Fourth-Century Flux Theory and the Origins of Pyrrhonism

Fourth-Century Flux Theory andthe Ongins of PyrrhonismNathan Powers

The radical sceptics of antiquity called themselves Tyrrhonists', afterPyrrho of Elis, who was active in the last quarter of the fourth centuryBC and the first quarter of the third century. Why they called themselvesthis is unclear; Pyrrho famously wrote nothing down, and, to judge fromthe extant testimonia, following generations remembered him chiefly forhis remarkable lifestyle and personality. Nevertheless, histories of Greekscepticism have traditionally assumed that if sceptics were 'Pyrrhonists',then Pyrrho was indeed some sort of sceptic or proto-sceptic.

What do we really know about this shadowy figure? Only one sub-stantive account of Pyrrho's philosophical positions survives from an-tiquity, and unfortunately it comes to us fourth-hand: a report byPyrrho's pupil Timon, as summarized by the Peripatetic Aristocles, asquoted by Eusebius (Praeparatio evangelica 14.18.1-5). It has long beenrecognized that this passage is the crucial piece of evidence for anyreconstruction of Pyrrho's own doctrine:

It is necessary above all to investigate our own knowledge. For if weare so constituted that we know nothing, there is no need to continueenquiry into other things ... Pyrrho of Elis was also a powerful spokes-man of such a position. He himself has left nothing in writing, but hispupil Timon says that whoever wants to be happy must consider thesethree questions: first, how are things by nature? Second, what attitudemust we adopt towards them? Third, what will be the outcome forthose who have this attitude? According to Timon, Pyrrho declared thatthings are equally indifferent and unstable and indeterminate. For thisreason neither our sensations nor our opinions tell the truth or lie (δια

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38 Nathan Powers

τοΰτο μήτε τάς αισθήσεις ημών μήτε τοις δόξας άληθεύειν ή ψεύδεσθαι).For this reason, then, we should not put our trust in them, but weshould be without opinion and unbending and unshakable, sayingconcerning each single thing that it no more is than is not or both is andis not or neither is nor is not. The outcome for those who actually adoptthis attitude, says Timon, will be first speechlessness, and then freedomfrom disturbance (πρώτον μεν άφασίαν, έπειτα δ' άταραξίαν)...

At the end of the last century, Zeller was able, by means of a single deftemendation (the underlined δια τοΰτο to δια το), to make this passagelook like it describes a position which is more or less a direct precursorto the 'Pyrrhonism' of later antiquity. If the emendation is accepted, thenPyrrho takes as the basis of his argument an epistemological thesis to theeffect that our senses are unreliable — that they do not give us a validcognitive connection to the objects of perception—and argues from thisbasis that we are to refrain from making dogmatic claims about theworld.

In recent years, however, a number of scholars have accepted themanuscript reading (δια τοΰτο), and Richard Bett in particular hasmounted a vigorous defense of it.1 On this reading the inference isreversed: it is from the world's indeterminacy in itself that we are toconclude that our perceptions are untrustworthy. Bert points out thatthis is the only way to make sense of the claim that 'neither our sensationsnor our opinions are true or false'. If the problem were essentiallyepistemological — if, that is, our sense-faculties failed to report correctlywhat is the case about things—then the right conclusion would be either1) that we cannot know whether our sense-impressions are true or falseor 2) that our sense-impressions are indeed false, not that they are neithertrue nor false. To say that they are neither truth-tellers nor liars seems toindicate that there is, in fact, no state of affairs in the world for our sensesto represent or misrepresent; from this our inability to assign truth-val-ues follows, and not vice versa. This makes Pyrrho's basic contentionmetaphysical, not epistemological.

I agree with Bert that this 'metaphysical' reading does more justice tothe internal sense of our passage, and shall take his interpretation as mystarting-point. Yet any reading of this passage taken in isolation would

1 Decleva Caizzi ad loc., Long and Sedley l, Bett; cf. Brunschwig (especially 199-208).



Fourth-Century Flux Theory 39

be an unacceptably slender basis for an overall assessment of Pyrrho.2This paper's purpose is to bolster this 'metaphysical' interpretation bysuggesting a plausible fourth-century context for the view that the worldis essentially indeterminate.

