bolton, r. plato s distinction between being and becoming

7/28/2019 BOLTON, R. Plato s Distinction Between Being and Becoming

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Plato's Distinction between Being and BecomingAuthor(s): Robert BoltonReviewed work(s):Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Sep., 1975), pp. 66-95Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20126737 .

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PLATO'S DISTINCTION BETWEENBEING AND BECOMINGROBERT BOLTON

\XREAT philosophers, like most of us, sometimes change theirminds. When they change their minds on important points of philosophical doctrine the temptation to other philosophers to try and findout why they did is irresistible. It is no wonder then that the twoquestions which have guided inquiry into the doctrines of Plato'slater dialogues in recent times have been concerned with the topicof the development of Plato's thought. The guiding questions to

which I refer are familiar ones. First :What is the fate of the theoryof paradigm forms of the Phaedo and Republic in view of the apparentcriticism of the theory found in the Parmenides? And second :Whatis the fate of the distinction of the Phaedo and Republic betweenbeing (ovala) and becoming (y?vtcris) in view of the apparent criticismof the adequacy of that distinction found in the Theaetetus andSophist? Lately, the first of these two questions has received thegreater share of the attention of philosophers and scholars. I wanthere to redirect attention to the equally important and equally intriguing second question.1

There are three main views of the development of Plato's distinction between being and becoming which have been defended inrecent times. Most scholars have thought that Plato always heldthe same version of the distinction despite appearances to the contrary. But some who have taken this position have thought that

Plato took the realm of being to consist of things which never changein any way, and the realm of becoming to consist of things which are

never stable in any way.2 Others have thought that Plato's account

1Contemporary discussion of this question is based mainly on theseminal papers of G. E. L. Owen ("The Place of the Timaeus in Plato'sDialogues," Classical Quarterly, N.S. Ill, 1953) and H. F. Cherniss ("TheRelation of the Timaeus to Plato's Later Dialogues," American Journal ofPhilology, LXXVIII, 1957). These papers are hereafter referred to bysimple mention of Owen or Cherniss. Pagination is from reprints in R. E.Allen, ed., Studies in Plato1 sMetaphysics (London, 1965).2The position held by Cherniss and by F. M. Cornford, in Plato'sTheory of Knowledge (London, 1935) pp. 98-9.

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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 67of things in the realm of becoming was not so extreme. They have

maintained that the realm of being is made up of things which neverchange in any way, but that the realm of becoming consists of things

which constantly change while they exist in many ways.3 The thirdview belongs to those who have held that Plato did in his middledialogues take the extreme view of becoming and the extreme versionof the distinction which that entails. But later, they claim, he discovered that the distinction was incoherent. He therefore abandonedit, and the metaphysical doctrine of degrees of reality which he hadbased on it, altogether.4One can, however, argue for an alternative to these accounts.I shall show that the distinction between being and becoming issubstantially modified over the course of the dialogues, but that theform of the distinction which results is nonetheless still strong enoughto support the metaphysical doctrine based originally on it. Also,it will be shown that this interpretation is the only one that accountsfor Aristotle's testimony concerning Plato's doctrine.

IThe distinction between being and becoming is common in

Plato's middle dialogues.5 By general agreement, the definitive statement of the distinction occurs near the beginning of the Timaeus

(27d-28a). There a sharp line is drawn between "that which alwaysis and has no becoming" and "that which is always becoming and

never is." The date of the Timaeus is a matter of controversy, butthe parties to the controversy

are all agreed that the distinction madein the Timaeus is the one made in the familiar middle dialogues.6So we might at this point naturally proceed to investigate the Timaeusand the other dialogues where the being-becoming distinction occurs.

However, instead we shall focus attention on those passages whereit has been thought that the distinction is either modified or abandoned. The outstanding unresolved question on our topic is this:

3See E. Weerts, Plato und der Heraklitismus, Philologus, supp. 23,1931, and I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, v. 2 (London,1963), pp. 10,ff.4The view maintained by Owen.5See Phaedo 78d-79a; Symposium 211 ;Republic 479a-b, 479d.6We shall find reason later to doubt whether the distinction made

here is the same as that in the Phaedo and Republic. See below Sec. IX.



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68 ROBERT BOLTONWhat version, if any, of the being-becoming distinction is shown to

be inadequate in those passages where it is under attack? Ifwe can

answer this question we can then determine whether the versions ofthe distinction to be found in various dialogues are in fact superseded.

It will be useful to preface our discussion of this question with apoint about the general character of the distinction. It has oftenbeen noted that in the Timaeus the distinction between the categoriesof being and becoming is complete.7 Nothing can belong to bothcategories. This point is introduced, and with it the notion of acategory, in order to help set the philosophical frame within which

we are working. The distinction between being and becoming is thetrue precursor of Aristotle's theory of categories and not, as has sometimes been claimed, the doctrine of the greatest kinds in the Sophist(254b,ff.). Like Aristotle's categories and unlike the greatest kinds,the class of what truly is and the class of what merely becomes are

most general mutually exclusive classes of what there is.8 So thequestion which faces us here may be put as follows. Did Plato

modify or abandon altogether the particular theory of categorieswhich he at one point held, and if so why?

IIThere are two crucial passages in the later dialogues where

scholars have found an attack on the adequacy of Plato's earlierdistinction.9 The first is the passage in the Theaetetus (181b-183c)where the flux theory of certain extreme Heracliteans is under attack.The second is the passage in the Sophist (248a-249d) where the viewsof the so-called "Friends of the Forms" are under attack. Theformer passage has been taken to reveal that the category of becoming

must include entities which belong to the category of being ; the latterthat the category of being must include entities which belong to thecategory of becoming. Each passage contains an apparent attackon the complete disjunction of the two categories and so on the

7See Owen, p. 322, and references there.8See Parmenides 130b. Compare Xenocrates' insistence (Heinze, fr.12) in defense of Plato that there are only two categories, to kolB' avr? andto irp?s TL. On this see Cherniss, Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy (Baltimore, 1944) (hereafter (A.C.P.A.'), p. 281. Whether Plato didposit only these two categories is a question discussed below Sec. X.9For other passages frequently discussed see below, n. 34.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 69claim that there are two categories. To determine the force of theattacks we must determine what the attacks are.

The Heraclitean flux theory which Plato considers in theTheaetetus is introduced as a version of what is called the secretdoctrine of Protagoras.10 According to this doctrine:

Nothing is one in itself nor can you rightly say that it is somethingor other or that it is of a certain sort. Quite the contrary. If youcan say it is large it will be found also to be small ; if heavy, also light ;and so on through all. For nothing is one or something or of anydefinite sort. All the things which we customarily say are [any ofthese things] are becoming [these things] as a result of the movementand change and blending of [these things]11 one with another.(152d-e)

According to the doctrine here described no statement of theform "x is" or of the form ux is F" can be true. Only statementsof the form ux becomes" or ux is becoming F" can correctly describeany state of affairs.

As this doctrine is elaborated various corollaries of it are introduced which amount to corrections of the initial doctrine. It isargued first (157a-b, 160a-b) that not even statements of the form"x is becoming F" can be true. The required form is rather ux isbecoming F for some person P."12 This form in turn is abandoned(160b) in favor of "x is becoming F for some person P and P is becoming (P-ness percipient) for x." The final summary of the doctrine is contained in Socrates' pronouncement, as the representativeof Protagoras, that "we cannot speak or allow others to speak ofanything as either being or becoming in itself or by itself" (160b-c).13

When Plato comes to consider the doctrine of the extreme Heracliteans, however, he does not refer to any of these versions of the secretdoctrine. He considers instead their thesis that "all things are always in process of change in every respect." (182al, 182c3-4)14So, even though Plato thinks that their theory belongs to the same

10152d,ff. with 179d,f. and 182a,f. at 183c7.11At this point (152d7) it is clear that the expressions which I haveadded are to be supplied.12This elaboration gives some justification for calling the theory adoctrine of Protagoras.13It could be argued that this remark introduces a new theory anddoes not merely summarize the previous position. On this see the next note.14The statement just quoted from 160b-c is only equivalent to thisformula if it goes beyond anything said earlier, as we shall see.



