the term in this manner would mean that
Heraclitus’ use of the term logos bears no resemblance to the standard use of the term in and around the time Heraclitus was ­writing.68
In response to this problem some scholars have argued that the
cosmic law interpretation forces a Stoic conception of logos back
onto Heraclitus and that it is plausible to read logos as simply referring to what Heraclitus is saying.69 That’s what a logos was in
Heraclitus’ day: something someone says (legein). However, this
interpretation also has its problems; it seems im­plaus­ible that
Heraclitus wasn’t using the term in a special sense, especially with
the second usage of logos in B 1: it is implausible that Heraclitus
thought all things came to be in accordance with his utterances.
This interpretation also makes nonsense of B 50: ‘having listened
not to me, but to the logos’. It is implausible that Heraclitus wanted
us to listen not to him but to what he says. So, on the one hand, a
cosmic law interpretation of logos seems to be too strong, but the
deflationary reading seems to be too weak.
Mark Johnstone has recently offered a moderate solution to this
issue that to my mind provides the most plausible understanding
of logos in Heraclitus. Johnstone examines the common usage of
logos around the time Heraclitus was active. He finds that ‘while
the term “logos” most commonly referred to something appearing
in language, it was not merely anything that happened to be said.
Rather, a logos was an organized presentation of things as being
“thus and so”.’70 When things are presented in a certain way, they
can be understood. On these grounds, Johnstone argues that
‘Heraclitus denotes by the term “logos” neither his own discourse
nor a cosmic law, but rather the world’s orderly and intelligible
(i.e. comprehensible, understandable) presentation of its nature to
us throughout our lives.’71 Thus, the logos doesn’t belong to
Heraclitus but to the cosmos itself. On this reading, the logos is simply the world’s presentation of its nature as orderly and intelligible,
68 See Johnstone, ‘Logos’, 2. There he argues: ‘Yet the single biggest problem
with this “cosmic-­law” interpretation, as it might be called, is that it risks completely detaching Heraclitus’ employment of the word “logos” from any other
attested use of it in and around his time.’
69 Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 4th edn (London, 1930), 133 n. 1; West, Orient,
124–9; Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, 59.
70 Johnstone, ‘Logos’, 16.
71 Johnstone, ‘Logos’, 21.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
25
not the foundational explanatory principle of the cosmos itself. It is
worth noting that if this interpretation is correct—­and I think it is—­
the question of fundamentality gets passed on to the cosmos. Is the
cosmos itself the foundation of all things? We will examine this view
shortly. But first it will be helpful to examine Heraclitus’ theology.
Some have claimed that Heraclitus’ God is the foundational
principle of explanation for the cosmos.72 We’ve already examined
fragment B 30 which claims that the cosmos was not created by a
god. But Heraclitus does think God exists and is somehow identified with the cosmos:
ὁ θεὸς ἡμέρη εὐϕρόνη, χειμὼν θέρος, πόλεμος εἰρήνη, κόρος λιμός [τἀναντία
ἅπαντα . . . ], ἀλλοιοῦται δὲ ὅκωσπερ < . . . >, ὁκόταν συμμιγῆι θυώμασιν, ὀνομάζεται
καθ᾽ ἡδονὴν ἑκάστου. (22 B 67 DK)
God is day night, winter summer, war peace, satiety hunger [all the contraries . . . ], and he alters just as <oil/fire?> when it is mixed with spices, is
named according to the aroma of each of them.73
Heraclitus here identifies God with several opposing pairs—­perhaps
all the opposites if we accept Hippolytus’ interpolation.74 Heraclitus
elsewhere refers to this divine being as ‘one’ (ἕν) and ‘wise’ (σοϕόν,
B 32 and B 41).75 Incidentally, Heraclitus claims that all things are
one:
οὐκ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁμολογεῖν σοϕόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι.
(22 B 50 DK, accepting Miller’s emendation)
It is wise for them, having listened not to me, but to the logos, to agree that
all things are one.76
72 Curd, ‘Intelligible’, suggests at 237 that the logos is divine and that the divine
logos is foundational.
73 There is a lacuna in this fragment. Diels, Fragmente; Graham, Texts;
Marcovich, Heraclitus; and Kirk, Cosmic Fragments, all fill it with ‘fire’. However,
there is some evidence to suggest that the missing word could well be ‘oil’, since this
was a common mixture with spices. See H. Frankel, ‘Heraclitus on God and the
Phenomenal World’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association, 69 (1938), 230–44.
74 Hippolytus, the supplier of this fragment, adds that God is all the contraries.
75 ‘The wise is one, it alone wishes and does not wish to be called by the name of
Zeus’ (B 32: ἓν τὸ σοϕὸν, μοῦνον λέγεσθαι οὐκ ἐθέλει καὶ ἐθέλει Ζηνὸς ὄνομα). ‘Wisdom
is one: knowing the thought/plan that steers all things through all’ (B 41: εἶναι γὰρ
ἓν τὸ σοϕόν, ἐπίστασθαι γνώμην, ὁτέη ἐκυβέρνησε πάντα διὰ πάντων).
76 This fragment is preserved for us by Hippolytus (Haer. 9. 9. 1).
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Richard Neels
Since Heraclitus’ God is not the creator of the cosmos (B 30), is
somehow immanent in the cosmos (B 67), and is identified with the
cosmos (B 67 and B 50, by way of B 32 and B 41), I submit it makes
most sense to suppose that Heraclitus’ God simply is the cosmos:
all things together as a whole, integrated, orderly, intelligible, and
ever-­living entity. I cannot defend this view fully here, but I believe
it makes the most sense of Heraclitus’ divine fragments. If I’m
right, we are again pushed to consider whether the cosmos itself is
explanatorily basic (i.e. foundational).
To be explanatorily basic, the cosmos as an integrated whole
must explain its parts and not the other way round. This is a question about fundamental mereology: are the parts prior to the whole
or is the whole prior to the parts? The priority pluralist will argue
that the parts explain the whole; the priority monist will argue that
the whole explains the parts.77 Importantly, a foundationalist must
come down on one side and one side only, since, according to their
view, something must be foundational, and a foundation cannot be
something that is itself explained by anything else. Does Heraclitus
pick a side? Consider again fragment B 10 (quoted above):
Collectives: wholes and not wholes; brought together, pulled apart; sung
in unison, sung in conflict; both from all things one and from one all
things.
This fragment is concerned with mereological priority—­or so I will
argue.78 The first word (συλλάψιες) refers to things that are taken
together: collective entities. Heraclitus then affirms that collective
entities are both whole and not-­whole. There are three ways we
might interpret the meaning of the opposing pairs in the middle of
the fragment: (1) we might think it is a diachronic description of
the cosmos: at one time it is pulled apart (a mereological sum); at
another time it is brought together (a proper whole). But this interpretation is ill-­advised, as we have no other evidence of such an
Empedoclean cycle in Heraclitus. Furthermore, it fails to make
sense of Heraclitus’ use of the plural ‘collectives’ at the beginning
of the fragment. (2) we might think that Heraclitus’ is using this
77 I borrow the terms ‘priority pluralism’ and ‘priority monism’ and their meanings from J. Schaffer, ‘Priority Monism’, Philosophical Review, 119 (2010), 31–76.
See this work for a contemporary defense of Priority Monism.
78 Graham, Explaining the Cosmos, 143, also recognizes the mereological nature
of this fragment.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
27
fragment to parse out different types of collectives: some are proper
wholes; others are mereological sums. But this in­ter­pret­ation suffers, since the point in the first half would have very little to do
with the final statement about the cosmos and its parts. Finally, (3)
we might think that the pairs of opposites parse out the different
aspects of part–­whole structures (i.e. collectives). The different
aspects of such a structure are their parts (not-­whole, pulled apart,
sung in conflict) and the integrated whole (whole, brought together,
sung in unison). I adopt this aspectual reading of part–­whole
structures in B 10, since it fares better than the other two in­ter­pret­
ations in that it can provide a unified interpretation of the ­fragment:
the entire fragment is about wholes and their parts. The plural collectives at the beginning of the fragment lets us know that
Heraclitus thinks there are whole–­part structures within the cosmos.
The final words reveal that such wholes can also be the parts of
the cosmos and that the cosmos itself is a whole–­part structure.
Heraclitus ends the fragment with the cosmic claim that ‘all things
come from one and one comes from all things’. The ‘one’ must
indicate the cosmos. The ‘all things’ must indicate the parts of the
cosmos. If this is so, Heraclitus appears to be ambivalent with
respect to mereological priority: the whole and its parts stand to
one another in a relation of metaphysical interdependence. And
since a Metaphysical Foundationalist cannot be ambivalent with
respect to mereological priority, Heraclitus cannot be a Metaphysical
Foundationalist.
But let us consider the last part of B 10 more carefully: ‘both
from all things one and from one all things’. If ‘one’ (ἕν) designates
the cosmos and ‘all things’ (πάντα) its parts, can we make good
sense of the odd and reciprocal use of ‘from’ (ἐκ)? In context, the
Greek term ἐκ (‘from’) plausibly denotes either generation or
composition.79 If Heraclitus means the former, he would be claiming that all things are generated from the cosmos and that the cosmos is generated from all things. But reading ‘from’ (ἐκ) as
signifying generation seems to contradict B 30, which claims that
the world is ever-­living and not created. If he intends the latter, he
would be claiming that the cosmos is made out of all things and
79 There are other uses of ἐκ: place (the place from which) or time (thereafter, or
a point in time at which something occurs). But this fragment does not seem
­concerned with time or place.
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Richard Neels
that all things are made out of the cosmos. But reading ‘from’ (ἐκ)
as composition seems to contain a logical difficulty: the cosmos
cannot be composed of all things as matter if all things are composed of the cosmos as matter. Pages can be said to compose a
book; but that same book cannot then be said to compose the pages.
Composition is a non-­
reciprocal relation. A third option is
possible. The ‘from’ (ἐκ) might suggest cosmogonical language. In
Anaximander A 10 DK, it is claimed that ‘the part of the everlasting which is generative of hot and cold separated off at the coming
to be of the world order and from this (ἐκ τούτου) a sort of sphere
of flame grew’. The preposition ‘from’ (ἐκ), when used in a cosmogonical context, might signal a sort of cosmogonical movement
from explanans to explanandum. Heraclitus’ point in B 10 might
then be that ‘all things’ and ‘one’ are mutually explanatory, such
that neither is more fundamental than the other. In other words,
‘all things’ hold in virtue of the ‘one’, and the ‘one’ holds in virtue
of ‘all things’.80 Neither is explanatorily basic. Both the cosmos
and its parts explain one another in a reciprocal fashion.81
80 This usage of ἐκ seems to be a plausible construal of the ‘in accordance with’
usage cited by LSJ, s.v. ἐκ III.7. In this instance, ἐκ seems to be citing the ground of
information. Compare the following usages: ‘he purified the island of Delos in
accordance with the oracles’ (Hdt. 1. 64, τὴν νῆσον Δῆλον καθήρας ἐκ τῶν λογίων); ‘he
cancelled the time that was in accordance with the statute’ (Dem., Against Timocrates,
28.3, ἀνελὼν τὸν ἐκ τῶν νόμων χρόνον); ‘they struck [with their oars] the briny deep in
accordance with the command’ (Aesch., Pers. 397, ἔπαισαν ἅλμην βρύχιον ἐκ
κελεύματος). In all these cases ἐκ seems to be citing the origin of some information.
In the Herodotus passage, Pisistratus cleanses the island of Delos having been told
to do so by the oracles; Pisistratus understands x (to cleanse the island) from y (the
oracle). In the Demosthenes passage, Demosthenes is describing a man who drafts
a decree but alters the date; he cancels the date that was given or told by the statute.
In this situation we understand x (the correct date) from y (the decree). In the
Aeschylus passage the rowers strike oar because of the command; they understood
x (to row) from y (the command).
81 It is worth pointing out that B 90, discussed earlier in this section, cor­rob­­
orates this conclusion. Heraclitus claims that fire is an exchange (ἀνταμοιβή) for all
things and all things for fire. If I am right in thinking that fire is a metaphoric symbol for the cosmos itself (as evidenced by B 30), then B 90 is saying that the cosmos
is exchangeable for all things and all things for the cosmos in the same way that
goods and gold are exchangeable. What is the foundation for the value of goods and
the value of gold? Their values are interdependent and arise from the exchange
itself. The point of B 90 seems to be that there is a metaphysical currency whereby
all things (i.e. the parts of the cosmos) and the cosmos itself are worth the same.
This point resonates with the idea that the cosmos and its parts are explanatorily
inter­depend­ent.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
29
Let’s explore the relation between the cosmos and its parts more
carefully. If Heraclitus is claiming that the whole cosmos is explained
by its parts and the parts are explained by the whole cosmos, does
this commit him to symmetrical explanation whereby X and Y
explain one another in exactly the same manner? It need not, at least
not if he assumed the following:
Part–­Whole Principle: Wholes and parts stand to one another
as mutually, though not exhaustively, explanatory.
Heraclitus’ point is rather intuitive. If you want to understand the
cosmos, you’ll need to examine its parts. And if you want to understand the parts of the cosmos, you’ll need to examine the whole
cosmos. But this isn’t the whole story. In B 1 Heraclitus claims to
differentiate each part (διαιρέων ἕκαστον) of the cosmos in order to
explain its nature. The success of explaining the nature of things
by division entails the explanatory interdependence of the things
being explained. Any part of the cosmos is what it is (in part)
because of its surrounding parts. As such, I believe it makes good
sense to think that Heraclitus adopted the following principle:
Difference Principle: Any part of a whole is different from every
other part and is what it is, in part, because of the other parts
of that whole.82
By differentiating the parts (διαιρέων ἕκαστον) of the cosmos, we come
to understand how things are explained by their surrounding
­entities.83 For example, we recognize that land and sea (parts of the
82 More evidence for the Difference Principle might be found in B 53 and B 80,
where Heraclitus claims that ‘war [πόλεμος] is the father of all’ (B 53) and ‘all things
happen in accordance with strife [ἔριν]’ (B 80). Some might think that, on the basis
of these fragments, war/strife is a candidate for a foundational principle of ex­plan­
ation. But it seems to me that claiming that ‘war is the father of all’ just is to say that
nothing in or about the cosmos is a foundational principle of explanation. Strife
itself cannot be a foundational principle of explanation for Heraclitus since it has an
opposite, peace, that helps explain what strife is. Instead, by saying that war is the
father of all, I take Heraclitus to be saying that things in the cosmos are always pitted
against one another in an explanatorily productive manner. For more on Heraclitus’
interest in differentiating, see B 7: ‘If all things became smoke, noses would distinguish
them’ (εἰ πάντα τὰ ὄντα καπνὸς γένοιτο, ῥῖνες ἂν διαγνοῖεν).
83 I don’t mean to suggest that the Difference Principle is fully expressed in B 1.
Rather, the Difference Principle is a plausible and meaningful interpretation of B 1,
especially in light of Heraclitus’ lack of a clear and stable foundation for ex­plan­
ation. I should also make clear that I do not think that non-­identity entails explanatory
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Richard Neels
cosmos) are distinct from one another. And we can begin to understand what they are by explicating the differences between them.
For starters, the one is dry, stable, and fit for humans (but not fish)
and the other is wet, flowing, and fit for fish (but not humans). This
differentiation reveals to us something about the metaphysical
character of land and sea. At least some of their intrinsic and
extrinsic properties help to explain one another. As such, land and
sea themselves are what they are (at least in part) because of one
another. The point of the Difference Principle is this: in the absence
of a metaphysical foundation, the different explanatory factors of a
given whole all help to explain one another.84
By combining the Difference Principle and the Part–­Whole
Principle, we can get a fuller picture of Heraclitus’ scheme of expla­
nation. If we want to understand any part of the cosmos fully, we
will need to see how it is differentiated by its surroundings and
how it fits into the nested part–­whole structures of the cosmos. An
ultimate explanation of a Heraclitean entity will make reference
to the cosmos itself. By the Part–­Whole Principle, the cosmos is
explained via its parts and an explanation of the parts will run back
dependence. Instead, it seems that the explanatory dependence of parts is understandable by recognizing the difference between the parts.
84 One might worry that the Difference Principle overgenerates. For example, a
slice of pizza and the number 3 are distinct, but not obviously explanatorily dependent
on one another. (Thanks to Victor Caston for this objection.) However, if we
assume, as is reasonable, that Heraclitus thought explanatory chains were transitive,
this worry may dissipate. A slice of pizza is indeed not directly ex­plana­tor­ily
dependent on the number 3. But a slice of pizza is explanatorily dependent on the
number 1; after all, it is a single slice of pizza as opposed to two slices of pizza. And
the number 1 and the number 3 are explanatorily interdependent just in the sense
that all numbers can be considered inter-­explanatory. (This is an admittedly controversial claim. But I submit that it is a Heraclitean claim in light of the fact that he
has an aversion to metaphysical foundations.) A slice of pizza may, therefore, be
explanatorily dependent on the number 3 by transitivity through the number 1.
Someone might object further that the number 3 is not explanatorily dependent on
the slice of pizza. However, we might think that numbers as conceptual entities are
dependent on worldly concreta and that a given slice of pizza is a part of the set of
entities that constitute the concreta of the world. The number 3, therefore, may be
explanatorily dependent on a slice of pizza by transitivity through the set of worldly
concreta. There seems to be a principle of proximity here. The closer parts are, the
more explanatory power they hold for each other. But there is nothing preventing
the Difference Principle from radiating out via transitivity. I don’t mean to suggest
Heraclitus thought precisely in this manner, but just that the Difference Principle
can be a coherent principle of explanation especially if we reject explanatory
­foundations and allow for the transitivity of explanatory relations.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
31
to the cosmos itself. By the Difference Principle, the cosmos is what
it is, in part, by being different from its parts (its designation is
singular rather than plural; it is an integration of parts rather than
a mere collection of parts). The parts of the cosmos are explananda
for the cosmos as explanans. And the cosmos is an explanandum
for the parts as explanantia. In this manner, Heraclitus takes the
cosmos as an explanandum and an explanans. This sets Heraclitus
apart in a striking fashion from his predecessors—­indeed, from any
Presocratic thinker.