I'll begin by taking up the curious formula which Pyrrho recommendsthat the philosopher employ to keep himself free of dogmatic beliefs.When people are in the frame of mind that Pyrrho recommends, theywill talk about things in a peculiar way, 'saying concerning each singlething that it no more is than is not or both is and is not or neither is noris not (περί ενός εκάστου λέγοντας ότι ου μάλλον εστίν ή ουκ εστίν ή καιεστί και ουκ εστίν ή ούτε εστίν ούτε ουκ εστίν).' Commentators are rightlypuzzled here; the formulation was likely designed to be paradoxical andto prompt the reader to ask, 'Can they do that?' But before the paradoxcan be addressed, the grammar must be hashed out, because the sentencecan be read in two ways which differ importantly from each other.

If the string of disjuncts is taken as being governed by ότι, then thesentence offers a trilemma of assertions which Pyrrho recommends thatone might make about any particular thing, namely

A: 1) that it is no more than it is not;or, 2) that it both is and is not;or, 3) that it neither is nor is not.

If on the other hand the disjuncts are read as being controlled by ουμάλλον, the sentence is really a single quadripartite assertion that Pyrrhorecommends be made about every particular thing, namely

B: that it no more 1) isthan 2) it is notthan 3) it is and is notthan 4) it neither is nor is not.

Each version has its defenders. On reading A, we are to understandthat the three arms of the trilemma are taken (by Pyrrho) to be roughlyequivalent. He might say one or the other, it doesn't really matter; thedistinctions someone else might draw among these three phrases are

As Tad Brennan (Tyrrho on the Criterion', Ancient Philosophy 18 [1998] 417-434)points out: '[I]n order for Bert to make his inference work, on the metaphysicalreading, he needs to make a crucial metaphysical assumption that he never arguesfor' (419).



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irrelevant because Pyrrho has radically renounced the possibility of trueor false predication. The point of the formulation then is to display justhow serious this renunciation is.

Reading B was first suggested by DeLacy, who found it attractivebecause in this way Pyrrho can be made to avoid denying the Principleof Non-Contradiction (on a straightforward interpretation of A he mustdeny it).31 do not find this a particularly compelling reason,4 but aminclined to accept B on the strength of three other considerations.

First, and most importantly, B is more consistent with what followsin Aristocles, that the result of making these claims will be αφασία. If Ais correct, then Pyrrho feels entitled to make three sorts of claims (all ofthem peculiar), and the indifferent way in which he chooses among themwill serve as a display of his commitment to the indeterminacy of things.Perhaps he will grow bored with making these weird claims and even-tually grow silent. But if Β is correct, our Pyrrhonist-in-training is con-stantly issuing herself little reminders that the universe will notunderwrite any claim she makes, and the formula of the reminder isquite systematic: Ί shouldn't5 claim that it is this way, or that it isn't; norshould I goof up and assert that both are the case, or neither.' The lasttwo, as Bert notes,6 are necessary because, if our Pyrrhonist leaves off at

3 DeLacy, 68-9. Barnes (274) seems to find this an attractive feature of Β as well.Hankinson (63-4) in defense of A points out that A2 can be taken as a 'Protagorean'assertion: X both is and is not F (relative to different perceivers); whereas A3 couldbe 'Democritean' in force: X neither is nor is not F (insofar as F-ness is no part of thenature of Χ). Α2 and A3 then become different interpretations of Al, and Pyrrho is(again) asserting his indifference to which way the indeterminacy is indicated.

4 As Decleva Caizzi puts it, self-contradiction 'non sembra aver toccato Pirrone' (230).Why would it? In the last resort, the worst even Aristotle can say to the naughtydeniers of the Principle of Non-Contradiction is that they are no longer entitled tomake arguments, since all argumentation relies on words having meaning, andmeaning presupposes the Principle of Non-Contradiction (Met Γ 1005a35-7a20).Pyrrho might cheerfully concede all this and shut up; see further below. On the otherhand, Pyrrho need not have gone out of his way to deny the Principle of Non-Con-tradiction as a principle; we tend to forget that in the fourth century eristics was stillthe prevalent mode in many corners of the Greek philosophical world, and the veryconcept of a consistent, rule-governed logic had not yet taken firm root everywhere.