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70 ROBERT BOLTONfamily as those others, we must be careful not to run together thevarious members of this family in examining Plato's specific attackon the Heracliteans.15

IllThe chief argument against the Heraclitean theory goes in the

text like this: Suppose that we agree to the contention of the "menof flux" that all things are always changing in every respect. Suppose,too, that we agree that there are just two kinds of change?changeof position and change of quality. Then, if a thing in flux "onlymoved in place without changing in quality we would be able to say

what qualities it was flowing as itmoved." But, for the Heracliteans,There is nothing fixed here either. That the flowing thing flowswhite, for example, changes ;16so there is also flow of this, the whiteness [i.e. the white flow7], and change of it in the direction of anothercolor [flow], in order that itmight not remain in this respect captured.Given this, can we ever attribute to the flowing thing any color [flow]and rightly describe it? ... Or can we correctly attribute to it anyother thing of this sort if the flowing thing is always slipping awaywhile we are speaking? (182dl-7)

The answer is that we cannot. And this reduces to absurditythe position of the men of flux.

This argument is cryptic and compressed. Let us try to distinguish its strands by asking what it is that is shown to be absurdby the argument. The usual view of scholars has been that theabsurd thesis is this :There can be an object which keeps no ordinarydeterminate characteristics over time but keeps only the becomingcounterparts of such characteristics. These writers usually take itthat Plato wants to reject this view on the ground that we could noteven say what color, for example, something is becoming unless wecould say what color it is. Nothing could be coming to have somedeterminate shade of color over time unless over substretches of andat the end of that time it has some determinate shade of color. If

15It is clear from 182a,f. that the theory attributed at 179d,f. tocertain Heracliteans is taken to be a version of the one which has been underconsideration all along. It is not in fact clear that the theories describedat 152d,ff. and at 160b-c are equivalent to the extreme theory summarizedat 182a. But they are not equivalent to each other either. Plato is considering together a group of theories which he takes to form a family. But152e,f. shows that the family contains a number of diverse theories.16What changes is to XevKovpetv to peov(182dl).



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 71we can only correctly ascribe to something a progression of color, ora progression of size, shape, etc., but never a precise shade, or precisesize, shape, etc., then we cannot ever correctly say that it has any characteristics. And hence, the object must be literally indescribable.17

This interpretation of the passage has a certain appeal. But ifthis were Plato's argument his reasoning would be fallacious. Platoagrees that there is no absurdity in supposing that some object iscontinuously changing its place. Equally, no absurdity arises fromsupposing that an object is continuously changing its color. Noobject need remain over any time period, no matter how small,exactly the same shade of color. We may suppose, indeed, that ourordinary color words in fact do not denote things with determinateshades of color but things undergoing continuous color progressions

within a certain range. This is something which we might discover.Perhaps we already have. There is no absurdity here and it wouldrequire a good deal of argument to show that Plato thought thatthere was.18 Still, defenders of the received interpretation will replythat what Plato wants to argue is that nothing

can be continuouslychanging with respect to all its ordinary characteristics. Continuouschange of place and color can only characterize something whichremains over the period of the change something determinate, forexample a brick. Plato, they will say, is arguing that processes canonly characterize things not in process in some determinate respect.

But this too is incorrect. There is no reason why a thing cannot becontinuously changing its brick type over time so that it never re

mains over time the same determinate type of brick. It might neverretain the physical structure required for belonging to such a determi

17See I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, v. 2 (London, 1963), p. 11. Crombie takes Plato to be arguing against the claim that"sensible properties not only result from but are subject to continuouschange." John McDowell, in Plato's Theaetetus (Oxford, 1973), followsCrombie on this general point (p. 181). McDowell holds explicitly, however, that the range of things whose qualities change is restricted in theargument to qualities. In my reconstruction I have followed Socrates leadand left the range of to pkov (182dl) open (see 182c 3-4,ff.).18McDowell argues (ibid.) that Plato thinks that a (hypostatized)color flow or efflux can not be supposed to be always changing its colorquality, i.e. always becoming a color flow of a different type, without failingto be all along a definite type of color flow. But this means that nothingcan both be changing its color and changing its pattern of color change.And this too is wrong. See n. 22 below.



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72 ROBERT BOLTONnate type over any time period. And this point can be generalized.A thing need not have any most determinate or specific characteristicover time. All of our ordinary predicates which do remain true ofobjects over time can be interpreted to stand for determinable orgeneric characteristics. And it could be that no physical object retains the same most determinate or specific form of any of thesecharacteristics over time. This is perfectly coherent and perhapseven true. But, assuming that it is true, it does lead to anotherquestion.

Even if something need not remain any most determinate shadeof color or type of brick over time, must it not retain certain moregeneral characteristics over time? For example, if it is continuouslychanging color must there not at least be some pattern of color changeover time which it retains? And if it is continuously changing itsbrick type over time must it not remain a brick of some type orother? Here the answer is yes. Similarly, the thing will have toremain the same object over time. But to admit this is not to admitthat the thing need retain any most determinate or specific characteristics over time, so we cannot save the received interpretation of

Plato's argument in this way. Moreover, to admit this is not toadmit that the thing has what we may call non-becoming characteristics. To say that an object follows a certain pattern of continuous color change is just to say that it is changing in a certain way.So if it is this alone which gives an object the determinable characteristic of being some color or other over time, then that characteristic

may rightly be called a process or a becoming. And for somethingto be some color or other over time will not be for it to retain anyspecific or determinate physical characteristic over time, though it

may have such characteristics at a moment. Predicates such as"being some color or other over time" or "being of some brick typeor other over time" or even "being the same object over time" couldbe taken to stand for types or patterns of continuous change. Allsuch predicates could be interpreted, consistently, in this way. Thisis not to claim that this is the only or even the best way to interpretsuch predicates, but only that the position is consistent and intelligible. If this is true, however, then on the received interpretation

Plato's argument does not hold water. An entity which exists overtime must retain some characteristics if it is to be identifiable and tohave characteristics predicable of it. But these characteristics may



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 73all be patterns of continuous change. An object which has only suchcharacteristics, moreover, need not be just a bundle of processes.

The theory does not rule out a distinction between sortal and nonsortal characteristics or between identity-conferring characteristicsand others. All that is required is that all of the characteristics ofthe object which persist be patterns of continuous change. Whetherthere is any such object as this is not our concern. But the supposition that there is, is neither incoherent nor absurd. So if this were thesupposition which Plato is calling absurd in the Theaetetus he wouldbe wrong.19 Fortunately, however, this is not the view which Platois attacking.

To help us get at the true object of Plato's attack let us consideran object which has only becoming characteristics. Let us supposethat the object is, among other things, becoming white. Someone

might want to claim that such an object is not in extreme Heracliteanflux on the ground that the object at least remains for a while something which is becoming white. And hence it cannot be changingin every respect. On the version of the flux doctrine we have beenconsidering, this objection misfires. On that version all becoming

predicates are legitimate. It can be strictly true of something thatit is becoming something or other. On the view which Plato isactually attacking, however, the objection hits home. On that vieweach thing is in change in absolutely every respect. It is no morestable with respect to its (apparent) flow or becoming characteristicsthan it iswith respect to its apparent non-flow or being characteristics.

On this view we cannot even say that something isflowing white overtime. We might try to characterize it as undergoing a white flow20

which is itself in flux toward some other type of color flow. But, ofcourse, not even this will do. This is itself a form of stability andno stability is allowed. To put the argument explicitly: For theHeracliteans every characteristic is a flow and a flow by definitionmust last for a time. So for an object to have a characteristic at all

it must retain that characteristic, that flow, over time. But no ob

19Plato is arguing against the view that all objects are in total flux.But he does this, in part, by arguing that not any object can be in flux.20Just what this is we need not say in detail. It is that continuouscolor progression which things which we would call white are undergoingaccording to the Heraclitean theory.



