The Socratic Turn. Dustin Sebell
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it was incumbent on the account to meet—still unmet? For what the young Socrates sought, to repeat, was an account of human growth that would meet the requirement that nothing come to be without a cause. And to ensure that nothing could come to be or perish unqualifiedly during the change from the one to the other, he reduced both “food” and “human being” to their materials or elements. But the appeal to the body parts, as things that remain or persist unchanged in the course of human growth, is not yet an appeal to what is imperishable simply. Flesh and bone are themselves perishable; in death, the body and its parts return to the earth from which they came (80c2–d3, 77e1–3). The very same difficulty that first led the young Socrates to reduce food to flesh and bone therefore reappears on the level of his “solution” to it. The mystery that surrounds flesh and bone, as a result of this difficulty, extends in turn to the perishable things (“food” and “human being”) of which they are said to be the materials or elements, undermining the account as a whole.
Still, does not the difficulty that undermines in this way the young Socrates’ account of human growth have a clear solution? It is, in essence, the very same difficulty the young Socrates faced before, in the case of “food” and “human being.” In that case, though, he sought to resolve it by appealing to their materials or elements. Yet that “solution” did no more than postpone the difficulty. To reapply it here, to reduce flesh and bone and the other body parts to their materials or elements, would likewise serve only as a temporary stopgap. For it would be necessary in the next place to reduce the materials or elements of flesh and bone and the other body parts to their materials or elements, and so on. A genuine solution to the difficulty, as opposed to a mere stopgap, could not allow this to go on ad infinitum. An appeal to the body parts will not do. At the same time, however, exactly what would have to characterize the sort of thing that could supply a genuine solution follows clearly enough from the fact that it is the perishability of flesh and bone and the other body parts that undermines the young Socrates’ account. In other words, would not the difficulty at issue vanish if, after reducing flesh and bone and the other body parts to their materials or elements, the young Socrates did not stop there but continued to reduce those things to their materials or elements,15 and so on, until he came at last to the truly elemental, altogether simple material (being) underlying everything else? As long as the changes involved in human growth could be traced back to some first, eternal material, the young Socrates’ account of it would seem to be saved.
It would only seem to be saved, however. For an aspect of the original difficulty endures. There remains the possibility that the first, eternal thing is itself capable of radically changing, perhaps through thought or choice, in which case the very thing meant to ensure that Socrates’ account would meet the basic requirement of science would in fact do just the opposite. For, since Socrates and the others engaged in natural science refused to separate cause from necessity (97e2, 99b1–6, compare 108e5–109a2 with 99b8),16 whatever should freely emerge in this way—and, in principle, anything could—would come to be without necessity and thus, properly speaking, without a cause. A first, eternal thing that is itself free or radically changeable would sink rather than save the young Socrates’ account. What that account requires therefore is a first material that is fixed or necessary, something which, because it is fixed or necessary, is permanent or eternal as well (cf. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1139b22–24ff.).
The foregoing reflections are confirmed by the fact that Socrates will later refer to the discovery of that very material as the objective of the whole class of accounts to which his own account of human growth belongs. For he goes on to say that all natural scientists believed they would discover, “an Atlas stronger and more deathless and better at holding all things together” (99c3–5) than any thinking or purposive being (99c1–3, 99c5–6).17 They believed they would discover, to put it less poetically, a “necessity” such as “vortex” or “air” at the bottom of all things (compare 99c3–5 with 99b6–c1 and 108e5–109a2).18 On reflection, then, the difficulty with the young Socrates’ account has a clear solution, and that solution is, as it turns out, the same as the objective of all such accounts, as Socrates will go on to describe that objective, namely, the discovery of some first, necessary, and thus eternal being (or beings).19 According to Aristotle, too, the belief or assumption that there was just such a thing was shared by all natural scientists (Physics 187a35–b1, Metaphysics 984a31–33).20
In sum, the young Socrates’ account seems, at first glance, to be undermined by a difficulty that, despite being rather obvious, he appears not to notice. On the other hand, he had only just faced it in another context (in the case of “food” and “human being”). Moreover, as we saw, the difficulty has a clear solution. That solution was, on reflection, actually implied by the thrust of the young Socrates’ account, or by its overarching goal: to meet the basic requirement of science. In addition to this, it was made explicit by Socrates’ later disclosure that what was sought (as a way of meeting that requirement) by his account or by the whole class of accounts to which his own belonged was the fundamental material that underlies and upholds the rest. The difficulty with the young Socrates’ account of human growth has a solution, which Socrates, in his restatement of it to Cebes and the others, merely refuses to state openly, even though he is fully aware of it. If that account in its current state appears deficient, as indeed it does, it is only because Socrates in restating it now refuses to finish it or to draw the conclusion that necessarily follows from it. In particular, he refuses to do more than allude to that account’s ultimate reliance on some first material necessity (anangkē).
Socrates’ Reticence
But what is the reason for this refusal? Although Socrates refuses to speak of that material here—while he is in the midst of conceding that he was, after all, involved in natural science, whose objective is to find it—he is much less reticent in this regard later (99c3–5), after having encouraged his listeners to pardon or to forget his own ties to natural science by critiquing at length those still engaged in it (98b7–99c3). Only after thoroughly dissociating himself from the natural scientists does Socrates permit himself to speak of the sort of thing they seek to discover. Even then, he does not speak of it straightforwardly, but in terms borrowed from poetry or myth, as “an Atlas.”21 By speaking of it in this way, he conceals somewhat the very thing that at the same time he allows himself to reveal: that this fundamental material, so far from being thoughtful or purposeful, operates according to necessity alone (compare 99c1–6 with 99b6–c1, 98b7–d8, 96b2–c1, and 108e5–109a2).22 As we saw, in order to meet the basic requirement of science, the natural scientists assumed that there is some first, necessary, and thus eternal material (such as “air” or the atom), or what Socrates calls “an Atlas.”23 Again, according to Aristotle, all natural scientists made this same assumption. They did not refer to that material as “an Atlas,” however, they called it “nature.”24 And so Aristotle for his part called the first philosophers “those who discoursed on nature.”25
Now, Socrates says that the natural scientists “believe” (99c3) that they will “discover” or “find” (99c5) nature. He implies by this formulation that, as we have already seen, the belief or assumption that there is nature lies at the basis of natural science. At the same time, he implies that another belief or assumption lies at its basis along with it: namely, that nature, insofar as it can be discovered or found at all, is itself intelligible or knowable (cf. 99b2–c1). The natural scientists believe or assume, in other words, that the belief or assumption underlying natural science, that there is nature, can receive confirmation from natural science itself. And the confirmation of that assumption is the objective and also, simultaneously, the condition of natural science. Having said that, perhaps the delicacy with which Socrates speaks of nature follows from what is gradually becoming clear about it, on one hand, together with what was popularly believed about the first thing, on the other.
Indeed, not only is the assumption that there is nature incompatible with the belief in the gods of the city, its confirmation, which is nothing less than the objective and condition of natural science, would amount to a demonstration of the nonexistence of such gods.26 To see this it suffices to consider the assumption of the natural scientists, that there is nature, in light