6. Metaphysical interdependence
If, as I’ve argued, Heraclitus thought that neither the cosmos nor
its parts are fundamental but that they stand to one another as
mutually (though not strictly symmetrically) explanatory, then
Heraclitus seems to have subscribed to a principle of metaphysical
interdependence: explanatory relations are reciprocal rather than
unidirectional (i.e. from fundamental to derivative). Such a view has
been labelled Metaphysical Coherentism in contemporary metaphysics.85 So far, we have conducted the examination of Heraclitus’
views on explanation at a cosmic level. It will prove helpful to
explore some specifics. Importantly, we must be clear about exactly
what the explanatory relata are for Heraclitus and how exactly they
hang together. This will require us to investigate the parts of the
cosmos. But what are its parts for Heraclitus? This is incredibly
difficult to answer. However, I have suggested above that we treat
as parts the things that Heraclitus discusses in his fragments: material
elements (stuffs), middle-­sized objects (things), opposites ­(properties),
meteorological phenomena (events), etc. In short, I think it is safest
to treat the aspects of the cosmos—­the ones mentioned by Heracli­
tus—­as its parts. For now, I will restrict my current discussion to
two aspects of the cosmos discussed by Heraclitus: (1) material elements
and (2) middle-­sized objects. The ultimate goal, as will become
clear, is to situate Heraclitus’ positive interest in opposites in this
discussion of explanation.
85 N. Thompson, ‘Metaphysical Interdependence’, in M. Jago (ed.), Reality
Making (Oxford, 2016), 38–55.
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Richard Neels
Recall from Section 2 that Heraclitus held a theory of elements
and that these transform into one another. I cannot give a comprehensive account of this theory here. The following discussion is based
in part on the important scholarship done by Daniel Graham.86
Consider fragments B 31 and B 76:
πυρὸς τροπαὶ· πρῶτον θάλασσα, θαλάσσης δὲ τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ γῆ, τὸ δὲ ἥμισυ
πρηστήρ . . . <γῆ> θάλασσα διαχέεται, καὶ μετρέεται εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον, ὁκοῖος
πρόσθεν ἦν ἢ γενέσθαι γῆ. (22 B 31. 2–3 and 9–10 DK)
The turnings of fire: first sea, and of sea half is earth, half fire-­wind . . . <Earth>
is liquefied as sea and measured into the same proportion it had before it
became earth.
πυρὸς θάνατος ἀέρι γένεσις, καὶ ἀέρος θάνατος ὕδατι γένεσις. γῆς θάνατος ὕδωρ
γενέσθαι καὶ ὕδατος θάνατος ἀέρα γενέσθαι καὶ ἀέρος πῦρ καὶ ἔμπαλιν. (22 B 76
b–­c DK, also quoted above)
The death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air the birth of water.
It is death for earth to become water, and death for water to become air,
and death for air to become fire and contrariwise.
Whether we think that Heraclitus held that there were three or four
elements, he clearly thought that any element was transformable
into any other.87 First, we should note that if this is so, then no one
element is foundational with respect to the rest. If we were to explain
earth, we might begin by citing where earth comes from: air. In
86 Graham, Explaining the Cosmos, 122–9. I explore a slightly different view in
line with Graham’s in Neels, ‘Elements and Opposites in Heraclitus’, Apeiron, 51
(2018), 427–52. The clearest differences between my view and Graham’s view are
these: (1) I take Heraclitus to have a four-­element theory, while Graham takes
Heraclitus to have a three-­element theory; and (2) I take Heraclitus’ elements to be
associated closely with a single property each, while Graham seems to think that
they have a vague range of properties. On this last point, see also Betegh, ‘Physical
Aspect’, 23, who claims that we should not interpret Heraclitus as thinking that the
elements had a rigid set of properties.
87 There is some discussion as to whether or not Heraclitus held a three-­element
theory (Earth–­Fire–­Water) or a four-­element theory (Earth–­Air–­Fire–­Water). The
debate turns somewhat on the authenticity of B 76. However, recent work done on
Heraclitus’ notion of soul may suggest evidence beyond B 76 that Heraclitus did
think that air was an elemental stuff. See A. Laks, ‘How Preplatonic Worlds Became
Ensouled’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 55 (2018), 1–34 at 14–23. Laks
argues that Heraclitus’ soul is air and that it is breathed in from around us. If Laks’s
argument is successful, we probably have good reason to think air is a genuine
Heraclitean element. We should note that Laks’s argument rests heavily on doxo­
graphic evidence as opposed to verbatim fragments. Still, the evidence does bear on
the question of the authenticity of Heraclitean elemental air.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
33
part, this is true: air serves as the partial explanans for earth.88 It is
only partial, since the generating source of earth does not fully
explain what it is to be earth. Furthermore, we would do well to
treat air as an explanandum in turn, and it quickly becomes apparent that we will end up in a circle, back to earth. Does earth explain
earth? Not obviously. But a partial explanation of earth has been
gained from this exercise: earth is ontologically dependent on all
the other elements insofar as it depends for its existence on all the
other elements. But all the elements are ontologically dependent on
one another and so they comprise a system of elements, that is, a
network composed of interdependent, dynamic parts in flux.
The elements also seem to be conceptually interdependent amongst
themselves. What each element is is distinct from what every other
element is. For, what-­it-­is-­to-­be-­water is different from what-­it-­is-­
to-­be-­fire (Difference Principle). When one attempts to explain a
given element, one can do so by referencing its powers: presumably
fire has the power to heat (among others) while water has the power
to quench (among others). Heraclitus certainly must have thought
that the elements had powers in some way distinct from one
another or they would not be distinct elem­ents. When one attempts
to explain what Heraclitean earth is, one must explain how earth’s
function differs from those of the other material elements. In this
way, all the elements are conceptually interdependent, that is, what
they are (their essence) is dependent, at least in part, on the whatness of all the other elements. Combining this result with the result
from the previous paragraph, we can conclude that for Heraclitus
the material elements are each ontologically and conceptually
dependent on one another. And if that is true, they explain one
another in a reciprocal fashion. But I don’t mean to suggest that
the elements are wholly explained by one another. According to the
Part–­Whole Principle, a full ex­plan­ation of an element must ul­tim­
ate­ly refer to its role in the cosmos (e.g. constituting middle-­sized
objects). And as we’ve seen, an ex­plan­ation of the cosmos will push
us to examine its parts once again.89
88 It is common for contemporary metaphysicians to make a distinction between
x partially grounding y and x fully grounding y. See Fine, ‘Guide’; Raven, ‘Ground’;
and Thompson, ‘Metaphysical Interdependence’.
89 We might worry that this introduction of explanatory loops may be unsatisfying as a metaphysical principle. A central worry may be this: it seems as though
anything can only be partially (i.e. not fully) explained by this coherentist approach
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34
Richard Neels
Next let’s examine what Heraclitus said about middle-­sized
objects. I will restrict my discussion to one fragment already
mentioned in Section 2:
οὐ ξυνιᾶσιν ὅκως διαϕερόμενον ἑωυτῶι ὁμολογέει. παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη ὅκωσπερ
τόξου καὶ λύρης. (22 B 51 DK)
They do not understand how while differing with itself it agrees with
itself: reciprocal structure as of a bow or a lyre.
For simplicity, let’s examine the bow. Heraclitus claims that the bow
agrees with itself while disagreeing with itself. The stave and string
are at odds with one another (i.e. they oppose one another), but the
bow itself is what it is because of this tension. The stave and string
are the parts of the bow. In a philosophically interesting way, the
stave and string of a bow explain one another via the Difference
Principle. To explain a bowstring, one must refer to the bow stave.
A bowstring is the part of a bow that gets attached to the bow stave
and pulls the bow stave inward. But to explain a bow stave, one
must refer to the bowstring. A bow stave is the part of a bow to
which the bowstring is attached and pulls the bowstring outward.
Importantly, both stave and string are the partial cause of the tension in one another. As such, the parts of the bow explain one
another in a non-­trivial way (Difference Principle). But things can
only be partially explained by the Difference Principle, since the
Difference Principle is blind to the full being of the higher-order
entity of which the parts are mere parts. As such, the parts of the
bow must refer to the whole bow itself for a more complete ex­plan­
ation via the Part–­Whole Principle. When we ask what a bow is,
our explanation will require an analysis of its parts in tension, but
it will also push us closer to the cosmic level: to fully understand
the bow, we must understand the larger context in which it operates
to explanation, since grounding chains never terminate. See R. Bliss, ‘Viciousness
and Circles of Ground’, Metaphilosophy, 45 (2014), 245–56 for a contemporary
argument defending the plausibility of grounding loops. See also Thompson,
‘Metaphysical Interdependence’. If readers are worried about the plausibility of
Heraclitus’ view, they can consider a recent example cited by Zylstra: ‘The volume
of a substance is the quotient of its mass (dividend) and density (divisor). The
density of a substance is the quotient of its mass (dividend) and volume (divisor).
Finally, the mass of a substance is the product of its density and volume’ (‘Essence’,
5147). Zylstra concludes that volume is grounded in mass and density, density is
grounded in mass and volume, and mass is grounded in density and volume. This
is a plausible case of a local grounding loop.
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
35
(i.e. hunting and war). The Part–­Whole Principle will also require
a push in the opposite direction: towards the ma­ter­ial constitution
of the parts and the properties of the material elem­ents, since this
explains the pre-­existing nature of the bowstring and bow stave
such that they can compose a bow. This, I submit, is a very clear
picture of Heraclitus’ theory of explanation, which I think can be
summarized in two statements: (1) The parts of a thing partially
explain one another (Difference Principle), and (2) wholes further
explain their parts and parts further explain wholes (Part–­Whole
Principle)—from the basic material constituents to the cosmos itself.
7. Conclusion: Opposites and explanation
We have been trying to understand the relation between Heraclitus’
interest in opposites and his scheme of explanation. We are now in
a better position to answer this question—­indeed, the answer has
already surfaced. We have just now seen that the opposites are
caught in the middle of this interdependent web called the cosmos.
Opposites are parts of the cosmos, not independently existing
en­tities (indeed, nothing is independent if my interpretation is
correct), but real aspects of the cosmos that need to be explained.
What, then, explains the opposites? If the conclusion of Section 6
is true, then (a) the opposites partially explain one another (Difference
Principle) and (b) the opposites are further explained with reference to their role in the cosmos (Part–­Whole Principle). But we
also saw that the cosmos is explained by its parts, so, im­port­ant­ly,
the cosmos is partially explained by the opposites. As such, the
op­
pos­
ites, as with all the parts of the cosmos, are both (non-­
fundamental) explanantia and explananda for Heraclitus.
B 51 told us that things differ from one another while agreeing
with one another. Differing and agreeing are opposites; they are
real aspects of the world. On the first analysis, differing and agreeing as opposing terms explain one another: they are metaphysically
interdependent. One cannot explain what-­it-­is-­to-­differ without
explaining what-­it-­is-­to-­agree and vice versa. This is an instance where
a part of the cosmos partially explains another part and vice versa
(Difference Principle). Differing and agreeing are further explained
by their role in the cosmos—­constitution of bows and lyres, for
example (Part–­Whole Principle towards the whole). Differing and
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36
Richard Neels
agreeing are also explained by the material conditions in which
they are realized—­here, the flexibility of the horn in the bow stave
and the elasticity of the sinew of the bowstring (Part–­
Whole
Principle towards the parts).90 In the case of a bow, a harmony
(agreement) of opposing parts (difference) constitutes the nature
of the bow. As such, the opposites, in part, explain what the bow is.
So, these opposites, being caught in the web of inter­depend­ence,
both partially explain the bow and are explained, in part, by the
bow. Opposites explain things like the bow (whose name is life and
whose work is death), but the opposed tensions and forces must
themselves be understood, both how they are connected—­
the
standard view has that much right—­and the ways in which they
work together to do what they do (and explain what they produce).
What I’ve said here about differing–­agreeing can be said about all
the opposites in Heraclitus; the result is not a banal thesis, but a
rich philosophical explanation of the cosmos and its constituents.
We have seen how Heraclitus’ opposites factor into his ex­plan­
ation of the cosmos, but we might still wonder why Heraclitus was
centrally interested in opposites. We could answer this by claiming
that Heraclitus felt the need to respond to his predecessors. And
I think that would be a satisfying answer. But I think the answer
runs deeper. I mentioned in Section 1 that Heraclitus was aware that
opposites are essentially connected (though this does not exhaust
his interest in opposites). The essential connection of opposites
entails that opposing pairs partially explain one another. In Heraclitus,
opposing terms present the clearest case of the Difference Principle:
what-­it-­is-­to-­be-­hot must refer to what-­it-­is-­to-­be-­cold and vice
versa. So why was Heraclitus so interested in opposites? I submit it
is because opposites are the clearest sign of metaphysical inter­
depend­ence evident in the cosmos. Metaphysical interdependence
happens to be Heraclitus’ most basic principle of explanation for
all things, including the cosmos. To cite B 51, the cosmos has a
palintropic (i.e. reciprocal) structure (ἁρμονίη), just like a bow.
For Heraclitus, the role of opposites in his explanation of the
cosmos and its constituents is summarized in three statements:
(1) opposites and oppositions cannot function as fundamental
explanantia, contra his Ionian predecessors; (2) all explanatory
90 Hom., Il. 4. 105–26, tells us that Lycaon’s bow was made from the horn (κέρας)
of an ibex and the string was made from ox tendon (νεῦρα βόεια).
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Opposites and Explanations in Heraclitus
37
relata are complexly interdependent, just as opposing terms are
simply interdependent; and (3) opposites are both explananda
and (non-­fundamental) explanantia. The cosmos has a reciprocal
structure (παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη) whereby all things are caught in a
web of metaphysical interdependence. We can call this view
Metaphysical Coherentism. Interestingly, the cosmos itself is
implicated in this reciprocal structure, since it and its parts stand
to one another in a relation of interdependence: all things from
one and one from all things (B 10). Opposites for Heraclitus are
not fundamental explanatory principles as thought by his Ionian
predecessors, but opposition itself stands as a symbol of the
­metaphysical inter­depend­ence in and of the cosmos. Heraclitus
rejects Metaphysical Foundationalism and embraces Metaphysical
Coherentism.
Oklahoma State University
BIBLIOGR A PH Y
Barnes, J., The Presocratic Philosophers (London, 1982).
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Ancient Philosophy Today, 3 (2021), 74–97.
Betegh, G., ‘On the Physical Aspect of Heraclitus’ Psychology’ [‘Physical
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EVALUATIVE ILLUSION
IN PLATO’S PROTAGORAS
suzanne obdrzalek
1. Introduction
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a group of scientists conducted
a series of experiments which have since become known as the
‘Stanford Marshmallow Experiments’. A scientist would take a child
between the ages of 3 and 5 into a room, sit them at a table, and
place one delicious marshmallow chick in front of them. The scientist would then tell the child that they were going to leave the
room and that the child had a choice. They could eat one marshmallow now. On the other hand, if they waited fifteen minutes until
the scientist returned, they could get two marshmallows instead. In
the end, only about a third of the children were able to resist. A few
of the children ate the sweet immediately, but many held out for
some time before capitulating to the lure of the marshmallow. Those
who tried to resist would hide their heads in their arms, pound the
floor with their feet, stare up at the ceiling, tug on their pigtails, or
stroke the marshmallow as if it were a tiny stuffed animal.1
What we see here appears to be a classic case of akrasia. Ordinarily,
we would explain it as follows: the children judged that it was best
to resist the marshmallow that lay before them, but were unable to
I am extremely grateful to Victor Caston for his invaluable, extensive comments on
this paper, as well as to my anonymous referees. I am also indebted to Rachel
Singpurwalla and to Nick Smith for their generous written comments; this paper
would not have been possible without the springboard provided by their provocative engagement with these issues. Thanks also to my colleague, Piercarlo Valdesolo,
for introducing me to relevant areas of psychological research; and to audiences at
the West Coast Plato Workshop at the San Diego State University, the Ancient
Philosophy and Science Network at Humboldt University, and the Munich School
of Ancient Philosophy at Ludwig Maximilian University.
1 See W. Mischel and E. B. Ebbeson, ‘Attention in Delay of Gratification’
[‘Attention’], Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16 (1970), 329–37;
W. Mischel, E. B. Ebbesen, and A. Raskoff Zeiss, ‘Cognitive and Attentional
Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
21 (1972), 204–18; and W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, and M. Rodriguez, ‘Delay of Gratification
in Children’, Science, 244 (1989), 933–8.
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42
Suzanne Obdrzalek
control their desire for it, and therefore gave into their desire and
ate the marshmallow. One might even describe them as ‘overcome
by pleasure’ and ‘unwilling to do what is best, even though they know
what it is’.2 Readers familiar with the Protagoras will have noticed
that, in describing the plight of these children, I quoted the account
of akrasia that Socrates attributes to hoi polloi in that dialogue, an
account that Socrates insists is false. He maintains that if the children
knew or even believed that it was best not to eat the sweet in front
of them, they would not do so. Their decision is, therefore, the fault
of ignorance, not weakness. What does this ignorance consist in?