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74 ROBERT BOLTONject, on pain of becoming stable in some way, can retain any characteristic over time. So, on the Heraclitean view, no object can haveany characteristic at all. And this view is absurd. There cannotbe any object which cannot have any characteristic.21

This is the argument of the passage we are considering. Thoughthe passage is highly compressed, the main move in it is clear. Thereis a shift in attention away from the original thing which changes(to piov) to its process of change or flow. In the example employedin the argument, this is a white flow (to Xevnov pe?v). Plato arguesthat on the theory that all things are changing in every way even"that the flowing thing flows white" (to Xevnov pe?v to p?ov, 182dl)cannot persist. So instead of a persistent white flow there can onlybe a flow of the hypothesized white flow into another color flow(d2-3). So we cannot attribute even a simple color flow to the object. Generalizing the point, there is no flow characteristic whichan object can have if it is always changing in every way, not even theflow of a flow ... of a white flow (d4-7). Any flow lasts for a timeand for the Heracliteans nothing lasts unchanged for any time.22Our interpretation of this argument is quite different from thereceived interpretation. The crucial point of difference is this. Onthe received interpretation Plato argues that the flowing thing mustchange continuously only with respect to whether it is white, but not

with respect to whether it is flowing white. From this the absurditysupposedly results. But this is not in the text. What changes,according to the text, is not that the flowing thing is white. Forthat the Greek should read to XevK?v ehai to p?ov. What changesis that it flows white (pe?v,dl). We do have to take it that when

Plato identifies the characteristic which must change as whiteness(XevK?TTjs,d3) he must be using the expression "whiteness" to refer

21Even ifwe suppose that the object in flux is flowing toward a stableform, that will not improve matters. For strictly, the object cannot bestably flowing toward anything no matter how stable that latter thing is.So to bring in the forms in this way, as Cherniss does (p. 356,f.), will notsalvage the intelligibility of the flux.22There is no incompatability between being or undergoing a flow andbeing or undergoing a flow of a flow, just as there is no incompatibility between undergoing a change of place and a change of direction or rate ofchange of place. But Plato's argument does not require such an incompatibility. It turns on the Heraclitean doctrine that an object cannot bestable in any way, and so cannot strictly be undergoing any of these changes.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 75to a white flow. And it will be asked how he can be using "whiteness" to refer to a white flow? The answer is that in the passageimmediately preceeding the one we are considering it is so used(182a3,f ; cf. 156c-157c). In that passage the expression is used in

the way the Heracliteans use it, and for them whiteness is a processor flow. The presumption is then that the expression is so used at182d3. The discussion there is premissed on a certain view as to

what a quality (tol?ttjs, 182a8) is, the view accepted by the Heracliteans. So Plato is trying to defeat the Heracliteans on their ownground. He does not challenge the contention that something canbe continuously changing color, or color and place. He admits thatif an entity "only moved in place without changing quality we wouldbe able to say what qualities it was flowing as it moved" (182c9-10).To not change quality here is to be stably flowing in a certain fashion.What Plato challenges is the contention that something can fail to

retain any of its qualities given this view of qualities as flows. Sothere is nothing in this argument which affects the moderate versionof Heracliteanism which we considered earlier. It is only the extremedoctrine that is defeated. To summarize the difference betweenthose doctrines: On the moderate view an object may retain overtime only flow or becoming characteristics, on the extreme view anobject may retain over time no characteristics.

It is a question of interest whether Plato could also defeat theHeracliteans if they gave up the view that a quality is a flow andallowed that a thing could have a quality at a moment only. Theanswer is that he could. Given the Heraclitean doctrine that nothingcan retain any characteristic over time, nothing can retain even thecharacteristic of having had a quality at a moment. So nothingcould even have had a quality at a moment, unless it only existedfor a moment. And this alternative is not open to a Heracliteansince everything that exists must be in change and nothing whichexists for only a moment could be in change.23 This indicates that

23This needs a qualification for which I thank Myles Burnyeat.Earlier in the Theaetetus (159a-160c, 166b-c) a theory said to coincide witha flux theory (160d) is developed in which there are only momentary existents ;and Plato may well mean to be attacking a version of the flux theorywhich includes this doctrine as well as others. (The version can even bederived from the doctrine of 182al ; if nothing can be the same in any wayover time it cannot even remain self-identical over time, so it can exist only



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76 ROBERT BOLTONPlato's argument can be adapted to defeat any version of the extremedoctrine that everything is always changing in every way.

IVThe issue which now confronts us is this :Does the argument in

the Theaetetus tell against any doctrines to be found in earlier dialogues? In particular, does it show that there can be no entitiesin the category of becoming as Plato understood that category inearlier dialogues? In the light of our discussion of the argument,

we can rephrase the question as follows :Did Plato ever believe theabsurd view demolished in the Theaetetus that no predicate is strictlyapplicable over time to objects in the category of becoming? Ordid he simply believe the weaker thesis that only flow predicates arestrictly applicable to such objects over time? The answer is that inthe Phaedo and in the Republic Plato commits himself to the strongthesis.

A number of writers have argued that the extreme flux doctrinewhich is shown to be inadequate in the Theaetetus is to be found inearlier dialogues. But they have either supposed that the positionattacked there is the weaker thesis or have failed to adequatelydistinguish that thesis from the more extreme one. But, what followswill show that in the Phaedo and in the Republic Plato is committedexplicitly to the extreme doctrine.

VThe view that Plato held the extreme doctrine well into his

career has the strong support of Aristotle behind it. He says inMetaphysics, I, that Plato "first became familiar in his youth withCratylus and with the Heraclitean doctrines that all sensible thingsare in flux and that there can be no knowledge of them; and evenlater he held these views" (987a32,f). The flux doctrine referred

for a moment.) But even these momentary existents must be p?ovTa, freein no way from


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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 77to by Aristotle is of the extreme variety. This is clear from hisaccount of the doctrines of Cratylus and the so-called Heracliteans(1010a7,f).24 Aristotle does not tell us how long Plato retained the

doctrine. But he says that he held it even after his youth. InMetaphysics, IV, 5, Aristotle employs Plato's arguments from the

Theaetetus against the extreme Heracliteans but not against Platohimself. This indicates that Aristotle took it that by the time ofthe Theaetetus Plato no longer believed the doctrine. Aristotle'sview that Plato did for a time hold the extreme flux theory has not

met recently with much approval.25 But there is confirmation ofAristotle's testimony in the dialogues.Let us consider first the Republic. At the end of Book V Platodraws a distinction between two types of entities?what "purely is"and what "at the same time both is and is not" (478d5-7). Theentities of the latter type make up the realm of becoming.26 And

