Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1

Other reasoners, contemporary with Zeno, did not agree with him, in admitting the Absolute, even as an object with no predicates, except unity and continuity. They denied it altogether, both as substratum and as predicate. To establish this negation is the purpose of a short treatise ascribed to the rhetor or Sophist Gorgias, a contemporary of Zeno; but we are informed that all the reasonings, which Gorgias employed, were advanced, or had already been advanced, by others before him.30 Those reasonings are so imperfectly preserved, that we can make out little more than the general scope.

Ens, or Entity per se (he contended), did not really exist. Even granting that it existed, it was unknowable by any one. And even granting that it both existed, and was known by any one, still such person could not communicate his knowledge of it to others.31

As to the first point, Ens was no more real or existent than Non-Ens: the word Non-Ens must have an objective meaning, as well as the word Ens: it was Non-Ens, therefore it was, or existed. Both of them existed alike, or rather neither of them existed. Moreover, if Ens existed, it must exist either as One or as Many — either as eternal or as generated — either in itself, or in some other place. But Melissus, Zeno, and other previous philosophers, had shown sufficient cause against each of these alternatives separately taken. Each of the alternative essential predicates had been separately disproved; therefore the subject, Ens, could not exist under either of them, or could not exist at all.

As to the second point, let us grant that Ens or Entia exist; they would nevertheless (argued Gorgias) be incogitable and unknowable. To be cogitated is no more an attribute of Ens than of Non-Ens. The fact of cogitation does not require Ens as a condition, or attest Ens as an absolute or thing in itself. If our cogitation required or attained Ens as an indispensable object, then there could be no fictitious cogitata nor any false propositions. We think of a man flying in the air, or of a chariot race on the surface of the sea. If our cogitata were realities, these must be so as well as the rest: if realities alone were the object of cogitation, then these could not be thought of. As Non-Ens was thus undeniably the object of cogitation, so Ens could not be its object: for what was true respecting one of these contraries, could not be true respecting the other.

As to the third point: Assuming Ens both to exist and to be known by you, you cannot (said Gorgias) declare or explain it to any one else. You profess to have learnt what Ens is in itself, by your sight or other perceptions but you declare to others by means of words, and these words are neither themselves the absolute Ens, nor do they bring Ens before the hearer. Even though you yourself know Ens, you cannot, by your words, enable him to know it. If he is to know Ens, he must know it in the same way as you. Moreover, neither your words, nor Ens itself, will convey to the hearer the same knowledge as to you; for the same cannot be at once in two distinct subjects; and even if it were, yet since you and the hearer are not completely alike, so the effect of the same object on both of you will not appear to be like.32

The arguments both of Zeno and of Gorgias (the latter presenting the thoughts of others earlier than himself), dating from a time coinciding with the younger half of the life of Sokrates, evince a new spirit and purpose in Grecian philosophy, as compared with the Ionians, the two first Eleates, and the Pythagoreans. Zeno and Gorgias exhibit conspicuously the new element of dialectic: the force of the negative arm in Grecian philosophy, brought out into the arena, against those who dogmatized or propounded positive theories: the fertility of Grecian imagination in suggesting doubts and difficulties, for which the dogmatists, if they aspired to success and reputation, had to provide answers. Zeno directed his attack against one scheme of philosophy — the doctrine of the Absolute Many: leaving by implication the rival doctrine — the Absolute One of Parmenides in exclusive possession of the field, yet not reinforcing it with any new defences against objectors. Gorgias impugned the philosophy of the Absolute in either or both of its forms — as One or as Many: not with a view of leaving any third form as the only survivor, or of providing any substitute from his own invention, but of showing that Ens, the object of philosophical research, could neither be found nor known. The negative purpose, disallowing altogether the philosophy of Nature (as then conceived, not as now conceived), was declared without reserve by Gorgias, as we shall presently find that it was by Sokrates also.