5 Note that δεΐν is still governing the clause.

6 Bett, 162




'It no more is than is not', she leaves open the pernicious possibility thatshe holds the opinion that both are somehow the case, or (even moreperniciously) that it is not the case that both are the case. Thequadrilemma, then, makes a gesture towards an unlimited string ofclaims one ought not to make: next on the list is 'It is the case that both"It is and is not" and "It neither is nor is not"'; then, 'It is neither the casethat "It is and is not" nor that "It neither is nor is not"'. This sort of habitwould indeed soon result in perplexed silence.

Second, there is a clear parallel to this passage in Aulus Gellius: Pyrrhois said to have made use of the formula 'It no more is this way than thatway than neither way' (ου μ&λλον ούτως έχει τόδε ή έκείνως ή ούδετέρως).7Although the phrase is formally trilemmatic (in the absence of άμφοτέρωςas a fourth option), the grammar makes us read it as an abbreviation ofthe quadrilemma: ου μ&λλον clearly governs the entire phrase, not justthe first pair of clauses. This may simply be a direct reminiscence of ourTimon passage, read as B; but perhaps it is independent evidence thatPyrrho encouraged type B (non)assertions.

Third, we find in Sextus curious 'quadrilemmatic' arguments, wherethere seems to be no good reason for the format. A good example isOutlines of Pyrrhonism 2.86 (arguing against the Stoics): 'And "things",which they say constitute the most general class of all, are either true, orfalse, or neither false nor true, or both false and true';8 Sextus goes on,quite superfluously, to argue against each of these four possibilities. Anappealing way of explaining this sort of argument is to suppose that itis, in fact, a genuine survival from early Pyrrhonism.9

A fairly clear picture of Pyrrho is emerging from these observations.His mistrust of the senses was based on a form of radical metaphysicaldogmatism — a 'flux' theory, as I shall suggest. By what arguments (ifany) this position was supported, we shall probably never know. But wedo know that similar positions were in the air in the early- and mid-fourthcentury.

7 Reporting Favorinus, 11.5.4 (= Decleva Caizzi 56)

8 καν μην το 'τι', όπερ φασίν είναι πάντων γενικώτατον, ήτοι αληθές ή ψευδός εστίν ηούτε ψευδός ούτε αληθές, ή και ψευδός καί αληθές.

9 Barnes makes this suggestion (274). Aram M. Frenkian ('Der griechische Skeptizis-mus und die indische Philosophie', precis in Bibilotheca Classica Onentalis 4 [1958]212-54) cites some twelve other examples of the quadrilemma in Sextus (240-1).



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Plato, in the Theaetetus, attacks the thesis 'Knowledge is perception'by bringing up perceptual relativity problems (e.g., X is hot to me, butcold to you; sweet to him, bitter to you). Then, making an attempt todefend the thesis, he retails as a secret Trotagorean' doctrine the ideathat all things are constantly changing; he also vaguely attaches thedoctrine to Parmenides, Heracleitus, Empedocles, and the poets. Theconsequence then drawn is that we should not make claims about things'being', but rather say that they always 'come to be' (152c-7c); if ourdiffering perceptions can be shown to have a coherent underlying causalbasis, then perhaps the truth claims we base on them can be preserved.Later he revisits this Trotagorean' position (attaching it to the neo-Her-acleiteans as well, 179e) and modifies the conclusion: if all things areconstantly in total flux, then no statement about them is more correctthan any other; hence, 'Knowledge is perception' is no more the case than'Knowledge is not perception' (182c-e). This is summed up at 183a:'What has emerged is that, if all things are in motion, then every answer,on whatever subject, is equally correct, both "it is thus" and "it is notthus".' A person who holds this position is either reduced to making noclaims about the world — since neither Όΰτω' or 'μη οϋτω' can representsuch fluidity (183a-b) — or else they must discover some new languageto express their claims (τνν* άλλην φωνήν θετέον, 183b). Flux theory thusmakes both affirmation and denial impossible.

