The Middle Included

Front matter

THE

MIDDLE

LUDED x

Conclusion

1. Overview

2. The Human Condition: The Cycloptic and the Oedipal

3. Nous

Notes Bibliography General Index

113 114 123 130 142

145 146 155 168 178

189 189 194 208

211 249 261 267

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the Department of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University, which provided me an educational and therefore philosophical environment between 2001 and 2005, the Fulbright Foundation which granted me optimum work conditions for research in 2005-6, and the Projects of Scientific Research at Galatasaray University which enabled me to turn my dissertation into this book.

I am deeply grateful to Robert D. Metcalf and Eli Diamond for their detailed notes and fair criticisms concerning the text in its manuscript form; to the members of the committee of my dissertation on which this book is based, Daniel Conway, Veronique Foti, Christopher P. Long, and Mark Munn, for their suggestions and encouragement after reading the earliest version of this book; and also to Rémi Brague, Pierre Pellegrin, Jean-Louis Labarriére, and Annick Jaulin for their insightful remarks during my presentations of parts of it. I am also very much indebted to my friends, Katherine Loewy, Eric Sanday, Hakan Yiicefer, Sean D. Kirkland, David Bronstein, Gregory Recco, William Harwood, Refik Gtiremen, Ali Çakır, and Michael Schleeter, for their companionship and challenges.

I cannot express enough my indebtedness to John Russon who directed my dissertation with immense philosophical motivation and genuine friendship, and honored my work by including it in its present form in the series “Rereading Ancient Philosophy” at Northwestern University Press. I am also grateful to Maggie Grossman, Henry Lowell Carrigan, Anne E. Gendler, and Nathan MacBrien at the Northwestern University Press for their help during the editorial preparation of the book in its published form.

Finally, I am most indebted to my wife, Ayşenur Nuhoğlu, for the constant support and diligent criticism she brought to these pages. Indeed, none of the above is to be held responsible for any shortcomings in the following, but the rest of it could not be written without them.

ABBREVIATIONS

Works by Aristotle (for complete bibliographic information, see pages 249-52)

APo. Posterior Analytics APr. Prior Analytics Cael. De Caelo, On the Heavens Cat. Categories DA De Anima, On the Soul De sensu On Sense and Sensible Objects EE Eudemian Ethics GA Generation of Animals GC On Generation and Corruption HA History of Animals MA On the Movement of Animals Metaph. Metaphysics Mete. Meteorology NE Nicomachean Ethics On Int. On Interpretation PA Parts of Animals Ph. Physics Po. Poetics Pol. Politics Prob. Problems Protrep. Protrepticus R}. Rhetoric SE Sophistici Elenchi, Sophistical Refutations Top. Topics Secondary Works DK Diels and Kranz, 1956 KRS Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, 1983 LSJ Liddell, Scott, and Jones, 1996 xi

Preface

‘The project of this book originated from my fascination with quite a humble natural phenomenon. I will explore this issue at length in chapter 6, but let me briefly talk about it just so that the reader may have an idea about where this book came from.

A scout honeybee sees flowers to exploit in a certain field. She returns to the hive, and describes her firsthand experience of the location and quality of the bounty to the other bees. Of course, these bees understand the message, since they will fly off to the exact location and exploit the field. And indeed, when they return to the hive, they too can convey their new firsthand experience to still others. But before they have this firsthand experience, they do not or cannot relay to others what for them is noż a firsthand experience.

Honeybees seem capable of understanding what is for them a non-firsthand experience, but not of relaying it. There are indeed animal species that are capable of re/aying non-firsthand experience, especially animals that imitate. But while these species are capable of re/aying this non-firsthand experience, they seem to do so without understanding it."

Is there an animal species that has the capacity for both understanding and relaying non-firsthand experiences? Of course. We, humans, indulge in this capacity. We understand non-firsthand experience as honeybees do, but we can also relay it. We relay non-firsthand experience like, say, imitating bird species do, but we do so while understanding that of which we never had, do not have, or may never have, a firsthand experience. A sentence like “I feel great today” is comparable to the message the scout honeybee conveyed to the other bees: I convey my firsthand experience to you who are capable of understanding what, for you, is not a firsthand experience. But when you say to others, “Omer is feeling great today,” something different is happening: like honeybees and unlike imitating birds, you are understanding a non-firsthand experience, but, like those bird species and unlike honeybees, you are also re/aying that content to others. Since your audience may also relay the same information to still others, this capacity boosts the speed with which information is propagated. As there is no relay among honeybees, only the scout honeybee can inform other bees. Hence, the rate of propagation of that information will follow a /inear growth. Among humans in everyday life, however, since the receiver can in turn relay the message to still others xiii xiv PREFACE without having to undergo the experience firsthand, the propagation of information can grow exponentially.