Socrates gives us a very specific account: just as objects of a given
size appear larger when close at hand than at a distance, so proximate
pleasures appear greater than those that are far off in time. The
children’s error is one of poor hedonic calculus: the imminence of
the pleasure from eating the marshmallow in front of them causes
them to falsely overestimate its magnitude and to conclude that they
can maximize their pleasure by eating the one marshmallow now
rather than the two marshmallows later.
Interpreters of Plato’s Protagoras have devoted a great deal of
attention to determining Socrates’ reasons for rejecting the common
account of akrasia—­Socrates declares that it is ridiculous, but it is
controversial what its ridiculousness consists in.3 Many also raise
the question of whether his treatment of akrasia does justice to its
phenomenology: can it account for the feeling of inner conflict that
2 Prot. 352 d 8–e 1: ὑπὸ ἡδονῆς ϕασιν ἡττωμένους. 352 d 6–7: γιγνώσκοντας τὰ βέλτιστα
οὐκ ἐθέλειν πράττειν. I use the translations in J. M. Cooper (ed.), Plato: Complete
Works (Indianapolis, 1997) throughout, with occasional modifications; Greek texts
are from the Burnet OCTs.
3 For discussion, see e.g. A. G. Callard, ‘Ignorance and akrasia-Denial in the
Protagoras’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 47 (2014), 31–80; J. Clark ‘The
Strength of Knowledge in Plato’s Protagoras’, Ancient Philosophy, 32 (2012), 237–55;
M. Dyson, ‘Knowledge and Hedonism in Plato’s Protagoras’ [‘Knowledge and
Hedonism’], Journal of Hellenic Studies, 96 (1976), 32–45; D. Gallop, ‘The Socratic
Paradox in the Protagoras’, Phronesis, 9 (1964), 117–29; T. Irwin, Plato’s Ethics [Ethics]
(Oxford, 1995), 83–4; R. Kamtekar, Plato’s Moral Psychology [Moral] (Oxford, 2017),
40–7; T. Penner, ‘Socrates on the Strength of Knowledge: Protagoras 351 b–357 e’
[‘Socrates on the Strength of Knowledge’], Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 79
(1997), 117–49 at 126–7; G. Santas, ‘Plato’s Protagoras and Explanations of Weakness’,
Philosophical Review, 75 (1966), 3–33; C. C. W. Taylor, Plato: Protagoras [Protagoras]
(Oxford, 1991), 181–6; G. Vlastos, ‘Socrates on Acrasia’ [‘Acrasia’], Phoenix, 23 (1969),
71–88; and D. Wolfsdorf, ‘The Ridiculousness of Being Overcome by Pleasure:
Protagoras 352 b 1–358 d 4’ [‘Ridiculousness’], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy,
31 (2006), 113–36.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
43
so often characterizes our experience of akrasia?4 In this paper,
I intend to explore a different problem. I want to take a closer look
at Socrates’ account of what actually occurs in supposed cases of
akrasia, of the evaluative error he attributes to the would-­be akratic.
His account is, in fact, puzzling. Consider again our children and
their marshmallows. On the face of it, it seems quite extraordinary
to propose that what is going on is that the children judge that eating
one marshmallow now offers more pleasure than eating two later.
Why, then, does Socrates make this claim?5 Getting to the bottom
of this is crucial, since Socrates’ alternative explanation of the supposed phenomenon of akrasia stands at the heart of his denial of
akrasia in the Protagoras.
On the standard interpretation of the Protagoras, the error is simply
calculative. Henceforth, I shall refer to this as the trad­ition­al in­ter­pret­
ation.6 Recently, several interpreters—­notably, Devereux, Brickhouse
and Smith, and Singpurwalla—­have objected that this leaves too
much unexplained.7 Why, exactly, should we perform this faulty
4 See e.g. D. Devereux, ‘Socrates’ Kantian Conception of Virtue’ [‘Kantian
Conception’], Journal of the History of Philosophy, 33 (1995), 381–408 at 389–96;
T. Penner, ‘Plato and Davidson: Parts of the Soul and Weakness of Will’ [‘Plato and
Davidson’], Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 16 (1990), 35–74 at 67–71; N. Reshotko,
Socratic Virtue: Making the Best of the Neither-­
Good-­
Nor-­
Bad [Socratic Virtue]
(Cambridge, 2006), 74–91; and R. Singpurwalla, ‘Reasoning with the Irrational:
Moral Psychology in the Protagoras’ [‘Reasoning with the Irrational’], Ancient
Philosophy, 26 (2006), 243–58 at 247 and 253.
5 Moss raises a closely related problem: why the desire for pleasure, more than other
desires, should be susceptible to distance illusions (‘Pleasure and Illusion in Plato’,
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 72 (2006), 503–35 at 509–10). According
to Moss, the solution, which Plato recognizes in the Gorgias and Republic, is that the
calculative, and hence unquestioningly accepts the
desire for pleasure is non-­
appearance that proximate pleasures are better. Moss claims that this solution is
unavailable to Plato in the Protagoras, since there he takes the desire for pleasure to
be responsive to the measuring art and hence calculative. By contrast, the problem
I am examining concerns the appearances themselves, why proximate pleasures
should appear greater than distant ones.
6 Among its numerous proponents are M. Frede, ‘Introduction’, in S. Lombardo
and K. Bell (trans.), Plato: Protagoras (Indianapolis, 1992), vii–­xxxiv at xxix–­xxx;
T. Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory (Oxford, 1977), 78–9 and 117; Irwin, Ethics, 209–10;
Penner, ‘Plato and Davidson’; Penner, ‘Socrates on the Strength of Knowledge’;
Reshotko, Socratic Virtue; and H. Segvic, ‘No One Errs Willingly: The Meaning of
Socratic Intellectualism’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 19 (2000), 1–45.
7 Devereux, ‘Kantian Conception’; T. C. Brickhouse and N. D. Smith, ‘Socrates
on akrasia, Knowledge, and the Power of Appearance’ [‘Socrates on akrasia’], in
C. Bobonich and P. Destrée (eds.), Akrasia in Greek Philosophy (Leiden, 2007), 1–17;
T. C. Brickhouse and N. D. Smith, Socratic Moral Psychology [Moral Psychology]
(Cambridge, 2010); Singpurwalla, ‘Reasoning with the Irrational’.
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44
Suzanne Obdrzalek
hedonic calculus in comparing pleasures near and far? This has led
these interpreters to reject the trad­ition­al interpretation as hopelessly arbitrary.8 Instead, they propose that Socrates must hold
that there are non-­rational desires; it is our non-­rational desire for
proximate pleasures which causes us to falsely inflate their value.
Henceforth, I shall refer to this as the non-­rational interpretation.
The non-­rational interpretation takes an interpretive risk in attributing to Socrates the belief that there are non-­rational desires, since
on the most obvious and popular reading of the Socratic dialogues,
he holds that all desires are rational, in the sense that all desires are
aimed at the perceived good.9 However, if their reading could solve
this puzzle, if it could explain why proximate pleasures appear
larger than they actually are, then it would possess considerable
appeal.
In this paper, I defend the traditional interpretation against the
non-­rational interpretation.10 I begin by outlining Socrates’ argument against akrasia in the Protagoras, paying particular attention
to his discussion of the evaluative error of the would-­be akratic. Next,
I provide further motivation for my puzzle concerning Socrates’
treatment of evaluative illusion. After setting out the non-­rational
interpretation, I then argue that it offers no advantage over the
traditional interpretation in explaining the evaluative illusion and,
8 Brickhouse and Smith, ‘Socrates on akrasia’, 10.
9 Note, however, that Singpurwalla differs from Devereux and Brickhouse and
Smith in defining non-­rational desires as desires that arise independently of our
reasoned conception of the good.
10 Like me, Storey seeks to provide an account of the evaluative error in the
Protagoras that does not appeal to non-­rational passions (‘Sex, Wealth, and Courage:
Kinds of Goods and the Power of Appearance in Plato’s Protagoras’ [‘Sex, Wealth,
and Courage’], Ancient Philosophy, 38 (2018), 241–63 at 250). Our accounts differ
sharply, insofar as Storey argues that the error is not that of miscalculating the relative magnitudes of proximate and distant pleasures, but, rather, of failing to recognize that goods such as health and wealth produce pleasure and are therefore
commensurable with proximate pleasures such as those relating to food, drink, and
sex. Storey raises an important issue in observing that the goods being compared
are different in kind. However, the fact that Socrates refers to the form of wisdom
needed to combat the power of appearance as the measuring art (ἡ μετρητικὴ τέχνη,
356 d 4), and specifies that it is ‘the study of relative excess and deficiency and equality’ (ὑπερβολῆς τε καὶ ἐνδείας οὖσα καὶ ἰσότητος πρὸς ἀλλήλας σκέψις, 357 b 2–3) weighs
de­cisive­ly against his interpretation. Furthermore, Socrates offers his alternative
ex­plan­ation of akrasia after securing the agreement of the many to the principle that
pleasure and pain are the only goods and evils; if their error were a failure to recognize
that the later goods are, in fact, to be valued for the sake of the pleasure they produce,
then his subsequent discussion of the evaluative illusion would be redundant.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
45
furthermore, that it is saddled with difficulties. In the final part of
the paper, I offer a close examination of Socrates’ treatment of evalu­
ative illusion. In particular, I attempt to answer the following three
questions: first, what, exactly, are the appearances that cause the
agent to err? Second, what does their power consist in and how is the
measuring art supposed to remove this power? And finally, what
resources could Socrates appeal to in order to explain why proximate
pleasures appear greater than distant ones? I propose that appearances in the Protagoras are vivid and imagistic mental representations that the agent forms of imminent pleasures; their power lies in
the fact that they appear true and hence invite assent. I conclude by
speculating that proximate pleasures appear greater than distant
ones because we represent them more vividly, which yields greater
anticipatory pleasure, causing us to overestimate their magnitude.
2. Akrasia in the Protagoras
To begin, I will provide a brief summary of Socrates’ treatment of
akrasia in the Protagoras. In the Protagoras, Socrates famously argues
that weakness of will is impossible; what appears to be weakness of
will is, in fact, ignorance due to poor hedonic calculus. In developing this argument, Socrates is opposing the position he attributes
to hoi polloi; henceforth, I will refer to this as the common account
of akrasia. According to the common account, knowledge:
οὐκ ἰσχυρὸν οὐδ’ ἡγεμονικὸν οὐδ’ ἀρχικὸν εἶναι . . . ἐνούσης πολλάκις ἀνθρώπῳ
ἐπιστήμης οὐ τὴν ἐπιστήμην αὐτοῦ ἄρχειν ἀλλ’ ἄλλο τι, τοτὲ μὲν θυμόν, τοτὲ δὲ
ἡδονήν, τοτὲ δὲ λύπην, ἐνίοτε δὲ ἔρωτα, πολλάκις δὲ ϕόβον, ἀτεχνῶς διανοούμενοι
περὶ τῆς ἐπιστήμης ὥσπερ περὶ ἀνδραπόδου, περιελκομένης ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων
ἁπάντων. (352 b 4–c 2)
is not a powerful thing, neither a leader nor a ruler . . . while knowledge is
often present in a man, what rules him is not knowledge but rather anything
else—­
sometimes anger, sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain, at other
times love, often fear; they think of his knowledge as being utterly dragged
around by all these other things as if it were a slave.
As a result, we often fail to act in accordance with what we know to
be best. Even when we know that it is best to, say, resist another
drink, the pleasure of the drink somehow compels us to take another
sip. Socrates, by contrast, insists that knowledge is in­vin­cible:
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
καλόν τε εἶναι ἡ ἐπιστήμη καὶ οἷον ἄρχειν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, καὶ ἐάνπερ γιγνώσκῃ τις
τἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ κακά, μὴ ἂν κρατηθῆναι ὑπὸ μηδενὸς ὥστε ἄλλ’ ἄττα πράττειν ἢ
ἃν ἐπιστήμη κελεύῃ (352 c 3–6)
knowledge is a fine thing capable of ruling a person, and if someone were
to know what is good and bad, then he would not be forced by anything to
act otherwise than knowledge dictates.
According to Socrates, if one knows what is best, one will always
act in accordance with one’s knowledge; akrasia is impossible.
Socrates’ attack on the common account of akrasia takes the following form. First, he takes great pains to establish that his hypothetical adversaries, the proponents of the common account, agree
to the following hedonic assumption: pleasure is the only good, pain
the only evil (355 a 1–5). Next, Socrates encapsulates the common
account in the following two claims:
1. ‘frequently a man, knowing the bad to be bad, nevertheless
does that very thing, when he is able not to do it, having been
driven and overwhelmed by pleasure’.11
2. ‘a man knowing the good is not willing to do it, on account of
immediate pleasure, having been overcome by it’.12
Socrates then uses the agreed-­upon hedonic assumption to perform
a series of substitutions. First, he substitutes ‘good’ for ‘pleasure’
in (1), which yields the following: frequently a man, knowing the
bad to be bad, nevertheless does that very thing, when he is able
not to do it, having been driven and overwhelmed by the good.
Then, he substitutes ‘painful’ for ‘bad’ in (1), which yields the following: frequently a man, knowing the painful to be painful, never­
the­less does that very thing, when he is able not to do it, having
been driven and overwhelmed by pleasure. Socrates specifies that
in both cases, the good or the pleasure that supposedly overpowers
the agent is less than the bad or the pain that he acquires through
his action. According to Socrates, the two claims that result from
these substitutions are somehow ridiculous; interpreters are divided
over where the ridiculousness lies.
11 355 a 7–b 1: πολλάκις γιγνώσκων τὰ κακὰ ἄνθρωπος ὅτι κακά ἐστιν, ὅμως πράττει
αὐτά, ἐξὸν μὴ πράττειν, ὑπὸ τῶν ἡδονῶν ἀγόμενος καὶ ἐκπληττόμενος.
12 355 b 2–3: γιγνώσκων ὁ ἄνθρωπος τἀγαθὰ πράττειν οὐκ ἐθέλει διὰ τὰς παραχρῆμα
ἡδονάς, ὑπὸ τούτων ἡττώμενος.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
47
We now come to the section of the argument that interests me
most. Socrates imagines his adversaries objecting that present
pleasures differ very much from distant ones, to which he replies
that they do not differ in any other way than in quantity. Pleasures
and pains must be weighed against one another as if on a scale;
the path which secures the greatest amount of pleasure versus
pain is the one that must be pursued. What, then, accounts for all
the cases where we choose the less pleasant course of action? Here,
I will quote Socrates’ exchange with his imagined interlocutors at
length:
ϕαίνεται ὑμῖν τῇ ὄψει τὰ αὐτὰ μεγέθη ἐγγύθεν μὲν μείζω, πόρρωθεν δὲ ἐλάττω·
ἢ οὔ;
Φήσουσιν.
Καὶ τὰ παχέα καὶ τὰ πολλὰ ὡσαύτως; καὶ αἱ ϕωναὶ <αἱ> ἴσαι ἐγγύ-θεν μὲν
μείζους, πόρρωθεν δὲ σμικρότεραι;
Φαῖεν ἄν.
Εἰ οὖν ἐν τούτῳ ἡμῖν ἦν τὸ εὖ πράττειν, ἐν τῷ τὰ μὲν μεγάλα μήκη καὶ πράττειν καὶ
λαμβάνειν, τὰ δὲ σμικρὰ καὶ ϕεύγειν καὶ μὴ πράττειν, τίς ἂν ἡμῖν σωτηρία ἐϕάνη
τοῦ βίου; ἆρα ἡ μετρητικὴ τέχνη ἢ ἡ τοῦ ϕαινομένου δύναμις; ἢ αὕτη μὲν ἡμᾶς
ἐπλάνα καὶ ἐποίει ἄνω τε καὶ κάτω πολλάκις μεταλαμβάνειν ταὐτὰ καὶ
μεταμέλειν καὶ ἐν ταῖς πράξεσιν καὶ ἐν ταῖς αἱρέσεσιν τῶν μεγάλων τε καὶ
σμικρῶν, ἡ δὲ μετρητικὴ ἄκυρον μὲν ἂν ἐποίησε τοῦτο τὸ ϕάντασμα, δηλώσασα δὲ
τὸ ἀληθὲς ἡσυχίαν ἂν ἐποίησεν ἔχειν τὴν ψυχὴν μένουσαν ἐπὶ τῷ ἀληθεῖ καὶ
ἔσωσεν ἂν τὸν βίον; . . .
Τί δ’ εἰ ἐν τῇ τοῦ περιττοῦ καὶ ἀρτίου αἱρέσει ἡμῖν ἦν ἡ σωτηρία τοῦ βίου, ὁπότε
τὸ πλέον ὀρθῶς ἔδει ἑλέσθαι καὶ ὁπότε τὸ ἔλαττον, ἢ αὐτὸ πρὸς ἑαυτὸ ἢ τὸ
ἕτερον πρὸς τὸ ἕτερον, εἴτ’ ἐγγὺς εἴτε πόρρω εἴη; τί ἂν ἔσῳζεν ἡμῖν τὸν βίον; ἆρ’
ἂν οὐκ ἐπιστήμη; καὶ ἆρ’ ἂν οὐ μετρητική τις, ἐπειδήπερ ὑπερβολῆς τε καὶ
ἐνδείας ἐστὶν ἡ τέχνη; ἐπειδὴ δὲ περιττοῦ τε καὶ ἀρτίου, ἆρα ἄλλη τις ἢ
ἀριθμητική; . . .
