leading up to it. For this reason, by shedding light on how exactly he attempted to ascend (in the manner of natural science) from the roots to the surface of things, Socrates’ second statement also affords us, inasmuch as that attempt was not free from difficulties, a glimpse into what made him turn away from natural science.
Still, it is only a glimpse. Making matters worse, it is as much as we ever see first hand of Socrates’ disappointment with natural science. For the “sufficient proof” of Socrates’ incapacity for natural science that we were promised by him—the “proof” to which both his first and second statements are merely preliminary contributions—is not in fact forthcoming. After his second statement, he is interrupted by Cebes (96e5). And, strangely enough, when he has at last concluded the digression that Cebes’ interruption compelled him to undertake (96e6–97b7), he does not, as one would expect, return to the point in his “proof” at which he had left off. Instead, he goes on to report the next stage of his intellectual autobiography, as if he were not in so doing neglecting or refusing to share with his listeners the “sufficient proof” he had just promised them. There is, then, a lacuna at the decisive moment in Socrates’ intellectual autobiography, and Plato has arranged matters in such a way as to draw our attention to this. (Plato’s own motive for being reticent, to the extent that it is not simply the same as the one we have already attributed Socrates, becomes clearer when one observes that prior to being interrupted, Socrates had been about to lay bare the difficulty responsible for his disappointment with natural science. It is true that, had he done so, on perhaps the most memorable day of his life no less, Socrates would have left posterity with the false and misleading impression that he dishonored this kind of inquiry [Apology 19c6–d1, cf. Symposium 210c6–d6], a kind of inquiry that is inseparable from, even if not identical to, the kind characteristic of his maturity. Socrates was not unwilling to court this danger later on, however [98b7–99c6]. It is more plausible, then, that Plato’s reticence must be traced especially to the reasons he has given elsewhere for refusing to write down such things [Second Letter 314b7–c4, Seventh Letter 341c4–342a1].) But does this lacuna leave us at a complete loss?
After wrapping up the digression he was compelled to undertake in response to Cebes’ interruption, Socrates unexpectedly turns to the next stage of his intellectual autobiography: his encounter with Anaxagoras. His account of the “wonderful hope” (98b7) or “hopes” (98b3) aroused in him by Anaxagoras’ teaching thus replaces the account of his disappointment with natural science that we had expected would be renewed after his digression. And one is tempted to wonder, in view of this substitution, whether the two accounts are connected in some way. Assuming that the young Socrates’ disappointment with natural science was due to an increased awareness on his part that it was exposed to a deep-seated difficulty, the hope or hopes subsequently aroused in him by Anaxagoras’ teaching might have stemmed from his impression that that teaching in particular was especially well suited to overcome or resolve it.2 In that case, the account of what he hoped to learn from Anaxagoras would cast light on the substance of the difficulty responsible for his disappointment with natural science. Combined with the glimpse into the matter afforded by Socrates’ second statement, that account might suffice to reconstruct in all essentials the “sufficient proof” we are not permitted to hear first hand in its entirety.
The Problem of “Matter”
In his second statement, Socrates cites four examples of things he no longer (96e6–7, 97b1–6) supposes he knows, but which he supposed he knew before, when he was young. He thereby adds to his account of human growth four more illustrations of “what,” in his opinion and in the opinion of the other natural scientists, “[he] clearly knew before” or “what [he] supposed [he] knew before,” but later on, as a result of being blinded, unlearned (96c3–7). First, the young Socrates supposed that whenever some big human being should appear standing beside a small one, the former is bigger by virtue of a head—or rather, “by the head itself.”3 Second, he supposed that whenever a big horse should appear standing beside a small one, the former, too, is bigger by virtue of “the head itself.” Third, it seemed to him that ten is more than eight “through” two being added to the latter. Fourth, it seemed to him that two cubits is more than one cubit “through” exceeding the latter by half of itself. These examples are not as strange as they seem—in fact, as we will see, they are not strange at all.4
According to the first of his examples, it seemed to the young Socrates that a big human being is bigger than a small one by virtue of “the head itself.” This is an account of the way of being of a human being—or of a human being’s bigness, one of a human being’s characteristics—in terms of its materials or elements. For the human being is here conceived of as a compound, made out of parts, whose way of being (or bigness) in relation to another human being can be traced to what, or how many, materials or elements it consists of.5 And Socrates’ second example takes “the head itself” as a part, like his first, but with the difference that the head in question is that of a horse, not a human being, and what is made out of it is, similarly, the way of being (or bigness) that belongs to each of a pair of horses, not human beings. Taken together, Socrates’ first two examples encourage us to notice that the head of a horse and that of a human being, however different from one another they may be in some respects, are the same in others, insofar as both of them are still heads. He therefore suggests, not least by his otherwise inexplicable use of the phrase “the head itself,” that there is a distinction between what is always the same about a head insofar as it is a head, and thus what is shared by each and every head as a head (whether a horse’s or a human being’s), on one hand, and what about the head admits of change or modification, on the other. To begin to make sense of this distinction, and of the role it plays here, it is necessary to bear in mind that, as the context shows, it is meant to be applied not so much to heads per se as to heads conceived of as materials or elements. For one is led by this to wonder, next, whether this distinction, between what is and is not subject to change or modification, is not somehow applicable to materials or elements as such.
As we saw, what the natural scientists primarily seek to account for is each thing’s way of being, or its characteristics and powers. And these things, whose causes they then sought to grasp, are in motion or subject to change. Socrates has already singled out human beings and horses for their changeability (78d10). But if the things natural science is concerned to account for are changeable or perishable, must not their cause or causes be perishable as well, at least in part? To leave it at saying, as we have so far, that the material sought by the natural scientists is simply imperishable or unchangeable will not suffice; it is necessary to add that this material, too, admits of change or modification in some respects, even as it remains always the same in others.6 For otherwise, if it did not change, it would not be able to bring about the things, and the changes in the things, as they are already known to us. But does not the presence of change in that material itself also threaten to destabilize what, of all things, the natural scientists had regarded as altogether stable?
The young Socrates’ lack of awareness of this difficulty—of, in short, the need to ascribe change to what alone, as it seemed to him and the others engaged in natural science, needed to be wholly free from it—is suggested by his appeal to “the head itself” as the material or element of both a human being and a horse. For by having recourse in this way to “the head itself” (in contrast to the head of a human being and to that of a horse, as the case may be) the young Socrates appealed exclusively to what, about the head, is unchangeable. That is, he neglected to appeal in addition or instead to what about the head is subject to change or modification. But a human being could not come to be unless its materials or elements—let us say, in place of “the head itself,” the atoms—undergo some change or modification. Nor could a horse come to be out of those same atoms, unless they undergo a different change or modification. As his appeal to “the head itself” goes to show, however, the young Socrates combined the thought that the fundamental material is what causes all things, such as human beings and horses, with the inconsistent thought that it is itself altogether unchangeable or imperishable. Evidently, he neglected to distinguish clearly between what does and what does not