But this capacity is not only ubiquitous in our everyday exchanges. It also sheds light on significant aspects of human experience. For it is this capacity that enables me to communicate, not only that I feel great today, but also that Socrates was executed in 399, that there are igneous rocks on the surface of the moon, and that the form “circle” can be instantiated in an infinite number of cases. I had understood these messages, as you just did, without ever needing to have a firsthand experience of Socrates’s death, of the surface of the moon, or, indeed, of the infinite instantiations of the form “circle.”

Actually, almost all science, all fiction, all history, all news media, all education, all propaganda, all gossip, all utopian fiction, all sophistry as well as all philosophy structurally require that the message relayed be such that its content was not, is not, or even cannot be, experienced firsthand. Yet indeed, when I speak, I may be expressing my firsthand experience, but I may also be lying, I may be relaying something I heard from someone else who has heard it who knows where. Further, you may further propagate this dubious message without having to check its truthfulness. So I am exercising this capacity not only when I say that Socrates was executed in 399, but also when I say that Socrates was noż executed in 399. Again, I am drawing on the same capacity when I say, regardless of their actual or potential truth-value, that Athenians will regret their execution of Socrates, or that his execution was ordained by fate, that he will converse with great poets in the afterlife, or that he will be resurrected. So, besides our everyday communications, it is the major human institutions and traditions that require this capacity for both understanding and relaying non-firsthand experience. And once the communicating parties possess this capacity, there is no preestablished control over the truthfulness of the messages. This capacity pervades our experience. And with it, truth, for us, becomes less a given than a task.

As I shall argue in chapters 5 and 6 of this book, when Aristotle famously says that humans are the only animal species having /ogos, he is referring to this capacity of understanding and relaying non-firsthand experience along with firsthand experience. But while developing this claim, I noticed how ubiquitous and polysemic the word /ogos was in the Aristotelian corpus. It meant “standard,” “ratio,” “reason,” and “speech,” among other things. As I found no survey of the meanings of /ogos in Aristotle either in his own texts or in his posterity, I undertook the project myself and devised this book.

‘Thus, specifically, this book is about one of the most important words in all philosophy and science, /ogos, as it was used by one of the greatest figures in these fields: Aristotle. It is an argumentative survey of the four fundamental

PREFACE XV meanings of this word, “standard,” “ratio,” “reason,” and “speech,” as they appear in Aristotle’s logic, philosophy of nature, and ethics and politics.

On a more general level, however, I consider this book to be about rationality. From this point of view, chapters 1 and 2 deal with the inner structure or requirements of rationality by means of an analysis of the sense of Jogos as “standard” in Aristotle’s logical works. In chapters 3 and 4, I move on to rationality in nature. There I offer an analysis of natural motion, life forms, organisms, animal perception and behavior, by turning to the sense of /ogos as “ratio” in Aristotle’s philosophy of nature. Finally, in chapters 5 and 6, I offer an account of our rationality and use of language as humans, by elaborating, in Aristotle’s ethics and politics, the last two fundamental senses of /ogos: “reason,” and “speech.”

In short, this book is about the meanings of /ogos in Aristotle and the relation between them, with a view to, and a claim about, the specificity of human language.