Εἶεν, ὦ ἄνθρωποι· ἐπεὶ δὲ δὴ ἡδονῆς τε καὶ λύπης ἐν ὀρθῇ τῇ αἱρέσει ἐϕάνη ἡμῖν
ἡ σωτηρία τοῦ βίου οὖσα, τοῦ τε πλέονος καὶ ἐλάττονος καὶ μείζονος καὶ
σμικροτέρου καὶ πορρωτέρω καὶ ἐγγυτέρω, ἆρα πρῶτον μὲν οὐ μετρητικὴ
ϕαίνεται, ὑπερβολῆς τε καὶ ἐνδείας οὖσα καὶ ἰσότητος πρὸς ἀλλήλας σκέψις;
(356 c 5–357 b 3)
‘Do things of the same size appear to you larger when seen near at hand
and smaller when seen from a distance, or not?’
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
They would say they do.
‘And similarly for thicknesses and pluralities? And equal sounds seem
louder when near at hand, softer when farther away?’
They would agree.
‘If then our well-­being depended upon this, doing and choosing large
things, avoiding and not doing the small ones, what would we see as our
salvation in life? Would it be the art of measurement or the power of
appearance? While the power of appearance often makes us wander all
over the place in confusion, often changing our minds about the same
things and regretting our actions and choices with respect to things large
and small, the art of measurement in contrast, would make the appearance
lose its power by showing us the truth, would give us peace of mind firmly
rooted in the truth and would save our life.’ . . .
‘What if our salvation in life depended on our choices of odd and even,
when the greater and lesser had to be counted correctly, either the same kind
against itself or one kind against the other, whether it be near or remote?
What, then, would save our life? Surely nothing other than knowledge,
specifically some kind of measurement, since that is the art of the greater
and the lesser? In fact, nothing other than arithmetic, since it’s a question
of odd and even?’ . . .
‘Well, then, my good people, since it has turned out that our salvation in life
depends on the right choice of pleasures and pains, be they more or fewer,
greater or lesser, farther or nearer, doesn’t our salvation seem, first of all, to
be measurement, which is the study of relative excess and deficiency and
equality?’
Socrates begins by making an observation about visible objects:
objects appear greater when near at hand and smaller when far away,
even when their size remains fixed. He then extends this to the cases
of thicknesses, pluralities, and sounds: they are all subject to the
same form of distortion. Socrates then draws a contrast between the
power of appearance and the measuring art. The power of appearance causes us to wander in confusion, to change our minds, and to
feel regret in our actions and choices concerning the large and small.
The measuring art, by contrast, through showing us the truth,
makes appearances lose their power; it gives us peace of mind rooted
in truth and saves our lives. Socrates then applies this analysis to the
case of pleasure. He implies that, in the case of pleasure, poor choices
are due to the power of appearance. Since pleasure is assumed to be
the good, our well-­being depends on the correct measurement of
pleasures and pains, and the measuring art is our salvation.
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49
Earlier, I referred to what I called the traditional interpretation
of Socrates’ argument in the Protagoras. What sort of an account
can this interpretation provide of the passage we are focusing on?
First, Socrates makes clear that he is seeking to redescribe the
phe­nom­enon of akrasia. This means that, on the one hand,
Socrates must do justice to at least some aspects of the experience
that the common account views as akrasia; on the other hand, his
ex­plan­ation must differ from the common account in some significant way. According to the common account, knowledge is
dragged around (περιελκομένης, 352 c 2) by pleasure and pain and
hence does not determine how we act. Interestingly, in Socrates’
redescription of akrasia, his language comes very close to that of
the common account: he writes of how the power of appearance
makes us wander (ἐπλάνα), often changing our minds (356 d 5).
Nonetheless, there are two significant differences between these
accounts. First, whereas, on the common account, pleasure drags
us and enslaves us, on Socrates’ new account, it causes us to wan­
der. This implies a greater degree of agency. Second, the cause
of our downfall is s­ubtly different. Whereas, on the common
account, it is pleasure that drags us, on Socrates’ alternative
account, it is the power of appearance. We can put these pieces
together as follows: on the common account, pleasure somehow
directly causes us to act against our judgement of what is best. By
contrast, on Socrates’ new account, what is op­era­tive is an appearance, an appearance of a pleasure as greater than it actually is; it
is this appearance that causes us to commit an error. Thus, on the
traditional in­ter­pret­ation, the error of the would-­be akratic is
purely intellectual: it is a matter of her assenting to appearances
that are false. It is in this sense that her error is due to ignorance
and not due to irrational desire.
What does Socrates mean when he speaks of the appearances as
making us wander and change our minds? What occurs is that the
agent assents to shifting appearances depending on the proximity of
the pleasure in question. When a pleasure is far off—­either pro­spect­
ive­ly or retrospectively—­it appears smaller, but when it becomes
imminent, it appears greater, causing a shift in judgement.13 After
13 It is worth noting that nothing in how Socrates presents the case at 356 c 5–357
b 3 indicates whether the error is due to an inflation of the proximate pleasure,
a deflation of the distant one, or an error at both ends of the spectrum. He merely
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50
Suzanne Obdrzalek
the fact, the agent is able to look back and see that she misjudged
the pleasure’s value; it is this recognition that causes regret.
These shifts in the agent’s judgement are what make her case differ from mere intemperance: whereas the intemperate person,
say, consistently overvalues eating sweets in comparison with
being healthy, the akratic shifts her assessment of their relative
values depending on their temporal proximity. This instability in
the akratic’s evaluations enables Socrates to account for at least
some aspects of the ex­peri­ence that the common account treats as
akrasia. While Socrates cannot and does not allow for synchronic
akrasia, he can allow for diachronic akrasia, the phenomenon of
acting against an earlier considered judgement of what is best.14
If the agent had the measuring art and hence knowledge of what
is best, she would not, of course, be susceptible to this confusion.
She would see through the power of appearance, and it would fail
to motivate her. The difficulty with mere belief, in the Protagoras,
as in the Meno, is that it is shifty, given to wandering; the power
of knowledge lies in the fact that it remains unwavering in guiding correct action.
3. The puzzle of temporal distortion
Why, then, do I find Socrates’ explanation of the evaluative error
of the would-­be akratic puzzling? Think back to our case of the
child who chooses one marshmallow now over two later. It
seems reasonable to assume that in many cases, consuming two
states that the same objects appear greater when near at hand and smaller when far
away (ϕαίνεται ὑμῖν τῇ ὄψει τὰ αὐτὰ μεγέθη ἐγγύθεν μὲν μείζω, πόρρωθεν δὲ ἐλάττω,
356 c 5–6). As I read these lines, the comparison is between how large objects appear
when they are near at hand and how large they appear when far away (and not, say,
between how large objects appear when near or far away and how large they actually
are in some objective sense); Socrates’ claim concerns the relative magnitudes of the
objects as they appear to us. As I shall go on to suggest in Section 7, in the hedonic
case, the distortion is a result of a key feature in how we represent proximate pleasures: the vivacity with which we represent proximate pleasures causes us to overinflate their value. This is why, as the common account captures, we blame the proximate
pleasure for causing us to err (355 b 3). But, of course, this overinflation of the
proximate pleasure causes us to overestimate its magnitude relative to the distant one,
consistently with Socrates’ characterization of the case at 356 c 5–6.
14 See, among numerous others, Penner, ‘Plato and Davidson’ and, following
Penner, Reshotko, Socratic Virtue, 80–2.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
51
marshmallows would actually give the child more pleasure than consuming one. And the fact that the children visibly struggled to resist
the marshmallow that lay in front of them suggests that they recognized this fact. But according to Socrates, they were guilty of a very
specific error. Their error was not desiring the present marshmallow more. It was not even supposing that eating the present marshmallow is better. It was believing that eating one marshmallow now
would afford them more pleasure than eating two fifteen minutes
later. And that seems both implausible and odd. It is important to
emphasize that the error Socrates attributes to the would-­be akratic
is that of overestimating the magnitude of imminent pleasures. The
reason this is worth emphasizing is that virtually every interpreter
who discusses our passage slips into describing the error as though
it concerned the goodness of the pleasure in question. Thus, for
example, Devereux describes Socrates’ position as follows: ‘Just as
an object’s being very close may make it appear larger than it is, so
the fact that some pleasant (or painful) experience is immediately
at hand can make it seem more important or valuable than it really
is’ (‘Kantian Conception’, 391, emphasis added). Singpurwalla,
similarly, writes, ‘One likely explanation for the appearances is that
how good or bad a certain pleasure or pain appears to us is a reflection
of the strength of our current attraction or aversion for it’ (‘Reasoning
with the Irrational’, 249, emphasis added).15 But of course, Socrates
does not argue that proximate pleasures appear more important,
valuable, or good than distant ones; rather, he claims that they
appear bigger. This is why it is the measuring art that Socrates proposes as our salvation in life, describing it as ‘the study of relative
excess and deficiency and equality’ (ὑπερβολῆς τε καὶ ἐνδείας οὖσα καὶ
ἰσότητος πρὸς ἀλλήλας σκέψις, 357 b 2–3). Granted, on the hedonist
assumption, in judging that an imminent pleasure is greater, one
also judges that it is better. But it is telling that interpreters slip
into treating the power of appearance as though it simply made
15 Though this tendency is less pronounced in Brickhouse and Smith, they
describe non-­rational desire as desire that ‘inclines us to believe that what it is
attracted to is a good, and if sufficiently strong it causes us to believe that what it is
attracted to is good by preventing us from seeing or being persuaded by reasons for
thinking it is not good’; they add that those with strong appetites are compelled ‘to
see illicit pleasures or enjoyments as good’ (‘Socrates on akrasia’, 17, emphasis
added). The emphasis is on the pleasure’s appearing good, rather than on its
­seeming large.
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
imminent pleasures appear better. It is, arguably, difficult to determine which of two pleasures is better, and one can see how this
might be a subject of confusion that could give rise to error. But if
we identify the goodness of a pleasure with its overall magnitude,
then the comparisons seem more straightforward and the error
more odd.16
One might attempt to explain this miscalculation along a variety
of paths. For example, one might propose that one who chooses
proximate pleasures does so because he holds that their being
proximate in itself makes them more valuable. However, Socrates
cannot avail himself of this manoeuvre. If, on the one hand, we
take more valuable to mean more pleasant, then we are back to our
original question: why do proximate pleasures appear greater than
distant ones? If, on the other hand, the agent values proximate
pleasures for their proximity, in addition to or independently of
their magnitude, then, as Taylor (Protagoras, 193) observes, Socrates
would not propose the measuring art as the solution to his woes.
Furthermore, before offering his alternative explanation of akrasia,
Socrates secures his opponents’ agreement to a principle of tem­
poral neutrality: pleasures only differ in magnitude; when they
occur makes no difference to their value (356 a 5–c 3).
Alternatively, one might argue that the one who chooses prox­im­ate
pleasures does so because he wishes to minimize the pain of an­tici­
pa­tion. In a similar vein, one might propose that people tend to
choose proximate pleasures because the insecurity of future
pleasures diminishes their value. The difficulty with both these
explanations is that the agent would be acting rationally and not
commit an evaluative error. But it is agreed upon by all that the
agent who chooses the proximate pleasure commits an error.17
Finally, one might maintain that the evaluative error is due to the
fact that the pleasures and pains are difficult to compare with
one another. Thus, one might argue that my opening example of
the marshmallows was overly simple, since it seems clear that two
marshmallows later will yield more pleasure than one now. But the
16 But see A. W. Price, Mental Conflict (London, 1995), 22–4.
17 Would it help to modify this proposal such that the agent tends to overestimate
the pain of anticipation or the insecurity of future pleasures? Not really—­we would
then simply replace our original problem, of why we overestimate the magnitude of
proximate pleasures with a new one, of why we overestimate the pain of a­ n­tici­pa­tion
or the insecurity of future pleasures.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
53
examples Socrates considers are eating, drinking, and enjoying sex
now, versus being poor and sick later (353 c 6–d 4).18 Perhaps these
pleasures and pains are more difficult to compare, making the
evalu­ative error less jarring. Against this, I would argue that we do
tend to compare all sorts of disparate pleasures and pains: indeed,
such comparisons are a ubiquitous feature of everyday practical
deliberation. Furthermore, it is not clear how different in kind
these pleasures are: sex and sickness are both corporeal conditions
and, in that regard, similar in kind. Lastly, observing that certain
pleasures and pains are difficult to compare gives us no explanation
of why we tend to inflate the value of the proximate rather than the
distant ones.
Suppose, though, that one allows that there is something odd or
even implausible about Socrates’ proposal that proximate pleasures
appear greater than distant ones. One might still maintain, against
me, that this does not call out for further explanation. The problem, such an interpreter might argue, is not Socrates’ problem. It is
commonly assumed that Socrates does not, himself, endorse the
hedonist assumption; it is, rather, a view he attributes to hoi polloi.19
Thus, my opponent might argue that in proposing that what appears
to be akrasia results from the tendency of proximate pleasures to
appear magnified, Socrates is just pointing out to the hedonist that
this is the only explanation he can provide of cases where people
appear to behave akratically. If this is a poor ex­plan­ation, then fault
lies with the hedonist, not Socrates.20
In response, I would note that this interpretation is prima facie
implausible, in light of the fact that Socrates makes virtually the
same claim in the Philebus, as part of his analysis of false pleasures
(41 a 7–42 c 3). In that later dialogue, there is no reason to suppose
that Socrates does not endorse the claim; thus, one cannot
straightforwardly argue that it is so implausible that when Socrates
18 One might also take 354 a 4–b 5 to imply the possibility of cases of akrasia
where one forgoes athletic training or medical treatment or avoids military campaigns and as a result suffers ill health, poverty, or political defeat later; the same
argument would apply.
19 See e.g. Dyson, ‘Knowledge and Hedonism’, 40–3; G. R. F. Ferrari, ‘Akrasia
as Neurosis in Plato’s Protagoras’ [‘Akrasia as Neurosis’], Proceedings of the Boston
Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, 6 (1990), 115–39 at 131–2; Frede, ‘Introduction’,
xxvii–­viii; Vlastos, ‘Acrasia’, 78; and Wolfsdorf, ‘Ridiculousness’, 133–4.
20 Dyson, ‘Knowledge and Hedonism’, and Ferrari, ‘Akrasia as Neurosis’, offer
dialectical interpretations of Socrates’ argument in a similar vein.
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
advances it in the Protagoras, he must be doing so dialectically,
and not in propria persona. Furthermore, if, indeed, Socrates were
offering what he takes to be a patently implausible explanation of
apparent cases of akrasia, then he would do little to convince his
interlocutors that akrasia is impossible; rather than abandoning
hedonism, they would more likely reject Socrates’ analysis and
conclude that akrasia is, indeed, possible. But this would be catastrophic for Socrates’ philosophical aims in the dialogue: his denial
of akrasia undergirds his subsequent argument that courage is
identical to wisdom (358 b 6–360 e 5), which, in turn, serves as the
capstone of his argument for the unity of the virtues. Relatedly, if,
Socrates does not, in fact, hold that we are subject to hedonic errors,
then there will be no role for the measuring art, but his praise of
the measuring art is part of his overarching aim in the dialogue of
promoting the value of wisdom.21 Finally, it is worth noting that
the sorts of cases that Socrates seeks to explain in this passage are
cases where the goods being weighed are naturally understood in
hedonistic terms: when one chooses to pursue food or sex and then
later regrets the consequent ill health, one’s calculations largely
involve bodily pleasure and pain. This does not imply that Socrates
thinks that bodily pleasure and pain are the only or the chief goods.
But if he wishes to show that akrasia is impossible, he must have
resources to deal with such cases, cases in which, if there is an
evalu­ative error, the error involves miscalculating the relative values of proximate and distant pleasures and pains.
4. The non-­rational interpretation
The worry that I have attempted to articulate, that Socrates’ account
of evaluative error as due to temporal distortion is somehow wanting,
has led several recent interpreters to propose that the error Socrates
is describing cannot be purely calculative. They argue that the only
way to explain the evaluative error is to posit that the agent is subject to non-­rational desires for proximate pleasures, desires which
cause him to falsely judge the proximate pleasures to be larger than
21 M. C. Nussbaum emphasizes the importance that Socrates assigns to making
the case for an ethical measuring art (The Fragility of Goodness [Fragility] (Cambridge,
1999), 108–10).
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
55
they actually are. I have been referring to this as the non-­rational
interpretation. Its primary proponents are Devereux, Brickhouse
and Smith, and Singpurwalla; I will now briefly set out their views.
In his article, ‘Socrates’ Kantian Conception of Virtue’, Devereux
argues that the traditional interpretation lacks the resources to
explain the evaluative error Socrates describes in the Protagoras.
He writes:
If the distortion is understood as a ‘purely intellectual’ error, it is hard to
see what might account for it. In the case of perceptual distortion, we can
appeal to the fact that when an object is very near it takes up a large proportion of the visual field, and this can sometimes lead to overestimation
of its size. But there does not seem to be an analogous factor, separate from
desire, that might account for our ‘overestimating’ pleasures and pains
that are near in time. (395 n. 27)
Devereux, therefore, argues that, contrary to the traditional in­ter­
pret­ation of the early dialogues, we must attribute to Socrates the
view that there exist non-­rational desires. It is the agent’s non-­
rational desire for the proximate pleasure that accounts for his
belief that it is greater.