24Some will argue that Aristotle's remark at 987a32,f. suggests butdoes not require that the doctrines imbibed by Plato from the so-calledHeracliteans were of the extreme sort held by Cratylus. But the Heracliteans who held the flux doctrine referred to in 987a concluded from it thatknowledge of sensible objects is impossible. And there is only one groupof Heracliteans that Aristotle (or anyone else) ever claims did draw anysuch conclusion from their flux doctrine. That is the group whose viewsare discussed inMetaphysics IV, 5 (1010al,ff.). They alone explicitly heldthat "nothing can truly be affirmed" of sensible things. And their fluxdoctrine is the extreme one that the world of nature is "everywhere in everyrespect changing"?the view held by Cratylus. It is practically certainthen that the natural implication of Metaphysics I, 6, that Aristotle believedthat Plato in his youth adopted the flux doctrine of Cratylus, is correct.25Cherniss is an exception here (see A.C.P.A., p. 214,ff.). He doesnot distinguish the extreme view from what I have called the moderateview, however. Cherniss contends, moreover, that Plato never gave upthe extreme view and that the view is intelligible. (See note 21 above).26Plato does not speak of the objects of opinion at 477,ff. as r?yiyv?peva. But that he includes them in this class is clear from 485a-band 508d. I am supposing that the class of objects of 5??a, in view at477,ff., includes particular sensible objects. This is guaranteed by the assertion at 507b-c that r? 7roXX? /caA?, etc., are visible objects (opcupeva)whichwe may be aware of by sight, together with 509e-510a where the class ofvisibles is described; and by 476c-d where the many beautiful things areidentified with the participants (r? /xer?xo?>ra) in beauty. These certainlyinclude sensible particulars (Parmenides 128e,f.). The characterization ofthese objects as r? ToXX? vb?nxa (479d) does not rule this out. The vb^i?xahere are not people's actual conceptions or conventions, i.e., certain psychological or sociological entities, but rather the objects which are conformableto those conceptions or conventions. (See Liddell and Scott, w/u/xos, I, andF. Ast, Lexicon Platonicum v. 2 (Leipsig, 1835) pp. 388-9, passim, for this

use.)



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78 ROBERT BOLTONPlato says of them that "they no more are whatever anyone mayaffirm them to be than not" (479b9-10). Plato does not mean bythis that these objects have contradictory predicates true of them.The claim is weaker than that. They may be beautiful in a way

(7T0JS, 79bl) but if so they will also be ugly in a way. But, strictly,they cannot even be both beautiful in a way and ugly in a way.

Whatever they may be said to be they are only in a way, and in a waynot (c3-5). Nothing one can say of them is ever sufficiently qualifiedto be strictly true. In this respect the doctrine of the Republiccoincides with the doctrine of the extreme Heracliteans. Both doctrines imply that nothing one may say of sensible objects is eversufficiently qualified so that it is strictly true. And in the Theaetetusthis is the consequence on which the demolition of the extreme fluxtheory turns. So the argument in the Theaetetus does apply to thedoctrine of the Republic.

The interpretation of the Republic which has been offered heregoes counter to various prevailing interpretations of that work.

According to one of the most widely accepted of these interpretationsall that Plato means to claim in Republic V is that beautiful sensibleobjects, for example, are not unqualifiedly beautiful. They are notbeautiful in a way that precludes their being ugly in certain respectsor precludes their becoming ugly over time. They can be correctlydescribed as things which are beautiful in such and such a way, forsuch a time, and so on. Provided one adds the appropriate qualifications one can apply certain predicates unqualifiedly to sensibleobjects.

This interpretation allows too much, however, to fit either Plato'swords or Plato's doctrine. For on this interpretation there is noreason why we cannot have knowledge of truths about sensibleobjects?even eternal truths provided we add all the appropriatetemporal and other qualifications. But it is Plato's explicit aim toshow in this passage that one cannot have any knowledge of sensibleobjects. The only reason which he gives for this contention, moreover, is that these objects no more are than are not whatever one maysay they are (479b). And this reason suffices only if we take itliterally. If sensible physical objects are unqualifiedly some of thethings we can say they are then this passage does nothing to show

why these objects cannot be known. Plato's argument is coherentonly if his position is that physical objects cannot be unqualifiedlyanything at all.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 79Some will try to meet this argument here by insisting that Plato

is using the term "knowledge" in this passage in a special technicalsense?the sense of "a priori knowledge of necessary truth," or something of the sort. And they will say that in this sense it is perfectlyacceptable to claim that there can be no knowledge of truths aboutsensible objects, without resort to the doctrine that sensible objectsare indeterminate. But the argument of our passage proves much

more than it need prove on this view. The contention that sensibleobjects no more are than are not whatever one may say they are entailsa much stronger conclusion than that there are no necessary truthsknowable a priori about sensible objects. And this is a point whichPlato could hardly have missed seeing.

Others will try to avoid this conclusion by arguing that Platoonly introduces in Republic V (479a-b) a restricted range of predicates. This shows, they will say, that he only means to claim thatpredicates like those in this restricted range are inapplicable to entitiesin the category of becoming. But this is contrary to Plato's explicitassertion. He does mention only a restricted range of predicates.But then he generalizes his point and includes in his range of interestwhatever anyone might say something is (479bl0). There is noevidence that Plato wanted to restrict what one can say ((pavai)something is to what can be said by employment of a certain restricted class of unqualified predicate expressions. His own practicebelies this (see, e.g., Republic 474c, 475b, among many others).Plato's move in the Republic is exactly parallel to that at Theaetetus152d-e. There too the examples of predicates which cannot bestrictly applied to anything on the extreme Heraclitean view comefrom a restricted range. They are all relatives, just as in the Republic.

But there the point is, unquestionably, generalized to cover all predicates. Later in the Republic at 523al0,ff. Plato does describe a classof characteristics which "invite the mind to reflect" when the sensesreport to us that objects have them. They invite reflection becausethe perception of them no more manifests any one of them thanits opposite (523c). As examples Plato gives thick and thin, blackand white. These characteristics are distinguished from otherswhose possession is judged "as adequate (Uav?s) by sensation"(523bl). As an example Plato gives the characteristic of being a

finger. Some have wanted to argue that this passage shows thatPlato regarded the latter characteristics as attributable withoutqualification to sensible objects. But Plato does not say this or



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80 ROBERT BOLTONanything that implies it. He is not distinguishing between characteristics which apply unqualifiedly to objects and those which do not.

He is only distinguishing those characteristics which we naturallytake perceptually to belong unqualifiedly to objects from those whichwe do not (523b, 524d). We know from Republic 477a-b thatunless a characteristic belongs to the objects which have it only in aqualified way those objects do not fall as such into the realm of opinion. And we know that many entities which have characteristics ofthe type which are judged as "adequate by sensation" do belong tothe realm of opinion as such (596a-597b, with 509d-511a). Amongthese entities are tables and beds (596a-b) and horses and trees(510a). So the claim that characteristics like being a finger and

being a table belong unqualifiedly to sensible objects is not onlyabsent from 523a,ff., it is inconsistent with the doctrines of theRepublic overall.

So the very feature of the Heraclitean doctrine on which itsrefutation in the Theaetetus turns?that sensible objects are notunqualifiedly anything

at all?is an ineliminable feature of Plato'sview of sensible objects in the Republic.27 Given this coincidence in

27This interpretation of Plato's position in the Republic is supportedby the fact that according to that dialogue one cannot even have trueopinion about sensible objects. True opinion is not ever mentioned in thediscussion of opinion in Book V and the reason for the omission is later madeclear. At 585b,ff. Plato claims that true opinion and knowledge are morereal than certain other things because they "attach to what is ever likeitself" rather than to what is "never the same" (cl-5). As the contextmakes clear, what Plato is claiming is that true opinion has the same typeof object as knowledge and that it cannot have the same type of object asmere opinion as that state is described in Republic V. The claim that trueopinion is something which attaches to what is ever the same (to tov ?el ??jlo?ovex?fievov, 585c 1-2) might mean taken alone only that true opinion is closelyrelated to such entities. But it does not mean that here. Plato uses other

words to say that (a?r? tolovtov, c2-3). The contrast in this passage is onebetween states like hunger and thirst which have for their objects and arefilled by less real things, and states like knowledge and true opinion whichhave for their objects and are filled by more real things (585b 9-10 withd 7-9). This shows that the supposed conflict between the Meno, whereitems of true opinion may be converted into items of knowledge (97e-98a),and the Republic, where items of opinion may not be so converted (sinceopinion and knowledge cannot have the same objects, 477c-478b), is not agenuine one. True opinion does have the same objects as knowledge. Itis a different form of apprehension of those objects than knowledge. Soeven in the Republic an item of true opinion may be an item of knowledge?as witness the fact that the rulers and the soldiers can have knowledge andtrue opinion, respectively, about the same things (429a,ff.).