THE MIDDLE INCLUDED

Introduction

Logos is said in many ways. Yet the meanings of /ogos in Aristotle have not been submitted to a thorough philosophical survey, either in the philosopher’s work or in his posterity. Once we conduct this survey here in this book, Aristotle’s traditional image as the father of formal logic, of classificatory or taxonomic thinking, of the principles of the excluded middle and of non-contradiction, will yield to a more accurate image of him as a thinker of inclusion. For, I shall argue, such a survey reveals that all meanings of /ogos in his works refer to a fundamental meaning, namely “relation,” “comprehensiveness,” or “inclusiveness.” More specifically, as suggested by the etymological meaning of /ogos as “gathering,” “laying,” and “collecting,” this “relation” holds its terms together in their difference instead of collapsing one to the other, or keeping them in indifference.’ So /ogos involves different terms—typically ones that appear incompatible, contrary, or contradictory in light of a simply exclusive, formal version of the principle of non-contradiction or of the excluded middle. What /ogos does is to hold these terms together in a comprehensive way that was previously unnoticed or simply ruled out.

Let me offer some examples to illustrate this fundamental meaning of Jogos as an inclusive relation. First, in its simplest form, /ogos means “ratio.” Take the ratio 4 to 7. Logos here relates two numbers in such a way that it neither collapses their difference as addition does (4 + 7), nor leaves them in indifference as does the set {4, 7}.

Second, let us take an example from “physics.” In Fragment 51, Heraclitus says: “They do not understand how that which is disrupted has the same Jogos as itself: a back-stretched harmony as in the bow and the lyre.”” So two contrary motions, such as an upward motion and a downward motion, can be comprehended within a single stable framework as in a bow or the lyre. If the cord is not to break off or stay loose, the upward and downward forces must be exerted according to a /ogos, that is, within a certain range outside of which the tension is dissolved. Once again, /ogos names the appropriate relation between the two opposite poles.

Third, an example from “psychology.” What is it like to feel the warmth of a radiator? ‘The sensation of warmth on my hand can be explained neither as an activity of my hand, since it is distinct from /eating, nor as a mere passivity, since it is not reducible to being heated either. Thus, an account of sensation must overcome the dilemma between activity and passivity, or the dichotomy between subject and object, and admit both that I receive the warmth but also that I am not simply becoming warm—we shall see in chapter 4 that Aristotle’s word of this middle way is again /ogos. Feeling the warmth of the radiator requires that I hold together and thereby distinguish my hand and the radiator.

Fourth example: the desire to eat and the desire to lose weight may seem incompatible. Yet a healthy diet and the very concept of health require a third option between anorexia and gluttony, a way that is neither asceticism nor indulgence, a previously unnoticed middle ground delineated by /ogos this time in the sense of “reason.” Logos relates the seemingly contrary desires of eating and of losing weight without yielding or suppressing any one at the expense of the other.

Finally, let me illustrate /ogos in the uniquely human sense of “speech.” My firsthand immediate experience of the world seems to be exclusively and eminently mine—whether it be my feeling great today, the experience of seeing just ¢his shade of blue, of feeling a toothache, or of listening to music. ‘These experiences are private and unrepeatable, despite my facial expression, my clenched fist, or my ecstatic smile. Nevertheless I can claim to express my experience to somebody who is, by definition, 7o¢ the one who had it. Beside private experience, and not at the expense of private firsthand experience, we also must have some access to non-firsthand experience given that we have history, science, law, philosophy, and sophistry as part of our lives. Logos as “speech” is precisely the human capacity for understanding and relaying firsthand experiences not at the expense of experiences we never had, may never have, or cannot ever have firsthand.

As to the overall structure of this book, it takes the hybrid form of what I may call an argumentative survey. For, on the one hand, its six chapters survey the various functions of /ogos by a cross-reading of central passages respectively from Aristotle’s logic, physics, and ethics.* On the other hand, the book presents an overall argument about the fundamental meaning of /ogos in Aristotle and also about its specifically human meaning as “speech.” So the argumentative aspect of the book is well-suited to the reader who wishes to read the book from cover to cover, while the surveying aspect accommodates the reader preferring to pick out and read isolated chapters. To this end, each part opens first with a road map for the overarching argument, but then with a fresh introduction specifically designed for the topic of that chapter. Similarly, each chapter closes with a recapitulation for that individual chapter followed by a reorientation for the reader who wishes to move on to the next one.

In this introduction, let me first present the main question of the book, then offer a brief review of Aristotle’s method in order, then, to argue for our own method in this book and give an outline of the overall argument.