Like Devereux, Brickhouse and Smith maintain that the trad­
ition­al interpretation cannot offer an adequate explanation of
­temporal distortion. They offer the following case: suppose that
someone who has just eaten an enormous meal is presented with a
chocolate tart. He considers the health repercussions and decides
not to consume it. However, a little later, when he is not quite so
full, he changes his mind and decides to eat the tart after all. What
could possibly explain his shift in judgement? On the traditional
interpretation, the error is purely calculative, but the agent has
been given no new information. Brickhouse and Smith write,
‘If we are to avoid what appears to be the hopeless arbitrariness of
the position the traditionalist ascribes to Socrates, we must think
that Socrates recognizes that nonrational desires have an explanatory role to play in [the person’s] decision to devour [the chocolate
tart] at [the later time].’22 Brickhouse and Smith differ from
22 ‘Socrates on akrasia’, 10. Brickhouse and Smith’s example is, perhaps, infelicitous for their purposes. For, in fact, it is not as though the agent gets no new information. Per their example, when the agent reconsiders, he ‘has managed to digest
enough of his previous meal to lose his feelings of complete satiety’ (‘Socrates on
akrasia’, 9)—thus, he does have new information about his bodily condition, namely
that he is no longer so full as to be unable to enjoy the tart; this information supports
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
Devereux in maintaining that the measuring art is compatible with
the existence of weak, but not of strong non-­
rational desires.
According to Devereux, knowledge makes appearance lose its
power because it always generates stronger desires for what it
knows to be best. Brickhouse and Smith worry that this will not
secure the agent the peace which Socrates promised would ensue
from the measuring art (‘Socrates on akrasia’, 14–15). They address
rational
this by distinguishing between strong and weak non-­
desires. The measuring art brings peace because it is incompatible
with the existence of strong non-­rational desires, desires that
compel the agent to believe that their objects are good.
Most recently, Singpurwalla, like Devereux and Brickhouse and
Smith, argues that we must take Socrates to assume the existence
of non-­rational desires in order to make sense of the evaluative
error. She writes:
It is a fact that our judgments of value can be erroneously affected by the
relative proximity of the goods or bads in question. But now this fact
demands an explanation. . . . One likely explanation for the appearances is
that how good or bad a certain pleasure or pain appears to us is a reflection
of the strength of our current attraction or aversion for it. Moreover, the
strength of our attraction or aversion to certain pleasures or pains is, no
doubt, often affected by the relative proximity of the pleasure or pain in
question. But the strength of our attraction or aversion to certain pleasures or pains can arise independently of reason and can conflict with our
reasoned judgment of the worth of the pleasure or pain. Thus, just as facts
about our visual apparatus can cause us to see things differently from how
they are, facts about the way we desire can cause us to ‘see’ things as worth
more or less than they are. (‘Reasoning with the Irrational’, 249)
Singpurwalla differs from Devereux and Brickhouse and Smith in
terms of her account of non-­rational desires. Where they treat
non-­rational desires as pure feelings of attraction, she proposes,
instead, that they are themselves beliefs about what is good, beliefs
that are based on appearances and that are resistant, but not immune
to rational revision.
a new assessment of whether the pleasure of the tart will outweigh the eventual
health repercussions. Thus, this example would, in fact, seem to support the trad­
ition­al interpretation on which the appetites can provide information about our
bodily condition that can then factor into our rational deliberation and desires. (See
also R. Jones, ‘Review of Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Socratic
Moral Psychology’, Polis, 28 (2011), 147–52 at 150.)
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
57
While I am entirely sympathetic with these interpreters’ desire
for a further explanation of the evaluative error, I will argue, first,
that their proposed solution does not provide any advantage over
the traditional account in explaining the evaluative error and, second, that it is saddled with difficulties.
1. That the non-­rational interpretation offers no advance over
the traditional interpretation in accounting for the evaluative illusion is troubling, since, as we have seen, they present their su­per­
ior­ity in this regard as one reason to favour their interpretation.
But in fact, their explanation multiplies, rather than dissolves the
puzzle concerning the evaluative illusion. On the traditional in­ter­
pret­ation, we are faced with the problem of why proximate pleasures should appear greater than distant ones. The non-­rational
interpretation addresses this by proposing that the proximity of
the pleasures causes us to form a non-­rational desire for them; this
non-­rational desire, in turn, causes us to overestimate their magnitude. But now we have two puzzles where before we had one: we
must now ask, on the one hand, why we should desire proximate
pleasures more than distant ones and, on the other, why our desiring
them more causes us to overestimate their magnitude. In response
to the first question, proponents of the non-­rational interpretation
perhaps take it to be a brute fact that we just do desire proximate
pleasures more than distant ones. But if, indeed, the pleasures are
of equal magnitude, then it seems that there is no good reason to
prefer the proximate to the distant, which renders it odd, or even
inexplicable that we should desire them more. Thus, it is not clear
why proponents of the non-­rational account should be in a position
to, at once, criticize the traditional account for not explaining why
proximate pleasures appear greater, while helping themselves to
the claim that they are more desired.
Suppose, though, that we grant that we just do desire proximate
pleasures more. The non-­rational interpretation must now confront the difficulty of explaining how this desire causes us to over­
esti­mate their magnitude. Singpurwalla alludes to how ‘facts about
the way we desire can cause us to “see” things as worth more or less
than they are’ (‘Reasoning with the Irrational’, 249). But on the
face of it, it is not obvious why wanting to enjoy a pleasure now,
rather than later, should cause one to think that it will be more
pleasant to do so. How, exactly, does the desire cause the inflated
hedonic prediction? Brickhouse and Smith attempt to address this
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
by claiming that non-­rational desires are present-­focused: ‘Because
a nonrational desire demands immediate satisfaction, it can explain
why the pleasure of C appears to be larger at t2 than it did at t1,
when P did not possess a nonrational desire for C’ (‘Socrates on
akrasia’, 10). But why should the fact that the non-­rational desire
demands immediate satisfaction cause us to overestimate the ensuing pleasure, whereas desires that are future-­focused do not introduce such a distortion? They later add, ‘Something acquires the
power of appearance when it becomes the object of a nonrational
desire and so becomes recognized by an agent as a way to satisfy
some appetite or passion—­for example, as a pleasure or as a relief
from some pain’ (‘Socrates on akrasia’, 11). If their thought is that
the non-­rational desire introduces a new reason to pursue the prox­
im­ate pleasure, in virtue of the pleasure that satisfying this new
desire will produce, then what we have is a version of the trad­
ition­al interpretation: one would be revising their assessment of
the worth of the proximate pleasure in response to new information.23 Alternatively, proponents of the non-­rational interpretation
might argue that our heightened desire for the proximate pleasure
causes us to focus on it more, ignoring other alternatives.24 But per
the parameters of the problem of akrasia, it is not as though the
agent is ignorant of other alternatives; at most, she is less attentive
to them. And it is not obvious why increased attention should result
in overestimation and not, say, underestimation or some other form
of cognitive distortion.
This second problem, of why, exactly, non-­rational desire should
cause overvaluation does not arise on Singpurwalla’s account; at most,
she faces the first difficulty, of explaining why we should form
greater non-­rational desires for proximate, rather than distant
pleasures. The reason the second problem does not arise is that, on
her interpretation, the non-­rational desire just is the belief that the
proximate pleasure is better and hence bigger. Thus, there is no
question of how the desire should give rise to the belief, since it
simply is the belief. But this reveals a different challenge for her
account. Namely, if Singpurwalla treats the non-­rational desire as
an evaluative belief, then it is not clear why her account should offer
any improvement on the traditional interpretation. The supposed
23 See Reshotko, Socratic Virtue, 86.
24 I owe this suggestion to Rachel Singpurwalla.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
59
advantage of the non-­rational interpretation, that it appeals to some­
thing besides belief to explain belief formation, is lost if the non-­
rational desire simply is an evaluative belief.25
2a. In addition to possessing no explanatory advantages, the
non-­rational interpretation faces significant difficulties. First, as
Singpurwalla concedes, it lacks direct textual support.26
2b. A further set of difficulties arises for Devereux and for
Brickhouse and Smith, depending on whether or not non-­rational
desires can coexist with the measuring art.27 On Devereux’s account,
they can; as he concedes, this raises the problem of what guarantee
there is that they will not overpower reason. Furthermore, as
Brickhouse and Smith argue, even if we grant Devereux that reason will always generate stronger, rational desires, the agent does
not appear to have secured the tranquillity which the measuring art
25 I am indebted to Singpurwalla for generous correspondence that has enabled
me to develop a better understanding of her position. For the purpose of simplicity,
I focus on the role of non-­rational desire in Singpurwalla’s account, but a more
precise rendering of her position would be that we have a heightened attraction to
proximate pleasures, where the attraction just is their appearing to be better and
hence greater. When we assent to this attraction, we form a non-­rational desire. My
worry can be reposed as follows: if it is puzzling why proximate pleasures should
appear greater than distant ones, it will not help to attribute this to our being more
attracted to them, if our being more attracted to them is identical to their appearing
greater.
26 Singpurwalla, ‘Reasoning with the Irrational’, 247–8. Devereux (‘Kantian
Conception’, 388–9) and Brickhouse and Smith (Moral Psychology, 50–62) offer an
extensive discussion of passages from the early dialogues that they take to imply
that Socrates does acknowledge the existence of non-­rational desires. In this paper,
I do not take a stand on whether Socrates allows for non-­rational desires in other
dialogues; I am simply claiming that there is no evidence that he deploys such
desires to explain evaluative illusion in the Protagoras. Devereux cites Protagoras
357 c 3–4, where Socrates claims to agree with Protagoras that knowledge ‘always
prevails, whenever it is present, over pleasure and everything else’ (ἀεὶ κρατεῖν, ὅπου
ἂν ἐνῇ, καὶ ἡδονῆς καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἁπάντων) as evidence for the existence of non-­rational
desires. He parses this line as claiming that ‘in other words, there are resistant
mo­tiv­at­ing factors, but knowledge always has the upper hand’ (‘Kantian Conception’,
389). But it is far from clear that by ‘pleasure and everything else’ Socrates means
resistant motivating factors. Indeed, he has just argued against the many that if
pleasure compels us to act against our perceived best interest, it does not do so by
directly causing us to act, but rather by generating a mistaken assessment of its
magnitude.
27 This constellation of difficulties does not arise for Singpurwalla, since, on her
account, the measuring art prevents the agent from assenting to the appearance that
the proximate pleasure is better and hence from forming the non-­rational desire for
it. Insofar as the agent lacks a non-­rational desire for the proximate pleasure, she
has achieved tranquillity.
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
promised. Brickhouse and Smith address this difficulty by maintaining that the measuring art cannot coexist with strong non-­
rational desires; it is only active in relation to desires that are ‘weak,
and thus, disposed to fall in line with knowledge of what is best’
(‘Socrates on akrasia’, 15). But then, as they acknowledge, we are
left to wonder what role there is left for the measuring art (‘Socrates
on akrasia’, 15). Assuming it is not totally impotent, these weak
non-­rational desires must still possess some force, but then we are
back to Devereux’s problem—­what non-­arbitrary reason is there to
suppose that knowledge will prevail?28 Furthermore, this appears
to mischaracterize the role of the measuring art. Socrates describes
it as saving our lives by ‘making the appearances lose their power
by showing us the truth’ (ἄκυρον μὲν ἂν ἐποίησε τοῦτο τὸ ϕάντασμα,
δηλώσασα δὲ τὸ ἀληθές, 356 d 8–e 1). But if the measuring art cannot
even emerge until some other faculty extinguishes strong non-­
rational desires, then it would appear to be that other faculty that
deserves the title of a life-­saving capacity to defeat the power of
appearances.
2c. Finally, Devereux and Singpurwalla each face difficulties when
it comes to accounting for the synchronic conflict that appears to
characterize akrasia. This is striking, since each maintains that it is
an advantage of the non-­rational interpretation that it can explain
the phenomenology of conflict, whereas the trad­ition­al in­ter­pret­
ation cannot. Devereux claims that only on the non-­rational in­ter­
pret­ation can Socrates’ alternative account plausibly explain the
phenomenon that the common account wishes to see explained; in
positing the existence of non-­rational desires, it has the resources
to explain the ‘inner conflict between [the agent’s] belief as to how
he ought to act and his desire for the immediate pleasure’ (‘Kantian
Conception’, 396). Similarly, Singpurwalla complains that the
trad­ition­al account cannot explain how ‘if we do take the action
that is in fact bad, we feel conflicted about it at the time of action’
(‘Reasoning with the Irrational’, 247), and promises to explain this
by positing non-­rational desires.
Devereux accounts for the phenomenology of inner conflict by
proposing that the agent’s non-­rational desire causes his belief to
28 For a similar line of criticism, see G. R. Carone, ‘Calculating Machines or
Leaky Jars? The Moral Psychology of Plato’s Gorgias’, Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy, 26 (2004), 55–96 at 89.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
61
shift at the time of action: ‘The agent starts out with a true belief,
but this belief is unable to withstand the opposition of a strong
desire for an immediate pleasure, and it is temporarily displaced by
a belief supporting the desire’ (‘Kantian Conception’, 395). Thus,
‘Socrates has argued that an agent will never act contrary to his
belief—­at the time of action—­as to what is best’ (393). It is hard to
see how Devereux has preserved the phenomenon he wishes to
account for: at most there will be a diachronic tension between the
agent’s desire for the immediate pleasure at the time of action and
his belief, prior and posterior to acting, that it is not worth pursuing. But in that case, his account is no improvement on the trad­
ition­al interpretation, since it too can account for diachronic
conflict in terms of shifts in the agent’s evaluative judgements.29
Singpurwalla does better when it comes to synchronic conflict,
but this comes at a cost. She writes, ‘So we have a prima facie reason at least for thinking that in both the Protagoras and the Republic
the irrational part of the soul is home to beliefs based on appearances, and that motivational conflict is a conflict between two
beliefs—­one based on reasoning and one based on the way things
appear’ (‘Reasoning with the Irrational’, 255–6). Singpurwalla is
able to give a robust account of synchronic conflict, since she proposes that the agent has compresent opposed beliefs: her non-­
rational desire for the present pleasure and her rational belief that
it would be best not to pursue it. But this interpretation appears
to contradict Socrates’ explicit position in the dialogue. Socrates
claims at 358 b 7–c 1 that ‘no one who knows or believes that there
is something else better than what he is doing, something possible,
will go on doing what he had been doing when he could be doing
what is better’.30 This decisively precludes the possibility of an agent
pursuing a present pleasure in the face of a belief that it would be
best not to do so.31
29 Thus, I am in agreement with Devereux’s account of the form of conflict that
Socrates’ account allows for, namely belief instability; my point is that neither his
account nor the traditional interpretation allows for synchronic conflict.
30 358 b 7–c 1: οὐδεὶς οὔτε εἰδὼς οὔτε οἰόμενος ἄλλα βελτίω εἶναι ἢ ἃ ποιεῖ, καὶ δυνατά,
ἔπειτα ποιεῖ ταῦτα, ἐξὸν τὰ βελτίω.
31 Singpurwalla perhaps seeks to address this when she continues, ‘When these
beliefs are about the value of a certain object or course of action, then no matter
which belief we act upon we will be acting in accordance with our beliefs about
value’ (‘Reasoning with the Irrational’, 256). But even if in acting on our non-­
rational desire, we act on a belief about value, we would still be acting against our
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62
Suzanne Obdrzalek
In fact, though Devereux and Singpurwalla attack the traditional
account as unable to account for the phenomenon of synchronic
conflict, this does not pose an interpretive problem for the trad­
ition­al interpretation. For it is far from clear that Socrates wishes
to preserve this aspect of the common account. He appears to
reject the phenomenon of synchronic conflict precisely because
he holds that it is impossible to act against what we believe to
be best.32 This does not mean, however, that Socrates is unable to
capture any of the experience of conflict that characterizes akrasia.
Though this may fail to do full justice to the experience of akrasia,
Socrates is able to appeal to the diachronic instability of the akratic’s evalu­ative beliefs in order to preserve at least some of her
ex­peri­ence of conflict.33 The power of appearance is said to ‘make
us wander all over the place in confusion, often changing our minds
about the same things and regretting our actions and choices with
respect to things large and small’.34 What Socrates is describing here
is the phenomenon of changing one’s mind repeatedly in response
to shifting appearances. And since these conflicting judgements all
belong to the same agent, she might look back upon herself as having been in tension with herself, insofar as her beliefs and ensuing
desires shifted back and forth and conflicted with one another.35
Singpurwalla complains that the traditional interpretation cannot
account for why, ‘if we do take the wrong action, we hold ourselves
culpable; we blame ourselves’ (‘Reasoning with the Irrational’,
247). But in fact, the instability of belief can explain post factum
regret: what we regret is not that we acted against what we knew to
rational belief that it would be best to resist, and it is this possibility that Socrates
explicitly rejects at 358 b 7–c 1. It is worth noting that, to the extent that Singpurwalla
is able to account for the phenomenology of conflict, it is not, in fact, because she
posits non-­rational desires but, rather, because she allows for the compresence of
opposing beliefs about value. But most would maintain that there is no strong evidence that Plato allows for such a possibility until we come to the Republic.
32 See also Reshotko, Socratic Virtue, 89–91.
33 Here I am in full agreement with Devereux, ‘Kantian Conception’, 391–2.
Devereux goes on to argue that ‘the desire thus explains the fact that the pleasure
appears greater than it is, and not the other way around’ (395), claiming that this is
the most plausible way to explain Socrates’ claim that knowledge is more stable than
belief. But as I shall argue, the instability of belief lies not in its being easily overcome by desire but, rather, in its lacking full justification and hence being sus­cep­
tible to appearances that merely appear true.
34 356 d 5–7: ἡμᾶς ἐπλάνα καὶ ἐποίει ἄνω τε καὶ κάτω πολλάκις μεταλαμβάνειν ταὐτὰ
καὶ μεταμέλειν καὶ ἐν ταῖς πράξεσιν καὶ ἐν ταῖς αἱρέσεσιν τῶν μεγάλων τε καὶ σμικρῶν.