One point about this passage has troubled commentators. Why doesSocrates not refute 'Protagoras' by imposing theoretical constraints onthe scope of flux? In particular, after the important distinction is made(at 181c-d) between the two sorts of change, φορά (motion) and άλλοί-ωσνς (alteration), why doesn't Socrates drive a knife between them andsay that the flux theory may obtain for one sort of change but not theother? For instance, he might say that the objects of perception areconstantly subject to change in φορά but that the subjects of άλλοίωσιςtaken strictly are stable and knowable. Alternatively, he might offer usan anticipation of the atomist (or classical Empiricist) solution, viz. thatφορά is Out there' in things but that άλλοίωσις is a quirky function of ourperceptual interaction with them. But Socrates is not interested. Nor doeshe make it clear that he sees a reductio ad absurdum in the conclusion (183a,quoted above) about what flux theory does to truth and falsehood.Instead of speaking up for the phenomenal world, he is content insteadto let a weaker self-refutation argument do his work. If there is a reductioad absurdum, it is simply implicit in the theory of Forms; there existsanother realm, about which it is possible to speak meaningfully. McDow-ell chafes at this: 'It seems incredible that Plato might have been thus




prepared utterly to abandon the possibility of significant discourse aboutthe world of ordinary things.'10

Does it? Even in Plato's mature thought, there is considerable doubtabout the stability of phenomena qua phenomena. In Republic 478e-480a,Socrates discusses what the objects of opinion are like taken strictly asobjects of opinion, without the illumination of the Forms. As an examplehe selects the class of T^autina! things' and notes that, while each thingin the class is beautiful, it can also appear (under the appropriatecircumstances) ugly. Hence, statements about 'being' do not properlyapply to it. In each case (and class), a thing no more 'is' than 'is not', oris both, or is neither, whatever we assert it to be (479b-c): 'Is any one ofthe manys what someone says it is, then, any more than it is not what hesays it is? ... [F]or they are ambiguous, and one cannot understand themas fixedly being or fixedly not being or as both or as neither (και οΰτ'είναι ούτε μη είναι ουδέν αυτών δυνατόν παγίως νοησαι, ούτε αμφότεραούτε ούδέτερον).'11 This is, of course, Pyrrho's quadrilemma, significantlyprefigured by another thinker who is firmly convinced of the instabilityof the objects of opinion. All such things, we are further told, 'roll around'(που κυλινδεΐται, 479d) between being and not-being and 'wander about'(485b) between coming-to-be and perishing. Similarly, in the TimaeusPlato insists that the realization of forms in perceptible objects is alwayscompromised by the irreducibly and ineliminably recalcitrant mediumin which it occurs. There is always a residuum of flux and instability inevery perception — hence the celebrated proviso that there is no possi-bility of giving a perfectly accurate account of the world, but rather onlya 'likely tale' (τον εικότα μΰθον, 29d).12

Aristotle describes and argues against a similar 'flux' position, leadingto a similar refusal to make claims. Book Γ of the Metaphysics, in which

10 McDowell, 181

11 This passage has never, so far as I am aware, been discussed in connection with theAristocles text, although clearly it is important.

12 For some further comments on this trend in Plato, see McDowell, 128-8. And cf.Timaeus 49d-e: αλλ' ασφαλέστατο μακρφ περί τούτων τιθεμένους ώδε λέγειν · άεΐ δκαθορώμεν άλλοτε αλλη γιγνόμενον, ως πυρ, μη τοΰτο άλλα το τοιούτον εκάστοτεπροσαγορεΰειν πυρ, μηδέ ϋδωρ τοΰτο αλλά το τοιούτον αεί, μηδέ άλλο ποτέ μηδέν ωςτίνα έχον βεβαιότητα, όσα δεικνύντες τω ρήματι τφ 'τόδε' και 'τοΰτο' προσχρώμενοιδηλοΰν ηγούμεθα τι · φεύγει γαρ ούχ ύπομένον την του 'τόδε' καΐ 'τοΰτο' και την 'τφδε'και πασαν δση μόνιμα ως δντα αυτά ενδείκνυται φάσις.