The Question

‘There is a story that a man and not a man

Saw and did not see a bird and not a bird

Perched on a branch and not a branch

And hit him and did not hit him with a rock and not a rock.*

This riddle illustrates two requirements for riddles in general: their terms should be at once familiar to their listeners, and ambiguous enough to keep them guessing. For a riddle is never an unknown out of nothing, but always an unknown carved from out of the bulk of what is already known. Further, this ignorance should be overcome neither by acquiring a hitherto unknown piece of information, nor by making calculations, nor by multiplying blind guesses in order to approximate the correct answer by trial and error. The solution of a riddle requires that one look for that which was purposefully designed to be overlooked, and recognize the twist at the heart of the riddle. One must understand what the words “man,” “bird,” and “rock” mean. But one must also notice the way in which these words were deliberately designed in the riddle to have more than one straightforward meaning. Only then can one properly solve the riddle: “A eunuch threw a bit of pumice to a bat perched on a fennel plant, but missed.” All riddles are subtended by this tension between familiarity and ambiguity.’

So is Jogos. This word is both extremely familiar in Ancient Greek and highly ambiguous.° In fact, the ten major senses listed in Liddell-Scott and Jones's Greek-English Lexicon range from mere “reckoning” all the way to the “Word of God.” And this is without even speaking about the amazing number and significance of its senses in the later Stoic, Gnostic, and Christian traditions.* Equally extensive and equivocal is Aristotle’s own use of Jogos.’ Bonitz reduces this ambiguity to a fourfold distinction which I shall roughly adopt without following its order: “standard,” “ratio,” “reason,” and “speech.”!° Yet Aristotle never offers an analysis of this ambiguity. Actually, besides the fact that Aristotle’s traditional corpus opens with a discussion of the ambiguity of words, since he insistently demands the dialectician to disambiguate such terms, and accordingly analyzes the ambiguity of fundamental philosophical terms, it is puzzling to see that he does not even mention that /ogos is used in many ways."

‘Thus, just like the terms of the riddle above, the word /ogos in the Aristotelian corpus is as familiar as it is ambiguous. Logos is not that which Aristotle did not think of. Indeed, far from it. Logos is rather a word that Aristotle persistently used without ever explaining or even thematizing it—a “Purloined Letter,” a blind spot, in his thought as well as in his vast posterity, ancient”? and contemporary.” This, then, is the question: What does /ogos mean in Aristotle, and how are we to make sense of these meanings? It is this unexplored question emerging out of terms most familiar to readers of Aristotle that we shall attempt to answer in this book.

Aristotle’s Method

Dialectic Explicit in Aristotle

I must touch upon the thorny subject of Aristotelian dialectic if only because it will provide justification for my own procedure in this book. In what follows, I shall claim that Aristotle’s method in most of his extant works can be best characterized as dialectical. In support of this claim, I shall turn, first, to some of Aristotle’s explicit statements about dialectic and his own typical procedure, and then to his imp/ici¢ use of dialectical method in his logic, his physics, and his ethics. Finally I shall claim that our method in this book should also be dialectical.

For Aristotle, dialectic is a kind of sy//ogismos in the loose sense of “reasoning.” Syllogism in the strict sense is a /ogos in which “certain things having been put, something else necessarily follows through them” (Top. I, 1, 100a25-27; APr. I, 1, 24b19-21). A dialectical syllogism, on the other hand, is one that starts from endoxa, from widespread opinions, opinions accepted by everyone or by the majority or by the wise (Top. I, 1, 100a30—b21). Unlike syllogism in the strict sense, dialectic then begins, not by positing primary and true things, but by assuming a receptive stance, by an “induction” (epagégé) or even a “perception” in the sense of a recognition of what is “out there” in the form of opinions, utterances, and appearances.’ Yet dialectic begins by taking these for granted only in order to then return upon them with a critical evaluation and an argumentative account.’ Starting out with an “induction,” dialectic typically uses deductions in order to follow up or push through the implications of those opinions or appearances into eventual impasses." For, as Aristotle says in resonance with Socratic elenchus, Plato’s aporetic dialogues, and even the Cave Story, “it is not possible to resolve anything if you do not see how you are bound” (Metaph. ITI, 1, 995a29).'® Thus dialectic is characterized less by its starting point than by its commitment to critically return there, to create and sustain opposition and tension. This function of dialectic is precisely that which a syllogism in the strict sense cannot do, and indeed is not intended to do.”