35 Cf. Phaedo 79 c 2–8.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
63
be best at the time of action, but, rather, that we let ourselves be
taken in by appearances.
Perhaps, then, we should not be so quick to dismiss the trad­
ition­al interpretation. If it can explain at least as much as the non-­
rational interpretation, while falling prey to fewer difficulties, then
it has much to recommend it. In Sections 5–7, I take a closer look
at what sort of account the traditional interpretation can provide
of the power of appearance. In particular, I address the following
three questions. First, what are the appearances that cause the
would-­be akratic to err? Second, what is their power and how does
the measuring art counter it? And finally, how might Socrates
account for the fact that these appearances tend to exaggerate the
magnitude of proximate over distant pleasures?
5. What are appearances?
1. To turn to our first question, it will be helpful to first consider
Socrates’ motives in introducing appearances into his discussion of
akrasia. He does so at a very specific juncture: they enter as part of
his alternative explanation of why the agent chooses what is in fact
worse. Socrates begins by making a series of claims about how
objects near and far appear—­the same magnitude appears (ϕαίνεται)
larger when nearby, smaller when far off, and so forth (356 c 5–8).
Next, he contrasts the art of measurement with the power of
appearance. The power of appearance (ἡ τοῦ ϕαινομένου δύναμις)
causes us to wander and change our minds concerning the same
things and to regret our choices and actions regarding the large and
small (356 d 4–7). The measuring art, by contrast, robs the appearance (τὸ ϕάντασμα) of its power. This passage presents us with an
account of perceptual illusions concerning distance: appearances
confuse us by causing proximate magnitudes to appear greater
than distant ones. This is intended to suggest a parallel analysis of
evaluative illusion: the power of appearance causes prox­im­ate
pleasures to falsely appear greater than distant ones. But here we
should pause to observe that there is an im­port­ant disanalogy
between the perceptual and the evaluative cases.36 In the perceptual
36 See also Dyson, ‘Knowledge and Hedonism’, 40–3, and Taylor, Protagoras,
195–6. I do not agree with Dyson’s further argument that since the pleasures and
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64
Suzanne Obdrzalek
case, the two objects being compared are potentially both present
to the viewer at the time when he is manipulated by the power of
appearance. But this cannot occur in the evaluative case. Whereas
in the perceptual case, we might, say, compare a nearby tree with
one that is at a distance, in the evaluative case neither pleasure
is present at the time when the agent compares them.37 At the
moment of decision, the agent is not undergoing either pleasure;
he is deciding which of two prospective pleasures to pursue—­one
that is in the very near future or one that is in the more distant
future.38 But if the agent is comparing two pleasures, neither of
which currently exists, then what is the appearance that deceives
him? It must be an internal mental representation that the agent
forms of the imminent pleasure which falsely represents it as larger
than it in fact is.39
The role played by the agent’s mental representations of prospective pleasures is obscured on the common account of akrasia,
which describes the agent as dragged by pleasure to act against his
knowledge of what is best, as though the pleasure itself were a
force external to and separate from the agent that compels him to
act. This error is facilitated by the fact that ‘pleasure’ is ambiguous
between the source of the pleasure, the pleasant activity, and the
ensuing psychological state.40 Thus, at 353 c 1–8, being mastered
by pleasure (ὃ ἡμεῖς ἥττω εἶναι τῶν ἡδονῶν) is equated with being
mastered by food, drink, and sex, they being pleasant (ὑπὸ σίτων καὶ
ποτῶν καὶ ἀϕροδισίων κρατούμενοι ἡδέων ὄντων): pleasure (ἡδονή) is
treated as roughly equivalent to the objects that produce it. But
whereas the psychological state is something internal, its sources—­
food, drink, beautiful people, etc.—are typically external to the
pains being measured do not yet exist, there can be no knowledge of them.
According to this line of argument, Socrates must hold that we can have no know­
ledge whatsoever of the future, since future events do not yet exist, but such a
conclusion goes far beyond anything explicitly stated in the text.
37 Thus, when Socrates describes the many as claiming that the agent is defeated
by αἱ παραχρῆμα ἡδοναί (e.g. 355 b 3), he presumably means pleasures that are imminent
but not currently occurring.
38 This is occasionally missed, since akrasia often occurs when we directly perceive that which will occasion the proximate pleasure. But even when we perceive
the cake before us, we still represent to ourselves the pleasure of eating it in the not
too distant future.
39 Cf. Plato’s discussion of desire at Phileb. 35 b 1–d 3.
40 See V. Harte, ‘The Philebus on Pleasure: The Good, the Bad and the False’
[‘Philebus’], Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 104 (2004), 113–30 at 114.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
65
agent. The conflation of these senses of pleasure, in turn, gives rise
to a tendency to view akrasia as involving the agent’s being mastered by something external to himself—­the food and drink or the
beautiful person—­and hence beyond his control. Thus, the common account describes the agent as ruled (ἄρχειν, 352 b 7), dragged
around (περιελκομένης, 352 c 2), overcome (ἡττωμένους, 352 e 1,
353 a 1, 353 a 5), and conquered (κρατουμένους, 352 e 2, 353 c 6–7)
by pleasure, suggesting that he is the victim of outside forces. The
common account of the Protagoras, in fact, appears to reflect a
general tendency among Plato’s contemporaries to externalize the
emotions and to treat them as having compulsive force.41 Thus,
Gorgias famously proposes that if Helen left due to sexual desire,
she acted out of compulsion, not choice.42 Again, Aeschines describes
Timarchus as ‘a slave to the most shameful pleasures, to fancy food
and dining extravagance, to flute girls and prostitutes, to dice, and
to all other things, none of which should master a man who is well
born and free’.43 While Timarchus can be faulted for failing to develop
sufficient strength of character to resist these pleasures, the pleasures
themselves are presented as if they were external forces that compel
him to give in.44
Thus, we can see that Socrates is introducing a radical in­nov­
ation in proposing that it is not pleasant things or pleasure itself
that lead the agent to choose poorly, but, rather, the agent’s own
mental representation of these.45 The introduction of these mental
representations, on his argument, is required even to make sense of
supposed cases of akrasia. On the common account, there are only
two players at work: the present pleasure and the future one. This
would suggest that the present pleasure compels the agent to act by
41 Thus, Dover: ‘we may be struck by their treatment of sexual desire as an irresistible god, their externalization and personification of emotions, and their readiness to believe that a god may pervert the course of a man’s thinking without his
necessarily displaying to others any outward sign of insanity’ (Greek Popular
Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Indianapolis, 1994), 144).
42 Gorgias, Hel. 19.
43 Aeschin., In Tim. 42 Martin and Budé: δουλεύων ταῖς αἰσχίσταις ἡδοναῖς,
ὀψοϕαγίᾳ καὶ πολυτελείᾳ δείπνων καὶ αὐλητρίσι καὶ ἑταίραις καὶ κύβοις καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ὑϕ’
ὧν οὐδενὸς χρὴ κρατεῖσθαι τὸν γενναῖον καὶ ἐλεύθερον.
44 Here, one might compare G. Watson’s contemporary treatment of akrasia, on
which the agent can be held to blame for not developing strength of will, but is
powerless to resist his desires at the moment of action (‘Skepticism about Weakness
of Will’, Philosophical Review, 86 (1977), 316–39 at 334).
45 For a similar analysis, see Kamtekar, Moral, 44–9.
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
being greater than the future one; the problem, as Socrates points
out, is that this is precluded by the shared assumption that the
agent is committing an error, forsaking a greater pleasure for the
sake of a smaller one (355 d 3–6). Socrates is able to resolve this by
introducing a third player: the agent’s mental representation of the
present pleasure. It is the gap between the apparent and actual
magnitudes of the present pleasure that can explain, at once, why
the agent pursues the present pleasure and, at the same time, why,
in so doing, he errs. But once Socrates proposes that the agent is
led to act by his mental representation of the present pleasure, then
he is also able to internalize the source of the agent’s error and
assign him full responsibility. Far from being driven to act by food,
drink, and sex, the agent is being driven by his own faulty representations of the pleasures of enjoying these as being greater than
they actually are. Thus, at 356 c 5, when Socrates introduces
appearances, part of what he is doing is pointing out that the
responsibility for his poor choices lies with the agent himself: it is
not pleasure that compels him to act, as though he were at the
mercy of some external force, but rather, it is the appearance that
he himself generates that is the cause of his downfall.46
2. What sort of a mental representation is this appearance?47
Here, it will be helpful to consider Plato’s use of the word phan­
tasma (pl. phantasmata) throughout his corpus. Plato’s usage is by
no means univocal; indeed, phantasma has considerable semantic
range. Plato uses it to refer to ghosts (e.g. Phaedo 81 d 2), shadows,
and reflections (e.g. Soph. 266 b 9–10); to mental items such as
dreams (e.g. Tim. 46 a 2), illusory mental representations (Rep. 584 a 9),
and, more broadly, to imagistic mental representations (e.g. Phileb.
40 a 9); as well as to artistic products, such as poems (e.g. Rep. 599
a 2), to name a few. Nonetheless, there are certain threads in his
usage that shed light on his deployment of the term in the
Protagoras. First, the term phantasma has obvious connections to
phainesthai, to how things appear. Plato, therefore, frequently uses
46 Cf. Phaedo 82 d 9–83 a 1.
47 Storey offers a helpful discussion of appearances in the Protagoras
(‘Sex, Wealth, and Courage’, 247–8). Like me, he takes appearances to be quasi-­
perceptual mental presentations that incline us to believe them. Storey emphasizes
the passivity of appearances (248) more than I do—­on my account, it is important
that appearances are representations that we generate and for which we are responsible; I also place greater emphasis on the tendency of phantasmata to be deceptive.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
67
phantasma to denote representations that have an imagistic aspect.
These can be external representations, such as artistic products,
or internal ones, such as mental imagery or dreams; the latter are
of primary interest for our investigation into the Protagoras. For
ex­ample, in the Philebus, Plato refers to the painted images in our
souls that accompany our judgements alternately as images (εἰκόνες)
and as phantasmata (e.g. 39 b 7, 40 a 9). And in the Timaeus, he
describes reason as generating visible images, phantasmata and
eidōla, on the surface of the liver so as to persuade appetite, which
is resistant to reasoning (71 a 3–d 4). Second, in both these passages,
we see, coupled with an emphasis on the imagistic aspect of phan­
tasmata, an implicit contrast with logoi (assertions, propositions).48
In the Republic (599 a 2) and Sophist (234 e 1), though Plato presents the poet and sophist as creating phantasmata with their words,
the implication is that they are not presenting arguments, but are,
instead, using words so as to create vivid and hence persuasive
images; in the Republic, Plato at­tri­butes this to their use of rhythm,
metre, and harmony (601 a 4–b 4). Finally, related to this imagistic
and vivid aspect of phantasmata is a tendency to be deceptive.49
Plato thus frequently uses phantasma to denote appearances that
are manipulative or even false.50 To name just a few examples, in
the Republic, Plato writes that when a state of calm occurs after
pain, it falsely appears pleasant, and calls this an unsound phan­
tasma and witchcraft (584 a 7–10). He describes the poet as devoid
of knowledge, because he produces phantasmata, not onta—­images,
not realities (599 a 1–3). Earlier, Plato specifies that the gods would
not wish to lie by word or deed by producing phantasmata, illusions
(382 a 1–2). In the Sophist, the sophist is defined as one who deceives
us via phantasmata (240 d 1–2); phantasmata are contrasted with
likenesses (εἰκόνες), since they are distorted representations that
48 See e.g. Phileb. 40 a 6–9 and Tim. 71 a 3–5. For further discussion of the relation of these passages, see H. Lorenz, The Brute Within [Brute] (Oxford, 2006),
99–110, and J. Moss, ‘Appearances and Calculation: Plato’s Division of the Soul’,
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 34 (2008), 35–68 at 55–7.
49 This may draw on the primary sense of phantasma, namely an apparition or
ghost.
50 See also M. Schofield’s excellent discussion (‘Aristotle on the Imagination’, in
M. C. Nussbaum and A. O. Rorty (eds.), Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima (Oxford,
1992), 249–76 at 265–6). For a broader discussion of the deceptiveness of phantasia,
see A. Silverman, ‘Plato on Phantasia’, Classical Antiquity, 10 (1991), 123–47 at
139–47.
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
nonetheless appear true (235 d 6–236 c 7).51 Later, Plato suggests
that if there are no falsehoods, then there can be no phantasmata
(264 c 12–d 1).52
Thus, consideration of Plato’s use of phantasma in other dialogues suggests that phantasmata are vivid and imagistic representations that have a tendency to be false. In the case of the Protagoras,
the implication is that the appearances that cause the agent to err
are misleading but vivid imagistic mental representations that
she forms of imminent pleasures. Are they fully fledged beliefs?
No. As, for example, Singpurwalla and Storey argue, the measuring art removes the power from appearance, but does not remove
the appearance itself.53 The agent who possesses the measuring art
clearly no longer forms the belief that the proximate pleasure is
greater and hence better; the role of the measuring art is to forestall
such belief formation by revealing that the appearance is non-­
veridical. The appearance, therefore, is a mental representation we
form of the pleasure, which gives rise to belief when we accept it as
veridical.54
6. What is the power of appearance?
To turn to our second question, what does the power of appearance
consist in? Socrates specifies that the power of appearance makes
us wander, change our minds concerning the same things many
51 See J. Beere, ‘Faking Wisdom: The Expertise of Sophistic in Plato’s Sophist’,
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 57 (2019), 153–90 at 161.
52 Note that this feature appears to be absent from Plato’s usage in the Philebus,
where phantasma appears to be used more broadly to refer to images that accompany logoi in our souls, but not exclusively to false appearances.
53 Singpurwalla, ‘Reasoning with the Irrational’, 252; Storey, ‘Sex, Wealth, and
Courage’, 247–8. See also e.g. M. D. Boeri, ‘Socrates, Aristotle, and the Stoics on
the Apparent and Real Good’, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient
Philosophy, 20 (2004), 109–41 at 120; N. Denyer, Plato: Protagoras (Cambridge, 2008),
192; and J. Warren, The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic
Hedonists (Cambridge, 2014), 114. For a contrasting perspective, see Penner,
‘Socrates on the Strength of Knowledge’, 137.
54 I should emphasize that I am not making the more general claim that Plato
subscribes to a proto-­Stoic appearance/assent theory of belief formation. My discussion solely concerns Plato’s treatment of hedonic error in the Protagoras; my
argument is that, in his discussion of hedonic error, Plato is proposing that prox­im­
ate pleasures cause us to err because they look a certain way, namely they misleadingly appear greater than they actually are.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
69
times, and feel regret. I take this to mean that appearances cause
us to believe them; as the appearances change, so they cause our
beliefs to shift. In virtue of what do appearances have the power to
cause us to believe them? Here, it will be helpful to take a closer
look at Plato’s treatment of appearances in the Sophist. In the
Sophist, Plato contrasts the art of making likenesses (εἰκαστική)
with the art of making appearances (ϕανταστική). The art of making
likenesses preserves the proportions of the subject it is imitating.
However, when sculptors make very large statues, if they were to
reproduce the proportions of their subject, then its upper parts
would appear smaller than they ought, and its lower parts larger.
Plato writes that such craftsmen ‘say goodbye to the truth, and
produce in their images the proportions that seem to be beautiful
instead of the real ones’.55 He then describes this appearance as
that which ‘appears to be like a beautiful thing, but only because
it’s seen from a viewpoint that’s not beautiful, and would seem
unlike the thing it claims to be like if you came to be able to see
such large things adequately’.56 The sophist, in turn, creates
appearances with his words in order to deceive and manipulate his
audience. Appearances, in the Sophist, are not merely representations that are false; they are also deceptive, manipulating us into
believing that they are true. They do so because our undeveloped
perceptual and cognitive faculties are such that, in certain circumstances, appearances seem more true to us than faithful representations.57 They possess what Stephen Colbert famously refers to as
truthiness.58 The power of appearance, then, resides in its tendency
to appear true and hence to induce assent.
How, then, does the measuring art counter this power? Socrates
states that the measuring art is the ‘study of relative excess and
deficiency and equality’ regarding pleasures and pains.59 It ‘would
make the appearance lose its power and, by showing us the truth,
55 Soph. 236 a 4–6: Ἆρ’ οὖν οὐ χαίρειν τὸ ἀληθὲς ἐάσαντες οἱ δημιουργοὶ νῦν οὐ τὰς
οὔσας συμμετρίας ἀλλὰ τὰς δοξούσας εἶναι καλὰς τοῖς εἰδώλοις ἐναπεργάζονται;
56 Soph. 236 b 4–6: τὸ ϕαινόμενον μὲν διὰ τὴν οὐκ ἐκ καλοῦ θέαν ἐοικέναι τῷ καλῷ,
δύναμιν δὲ εἴ τις λάβοι τὰ τηλικαῦτα ἱκανῶς ὁρᾶν, μηδ’ εἰκὸς ᾧ ϕησιν ἐοικέναι.
57 Thus, the cave dwellers in the Republic initially find images more persuasive
than reality (515 c 4–516 a 3), and in Book 10, hoi polloi are presented as finding the
images produced by poets more persuasive than the truth (602 b 1–4).
58 S. Colbert, The Colbert Report (17 October 2005): ‘We’re not talking about
truth; we’re talking about something that seems like truth.’
59 357 b 2–3: ὑπερβολῆς τε καὶ ἐνδείας οὖσα καὶ ἰσότητος πρὸς ἀλλήλας σκέψις.