44 Nathan Powers

the Principle of Non-Contradiction (henceforth, the PNC) is establishedas the fundamental axiom of metaphysics, anticipates (sometimes withstartling accuracy) a number of later sceptical positions and offers objec-tions to them.13 The centerpiece of the Book is a string of argumentsoffered against those who refuse to accept the PNC. His recommendedmethod for dealing with these philosophical malingerers is to let themeither refute themselves or lapse into silence. If they choose to speak,they will show by the very manner in which they use language to argueagainst the PNC that they already assume the PNC. But Aristotle doesmore than provide the underpinnings for an anti-sceptical handbook; healso delves into the motivation of PNC-deniers, trying to figure out justwhat they think they are up to and how they think they are usinglanguage. His elegant summary is 'Those who say this entirely destroysubstance and essence' (1007a20-l). The PNC-deniers live in a universeof essenceless attributes, attributes which somehow cluster together inshifting congeries and seduce perceivers into making conflicting claimson their behalf. How can you deal with such people? Their lack of faithin essence and substance leads them to make outrageous reports aboutreality (1008a30-bl):

At the same time it is obvious that in response to this person there isnothing for our investigation to deal with; for he says nothing. For hesays neither that it is so-and-so nor that it is not so-and-so, but that itboth is so-and-so and is not so-and-so; and again he denies both these,saying that it is neither so-and-so nor not so-and-so. For if he did not,something would be definite.

Again, if whenever an assertion is true its denial is false and when thelatter is true its affirmation is false, there can be no such thing assimultaneously asserting and denying the same thing truly. However,they would doubtless assert that this is the question originally posed.

This passage has often been compared to the Aristocles fragment. Itshould be noted that it can be taken as corresponding to either thetrilemmatic formulation (A) or the quadrilemmatic (B). Aristotle indeedhas no reason to distinguish A from B, because in his view if you tossout the PNC, the Principle of the Excluded Middle goes out the window

13 See Long (especially 97-8) on Aristotle's seeming lack of concern about the problemof attaining perceptual certainty.




with it. That is, 'p and not-p' simply entails 'neither p nor not-p'.14

Moreover these are presented as the alternatives, not to claiming thatone refuses to assert p rather than not-p (as our A-Pyrrhonist would), butrather to simply equivocating — asserting, 'p is not the case', and thenasserting, tmt neither is not-p really the case' (so I take ούτε γαρ οΰτωςοΰτ' οΰχ οΰτως λέγει, 1008a31-2, as opposed to denying formally a con-junction of contradictories, [sc. λέγει] οτι οΰθ' οΰτως ούτε οϋχ οΰτως,1008a33-4).

Aristotle does not really want to hear about ου μάλλον. The phrasecomes up in Metaphysics Γ only in his discussion of Democritus, 1009blO.Generally speaking, it is difficult to substantiate DeLacy's claim (61-4)that ου μάλλον was considered by Aristotle to be a formula used incertain types of early sceptical arguments; all of DeLacy's examples, infact, come from the commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias, who ofcourse is writing after the Tyrrhonist' revival(s). This is a point of somesignificance, because Aristotle manages to respond to a stance that isrecognizably similar to the one described by Timon without graspingthat ου μάλλον is an important part of it at all. Perhaps, then, ου μάλλονindeed was not important to whatever position both Pyrrho and Aris-totle are drawing upon. At any rate, Aristotle is not going to takemetaphysical indeterminacy seriously as a thesis, and any claims basedon such a thesis he will treat as equivocations.15

It seems then, on the one hand, that any parallel to early Pyrrhonismhere will be impossible to recover accurately, simply because Aristotleinsists on lumping together all who make self-contradictory claims anddefeating them in the arena of logic. On the other hand, he is careful tomake a distinction between people who make these claims because ofsome real philosophical problem and those who make them out of sheersophistry (1009al5-22). He even gives a historical survey of the former

14 Met 1008a4-7: ταΰτάΐε ούν συμβαίνει τοις λέγουσι τον λόγον τοΰτον, και οτι ούκάνάγκηή φάναι ή άποφάναι. εϊ γαρ αληθές οτι άνθρωπος και ουκ άνθρωπος, δηλον οτι καΐ οΰτ'άνθρωπος οΰτ' ουκ άνθρωπος εσται · τοΐν γαρ δυοϊν δύο αποφάσεις, ει δε μία εξ άμφοΐνεκείνη, και αυτή μία αν εϊη αντικείμενη.

15 Which is not to say that he wouldn't understand what a B-Pyrrhonist is getting at;but here as usual Aristotle is concerned with giving the most lucid account possibleof an opponent's argument, not with giving an account the opponent wouldrecognize.



