PLATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICEBecause of the apeiron, human life can never be absolutely success-
ful; rather it always runs the risk of miscarrying and must forever
be wrested from its tendency to sink into a measurelessness even so
extreme as that of the unconscious and torpid life of an oyster [or mol-
lusk] (Philebus 21d).^45Along different lines, Christopher Smith notes that after classifi cation,
“we are to let the whole thing lapse eis to apeiron, into the infi nite and
indefi nite,” and that the Platonic method of question and answer itself
proceeds without peras, or as Smith puts it, “indeterminately, unend-
ingly, inconclusively.”^46 Against such an indistinct background, determi-
nation carves out meanings through constant repetition and revision.
By contrast, in the Parmenides, the act of repeating only sets us
further adrift in the vast and dangerous sea of lovgo~. Both the thought
and the language lack any harmonious mixture, any middle way, any
mediation between the one and the many, the “is” and the “is not.” The
infl exibility of these positions reduces argument to a series of paradoxes
and puzzles, a choice between two untenable extremes. Repetition in
this case leads only to incompatibility. In the Philebus, on the other
hand, the act of repeating allows revision to function as a re-vision of
the problems. It is true that such repetition produces many upsets and
many unconnected pieces. But the very “untidiness” gives it a surprising
strength to reconcile the many and the one, the indeterminate and the
determinant, becoming and being.^47
Plato’s deliberately open-ended approach in this dialogue leads
us to brief concluding thoughts on Aristotle’s relation to his mentor. As
Aristotle states at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, ethics cannot
be an exact science, so it suffi ces “to indicate the truth roughly and in
outline” (1094b20– 21).^48 Further, Aristotle makes the idea of a plurality
within a unity central to both ethics and ontology; as he famously says,
“ ‘good’ has as many senses as ‘being’ ” (1096a23 – 24). His categories can
be seen as a determinate way of doing justice to these many senses, while
still maintaining one focal sense. Aristotle’s criticism of the Platonic
Idea of the Good, that we cannot achieve or practice it (1096b33), loses
its sting against the Philebus, which presents the good as specifi cally hu-
man and attainable.^49 And surely Aristotle was aware that the problem of
“two worlds” was already developed by Plato himself in the Parmenides.^50
Finally, we sense that Plato’s implicit reconciliation of being and becom-
ing develops into Aristotle’s more explicit interest in gevnhsi~ (becom-
ing), kivnhsi~ (change or motion), duvna`mi~ (potentiality) and ejnevrgeia
(activity or actuality) and their relation to oujsiva (being).
Given such resonances, should we regard the Philebus as an “Aris-
totelian” dialogue? Did Plato’s most famous student infl uence the move-