It is the opening of the negative vein which imparts from this time forward a new character to Grecian philosophy. The positive and negative forces, emanating from different aptitudes in the human mind, are now both of them actively developed, and in strenuous antithesis to each other. Philosophy is no longer exclusively confined to dogmatists, each searching in his imagination for the Absolute Ens of Nature, and each propounding what seems to him the only solution of the problem. Such thinkers still continue their vocation, but under new conditions of success, and subject to the scrutiny of numerous dissentient critics. It is no longer sufficient to propound a theory,33 either in obscure, oracular metaphors and half-intelligible aphorisms, like Herakleitus — or in verse more or less impressive, like Parmenides or Empedokles. The theory must be sustained by proofs, guarded against objections, defended against imputations of inconsistency: moreover, it must be put in comparison with other rival theories, the defects of which must accordingly be shown up along with it. Here are new exigencies, to which dogmatic philosophers had not before been obnoxious. They were now required to be masters of the art of dialectic attack and defence, not fearing the combat of question and answer — a combat in which, assuming tolerable equality between the duellists, the questioner had the advantage of the sun, or the preferable position,34 and the farther advantage of choosing where to aim his blows.

To expose fallacy or inconsistency, was found to be both an easier process, and a more appreciable display of ingenuity, than the discovery and establishment of truth in such manner as to command assent. The weapon of negation, refutation, cross-examination, was wielded for its own results, and was found hard to parry by the affirmative philosophers of the day.

To illustrate by comparison the form of Grecian philosophy, before Dialectic was brought to bear upon it, I transcribe from two eminent French scholars (M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire and Professor Robert Mohl) some account of the mode in which the Indian philosophy has always been kept on record and communicated.

“Les Soûtras de Kapila sont en tout au nombre de 499, divisés en six lectures, et répartis inégalement entre chacune d’elles. Les Soûtras sont accompagnés d’un commentaire qui les explique, et qui est d’un brahmane nommé le Mendiant. Le commentateur explique avec des developpements plus ou moins longs les Soûtras de Kapila, qu’il cite un à un.

“Les Soûtras sont en général tres concis: parfois ils ne se composent que de deux ou trois mots, et jamais ils ne comprennent plus d’une phrase. Cette forme aphoristique, sous laquelle se présente à nous la philosophie Indienne — est celle qu’a prise la science Indienne dans toutes ses branches, depuis la grammaire jusqu’à la philosophie. Les Soûtras de Panini, qui a réduit toutes les régles de la grammaire sanscrite en 3996 aphorismes, ne sont pas moins concis que ceux de Kapila. Ce mode étrange d’exposition tient dans l’Inde à la manière même dont la science s’est transmise d’âge en âge. Un maître n’a généralement qu’un disciple: il lui suffit, pour la doctrine qu’il communique, d’avoir des points de repère, et le commentaire oral qu’il ajoute à ces sentences pour leur expliquer, met le disciple en état de les bien comprendre. Le disciple lui-même, une fois qu’il en a pénétré le sens veritable, n’a pas besoin d’un symbole plus développé, et la concision même des aphorismes l’aide a les mieux retenir. C’est une initiation qu’il a reçue: et les sentences, dans lesquelles cette initiation se résume, restent toujours assez claires pour lui.

“Le seul exemple d’une forme analogue dans l’histoire de l’esprit humain et de la science en Occident, nous est fourni par les Aphorismes d’Hippocrate: eux aussi s’adressaient à des adeptes, et ils réclamaient, comme les Soûtras Indiens, l’explication des maîtres pour être bien compris par les disciples. Mais cet exemple unique n’a point tiré à conséquence dans le monde occidental, tandis que dans le monde Indien l’aphorisme est resté pendant de longs siècles la forme spéciale de la science: et les développements de pensée qui nous sont habituels, et qui nous semblent indispensables, ont été reservés aux commentaires.

“La Sânkhya Kârikâ est en vers: En Grèce, la poésie a été pendant quelque temps la langue de la philosophie; Empédocle, Parménide, ont écrit leurs systèmes en vers. Ce n’est pas Kapila qui l’a écrite. Entre Kapila, et l’auteur de la Kârikâ, Isvara Krishna, on doit compter quelques centaines d’années tout au moins: et le second n’a fait que rediger en vers, pour aider la mémoire des élèves, la doctrine que le maître avait laissée sous la forme axiomatique.

“On conçoit, du reste, sans peine, que l’usage des vers mémoriaux se soit introduit dans l’Inde pour l’enseignement et la transmission de la science: c’était une conséquence nécessaire de l’usage des aphorismes. Les sciences les plus abstraites (mathematics, astronomy, algebra), emploient aussi ce procédé, quoiqu’il semble peu fait pour leur austérité et leur precision. Ainsi, le rhythme est, avec les aphorismes, et par le même motif, la forme à peu pres générale de la science dans l’Inde.”