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(1009a6-10al5). And at the end of this survey he fingers the figure whohas gone the furthest, in his view, in pushing PNC-denial (1010a7-13):

Again, observing that all this nature is in change, and that no truth ishad about that which is in alteration, [they maintained that] it was notpossible to have the truth concerning that which is in [process of] everystyle and manner of alteration. This belief blossomed into the mostextreme of all the opinions we have mentioned, that of those whoproclaimed themselves Heracleiteans (ή των φασκόντων ήρακλειτίζειν);such as Cratylus, who in the end considered that he ought to saynothing, and merely moved his finger.

This is interesting for two reasons. First, Cratylus is here portrayed asthe most radical of the neo-Heradeiteans, presumably committed to thedogmatic indeterminacy view; like Pyrrho, he accepts the consequenceof this view to be silence. And second, this picture of Cratylus matchesquite nicely the position Plato attributes to the radical 'Heracleiteans' inthe Theaetetus.16

It might be argued that the latter position is introduced merely as afoil to Socrates, and that we are not entitled to consider these 'Her-acleiteans' to have been real figures actually holding opinions like these.To this it can be responded that at the very least, Plato and Aristotle showus that this sort of argument was in the air — that the flux position wason the game board, so to speak, even if no-one actually maintained it.The flux-man might have been like the "brain-in-a-vat' sceptic whomcontemporary philosophers spend so much time maligning. But I do notthink we have to settle for that, given that Aristotle seems genuinelyworried about people who hold radical flux theories, and that he insertsa notice about Cratylus (about whom he has information, it seems, froma source independent of Plato) at the end of a well-informed discussionof real historical figures. The burden of proof lies with those who wouldmake Cratylus and the flux-men philosophical bogies. I suggest that thetheory of total and continual flux was alive and well in the fourthcentury; that Pyrrho may well have subscribed to it; and that perhapsthe only reason we do not remember Pyrrho as merely another eristic

16 It does not, however, match the picture of Cratylus in the Cratylus. See the Appendixbelow.




fourth-century oddball, or forget about him altogether, is because of hisremarkable idea that distrusting all of one's beliefs and striving activelyto discard them would lead more or less directly to happiness. Pyrrhowas no sceptic, but his ethical stance was the banner under whichsceptics later rallied their troops.

In conclusion, I'd like to briefly sketch out what consequences thisinterpretation of Pyrrho has for the early history of scepticism — orrather, what consequences any 'metaphysical' reading of the Aristoclespassage has, regardless of whether one buys the neo-Heracleitean storyor not. I first became interested in Pyrrho while working on Epicurus'stheory of knowledge. Epicurus makes the strange and seemingly naiveclaim that 'all perceptions are true',17 which has earned him a reputationthroughout the ages of being a bad epistemologist. Efforts have beenmade recently to rehabilitate Epicurus in this respect; Everson, for in-stance, argues that Epicurus's main goal in his account of perception isto incorporate perception and cognition into his general physical theory,rather than to defend himself against sceptical objections.181 believe thatthis is true, but that we can go further: the reason Epicurus doesn't botherto defend himself against sceptical objections is that these objections hadnot yet been made! — at least, not in a forceful manner.19 From thegeneral picture of Pyrrho under consideration it will follow that theepistemological issues and concerns that we typically associate with'scepticism' will not have received widespread philosophical attentionuntil the second quarter of the third century BC, when Zeno and Arcesi-laus squared off over the question of whether or not there exist self-war-

17 See Long and Sedley 16 for a convenient collection of the evidence.

18 Everson, especially 180-3.

19 I do not mean to play down the importance of other possible precursors to scepti-cism; Democritus in particular certainly entertained doubts about the reliability ofthe senses (see esp. Diels-Kranz 68B6-11,125). But it should be noted that (a) wesimply do not know what Democritus's own proposal for handling this issue was;and (b) on any interpretation, Democritus will be concerned with the reliability ofthe senses as faculties tout court, not with the sort of case-by-case analysis ofperceptual fallibility which gave sharp focus to the third-century epistemologicaldebates. It is precisely the latter that some historians of philosophy have wanted tosee in Pyrrho, and that I am suggesting will not be found in Pyrrho's day orbeforehand.