Hence, besides the gymnastic function of dialectic, Aristotle states two other uses which are both critical:

[Dialectic] is useful for philosophical sciences because, if we are able to question both [sides of a question], we shall more easily discern truth and falsehood at each point.” But further, [it is useful] in connection with the first principles in each science, for it is impossible to say something about them on the basis of the principles peculiar to the science in question, since principles are prior to everything else, which is why it is necessary to deal with them through the widespread opinions on each point. This belongs characteristically or most appropriately to dialectic: for, as it is investigative, it lies along the principles of all methods. (Top. I, 2, 101a35-101b4)”

Dialectic starts out with what is already “out there,” what is already known by us, already familiar, obvious, clear, and distinct for us, in order then to reach a point from which we can and must freely and critically evaluate it.” In this sense, dialectic is typically equipped with some sort of “principle of charity,” and is in close affinity to democracy and freedom of thought and expression.” In this light, Aristotelian dialectic appears to be an inheritance of what Socrates says about dialectic and hypotheses in distinction from mathematics in Plato’s Republic:

[In dialectic, the soul] makes its way to a principle that is free from hypotheses; starting out from hypothesis and without the images used in the other part, by means of forms themselves it makes its inquiry through them . . . The argument itself grasps [the highest segment of the intelligible] with the power of dialectic, making hypotheses not principles but hypotheses—that is, steppingstones and springboards—in order to reach what is free from hypothesis at the beginning of the whole. (VI, 510b5-8, 511b3—5)**

We shall shortly see affinities between Aristotelian method and two other Socratic-Platonic methodological concepts: maieutics and elenchus.”

Aristotle’s explicit remarks on dialectic seem to resonate with his avowed procedure at the opening of a great number of his central works: to proceed from what is clear and known to us, toward what is clear and known simply or by nature.” This procedure is clearly closer to dialectic proper than to either demonstration or gymnastic dialectic. For, first, neither demonstration nor gymnastic dialectic begins with “what is clear to us”: demonstration begins with what is true and primary, while gymnastic dialectic can begin anywhere. Dialectic proper, however, begins with the endoxa, whether it be widespread opinions or perceptions. Second, neither demonstration nor gymnastic dialectic /eads us toward “what is clear by nature”: for, demonstration is a way down from the true and primary toward what is implied therein, while the goal of gymnastic dialectic is victory, as rhetoric’s goal is persuasion. Dialectic proper, on the other hand, being “inquisitive” (peirastiké),”’ “investigative (exetastiké),”* or “questioning” (eré¢étiké),” is committed to truth. In a word, gymnastic dialectic can start anywhere, but is not supposed to lead us zo truth; demonstration can only start with what is established as true and primary, and thus cannot /ead us to truth either.

To illustrate the claim that typical Aristotelian method proceeds dialectically from what is known and already clear “to us” toward what is most knowable and clearest “according to nature,”*! let us now turn to Aristotle’s implicit use of this procedure in his logic, his physics, and his ethics.

Dialectic Implicit in Aristotle's Logic

Inasmuch as we know a language, an immense range of things is “clear to us.’ We are immersed in a first “domain of obviousness”: phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, syntax, text forms, expressions, proverbs, jokes, riddles, songs, and so on. A language is not only a tool for acquiring or exchanging information, nor simply a set of rules to which we constantly and anxiously obey. It is also such a seminal paradigm in our “outlook” on the world that it tends to be, and must be, “overlooked.” Language speakers “get” a language to such a degree that they necessarily “forget” that it was acquired in the first place and is not exempt from examination. Our mother tongue is precisely developed enough to become a possible object of questioning with regard to the categories, the distinctions and conflations it instills. And it is precisely as speakers familiarized in a particular language that we may demand more rigor or justification than that language presently offers.

