On the Borders of Being and Knowing: Late Scholastic Theory of Supertranscendental Being

1. Sprouts from Greek Gardens: Antisthenes, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics

chaptEr 1 sprouts From GrEEk GardEns: antisthEnEs, plato, aristotlE, and thE stoics i Looking to treat a doctrine that has roots in Greek antiquity and then grows to the main trunk of Kantian philosophy, I begin with a passage in Plato’s Republic where Socrates is talking to Glaucon. [Socrates] “Tell us this then. Does one who knows know something or nothing? Answer me then for that man.1 [Glaucon] “I answer that he knows something. [Socrates] “Is that being or non-being? [Glaucon] “Being. For how would knowing non-being be knowing something? [Socrates] “Are we then agreed upon this, having looked at the matter from however many viewpoints, that what is perfectly being is perfectly knowable , while what is utterly non-being is utterly unknowable? [Glaucon] “We are indeed. [Socrates] “Very well. But if indeed there is something which is such as to both be and not be, would it not lie between what is perfectly being and what is in no way being? [Glaucon] “It would be between them. [Socrates] “Therefore, if knowledge were with respect to being, while the lack of knowledge of necessity would be with respect to non-being, with regard to this thing between should we not look for something in between ignorance and knowledge, if there could be some such thing?”2 1 On this, cf. James Adam, The Republic of Plato, edited with critical notes, commentary and appendices, with a new introduction by D.A. Rees (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), vol. 1, 337-38. 2 “ἀλλ' ἡμῖν εἰπὲ τόδε · ὁ γιγνώσκων γιγώσκει τὶ ἢ οὐδέν; σὺ οὖν μοι ὑπὲρ ἐκείνου ἀποκρίνου. Ἀποκρινοῦμαι, ἔφη, ὅτι γιγνώσκει τί. Πότερον ὂν ἢ οὐκ ὄν; Ὄν· πῶς γὰρ ἂν μὴ ὄν γέ τι γνωσθείν; Ίκανῶς οὖν τοῦτο ἔχομεν, /477A/ κἂν εἰ πλεοναχῇ σκοποῖμεν, ὅτι τὸ μὲν παντελῶς ὂν παντελῶς γνωστόν, μὴ ὂν δὲ μηδαμῆ πάντῃ ἄγνωστον; Ίκανώστατα. Εἶεν· εὶ δὲ δή τι οὕτως ἔχει ὡς εἶναί τε καὶ μὴ εἶναι, οὐ μεταξὺ ἂν κέοιτο τοῦ εἰλικρινῶς ὄντος καὶ τοῦ αὖ μηδαμῇ ὄντος; Μεταξύ. Οὐκοῦν εἰ ἐπὶ μὲν τῷ ὄντι γνῶσις ἦν, ἀγνωσία δ' ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἐπὶ μὴ ὄντι, ἐπὶ τῷ μεταξὺ τούτῳ μεταξύ τι καὶ ζητητέον ἀγνοίας τε καὶ ἐπιστήμης, εἴ τι τυγχάνει ὄν τοιοῦτον” (Republic V, 476E-477B). 2 ChAptEr 1 To my knowledge, Plato (ca. 428-348BC) has not told us completely what this bilateral “something between” (μεταξύ τι) is or whether it exists. Here in the Republic and in other places in various dialogues he tells us that, on the side of the knower, it is “opinion” (δόξα) which, in contrast to “[scientific] knowledge” (ἐπιστήμη), confronts , on the side of the known, the changeable things of this world, which neither are nor are not,3 as opposed to the absolute things, of the world of Ideas, which are “really being” (τὸ ὂντως ὂν). Well and good. But there is another dimension here, between the knower and the known, to which Plato has on occasion adverted4 and which may be suggested if one considers something which has survived from Plato’s adversary, Antisthenes (ca. 444-365/370 BC).5 ii Antisthenes is most famous for his anti-Platonic dictum that while he could see a horse or a man, he could not see “horseness” or “manness,”6 but for us now, more important is his denial of falsity and the possibility of contradiction. This is mentioned in at least two places by Aristotle (ca. 384-322 BC).7 Usually, its import has been taken to be that to each term there corresponded only one thing, with the result that no other term could fit a single thing and that thus the two terms 3 Cf., e.g., Republic V, 478C. 4 I have in mind the color (χρῶμα) which is “something in between” (μεταξύ τι) the perceiver and the external thing which confronts him, which is mentioned in Theatetus 153E-154A: “… καὶ ἡμῖν οὕτο μέλαν τε καὶ ὁτιοῦν ἄλλο χρῶμα ἐκ τῆς προσβολῆς τῶν ὀμμάτων πρὸς τὴν προσήκουσαν φορὰν φανεῖται γεγενημένον, καὶ ὃ δὴ ἕκαστον εἶναί φαμεν χρῶμα οὒτε τὸ προσβάλλον οὔτε τὸ προσβαλλόμενον ἔσται, ἀλλὰ μεταξύ τι ἑκάστῳ ἴδιον γεγονός · ….” 5 On the hostility of Antisthenes toward Plato, cf. “La doxografía nos ha conservado varias anécdotas en que aparece la hostilidad de Antístenes contra Platón. En varios Diálogos platonicos se ha querido ver una réplica, o por lo menos alusiones, a sus condiscipulos; por ejemplo, en el Protágoras y en el Sofista, a Euclides; en el Filebo, a Aristipo; en el Eutidemo , el Cratilo y el Teeteto, a Antístenes. Pero las referencias no siempre son lo suficientemente claras para excludir toda duda” (Guillermo Fraile, O.P., Historia de la filosofía, I [Madrid: BAC, 1965], 265-66). On this, also see J. Tricot, Aristote: La Métaphysique, tome I. Traduction et commentaire (Paris: Vrin, 1991), 318, n. 3. 6 Cf. “ἵππον μὲν ὁρῶ, ἱππότητα δὲ οὐχ ὁρῶ, ἄνθρωπον μὲν ὁρῶ, ἀνθρωπότητα δὲ οὐχ ὁρῶ” as cited from Ammonius’ commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge (ed. A. Busse, CAG IV, 3) by Theo Kobusch, Sein und Sprache: Historische Grundlegung einer Ontologie der Sprache (Leiden-New York-København-Köln: E.J. Brill, 1987), 23 and 503, n. 3; cf. Simplicius, In Arist. Categ. (ed. Kalbfleisch) 208, 29 ff; 211, 17f. For the extreme nominalist views in the context of which Antisthenes’ statement is to be understood, cf. Fraile, ibid., 270-71. 7 Topics 1.11.104b21; Metaphysics 5.29.1024b34 sprouts...