PLATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICEmany, the determinant and the indeterminate, must work themselves
out equally in the practice of language.
In the new method of classifi cation, described as a Promethean
gift from gods to humans (16c5), the central concepts of determinacy
and indeterminacy come to the fore and guide the rest of the discus-
sion. Socrates claims this heavenly gift is responsible for every discovery
in every realm: “Whatever is said to be consists of one and many, hav-
ing in its nature limit [pevra~] and unlimitedness [ajpeirivan]” (16d). We
should take each thing and posit one form (ijdevan), then two or three,
“until it is not only established of the original unit that it is one, many,
and unlimited, but also how many kinds it contains” (16d5– 7). Only
when we have made each enumeration should we identify the plurality
as unlimited. This careful, patient method of classifying allows, in fact
necessitates, cooperation between the one and the many. The one (as
genus) contains the determinacy of the many species potentially within
it; similarly, the many contains oneness within it as the unity of classes
and species. This method, then, is the gods’ gift of classifying beings, a
way to “inquire and learn and teach one another” (16e2– 3). It is a gift
that must be honored through use; as Protarchus remarks, “there is no
taking back a gift properly given” (19e).^34
To honor the gift, then, Socrates has to put it into practice: he
gives specifi c, determinate examples to illustrate a general point, and
to give shape to the indeterminate mass of particulars. Such account-
ing for the areas between the one and the many renders the language
truly philosophical, in contrast to the eristic method of contemporary
“clever ones” (sofoi;) who “make a one haphazardly and make it many
times faster or slower than they should” in jumping straight from the
one to the indeterminate plurality (17a5).^35 Again we hear an implied
critique of Zeno and Parmenides, who do seem to offer only one ex-
treme or the other, an absolute one or an unknowable indeterminacy.
Then there are those who know only the indeterminacy: “The bound-
less [a[peirovn] multitude in any and every kind of subject leaves you in
boundless [a[peirovn] ignorance, and makes you count for nothing and
amount to nothing” (17e5– 6). This of course indicates Philebus, whom
Plato has speak here on cue: “But of what use is all this talk [lovgo~] to
us, and what is its purpose?” (18a). Given the importance of language,
it is not accidental that the illustration focuses on speech: vocal sounds
appear at fi rst to lie on an indeterminate continuum, but can in fact be
classifi ed and enumerated (vowels, consonants, and mutes), until we re-
alize “the one link that somehow unifi es them all... the art of literacy”
(18d).^36 Language contains both pevra`~ and a[peirovn within itself.