No wonder Aristotle often starts out in his works with an analysis of the obvious meanings of common words, and ends up challenging the status quo of his own language by introducing unnoticed distinctions or by canceling redundant ones.” In fact, the very opening of the traditional corpus, the beginning of the Categories, abruptly introduces the distinction between homonymy and synonymy, suggesting that he takes for granted that homonymy is possible as a mismatch between words and things**—an inescapable ambiguity in words taken by themselves.” It should not be far-fetched to say that Aristotle’s logic addresses various levels of linguistic and mental operations dialectically first by observation and then by problematization.*° That Aristotle’s starting point is our preliminary familiarity with our mother tongue can also be expressed by the fact that, although he is arguably the first to formalize linguistic structures in logic, he seems to be tempted neither by the idea of an Adamic language, nor by the typically early modern project of an artificially engineered “perfect language.”*’ So, far from naively imposing the categories of the Ancient Greek language onto things, far from being tempted by the dream of a perfectly rational artificial or natural language, Aristotle’s dialogue within language is oriented from what was already clear to Ancient Greek speakers of his time, toward what is clear in itself or “according to nature.”**

Aristotle’s logic then is dialectical at least in the sense that it can be seen to be performing a dialogue of language with itself on various levels. One could even argue that this dialogue takes an essentially Socratic form, in that he openly follows up and critically pushes the claims inherent to native language speakers including himself.” In this sense, Aristotle’s logic is not only a dialogue with and within language, but also a “maieutics” of language, in that he assists language to “give birth” to the implicit significance with which it is pregnant.”

Dialectic Implicit in Aristotle’s Physics But there is at least a second “domain of obviousness.” For we know a lot more than words, meanings, grammatical rules, and constructions: first of all, our body, our health, our needs, and further the weather, day and night, animals, plants, motions and changes. In life, there is an obvious and unproblematic character to what all these are, how they work and especially how and when they do not work. The wildest of fantasies and the most awesome miracles precisely presuppose this practical familiarity we have with nature. This familiarity, however, is once again preliminary and far from offering us, and is not expected to offer us, say, an explicit definition of time, motion, or void. Although much is apparent to us “out there” in nature, most of it is barely sufficient to even let us ask what is going on “in there.”

Similarly, Aristotle’s method in his philosophy of nature is neither deductive nor simply inductive, but once again mostly dialectic.“ First, as is obvious from any short glance at the History of Animals or the Generation of Animals,

Aristotle’s extensive work on nature obviously stands on a wealth of eager investigation and direct exploration, on secondhand accounts of the experience of hunters, physicians, fishermen, farmers, beekeepers, travelers, and indeed also on the various accounts of nature by his contemporaries and predecessors.” But anyone who has read any part of the Physics, Parts of Animals, or On Generation and Corruption would know equally well that his philosophy of nature is not reducible to this minute and extensive work of recording and collectorship. If Aristotle begins as a spectator or listener of natural phenomena, he does so as one who wants to understand as much as to know, one fascinated by the concrete plurality of natural phenomena, with all its deviations, exceptions, and monstrosities, as well as by the relations and regularities embedded in nature. Whereas investigation and exploration constitute the first moment of his philosophy of nature, they are in fact meant to provide material for comparison, interpretation, specification, and generalization, in order to subject natural phenomena to an internal critique, to become informed by life forms, to access the “logic” Aristotle claims his “interlocutor,” nature, to have.”

Just as Aristotle’s logic can be seen as a gradually expanding dialogue of language with itself, reminiscent of Socratic maieutics, his philosophy of nature can be considered as equally dialogical. For it indistinguishably involves a patient and systematic listening to natural phenomena, followed by a critical challenge and cross-examination quite in line with Socratic elenchus.**

Dialectic Implicit in Aristotle’s Ethics Finally, we also know much, and perhaps most, about ourselves and about others, our desires, our thoughts, our goals, about our personal history and about the communities we live in. All these are out there in the form of discourse, gestures, reactions, customs, conventions, and artifacts. This clarity is what makes us able to navigate in everyday social life with a relative amount of comfort in so far as we do so. If so, then the realm of human significations and institutions may be said to constitute a third “domain of obviousness.” And yet, indeed, as our acquaintance with human meanings and institutions is the closest, strongest, and oldest kind of familiarity, it is also the hardest and most crucial kind of knowledge to critically examine. Most often this “knowledge” does not exempt us from, but rather obligates us to, much reflection and long hesitation when it comes to bearing undeserved pain, to making decisions for us and for others, to figuring out what is going on “in there” as we listen to someone or even to ourselves, to discussing what is meant by “freedom,” “democracy,” “terrorism,” “violence,” and “justice,” or what Aristotle means by /ogos for that matter.