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 81doctrine, we should ask to what the coincidence is due. In theTheaetetus the doctrine of the indeterminacy of sensibles is a consequence of the thesis that sensibles are never free from flux in anyrespect at all. But is the same doctrine in the Republic due to Plato'sadoption of some extreme flux doctrine there or not? In an important respect, whether or not Plato held the doctrine of the indeterminacy of sensibles in the Republic as a result of his attachmentto some extreme flux doctrine is irrelevant. That he held such aview at all, for whatever reason, shows that his position in theRepublic is rejected in the Theaetetus. For that view is rejectedquite generally there. Still, it is a matter of interest to determinewhether Plato is attacking in the Theaetetus not only his earlier viewbut also what Aristotle took to be the theory that led him to thatview. The evidence supports best the contention that in theTheaetetus Plato is doing both.To begin with, the objects of opinion introduced in Republic Vare characterized in Book VI as "what becomes and passes away"(508d7, cf. 485al0-b3). Moreover, the epistemic status of theseobjects is determined by the fact that they are becoming and passing

away. It is "when the soul turns its attention to . . . what becomesand passes away" that "it opines" (508d6-8). These aspects ofPlato's doctrine are not so prominent in Book V, 477a,ff. There thetype of "sharing in opposites" which fixes the epistemic status of theobjects of opinion is not restricted to the sort which results from flux.But it is enough that it is left open in Book V that one of the formsof sharing in opposites which characterizes the objects of opinion isthe sort due to flux.28 For the passages referred to above in Book VIshow that this form of sharing in opposites does characterize theobjects of opinion and is for Plato sufficient to give them their specialepistemic status. And we know from 479b9-10 that anything sufficient to give them their epistemic status must guarantee their inde

28The use of the future tense at 479a7 ((pavrjaerai) and of ttXclvtitov atd9 (with 485b2-3) naturally imply that this sort is involved. The a/xa of478d5 does not rule this sort out since Plato thinks along with many of hispredecessors and Aristotle that change involves sharing in successive opposites partly as a result of sharing during change in compresent opposites.See Timaeus, 56c-58c. (cf. Theaetetus 152d7-8, in context; and Metaphysics,1009a22,f. 1010al,f.). So these two ways of sharing in opposites are notindependent.



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82 ROBERT BOLTONterminacy. So we can conclude that the fact that these objects"become and pass away" is a sufficient guarantee for Plato of theirindeterminacy. And this indicates that the flux to which the objectsof opinion are subject is of the extreme variety. Only the most extreme flux doctrine can plausibly have been supposed by Plato to support the doctrine of indeterminacy in its full generality. So the factthat Plato held the doctrine of indeterminacy to be the consequence ofsome flux doctrine gives us very good reason to believe that headopted it because he accepted an extreme flux doctrine.

The interpretation of the Republic offered here is further confirmed by the presence of the same doctrines in the Phaedo. Therethe being-becoming distinction is introduced by means of the contrastbetween those things which are "always constant and unchanging"and those which are "different at different times and never constant"(78c). To put the contrast in this way does not by itself commit

Plato to the extreme flux doctrine. To say that something is neverconstant (?i-qbeiroTe Kara ravr?) is simply to say that over any timeperiod, no matter how small, it will have changed in some respect.But subsequently Plato goes much further than this and says thatthese entities are "exactly opposite" (w?v rovvavHov, e2-3) to thosethings which never change in any way (d6-7). They are "so to speak,never constant with respect to those other things or to themselvesin any way" (e3-4). They are not only never unchanging (firjoewoTeKara ravr?) they are never in any way unchanging (ov??wore ov?ap, sKara ravr?). And this is the extreme thesis. Plato does qualify theclaim that these objects are never unchanging in any way by additionof the phrase "so to speak" (cos eiros eiireiv). And this phrase, likeits companion cos e?we?v, often has the restrictive force of "generallyspeaking" in Plato. But these phrases, like "so to speak," may alsobe used in ways that do not put such a qualification on what is said.The phrase may be used as a stylistic filler included for emphasisand best translated by a phrase such as "in fact."29 That Plato hereis using the phrase in this way is required by the context. He hasjust said of the objects in question that they are "exactly opposite"(wav rovvavriov) to those things which "never in any way admit of

any change." This is said without any qualification and on the

29 See, with some caution, F. Ast, op. cit., V. 1, pp. 631-2.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 83natural reading it implies that the objects in question are never unchanging in any way.

This interpretation is supported by the fact that in the Phaedoas in the Republic the epistemic status which sensible particulars haveis due to their flux. In the Phaedo the faculty which we employ inapprehending these objects is sensation (a?adrjais, 79a,c). The stateof sensation is characterized there as one in which the mind "wandersand is stirred up and dizzy, as if it were drunk, because it is in contactwith objects which wander and are stirred up and dizzy" (79c). Itis clear then, here again, that the mutability of physical objects isresponsible for their epistemic status. Given their epistemic status,any judgement about them which the mind makes will be confused.

At least part of what is meant by this is revealed at 65a-b where itis asserted that no apprehension of anything in sensation is eitherclear (aacpes) or accurate (anpi?es). Since we can only apprehend becoming by sensation, every apprehension of becoming must be confused and inaccurate. What sort of flux must sensibles be in toyield this result? Only if they are in extreme flux will it follow thatno representation of them can be correct.

It will be argued that Plato only means in the Phaedo to claimthat any understanding of sensibles by use of sensation alone isincomplete. With appropriate supplementation from other modesof understanding the confusion and inaccuracy will disappear. Theobjects themselves are not inherently incapable of being correctlydescribed. But there is no suggestion in the text that any mode ofapprehension other than sensation is applicable to becoming or thatconfusion in the apprehension of becoming is eliminable. The elimination of confusion and inaccuracy requires not a supplementationof sensory contact with becoming but the ignoring of becoming altogether (83a-c).

This objection raises another matter which we should also consider. Could Plato have believed that sensible objects are in no waydeterminate or stable and, hence, in no way accurately describable?

Doesn't he claim in the Phaedo that equal objectsare at least de

ficiently equal (74d-e)? Doesn't he also claim that such objects arereminiscent of the form of equality (75a-b) ? And does this not require a certain stability? If so, how could Plato have failed to realizeit? The answer to these questions is that, given what he clearlysays, we must conclude that Plato's position was incoherent on this



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84 ROBERT BOLTONpoint in just the same way as that of the Heracliteans whom heattacked, and that like them he failed to realize it. He claimed thatwe possess a certain faculty, sensation, by use of which we can apprehend and make judgements about physical objects. These judge

ments are sometimes adequate (Inav s) but never strictly accurate(Republic 523b-525d). Plato may give a somewhat higher epistemicstatus to physical objects in the Republic than he does in the Phaedo.

There they are objects of opinion (?o?a) and not merely of sensation(a'?adrjo-?s). But his view still conforms to the strictures of the extreme

Heraclitean doctrine. It is perhaps a curious fact that Plato did notperceive from the beginning the incoherence of his position. But heis in good company. From Parmenides to Kant to Wittgensteinphilosophers have been unable to maintain silence about that whichthey took to be literally ineffable.