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ranting perceptions — that is, not until the generation after Pyrrho andEpicurus.20

Appendix: The Problem of Cratylus, Revisited

Cratylus is portrayed in Plato's Cratylus as a young man interested in thenatural appropriateness of names; but as we saw above, Aristotle por-trays him as a flux theorist. The difference between these two pictureswas the subject of much head-scratching among philologists until Geof-frey Kirk ("The Problem of Cratylus', American Journal of Philology 72[1951] 225-53) effectively shelved the issue fifty years ago. For a sum-mary of the main lines of argument that have been taken on the question— all of them unsatisfactory — see Kirk, 237-41. Kirk's own hypothesisis that everything Aristotle says about Cratylus derives from a mistakenreading of the Platonic dialogue, on the assumption that either Plato wasdoggedly reticent about his own past associations or Aristotle becameinterested in the history of earlier philosophy only after Plato's deathwhile he was at Assos, without a full library at his disposal, and so hadto glean what he could from his bedside copy of the dialogues. Kirk isfully aware that this sounds specious — after all, one might ask, whydoes Aristotle seem to have done his homework on all the other earlierfigures treated in Metaphysics Γ? Where does the finger-wagging bit comefrom? — and concludes simply, 'Thus we are left with the Cratylus ofPlato on the one hand, the Cratylus of Aristotle on the other' (253). Iwould like to reopen the case briefly and offer a new suggestion. The keyto our Cratylus discrepancy may be Cratylus's youth in the Platonicdialogue. Plato often uses the age of his interlocutors to great dramaticeffect; one way this can be done is by depicting as a young man a figurewho will later be famous, either beginning to grapple with some of theissues that he will one day take a well-known stand on, or else showingin another area of inquiry some of the mental tendencies that will oneday bring him success or failure. One thinks of Theaetetus or Phaedrusin the dialogues to which they give their names, or Socrates himself in

20 An earlier version of this paper was given in 1999 at the 22nd Annual SouthwesternConference in Ancient Philosophy in San Antonio, Texas; I would like to thank theconference participants, and in particular Stephen White, R.J. Hankinson, and AlexMourelatos. I would also like to thank Richard Bett for his helpful comments.




the Parmenides. Now, in the Cratylus Socrates offers the 'Heracleitean'position to young Cratylus as a way to preserve his theory of naturalnames; by the end of the dialogue, Cratylus has latched onto the positiontenaciously. The one thing all commentators on this dialogue can agreeabout is that there is more than a little of the burlesque in it; some of thepuns Socrates fobs off as etymology are absolute howlers. What a finejoke it would be if at the end it turned out that it was Socrates himselfwho first set Cratylus down the road to Heracleiteanism! If the Cratylusis read in this way as an ironic dialogue, the difference between Plato'sand Aristotle's Cratylus becomes perfectly comprehensible.

Department of Classics103-104 East Pyne

Princeton UniversityPrinceton, NJ 08544

[email protected]

Works Cited

Barnes, Jonathan writing as M.R. Stopper. 'Schizzi Pirroniani'. Phronesis 28 (1983) 265-297.

Bett, Richard. 'Aristocles on Timon on Pyrrho: the Text, its Logic, and its Credibility'. OxfordStudies in Ancient Philosophy 12 (1994) 137-81.

Decleva Caizzi, Fernanda. Pirrone Testimonianze. Naples: Bibliopolis 1981.

DeLacy, Philip. 'Ου μάλλον and the Antecedents of Ancient Scepticism'. Phronesis 3 (1958)59-71.

Everson, Stephen. 'Epicurus on the Truth of the Senses'. In Stephen Everson, ed., Episte-mology. New York: Cambridge University Press 1990:161-183.

Hankinson, R.J. The Sceptics. New York: Routledge 1995.

Long, A.A. 'Aristotle and the History of Greek Scepticism'. In Dominic J. O'Meara, ed.,Studies in Aristotle. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press 1981:79-106.

Long, A.A., and Sedley, David. The Hellenistic Philosophers. New York: Cambridge Univer-sity Press 1987.

McDowell, John. Plato: Theaetetus. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1973.





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Fourth-Century Flux Theory and the Origins of Pyrrhonism

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