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
give the soul peace of mind firmly rooted in the truth and save our
life’.60 Thus, the measuring art is the art of correctly determining
the relative magnitudes of pleasures and pains. Through showing
us the truth—­that is, showing us the correct relative magnitudes—­it
disables the power of appearance. Since the power of appearance
resides in its tendency to appear true and compel assent, the measuring art must reveal that this appearance is not, in fact, true, so
that it ceases to appear true and compel assent. Thus, the measuring art undermines the power of appearance not by changing how
things appear, but by robbing appearances of their truthiness.
Compare this with how an oar in water might continue to look as if
it were bent even to those familiar with the illusion, but they will
see this as a mere seeming. The measuring art accomplishes this
via a two-­step process. First, it generates a correct judgement of
the relative magnitudes of pleasures and pains. Second, the correct
judgement conflicts with the appearance, revealing it to be a mere
appearance and causing it to no longer produce assent. The resulting state is one of knowledge, which is stable and unaffected by
appearance. We might compare this with the perceptual case. Suppose
that, unaware of distance-­illusions, I form the false judgement that
a nearby horse is larger than a distant one. The way to disabuse me
would be to take a measuring stick and place it next to each horse.
While the distant horse might continue to look as though it were
smaller than the nearby one, I would cease to believe that it is.61
This account raises two difficulties. First, as we have seen, there
are certain disanalogies between the perceptual and the hedonic
cases. In the perceptual case, we can frequently counter the illusion
by putting ourselves in the same perceptual relation to both objects
being compared. We might walk up to the distant horse, place it
60 356 d 8–e 2: ἄκυρον μὲν ἂν ἐποίησε τοῦτο τὸ ϕάντασμα, δηλώσασα δὲ τὸ ἀληθὲς
ἡσυχίαν ἂν ἐποίησεν ἔχειν τὴν ψυχὴν μένουσαν ἐπὶ τῷ ἀληθεῖ καὶ ἔσωσεν ἂν τὸν βίον.
Plato’s use of the μέν . . . δέ construction in this passage might be taken to imply that
the measuring art first disempowers the appearance, then shows us the truth.
However, given that Socrates describes the measuring art as the study of ‘relative
excess and deficiency and equality’ (357 b 2–3) the mechanism by which it disempowers the appearance must be by measuring the pleasures correctly, i.e. by showing us the truth. Thus, I take the contrast implied by the μέν . . . δέ construction to
not be between two distinct mechanisms deployed by the measuring art, but rather
to be between two distinct, albeit related results: first the appearance is dis­em­
powered, then we gain stable knowledge and peace of mind.
61 Cf. Euthph. 7 b 2–c 8; it is not clear how optimistic Socrates is in the Euthyphro
concerning the possibility of objectively measuring evaluative properties.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
71
next to the nearby horse, or compare the size of both horses with
the same object, the measuring stick. But despite Socrates’ appeal
to the image of hedonic scales, it is not as though we can literally
place the two pleasures next to one another; as noted earlier, the
pleasures do not even exist yet. So how does the measuring art
generate a correct comparison of their magnitudes? Socrates defers:
‘What exactly this art, this knowledge is, we will inquire into later.’62
But what the image of the scales and the comparison with the perceptual case suggests is that just as in the perceptual case, we often
correct the illusion by placing ourselves in the same perceptual
relation to the two objects being compared, so in the evaluative
case, we must place ourselves in the same cognitive relation to the
two pleasures being compared. This will forestall a tendency to
represent the proximate pleasure differently from how we represent the distant one, such that it appears greater than it actually is.
A second concern is whether this will, in fact, work. Earlier,
I raised a problem for the non-­rational interpretation: what guarantee is there that knowledge will escape the distorting effects of
non-­rational desires? But one might raise a similar difficulty for the
traditional interpretation: what guarantee is there that once we correctly assess the relative magnitudes of the proximate and distant
pleasures, we will cease to be taken in by the appearance of the
proximate pleasure as greater? In response, both the non-­rational
and the traditional interpretations can appeal to the nature of
knowledge: to have knowledge is to have a stable grasp of the truth.
Thus, as a matter of definition, the one with knowledge will not be
taken in by appearances. But the traditional interpretation has an
advantage in terms of explaining why this is so: whereas it is difficult to see how, exactly, knowledge disempowers non-­rational
desires, it is relatively uncontroversial that when presented with
compelling evidence, we will abandon a belief that conflicts with it.
It might take a while to get there: the cave dwellers are initially
strongly persuaded by the shadows among which they dwell; eventually, however, they are compelled by the sight of truth to revise
their beliefs (Rep. 515 c 4–516 c 6). In the case of hedonic errors,
this process might be assisted by coming to realize the ways in
which appearances tend to manipulate us. Once we become aware,
through repeated experience, of the tendency of proximate pleasures
62 357 b 5–6: Ἥτις μὲν τοίνυν τέχνη καὶ ἐπιστήμη ἐστὶν αὕτη, εἰς αὖθις σκεψόμεθα.
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72
Suzanne Obdrzalek
to appear inflated, then we will become less likely to be taken in
by them.63
7. Why do proximate pleasures appear greater?
This brings us to our final question: what resources does Socrates
have to explain why proximate pleasures appear greater than distant
ones? Socrates does not offer an explanation of this phenomenon;
he simply treats it as a brute fact. Proponents of the non-­rational
interpretation find this unsatisfying; they, therefore, propose non-­
rational desires as the means to fill in this lacuna in his account. But
before we consider what sort of explanation we might offer on
Socrates’ behalf, we should first ask whether Socrates might not,
after all, be entitled to treat the tendency of proximate pleasures to
appear greater as a basic psychological fact. In fact, there is considerable empirical evidence that people often commit precisely this sort
of evaluative error. Psychologists have repeatedly demonstrated that
our preferences for rewards over time tend to shift according to
hyperbolic and not exponential curves.64 The rate at which we discount future rewards does not remain consistent over time; instead,
as a reward becomes more proximate, we tend to inflate its value more
rapidly. Thus, for example, people will sometimes choose a short
period of relief from a noxious noise over a longer later period of
relief from that noise, but only if the shorter period is imminent.65
However, this does not settle the question of whether our preference
for prox­im­ate pleasures is due to a calculative error; perhaps, as on
the common account, we simply desire them more. But in a recent
study, Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, and Wilson set out to answer exactly
that question. Instead of presenting their subjects with an intertem­
poral choice, they asked them to predict how happy they would be
now to receive $20 now versus how happy they would be at a series
of future times to receive the money at those future times.66
63 Cf. Rep. 10, 595 b 5–7.
64 See e.g. G. Ainslie, Breakdown of Will (Cambridge, 2001).
65 Ainslie, Breakdown of Will, 30. This result has been replicated in animals:
pigeons will choose earlier access to less grain over later access to more grain, but
only when the earlier access is imminent and not when it is delayed.
66 In drawing upon this study, I am, admittedly, assuming that the results would
remain consistent if the question were posed in terms of future pleasure rather than
future happiness.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
73
The subjects consistently predicted that receiving $20 now would
make them happier now than how happy receiving $20 at some
future time would make them at that future time. The authors
conclude:
The standard account of temporal discounting suggests that there is
something wrong with people’s decisions about the future but nothing
wrong with their perceptions of it. Our studies show that shortsighted perception is, in fact, one of the causes of time discounting. One reason why
people appear to be so unconcerned about the future is that they mispredict how they will feel when it arrives.67
What this suggests is that the sort of evaluative illusion that
Socrates describes in the Protagoras is, in fact, fairly widespread,
and hence, even if he cannot offer a further explanation for what
causes it, perhaps we ought not to demand this of his account.
I have to confess that this leaves me unsatisfied. In the perceptual case, we can appeal to various facts about optics to explain the
illusion, and this seems to call out for a parallel explanation of the
evaluative illusion. Granting that Socrates does not offer any such
an explanation, what we need to ask is whether, as the proponents
of the non-­rational interpretation claim, the only possible ex­plan­
ation is non-­rational desires. I have argued that non-­rational desires,
even if they exist, would not do much to explain the evalu­ative illusion.
I shall now propose an alternative explanation of the evaluative
illusion. I should be very clear that I am not claiming that Socrates
offers this further explanation. I am simply arguing that we do not
need to appeal to non-­rational desires to provide such an ex­plan­
ation, that there are resources within the traditional interpretation
of Socrates’ position to account for the evaluative illusion.
To see this, we should return, briefly, to the psychological research
I alluded to earlier. According to construal level theory, we tend to
represent proximate events differently from how we represent
­distant ones.68 While we represent proximate events with a high
67 K. A. Kassam, D. T. Gilbert, A. Boston, and T. D. Wilson, ‘Future Anhedonia
and Time Discounting’ [‘Future Anhedonia’], Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 44 (2008), 1533–7 at 1536.
68 E.g. N. Liberman, M. Sagristano, and Y. Trope, ‘The Effect of Temporal
Distance on Level of Mental Construal’, Journal of Experimental and Social
Psychology, 38 (2001), 523–34. This difference in representation is reflected in the
neural systems at work: when we select proximate rewards, the limbic system is
activated, while when we select distant rewards, there is increased activity of the
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74
Suzanne Obdrzalek
degree of specificity and detail, we represent distant events more
schematically and abstractly. Kassam et al. offer the following
account of how this might affect our hedonic predictions: since
we represent proximate pleasures with more specificity and concrete detail than distant ones, our representations of them cause
more intense affect. And since people often use the affect they
experience upon representing a future pleasure to predict its magnitude, this leads to an overestimation of proximate pleasures.69 If
we apply this to our problem in the Protagoras, the proposed
ex­plan­ation is that we tend to represent proximate pleasures with
more specificity and concrete detail than distant ones.70 This causes
greater anticipatory pleasure, and since we use the anticipatory
pleasure we experience upon representing a pleasure to forecast the
amount of pleasure we will experience, this causes us to overestimate the magnitude of the proximate pleasure.71
lateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior parietal cortex (S. M. McClure, D. I. Laibson,
G. Loewenstein, and J. D. Cohen, ‘Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and
Delayed Monetary Rewards’, Science, 306 (2004), 503–7).
69 Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, and Wilson, ‘Future Anhedonia’, 1533. In a later
iteration of the marshmallow experiment, W. Mischel and N. Barker demonstrate a
related and highly suggestive result (‘Cognitive Appraisals and Transformations in
Delay Behavior’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31 (1975), 254–61).
If the children were instructed to think of the rewards in consummatory, arousing
(‘hot’) imagery, they capitulated significantly faster than if they were instructed to
think of the rewards in non-­consummatory, abstract (‘cold’) imagery. Thus, for
example, if the rewards in question were pretzel sticks, the children capitulated
faster if they were instructed to think about how crunchy pretzels are when you bite
into them and how salty they are when you lick them than if they were instructed to
think about how pretzels are brown, long, and cylindrical (257). This demonstrates
that one factor influencing how likely we are to pursue a reward is whether we represent it via imagery related to enjoying the consumption of it.
70 D. Parfit also attributes this view to Plato (Reasons and Persons (Oxford, 1987),
162); he does not offer a defence of this as an interpretation of Plato but, rather, sets
this up as a theory that cannot fully account for the phenomenon of future discounting.
71 One might wonder whether this account of evaluative error depends on ethical
hedonism or whether it could be applied to other conceptions of the good. Whether
it can be applied to other kinds of goods will depend on whether we tend to forecast
the magnitude of such goods on the basis of vivid, imagistic representations of
ourselves experiencing such goods. Thus, this account will work best for goods
whose value lies in our experience of them, less well for goods whose value is independent of our experience of them. At Phileb. 40 e 22–3, Plato extends his analysis
of anticipatory pleasure to ‘fear, anger, and everything of that sort’ (περὶ ϕόβων τε
καὶ θυμῶν καὶ πάντων τῶν τοιούτων). Thus, at the very least, we could extend this
analysis to all the pathēmata that the many list as causes of akrasia at Prot. 352 b
7–8: anger, pleasure, pain, erōs, and fear. That this account could not be applied to
goods whose value is independent of our experience of them does not seem
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
75
Given the role of anticipatory pleasure in causing us to pursue the
proximate pleasure, is it still fair to say that knowledge is not dragged
around by pleasure, as on the common account? Yes, for two reasons.
First, on the common account, what it means for knowledge to be
dragged around is for the agent to pursue the proximate pleasure,
despite knowing that it would be better not to do so. By contrast, on
my proposed interpretation, at the moment of action, the agent acts
in accordance with her erroneous belief that the proximate pleasure
is better. Second, on the common account, the agent is directly
caused to act by pleasure or, perhaps, a non-­rational desire for pleasure. By contrast, on my in­ter­pret­ation, what causes the agent to act
is her belief that the proximate pleasure is greater and hence better.
This belief is affected by her mental representation of the proximate
pleasure and the resultant anticipatory pleasure, but it is ultimately
her belief that it would be best to pursue the proximate pleasure
which determines how she acts.72
As I have noted, Socrates simply does not offer any explanation
of the evaluative error in the Protagoras. Nonetheless, the ex­plan­
ation I am proposing is clearly consistent with his presentation of
the evaluative error: it explains why the appearance we form of the
proximate pleasure misleads us into thinking it is greater than it
actually is. Furthermore, if we look forward to the Philebus, we see
some indications that Socrates might not be averse to this ex­plan­
ation. In the Philebus, Plato again observes that proximate pleasures appear greater than distant ones; his discussion is complicated
by the fact that he blends into his treatment of temporal discounting another phenomenon—­namely that proximity to pain causes
us to overestimate the magnitude of pleasure.73 For our purposes,
problematic, as we are much less likely to show present bias in the case of such
goods, if indeed they exist. For example, it seems probable that people are less likely
to show present bias in pursuing posthumous goods; if that is the case, then this
may be due to the fact that they do not imagine themselves enjoying those goods
when deciding what to do.
72 Note that this interpretation differs from the non-­rational interpretation insofar as it claims that it is our representation of the proximate pleasures that causes us
to erroneously form an inflated judgement of their magnitudes and not, instead, a
non-­rational desire for these pleasures.
73 S. Delcomminette takes the minority view that temporal distortion is not at
issue, only distortion due to the comparison of pleasure to pain (‘False Pleasures,
Appearance and Imagination in the Philebus’ [‘False Pleasures’], Phronesis, 48 (2003),
215–37 at 231–2).
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
what is significant is the following: first, Plato describes the vehicle
by which we experience anticipatory pleasure as an appearance
(ϕάντασμα). Accompanying the assertion (λόγος) in our soul that
describes a future pleasure—­for example, that I will be rich—­is an
appearance, which Plato depicts as an image painted in our soul
(40 a 6–12). Plato emphasizes that it is through this appearance
that we experience anticipatory pleasure: he invokes the painted
images at 40 a 9–12 as part of his analysis of anticipatory pleasure
and describes the anticipatory pleasure as involving envisioning
(ὁρᾷ) oneself taking great pleasure in the possession of heaps of
gold.74 Why does Plato need to introduce an appearance here in
addition to the assertion? Because we don’t experience anticipatory
pleasure when we dispassionately consider propositions about the
future; we have to actively imagine ourselves undergoing the pleasure.75 Thus, the appearance brings with it the level of vivacity
and immersive detail required for us to experience some version of
the future pleasure now.76
Second, in the Philebus, Plato considers two cases of false
an­tici­pa­tory pleasure. In the first, the judgement (δόξα) infects the
74 There is some controversy over how, exactly, to understand Plato’s treatment
of anticipatory pleasure: does he take it to be the anticipation of future pleasure,
pleasure taken in the anticipation of future pleasure, or, as Harte puts it, ‘an advance
installment of the pleasure anticipated’ (‘Philebus’, 125)? I favour the last option, in
part because, as Harte (n. 12) and S. Delcomminette (Le Philèbe de Platon [Philèbe]
(Leiden, 2006), 384) observe, this is suggested by Plato’s use of προχαίρειν at 39 d 4.
For a contrary perspective, see A. W. Price, ‘Varieties of Pleasure in Plato and
Aristotle’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 52 (2017), 177–208 at 180–2.
Delcomminette’s suggestion that in experiencing anticipatory pleasure, one identifies with the representation contained within the phantasma of oneself being pleased
(Philèbe, 386) goes some way to addressing Price’s concern that Plato is depicting
acentral imagining.
75 See Delcomminette, Philèbe, 385 and J. Moss, ‘Pictures and Passions in the
Timaeus and Philebus’, in R. Barney, T. Brennan, and C. Brittain (eds.), Plato and
the Divided Self (Cambridge, 2012), 259–80 at 266. Delcomminette, ‘False Pleasures’,
228, and Lorenz, Brute, 105–6, emphasize the role of phantasmata in representing
future pleasures when perception is not available.