VIThe clinching evidence that Plato did mean literally what he

says in the Phaedo and the Republic about physical objects is that indialogues which are undisputedly after the Theaetetus he no longertalks in the way he did before. If the language of the Phaedo and

Republic were as innocuous as some would like us to believe thenthere would have been no reason for Plato to modify his descriptionof becoming and his characterization of its epistemic status in justthe way required to avoid the criticisms in the Theaetetus. But thisis what he does. The claim that Plato modifies his view after theTheaetetus has been made before. But there has been no precisionon just what view it is that is avoided in later dialogues. This has

made it difficult to answer the most recent and cogent version of theretort that the view of becoming of the Phaedo and Republic doesappear after the Theaetetus. It has been argued that the "incessantbecoming of all phenomena is described in the same terms used of itin . . . the Phaedo" in the Philebus (59a-b) where, "it is emphatically asserted that all yiyvofxeva are in perpetual change in everyrespect."*0 The fact is, however, that the language of the Phaedois not the same as that of the Philebus. In the Philebus Plato distinguishes "that which always is" from that which is "coming into

30Cherniss, pp. 350, 356.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 85being, or will come, or has come." He then says two things aboutentities in the latter category. He says that none of them "are atthis present or ever were or ever will be free from change," and thatthey "do not possess permanence in any respect whatever." Thefirst requires that none of these entities is free from change over anytime period during which it exists. And the second requires thatnone of these entities has any characteristic in respect of which itdoes not at some time change. The second does not require thatnone of these entities can keep any characteristic over any time.There is a difference between not keeping any characteristic permanently and not keeping any characteristic over any time. In thePhaedo Plato says of things which become that they are "never inany way free from change." In the Philebus he says only that theyare never changeless in toto and in no way changeless in aeternum?1Plato does suggest in the Philebus that things which become shouldnot strictly be said to be anything.32 But that is compatible withthe respectable view of becoming, the view that becomings can onlyhave predicates which signify types of becoming true of them. Itdoes not require the more extreme view of the Phaedo. So it is onlythe more respectable view which we have grounds for attributing toPlato in the Philebus.

It cannot be argued in response to this that Plato is just notputting what he means to say in quite the right way in the Philebus.For in saying that changing things "do not possess permanence inany respect whatever" Plato is trying to explain why we cannot "geta permanent grasp on" these entities (59b). And it is sufficient toestablish this that there is no respect in which these objects do notat some time change. So that is all we should expect Plato to betrying to show. And Plato does not claim in the Philebus as he doesin the Phaedo and in the Republic that there is no sort of knowledge

which can be had of these objects?no grasp which the mind can get

31At Philebus 59b 1-5 m?' tjvtlvovvmodifies ?e?cuor^ra.32At 53d-55a Plato characterizes a becoming (ykve


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86 ROBERT BOLTONon them.33 He only claims that the mind can get no permanentgrasp on them. So that is all he can be trying to show. The

Phaedo says that no judgement about sensibles is ever clear (acup?s)or accurate (anpi?es). The Philebus says that no such judgement is"clear in most strictly accurate truth" (caches . . . rfj aKpi?earaTr)?Xrjdeia, 59all,f; cf. b7-8). And between these two there is a largedifference. The latter allows clarity, accuracy and knowledge of aqualified sort. The former does not allow clarity or accuracy of anysort.

So Plato's way of describing becoming in the Philebus is importantly different from the way in which he describes it in the Phaedoand in the Republic. The view that there are entities which haveonly becoming predicates strictly true of them is not rejected in the

Philebus. There is nothing there which rules out this doctrine andthere is evidence that this is the view in the Philebus. What iscarefully avoided is the claim that there are entities which never haveany predicates strictly true of them. This change from the doctrineof the Phaedo and the Republic makes room for the new claim thatone can have not only accurate and true opinion about constantlychanging sensibles but a kind of systematic knowledge as well. Thischange is to be expected from someone who has dropped a Cratyleanview of the physical world in favor of a more moderate flux doctrine.But the change cannot be adequately accounted for on the hypothesisthat Plato's view of the physical world was originally or consistently non-Cratylean, or on the hypothesis that it was consistently

Cratylean.VII

There is a host of other passages in undisputedly late dialogueswhere it has been argued that Plato does or does not show that hehad abandoned his original view of the nature of becoming.34 But

33This shows that the ?e?aiOTrjs of 59b4 is permanence and not merelystability. It is the lack of any permanence that rules out the highestknowledge (b7-8; 58a2-5) but not a lesser knowledge (61d, 10,ff.) of becoming. The lack of any stability would rule out all knowledge, as in the

Republic.34Often mentioned are Parmenides 152b-d, 156a-b; Sophist 219b,240a-d; Statesman 238e, 269d, 283d; Philebus 23c, 26d-27c, 53c-55a; Laws894a. The Timaeus and Sophist 248a-249d will be given special treatmentbelow.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 87many of these passages have little bearing on the issue. In many of

them Plato speaks of a process of "becoming which results in being"or of that kind of "being which has come to be" or of something"coming into being from not being" or of things which become asamong "the entities which there are."35 It has been argued thatthese passages show that Plato no longer regards being and becomingas incompatible. But these passages do not show this. Even inplaces where Plato admittedly introduces a complete disjunction between being and becoming he gives warning that he will slip intospeaking of things which become as being in some fashion or other(Timaeus 37c-38b).36 More importantly, it is only to be expectedthat those who accept a separate category of becoming will want todistinguish the coming into existence or being of a becoming from itschange in other respects. In order to show that there is a change inPlato's view of becoming it must be shown that Plato gives evidencethat he has abandoned one or the other or both views of the natureof becoming which we have found reason to believe he held at different times. In most of these passages the evidence is inadequate forany firm conclusion. Some of them, such as Philebus 26d-27b andLaws 894a, do indicate that Plato had dropped the view that thecategory of becoming contains objects of which no predicate expression is strictly true.37 And in none of them is the language of the

Phaedo and the Republic repeated. Plato does consistently avoidthis language after the Theaetetus. But none of the passages showsthat Plato rejected the view that the class of becomings containsentities which have only becoming characteristics.38

35Plato also speaks of becoming as participating in being (e.g., atParmenides 163d). But on any view which Plato has been thought to holdthings which become participate in being.36Cf. Theaetetus 157a-b and Owen, p. 322.37These passages do not show, as Cherniss argues (p. 353), that Platostill retained the view of the Phaedo and Republic. Even if the ykveais ofPhilebus 54a,ff. never reaches ovala that does not show that no predicatescan remain true of a yiyvbpevov. The same holds of the y iyvbptvov of Laws894a even if it is not o^rcos ov. What is required by Laws 894a is that "whatcomes to be" does persist in some pattern of change or other and exists solong as it persists in this pattern. This requires abandonment of the oldview. So also does Statesman 269d,ff.38Even if the ykveais of Philebus 26d-27d is an ovala that only marksits presence among the things which exist and nothing more; "ovala" heremeans something like "existence;" at 54a,ff. it means "the really real."See pp. 30,ff. and n. 40.



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88 ROBERT BOLTONThe fact that Plato speaks of becomings as coming into being or

as things that are has been taken to show this by itself. But in theplaces where he speaks in this way Plato is not referring to the being(ovala) which is incompatible with becoming. In these passages

"ovala" means simply existence. And this is a characteristic whichbelongs both to beings and becomings.

Most scholars who have written about Plato's being-becomingdistinction in recent times have supposed that wherever Plato distinguishes between what genuinely is and what never is but onlybecomes he means to distinguish between what genuinely exists andwhat does not exist but only becomes.39 Finding it difficult to makeany sense of the later notion, some have been anxious to see Platoeliminate the distinction altogether. Others have striven to makesense of it. But Plato's distinction between what is really real and

what only becomes is not a distinction between what exists and something else. This comes out most clearly in the discussion of thedivided line in the Republic (509d,ff). The ways inwhich the visibleentities which occupy the lower half of the line are inferior to thereally real things have nothing to do with existence. The visibleand the intelligible are there admitted to be two types of things thatare (509d4 with dl ; cf. Phaedo, 78d-79a). And even so, they aredescribed as "what becomes" (to yiyvbpevov) and "what is" (to op)(518c, 521d). So when Plato divides the things which there are into

groups, one of which is what becomes, he is not claiming that becomings are among the things that are really real but only that theyare among the things which exist.40 And there is no reason to thinkthat he ever denied this.41

39See, e.g., Cherniss pp. 349-352. I have traced this view as far backas W.F.R. Hardie, A Study in Plato (Oxford, 1936). It is found in almostall that has been written on our problem since.40See, e.g., Philebus 23c.41See the remarks of Cherniss (pp. 353-4). Though the evidencemounted by Cherniss does establish this, Cherniss himself wTould deny it.For him, Plato always denied that becomings really exist. That there arethese differences in Plato's uses of uovala" was noted some time ago byHackforth, in Plato's Examination of Pleasure (Cambridge, 1945), p. 49.But his remark has not been widely noticed. A similar point is made byCherniss (p. 354 n. 3) following Shorey. But since he thinks that Platoalways denied existence to ytyvbpeva (p. 350) it cannot be the same point.The point has now been reaffirmed by Vlastos, in "Degrees of Reality inPlato " in R. Bambrough (ed.) New Essays on Plato and Aristotle (London,1965), pp. 8-9, and in "A Metaphysical Paradox," Proceedings and Addresses



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 89There is a matter on which Plato opens himself to criticism by

speaking of what really is and what merely becomes as classes ofwhat exists. That suggests that existence is a characteristic whichbelongs in the same way both to real realities and to becomings. Ifso that would seem to defeat his claim that there are no characteristicsother than patterns of change which belong strictly to becomingssince existence is not a mode of change for real realities. But Platoindicates in several places that what it is to be for becomings is different from what it is to be for beings, even though they both are.42

Their ways of existing are different but related.43 So he would notclaim that there is a single characteristic which belongs in the sameway to all things that are as such. And his admission that bothbeings and becomings exist is not by itself damaging to any versionof the distinction between being and becoming.

Given this we can answer a clarifying question about Plato'sdoctrine which we have put off until now. Would Plato want todeny, on the less extreme flux doctrine, that it is appropriate to speakof someone as being a man over a stretch of time? If this meansthat there is some characteristic which is not a pattern of change

of the American Philosophical Association, XXXIX, 1966. In the latterpiece however Vlastos claims that Plato did not forge an adequate distinctionbetween the real and the really real since he failed to see that "real" is"syncategorematic and, therefore, relativized to the predicate which completes its sense" (p. 18). This led to his thinking of the forms as "reallyreal" in some inappropriately unrelativized sense of the expression. But itwould be a mistake to deprive Plato of the distinction between a primaryreality and what is real in some more inclusive sense by appeal to ordinarylinguistic usage?whatever the facts about that usage may be. Even ifPlato's use of "real" (i.e., "?v") is extraordinary this does not by itself showthat his employment of such a distinction is illegitimate. If, moreover,". . . is really real" means something like ". . . is an independent reality"for Plato (see avTo icad' am? ov, Symposium 2lib 1-2), though Plato neverhimself defines the expression, then in this use "real" is not syncategorematic.42See Phaedo 78d-79a, Republic 509d,ff, Statesman 269d, Philebus 53d,and Sophist 255c 12-13. Some will be unhappy over my use of forms of"to exist" to translate uovala" and related expressions in various passages.The claims made here do not, however, hang on this particular translation.Instead of distinguishing between the existent and the really real, one couldhave distinguished between the real and the really real. One needs only thethesis that the former class includes the latter whether we call the moreinclusive class the existent or the real.43For the notion of ways of existing or of being real see Sophist 240a-b.To say that beings and becomings exist in different ways is not to say that"existence" is ambiguously applied to them; ". . . exists" means ". . .shares in being." There happen to be different ways of sharing in being.



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90 ROBERT BOLTONwhich the individual retains over some time period it is inappropriate.But if it means that there is a certain process of becoming whichcharacterizes him over a time period then it is quite appropriate.44Plato did think that the ordinary form of speech does not adequatelyconvey the latter rather than the former. And he thought that

when it was necessary to be precise the ordinary form of speech shouldbe replaced by something more precise.45 But nothing which he saysafter the Theaetetus goes counter to the truth that by retaining somephysical characteristic or other someone can be for a time a man.The ordinary form of speech itself is too imprecise to beg any of themetaphysical issues at stake.

IXWe may ask now how the Timaeus squares with our conclusions

up to this point? The fact that a distinction is drawn between "thatwhich always is and has no becoming" and "that which is alwaysbecoming and never is" (27d) does not settle the issue. This language does not commit Plato to the extreme view of becoming whichis defeated by the argument of the Theaetetus. Nor does the claimthat it is incorrect to say strictly of becomings that they are anything(37e-38b). This claim requires that these entities can only have

becoming characteristics, but not that they can have no characteristics. Plato also claims that becomings cannot be stably this or thatbut only stably like this or that (49d,ff.). But this is not meant torequire that becomings can have no characteristics stably, nor doesit entail this. It requires only that all the characteristics of theseentities are patterns of continuous change (d4-e7).46 All these formu

44See Laws 894al-8.45Nothing indicates that he thought the form of expression requires theformer. The men of flux (Theaetetus 157a-c) did think this but there is noevidence that Plato ever accepted this part of their view. It is not requiredby Timaeus 27d-28a, or by 37c-38b where it is said only that to say of abecoming that it is anything is to speak loosely or imprecisely. (No suchexpression is aKpi?ks, 38b3.)46The claim of 49d,ff. is that for something to be P-like is for it to bebecoming in a certain fashion relative to what is strictly P. It is argued byCherniss (p. 357,f.) that if this claim in the Timaeus were about becomingsthen it would be subject to the argument of the Theaetetus, since in theTheaetetus it is implied that "what is incessantly changing cannot be designated as '. . . of such and such a kind' (tolovtov)" (p. 357). But the objectof attack in the Theaetetus is the view that something may be incessantlychanging in every respect and the terminology of the Timaeus does not require such a view.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 91lae around which debate over the doctrine of becoming in the Timaeus

has centered are compatible with the less extreme flux doctrine distinguished earlier. And there is no explicit occurrence of those modesof expression which are used to frame the extreme view of the Phaedoand Republic. Plato even allows in the Timaeus that one can havetrue opinion about becomings (51d-e) and this he never claims in the

Phaedo or Republic.*1 So the burden of proof rests on those whowould find the extreme view of becoming of the Phaedo, rather thanthe more moderate view of the Philebus, in the Timaeus.

XThere is one other important passage to be discussed. That is

the passage at Sophist 248a-249d. There the friends of the formsare said to subscribe to the distinction between becoming (y?veais)and being (ovala) and to speak of the two as incompatible (x^pts).For them being is "always just the same and unchanging" while becoming is always "otherwise at another time" (248a). The validityof their distinction is challenged in the following way :Besides holdingthis distinction the friends of the forms maintain that "the soul knowsand being is known" (248d 1-2). And this creates for them a problem. For they admit that knowing is an activity and hence that itinvolves change (248d). But if this is so then no act of knowing(ippovqais) and no agent in knowing (\pvxn) can belong to the really

real (to iravreXus ov) since nothing which belongs to that domain canundergo or involve any change.48 And, it is argued, this would bean awful doctrine to have to accept. We must admit that the reallyreal includes active intelligence (vovs) and, hence, soul, life, andchange (249a). From this it is concluded that "we must admit that

what changes and change are real" (249b 2-3).What modification in the distinction between being and becoming

is required by this conclusion? Some have seen the necessity for theabolition of the category of becoming since what changes is hereadmitted to be real. But by "real things" (cWa) here Plato doesnot mean "really real things," though some of the entities he is

47 See n. 27, above.48They are also faced with the problem that if being is known itundergoes change, which they take to be impossible (248d-e). This problemis dropped in the text in favor of the other. At 249bl2-cl it is admittedthat objects of knowledge must be totally changeless (cf. with 248all-13),but not that all really real things must be.