76 I understand vivacity to refer not only to the content of the representation—­its
concrete detail—­but also to its mode of presentation. Part of what is distinctive
about phantasmata is that they present their content in an immersive, quasi-­
perceptual manner; this is the key to their verisimilitude. Plato alludes to this in his
account of the manipulative power of poetry in the Republic: poets’ words only
seem true to us when clothed in metre, rhythm, and harmony; stripped of these,
they lose their power of bewitchment, like a boy who has lost the bloom of youth
(601 a 4–b 7). Thus, it is not so much the propositional content of poetry as its mode
of presentation that accounts for its ability to deceive.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
77
an­tici­pa­tory pleasure: a mistaken judgement that one will be rich
renders the anticipatory pleasure one feels false.77 But in the second case, the causal direction switches (42 a 5–9). Plato explicitly
claims that when we overestimate the amount of pleasure we will
feel—­either due to temporal proximity or the proximity of pain—­
the falsehood lies in the pleasure itself. In claiming that the falsehood
lies in the pleasure itself and not the judgement, Plato suggests that
it is the appearance that is at fault. How does it deceive us? As in
the Protagoras, Plato explains the hedonic error by a comparison
with visual distance illusions: ‘Does it happen only to eyesight that
seeing objects from afar or close by distorts the truth and causes
false judgements? Or does not the same thing happen also in the
case of pleasure and pain?’78 Just as the way that objects appear to
vision can cause us to misestimate their size, so the way that pleasures
appear in advance—­that is, the appearances we form of them—­can
cause us to misestimate their magnitude. In the visual case, the
objects look larger or smaller than they actually are; similarly, in
the hedonic case, the pleasures must appear greater or lesser than
they will be. Plato goes on to refer to the amount of excessive
an­tici­pa­tory pleasure we feel as an appearance (ϕαινόμενον) that
should be cut off as false (42 b 8–c 3). This suggests that our representation of ourselves enjoying future pleasures contains a certain
quantity of pleasure and, furthermore, that this quantity can be
distorted. Thus, the appearance renders judgement false because
we use the quantity of anticipatory pleasure we experience to predict how great a future pleasure will be. In sum, it is the image we
form of ourselves as pleased through which we experience an­tici­
pa­tory pleasure; the amount of anticipatory pleasure we feel, in
turn, is the basis of our false hedonic prediction.79
77 There is considerable debate over the content of this false judgement: possibilities include the judgement that a certain event will occur, that it will occur under
a certain description, and that it will be pleasant should it occur; for helpful discussion, see Harte ‘Philebus’. For my purposes, all that matters is that there is some
judgement made about what the future will be like and that it is this judgement
which renders the anticipatory pleasure false.
78 Phileb. 41 e 9–42 a 3: ἐν μὲν ὄψει τὸ πόρρωθεν καὶ ἐγγύθεν ὁρᾶν τὰ μεγέθη τὴν
ἀλήθειαν ἀϕανίζει καὶ ψευδῆ ποιεῖ δοξάζειν, ἐν λύπαις δ’ ἄρα καὶ ἡδοναῖς οὐκ ἔστι ταὐτὸν
τοῦτο γιγνόμενον;
79 For a full defence of this interpretation of Phileb. 41 a 5–42 c 5, see
N. Mooradian, ‘What to Do about False Pleasures of Overestimation? Philebus 41 a
5–42 c 5’, Apeiron, 28 (1995), 91–112. Our interpretations of the passage differ
insofar as I take the false hedonic prediction to derive from the amount of pleasure
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Suzanne Obdrzalek
Of course, this does not get us all the way to the account that
Kassam et al. offer of the evaluative illusion. In particular, Plato
nowhere claims that we tend to represent proximate pleasures more
vividly than distant ones. But what we do get from our con­sid­er­
ation of the Philebus is not insignificant. It makes clear that Plato
conceives of our representations of future pleasures as imagistic
appearances and that it is in virtue of the anticipatory pleasure we
feel through these appearances that we forecast the amount of
pleasure we will experience.80
8. Conclusion
In this paper, I have sought to defend the traditional interpretation
of the Protagoras against the non-­rational interpretation. The non-­
rational interpretation, importantly, draws attention to the need to
explain why Socrates should hold that proximate pleasures appear
greater than distant ones. However, introducing non-­rational desires
into Socrates’ account does not, I argue, solve this difficulty, and,
furthermore, it generates additional problems. I then offer a close
examination of Socrates’ account of the evaluative illusion. I claim
that in the Protagoras, appearances are vivid and imagistic mental
representations that appear true and hence invite assent, but that
contained in one’s representation of the future pleasure, whereas Mooradian treats
the anticipatory pleasure as an additional cognitive state that is directed at one’s
representation of the future pleasure but is not identical to it. J. Moss, Aristotle on
the Apparent Good (Oxford, 2012), offers a similar treatment of the role of phantas­
mata in Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation.
80 Storey offers a different account of the source of the error in the Protagoras.
According to Storey, the error of the many is not to falsely measure the relative magnitudes of the pleasures, but to fail to recognize that the later goods against which
they measure the imminent pleasures are also pleasure-­producing (‘Sex, Wealth,
and Courage’, 252–4; see also Nussbaum, Fragility, 115–16, who makes the case
that the many fail to recognize the commensurability of the goods being weighed).
While I do not agree with this aspect of Storey’s analysis (see Section 1, n. 10 above),
his observation concerning the kinds of goods being compared is significant. The
immediate pleasures are things like food, drink, and sex, the later goods things like
wealth and health. One confronted with an opportunity to eat a cake might immediately and vividly represent to himself the pleasure of eating the cake. However, as
Storey notes, it requires instrumental reasoning to conclude that eating the cake will
lead to eventual pain via ill health. The fact that a more complex reasoning process
is involved in representing the later evil as unpleasant may explain why we are less
likely to represent it imagistically and so undergo anticipatory pain.
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Evaluative Illusion in Plato’s Protagoras
79
have a tendency to be false. I conclude by suggesting that prox­im­
ate pleasures have a tendency to produce inflated hedonic predictions because we represent them more vividly than distant ones,
which yields greater anticipatory pleasure which, in turn, causes us
to overestimate their magnitude.
This final proposal is, of course, speculative. My aim is not to
claim that Socrates had this sort of account in mind but, rather, to
demonstrate that he had the resources to develop his account along
these lines. Some will find this explanation unsatisfactory.81 It might
seem dubious that it could fully account for the marshmallow case
with which I opened this paper. Could the children really forecast
less pleasure when the temporal gap is a mere fifteen minutes?
Perhaps, though, that case is complicated by the fact that children
tend to experience time differently from how adults do; thus, while
fifteen minutes might seem a short stretch of time to an adult, it
might seem an eternity to a child.82 This account also forces us to
accept certain phenomena as brute facts, namely that we represent
imminent pleasures more vividly and that this causes us to over­
esti­mate their magnitude.83 But in the end, every ex­plan­ation requires
us to accept certain phenomena as given; the question is whether
these phenomena seem implausible and mysterious or whether we
are comfortable accepting them. Part of what is distinctive about
Socrates’ intellectualism is that he does not treat desire as given; he
81 Parfit argues powerfully against Plato that even if the vividness of our representations of proximate pleasures accounts for some of our present bias, it cannot
fully account for the phenomenon (Reasons and Persons, 161–2).
82 It is generally held that children do not have a solid grasp of time until around
the age of 7 (see e.g. S. Droit-­Volet, ‘Children and Time’, Psychologist, 25 (2012),
586–9). As regards hedonic forecasting (rather than intertemporal choice), I am not
aware of any studies that focus on such short temporal distances. However, it is
noteworthy that in Kassam et al.’s study, 43% of the discounting occurred at a gap
of a mere twenty-­four hours (‘Future Anhedonia’, 1535).
83 One might attempt to explain this fact in a variety of ways. Generally, we have
more detailed and reliable information about proximate, rather than distant pleasures, which would account for a tendency to represent proximate goods in more
vivid detail (see e.g. K. Fujita, Y. Trope, and N. Liberman, ‘On the Psychology of
Near and Far: A Construal Level Theoretic Approach’, in G. Keren and G. Wu
(eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making (Chichester,
2016), 404–31 at 405–6). Furthermore, more detailed representations might be of
more use to us regarding proximate goods than distant ones, given that we are more
likely to have to act soon in relation to proximate than distant goods, and low-­level
construals are more germane to action. It is possible that both of these general facts
produce a tendency to represent proximate goods with greater specificity and detail
than distant ones, even in cases where these facts do not, in fact, obtain.
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80
Suzanne Obdrzalek
views desire as reasons-­responsive, and when someone claims to
desire something, he maintains that it is reasonable to ask why. At
the same time, Socrates does recognize that our cognitive mechanisms
can become distorted. Thus, at the very opening of the d
­ ialogue,
Socrates warns Hippocrates that the danger of going to the sophist
is that one’s very reasoning capacity will be perverted through his
teachings, so much so, that one will become incapable of recognizing the same teachings’ falsity (313 c 7–314 b 4). What recourse is
there? How can we prevent this distortion from occurring? Here,
we might call to mind Socrates’ comment in Republic 10, that
­imitative poetry has the power to ruin one’s intellect unless one
possesses the antidote of knowing what it is (595 b 5–7). Thus, in
the case of the sophist, the solution—­apart from avoiding him
altogether—­is perhaps to be taught to recognize the distortions he
threatens to introduce into our reasoning. Similarly in the case of
pleasure: in highlighting the tendency of proximate pleasures to
appear inflated, Socrates is, perhaps, en­ab­ling us to safeguard ourselves against being deceived.
Claremont McKenna College
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THAT DIFFERENCE IS DIFFERENT
FROM BEING
Sophist 255 c 9–e 2
michael wiitala
1. Introduction
As a survey of the secondary literature on Plato’s Sophist reveals,
the argument by which the Eleatic Stranger distinguishes the kind
being from the kind different (255 c 9–e 2) is one of the most
­controversial in the dialogue.1 Moreover, it is often considered
one of the most important.2 The argument closes the portion of
the dialogue in which the Stranger demonstrates that each of the
five ‘greatest kinds’ (μέγιστα γενή) is distinct from the others
(254 d 4–255 e 2). Having shown that rest, motion, same, and different are distinct from one another and that rest, motion, and same
are distinct from being, the Stranger argues that different is also
distinct from being. The distinction between different and being
is a crucial step in the Stranger’s overall account of non-­being,
according to which non-­being is ‘the contraposing of the nature of a
part of different and the nature of being’ (ἡ τῆς θατέρου μορίου ϕύσεως
I am indebted to Colin Smith, Paul DiRado, and Eric Sanday for their insightful
and detailed written comments on earlier versions of this paper, to David Goldstein
for his help with parsing the syntax of 255 d 4–6, and to Victor Caston for his considerable assistance in distilling the argument and bringing it to print.
1 For a survey of the various ways the argument is interpreted, see P. Crivelli,
Plato’s Account of Falsehood: A Study of the Sophist [Plato’s Account of Falsehood ]
(Cambridge, 2012), 142–9.
2 See M. Frede, Prädikation und Existenzaussage: Platons Gebrauch von ‘ . . . ist . . . ’
und ‘ . . . ist nicht . . . ’ im Sophistes [Prädikation und Existenzaussage] (Göttingen, 1967),
12–29; L. Brown, ‘Being in the Sophist: A Syntactical Enquiry’ [‘Being in the
Sophist’], in G. Fine (ed.), Plato 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology (Oxford, 1999),
455–78 at 474–7; M. Frede, ‘Plato’s Sophist on False Statements’, in R. Kraut
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge, 1992), 397–424 at 400 ff.;
A. Silverman, The Dialectic of Essence: A Study of Plato’s Metaphysics [Dialectic of
Essence] (Princeton, 2002), 164; M. L. Gill, ‘Method and Metaphysics in Plato’s
Sophist and Statesman’, in E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Winter 2016 edn), §§ 5.3–5.4, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/
plato-sophstate/, accessed 14 January 2023; cf. J. Malcolm, ‘A Way Back for Sophist
255 c 12–13’ [‘A Way Back’], Ancient Philosophy, 26 (2006), 275–89.
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86
Michael Wiitala
καὶ τῆς τοῦ ὄντος . . . ἀντίθεσις, 258 a 11–b 1).3 Furthermore, it is in the
argument distinguishing different and being that the Stranger
identifies the features of these forms that make the contraposing of
a part of different and being possible. Beings, we are told, are
themselves according to themselves (αὐτὰ καθ’ αὑτά) or relative to
others (πρὸς ἄλλα, 255 c 13–14),4 whereas anything different is
always relative to something different from it (255 d 1, 255 d 6–7).
Although what these features of being and different amount to is a
matter of considerable controversy, they are fundamental to the
Stranger’s account of being and non-­being.
While commentators have developed many careful in­ter­pret­
ations of the argument distinguishing different from being, deciding between those interpretations is difficult. Due to key ambiguities
in the text, no interpretation can claim to be the only plausible one,
and each comes at a cost. The main disagreement concerns the distinction between beings that are auta kath’ hauta, ‘themselves
according to themselves’, and beings that are pros alla, ‘relative to
others’. Following John Malcolm, I will refer to this distinction with
the acronym KH/PA, for the two Greek phrases used to express it.5
There are four main reasons this distinction has become central to
scholarly disputes. First, as already noted, it plays a crucial role in
the Stranger’s account of being and non-­being. Second, the Stranger
has neither discussed nor put forward anything like the KH/PA
distinction earlier in the dialogue.6 Third, the distinction has no
precise parallel elsewhere in Plato.7 Finally, it seems that the
immediate context in which the Stranger introduces the distinction
offers no clear indication of whether or not it is intended to be
3 All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. There is some debate
on how to construe 258 a 11–b 1; see Crivelli, Plato’s Account of Falsehood, 216;
J. van Eck, ‘Not-Being and Difference: On Plato’s Sophist, 256 d 5–258 e 3’, Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 23 (2002), 68–84 at 77–8.
4 I use the text and line references of E. A. Duke, W. F. Hicken, W. S. M. Nicoll,
D. B. Robinson, and J. C. G. Strachan (eds.), Platonis Opera, vol. i: Euthyphro, Apologia,
Crito, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophista, Politicus (Oxford, 1995). But I correct for
the typographical error at 255 c 13–14, where 255 c 14 is mislabelled as 255 c 15.
5 Malcolm, ‘A Way Back’, 275.
6 Cf. Crivelli, Plato’s Account of Falsehood, 147–8.
7 Commentators have identified a number of passages that seem relevant to the
KH/PA distinction, but there are no precise parallels (see esp. Malcolm, ‘A Way
Back’, 283–4; F. Leigh, ‘Modes of Being at Sophist 255 c–­e’ [‘Modes of Being’],
Phronesis, 57 (2012), 1–28 at 12–15). For some relevant passages, see Plato, Theaet.
152 d, 156 e–157 b, 160 b; Phileb. 51 c; Chrm. 168 b–169 a; Rep. 4, 438 a–­d; Sym.
211 a–­b; Phaedo 78 d; Tim. 51 c.
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That Difference Is Different from Being
87
exhaustive,8 or to what sort of things it is intended to apply. Readers
are left wondering whether it is a metaphysical distinction, a distinction between kinds of terms, a syntactic distinction, a semantic
distinction, a distinction in sentence structure, or some combin­
ation of these.9 Since the immediate context in which the KH/PA
distinction is introduced seems to offer little or no guidance, commentators are forced to resort to controversial in­ter­pret­ive principles
or to what they take to be Plato’s broader concerns in the Sophist in
order to decide what sort of distinction it is.
Although commentators have propounded many ways to interpret the distinction, one question that has not been explored is the
placing of the comma in the counterfactual conditional at 255 d 4–6.
Yet given that the Stranger only explicitly employs the KH/PA
distinction in this conditional, how this conditional is construed is
key to interpreting the distinction correctly. Since the construal of
the conditional at 255 d 4–6 is what is in question here, I will first
present the Greek on its own without the comma, before proceeding
to the alternative translations:
εἴπερ θάτερον ἀμϕοῖν μετεῖχε τοῖν εἰδοῖν ὥσπερ τὸ ὂν ἦν ἄν ποτέ τι καὶ τῶν ἑτέρων
ἕτερον οὐ πρὸς ἕτερον (255 d 4–6).
If the comma is placed after ὥσπερ τὸ ὄν so that the phrase is read
with the protasis, the following translation results:
But if different participated in both forms, as being does, then there would
sometimes also among the differents be something different not relative to
something different.
8 See Malcolm, ‘A Way Back’, 282; cf. Frede, Prädikation und Existenzaussage,
19, 27, 36; Silverman, Dialectic of Essence, 165.
9 For accounts according to which the distinction is syntactic and/or semantic,
although often with metaphysical implications, see A. L. Peck, ‘Plato and the
ΜΕΓΙΣΤΑ ΓΕΝΗ of the Sophist: A Reinterpretation’, The Classical Quarterly, n.s.,
2 (1952), 32–56 at 48; A. L. Lacey, ‘Plato’s Sophist and the Forms’, Classical
Quarterly, n.s., 9 (1959), 43–52 at 49 n. 1; J. M. E. Moravcsik, ‘Being and Meaning
in the Sophist’, Acta Philosophica Fennica, 14 (1962), 23–78; Frede, Prädikation und
Existenzaussage; G. E. L. Owen, ‘Plato on Not-Being’, in G. Vlastos (ed.), Plato:
A Collection of Essays, vol. i: Metaphysics and Epistemology (Garden City, 1971),
223–67 at 255–8; D. Bostock, ‘Plato on “Is-Not” (Sophist 254–9)’, Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy, 2 (1984), 89–119 at 92–4; C. D. C. Reeve, ‘Motion, Rest, and
Dialectic in the Sophist’ [‘Motion, Rest, and Dialectic’], Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie, 67 (1985), 47–64 at 54–5; Brown, ‘Being in the Sophist’; Malcolm,
‘A Way Back’. For accounts according to which the distinction is metaphysical, see
R. S. Bluck, Plato’s Sophist (Manchester, 1975), 145–50; M. M. McCabe, Plato’s
Individuals (Princeton, 1994), 233; D. Ambuel, Image and Paradigm in Plato’s Sophist
(Las Vegas, 2007), 150–1; Silverman, Dialectic of Essence, 164–81; M. L. Gill,
Philosophos: Plato’s Missing Dialogue (Oxford, 2012), 164–6; Leigh, ‘Modes of
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