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92 ROBERT BOLTONtalking about happen to be really real (248e,f.). What he forcesthe friends of the forms to admit is that there is communion (Koup vla)between being and becoming (248b2). And this is the doctrine thatbecomings share in what is and not that they share in what is reallyreal. The general discussion of what is (to op) in this section of theSophist is not a discussion of what is really real. It is a discussionof something to which both the really real and "that which is in away" belong (240b3-9). And this is a more inclusive class than thereally real. Plato does force the friends of the forms to agree thatthings which change are real by getting them to admit that some ofthe things which change belong to the more restrictive class of thereally real. For reasons we will consider, he thinks that this ad

mission is particularly easy to extract from them. And once theyadmit this their opposition to the more general claim that thingswhich change are real must collapse. But the original thesis of thefriends of the forms was not that only changeless things are reallyreal. They do speak of "real being" (17aXrjdipr? ovala, 246b8). Buttheir view is on a par with that of the materialists who also speak of"true reality" (aXrjdeLa, 246b9). And the materialists do not holdthat the bodiless is not really real but that it is nothing at all(247c6-7). Similarly, the friends of the forms hold with Parmenides

that the changeless is all that there is (249cll-dl).49So nothing in this passage in the Sophist requires the abolition

of the category of becoming. For all that is said, Plato admits thatthere are entities which retain only patterns of becoming. But it is

wrong to claim that "there is nothing to suggest that the originaldisjunction of y?peacs and ovala should be rejected or even qualified."50For the category of being must now be taken to include some thingswhich change and some changes. It includes living souls, and theintellectual activity of those souls. Before, it excluded every changeand everything which changes in any respect. We have seen thatPlato is not concerned here to emphasize the point that intellectual

49Given this we can see how the views of the friends of the forms differfrom Plato's early views. Plato never held that things which change arenot among the things that there are (see Phaedo 78d-79a, Republic 485b).He always held that becomings share in being (Republic 478e). The friendsof the forms, however, have to be forced to admit that there is intercourse(KOiv vla, 248b2) between being and becoming.50Cherniss, p. 352.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 93activity and souls belong to the class of the really real. He says, inconclusion, only that they and other changing things must be ad

mitted by the friends of the forms to be real. But in the course ofhis argument to this conclusion he does claim that they belong tothe more restrictive class as well. And this requires a modificationin the original conception of being.

We can determine what the modification is by considering furtherthe argument which leads to the new conclusion. The crucial movein it is the contention that intellectual activity must have its placein the really real (249a). This is allowed on the ground that itwouldbe an awful thing to deny. Why it would be awful we are not toldexplicitly, but the answer is available in the context. Plato is convinced that knowledge is possible and that the objects of knowledgebelong to the realm of the really real (249b-c). He is also convincedthat if acts of knowing did not also belong to the realm of the reallyreal, then no objects there could be the objects of those knowings(248e6-249a2).51 And this implies that he thinks it impossible for

knowings to be patterns of becoming. If it were possible then thereally real would not be unknowable unless knowings belonged to it.

But at the same time Plato cannot deny that a knowing is an activityand not simply a special sort of total immobility (249a). So he mustwant to take knowings as activities which do not involve any patternof change of the sort that becomings have. We do not find anythingexplicit about what sort of activity this is in the Sophist. But inthe Timaeus and in the Laws Plato takes up the subject. In the

Laws knowing is said to be like the rotation of perfect spheres whichis "always in the same place and unchanging, and uniform in thesame respects and in relation to the same things, following one lawand plan" (898a8,ff.).52 Knowing is like this sort of movement inthat it involves no change of quality at all. It is unlike this move

ment in that it does not involve any sort of change of place either.53So Plato there characterizes knowing as a type of motion which involves no change or becoming of either of the two types mentionedat Theaetetus 181c-d. And since this characterization of knowing

61Cf. Parmenides 133c-134c.52Cf. Timaeus 40a 8-bl.63It has none of the types of spatial motion distinguished earlier,though it bears a resemblance to one of them. See 897d-e.



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94 ROBERT BOLTONsatisfies the requirements imposed in the Sophist exactly we have noreason to doubt that it is the one Plato has in mind there.

The problem of how to characterize a type of activity which isfree from change both in place and in quality is taken up again by

Aristotle. The distinction between change (dvrjaLs) and actuality(?v?pyeia) which he formulates to help characterize this type of activityis based on Plato's earlier discussion. And the specific solution tothe problem given in Metaphysics XII, 1072bl,ff. hearkens back to

Plato at many points.54So we are in a position to infer what modification in the categoryof the really real Plato envisions in the Sophist. Just those ceaseless

changes which involve no becoming and those eternal entities whoseonly changes are ceaseless changes of this sort are admitted into thecategory of the really real.

As early as the Phaedo Plato argued that the soul does not belongto the category of becoming (78b,ff.). But there he apparently stopsshort of placing it in the category of the really real. He says onlythat it is "more akin to" the really real than to becoming.

In theSophist he is prepared to put at least part of it and certain of theactivities of that part into the higher realm. This modification inthe category of being is substantial, just as the modification is which

Plato makes in the category of becoming. But there remains anabsolute disjunction between being and becoming which is strongenough to sustain the doctrine of degrees of reality which the distinction was devised to explain in the first place. The distinction comesto be different. In the end the category of becoming contains thoseentities whose only characteristics are patterns of continuous change.The category of being contains those entities which undergo no becoming. But it includes activities which involve no becoming andentities whose only movements are activities of this sort. So theclasses are as mutually exclusive as ever. Moreover, given that Platocomes to assign the intellect and its activity to the category of being,

54The problem in XII,7 1072bl,ff. is to show how an entity whichcarries on thinking and has pleasure and life can nevertheless belong to theclass of entities which are unchanging both in place and in quality (1073a3-5,11-13). To do this Aristotle argues that thinking and the life which consists solely in thinking involve no change of these sorts (1072bl3,ff.). Unlike Plato, however, Aristotle takes it that an entity which has this sort oflife can be the cause of all change. This difference is noted by Aristotle(1071b37,ff.) ; so we know that he was aware of Plato's earlier discussions.



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DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING AND BECOMING 95

the two categories become not only mutually exclusive but also jointlyexhaustive?as they seem not to have been in the Phaedo. So theycome to constitute a set of categories in Aristotle's sense of the term.55

XIThe conclusion of our investigation is that Plato's theory of

reality was neither subject to as much or to as little flux as some havebelieved. There were important modifications in his view of becoming and also in his view of being. In each case the changes werebased on important philosophical developments. But Plato retaineda version of the being-becoming distinction strong enough to sustainhis theory of degrees of reality and of sufficient conceptual power tomake that theory intelligible.In the light of the history of Platonic scholarship it would befoolish to claim that no other theory of the development of Plato'sviews on being and becoming could be defended. All that is hereclaimed is that the theory which is here offered is the one which bestaccommodates all the available evidence. It accounts for Aristotle'stestimony, for the explicit statements of the Phaedo and Republic andthe argument of Republic V, for the explicit changes in Plato's wayof characterizing being and becoming after the Theaetetus, and for thechanges in Plato's view of the epistemic status of becoming. On thisaccount none of these matters need be explained away or given anyinterpretation other than the most straightforward one. That constitutes the strongest argument in favor of this account.56

Rutgers College, Rutgers University.

55The one remaining question concerns the receptacle in the Timaeus.From what is said of it at 50b-c it falls into the category of being as we haveconstrued that category on the basis of our discussion of the Sophist. ButPlato in the Timaeus seems to invent a third category in which to place it,51d-52d. Whether in the end Plato found need for three or only two categories does not matter for our main purpose, which has been to show thatPlato retains the doctrine that the categories of being and becoming are

mutually exclusive.56Ealier versions of this paper were read to groups at Pittsburgh andPrinceton. I am grateful to the members of those groups for stimulatingcomments and suggestions. I owe special thanks for especially useful suggestions to John M. Cooper, Do

bolton, r. plato s distinction between being and becoming

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